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I ran each test with the included 4GB Radeon RX 5500 XT and then I swapped it out for a Gigabyte RX 6700 XT Gaming OC with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, which Dominic has done a written review of HERE. Then I ran all the same tests again, and compared them, to simulate the users upgrade experience and what sort of improvements they may expect when swapping to a higher end card.
During 3DMark Fire Strike our system with the RX 5500 XT installed suffers overall and in the graphics tests but excels during the physics tests thanks to the capable i5-11400F. Swapping out to the RX 6700 XT card shows the physics score stays roughly the same as we’d expect, but there is a big performance boost overall and in the graphics area at over double the RX 5500 XT’s scores.
Stepping up to 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra we can see the stock system struggled overall and during the graphics test but still excels during the physics results. Swapping over to the RX 6700 XT shows a big gain in performance at almost triple the previous scores.
Finally, during 3DMark Time Spy we get average results with a decent CPU score but, once again, comparing to our RX 6700 XT the results speak for themselves.
Now let’s move onto some real-world gaming examples. I tested both cards at both 1080p and 1440p with the highest pre-sets available with any adaptive resolution scaling turned off and vsync off too. All games were installed on the 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD also.
Starting with Forza Horizon 4 you can see our RX 5500 XT faired pretty well staying above 60FPS during 1080p and only just dipping below 60FPS at 1440p with the 1% lows. Comparing against our RX 6700 XT you can see the system really excels with the better card, giving out much better FPS results at both resolutions – with double the FPS.
The Division 2 gave our RX 5500 XT a run for its money and you can see it’s struggling a lot during 1440p gaming, not even hitting 40FPS on average, and barely 20FPS for the 1% lows. As expected, our upgraded system results with the RX 6700 XT are the exact opposite and it doesn’t find The Division 2 a challenge in comparison making it much more playable at both resolutions.
Resident Evil 2 performed very well at 1080p with the stock system and proved playable too at 1440p but, once again, the new card bumps this system into another level and gives us great results with over 250FPS on average at 1080p, and 175FPS on average at 1440p.
The classic test now with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, this game is clearly beating the stock system into submission with the 1440p results, and while it doesn’t fair too badly at 1080p it is still not ideal. Our new RX 6700 XT upgrade sees a very nice improvement for both resolutions however, reaching close to 140 FPS at 1080p and nearly 100FPS on average at 1440p, once again making this much more enjoyable to play.
Finally, we tested Doom Eternal. Frustratingly the game does not let you apply settings that the card can’t handle based on your GPU’s VRAM, so we were forced to do both tests on both cards using the High preset as stock for the 1080p testing, but for 1440p tests we had to use the High setting with the texture pool size dropped down to medium. We almost hit 100 FPS at 1080p but drop right back to 65FPS at 1440p. Swapping the cards around you can see just how much of a boost in performance we can get from this system when the GPU is upgraded! Almost 275 FPS at 1080p and still well above the 200 FPS mark at 1440p.
