XFX RX 5700 XT THICC II Ultra Reviewed

[bp9801]

Tonight, Isaiah takes a look at the new XFX RX 5700 XT THICC II Ultra. Check out his thoughts on it below!

https://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xtx_5700xt_thicc_2_ultra

[ir_cow]

Hello,

I have some upsetting news and I am not sure how to respond in a civil and respectful way.

It has comes to my attention that Gamers Nexus has deemed the XFX THICC cards not worth the money and may be the worst ABP card available. This is not a quote, but my summery of the videos. Someone watched these videos and sent me a email regarding this. This person (I will not name) has taken on assumptions and decided "I am a sell out" and my review results are "faked" to give the brand a good image. This is what I want to talk about...

Instead of ignoring this person. I watched Gamers Nexus review and find it surprising the performance was indeed on the lower end. It also had me questioning my own testing methods. But after thinking about it for a while, I wanted to address this publicly instead of privately. After all, OCC is a community site and feedback is always welcome. Please do so!

First I think it should be clear by now for anyone who has been around for a while, we do not fake reviews. In fact anyone remember XFX case from 2014~? Yeah that was garage and I even said so in my review.

I think one of the assumption is since we get review samples directly from XFX, a good review of the product is kind of expected. Once again, while the overall review is that staff members personal opinion, it is generally the same conclusion as anyone else who would review it.  We look for flaws with a attention to details that may or may not be important to some, but a deal breaker for others. That is what a review is, not a show n' tell.

The only thing I can really think of why Gamers Nexus has such a negative review based on performance, may be related to being a retail sample vs where ever my sample came from. Mine I believe was the batch first off the assembly line sent to reviewers, sealed and no special care given to it (besides shipping across the ocean). No released date was provided initially because AMD lack of supply (noted in the news that week). When I first received the card, I was admittedly put off by the plastic shell and the benchmarks put it on the so-so level. But before I said anything, the XFX PR Rep gave me a new vBIOS that fixes the "fan curve" which was suppose to be the final revision. Which it did and also gave a performance boost overall. The vBIOS is on TechPowerUp.

So in a nutshell, I suspect Gamers Nexus got the first batch of retails cards with the old vBIOS on it. But if that isn't the case, well I can't explain the performance (or lack there of). Because of completely different testing setups, I cannot give a real answer.

On that note, I have NEVER been pressured by XFX to give a good review and everything I said is my own words. While the Plastic shell might be off putting to some and cheapen the feel, to others, it looks great. I don't care much either way, as I am someone who is always after the performance, rather than looks. But it was something that I question myself for the review. Ultimately the performance of the card was good, so I let the readers decide if the plastic shell is a personal issue or not. GN also pointed out the heatsink was aluminum, which I did know about, but never mention it in my review. Mainly because cooling issues wasn't present and I had no reason to talk about it. I think this is something I will have to talk about in future reviews, since I do agree it is important to know the internal cooling solution. GN also talked about high TJ.Max in which they have a point. My sample was still well under 100c and once again the performance and clock speeds were very good. It is also I need to start including in my reviews since old GPU Temp is no longer what is used for AMD cards. It is now the TJ.Max sensor.

In light of all of this, I did change my OCC Award to Silver and noted the aluminum heatsink. Mainly because of the cooler itself. Price may be a bit high when compared to the competition, but sales and rebates happen all the time. The price isn't outrageous at MSRP, considering even with it's "Flaws" I found it much better than the reference blower cooler. 

To conclude, to whoever is reading this, I hope you understand not all reviews are equal and that is why reading multiple reviews is best practices. I do it all the time myself. This is just a extreme case of differences. Am I defending XFX?, no, I am defending my review of the sample I received. I hope XFX reaches out the GN and helps them out.

 

 

[ir_cow]

Looks like XFX has decided to replace THIC II coolers for anyone who already has one and future batches will have a full copper plate. Article link HERE.

Once again I want to say that I did not see the same GPU TJ.Max temps, but I would consider a full copper plate a overall better design choice. I will update the review and leave a note in the conclusion section.