Final Thoughts
At the end of the day Sapphire has one of the best Radeon RX 5700 XT cards that you can buy. From performance to cooling this card really ticks all of those boxes. When it comes to performance the factory overclock is going to give you more performance than you would get from a reference Radeon RX 5700 XT, but again it is not going to be all that noticeable in games. Performance of this card will net you over 100 FPS in most titles at 1080P and very high (70-90) FPS in titles at 1440P. So if you want to play your AAA titles with the highest settings at 1440P this is definitely a card to consider. You could even get into 4K gaming at over 60 FPS if you turned a few settings down.
Another thing that really surprised me is the cooling solution on this card. The triple-fan design with the two large heatsinks and multiple heatpipes does a great job at cooling the card. Out of all of the RX 5700 series cards we’ve tested so far it had the best cooling performance, which is very impressive. On top of that the fans are not all that loud at all, even during a gaming session. Keep in mind that they fans will completely turn off when the card is idle too, so you basically have a silent graphics card when you are not gaming.
In the looks category Sapphire has done a pretty good job with this card. While the all black shroud and black fans are a little plain, the full-cover metal backplate and RGB lighting makes up for it. The full-cover backplate looks amazing and the Nitro+ logo on it actually lights up with RGB lighting. You also have an RGB strip that goes across the edge of the card and the Sapphire logo on the side of the card lights up too. Sapphire actually offers ARGB fans for this card as an add-on, which if you enjoy RGB they might be worth picking up.
There are some nice Sapphire-only features on this card. First you have the BIOS switch, which allows you to switch between the “default”, “performance”, and “quiet” BIOS’s. Then you have the Sapphire TriXX software, which has been revamped. It allows you to tune your card, track stats, change RGB lighting settings, and even switch the BIOS. There is vBIOS selection in TriXX so instead of having to open up your case to switch the BIOS you can do it right in the software. Also part of TriXX is TriXX Boost, this allows you to create custom resolutions which can then be selected in games. The new resolution will help you get higher frame rates in games without loosing too much image quality.
Right now this card is selling at our favorite online retailer for $459, which of course is a $59 premium over reference models. This price still puts it below the ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT Taichi X OC+, and this card has better cooling and better software. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 5700 XT Graphics Card a 9 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award.
Pros:
– Factory overclock
– Great cooling solution
– Multiple BIOS’s
– Full-cover metal backplate
– Great RGB lighting with the option to add more
– TriXX software and TriXX Boost
– Quiet operation
Cons:
– High power consumption
– All black fans and shroud might be too plain for some people
