Megatest Sapphire RX 6900 XT Toxic LE: AMD’s liquid cooled top-end

The Radeon RX 6900 XT Toxic LE in the company of other graphics cards will not be overlooked. The 360-millimeter liquid GPU cooling is a rare thing that will definitely attract attention. Still, it’s a rather controversial piece of hardware. There are several reasons to opt for this madness (in a good way). But it is also necessary to know about certain flaws that it has. We need to be demanding and strict in this price category.

Conclusion

The RX 6900 XT Toxic LE has ranked first in performance tests among the Radeons. The difference in average gaming performance compared to the reference RX 6800 XT ranges from very small (1% in FHD) to quite decent (11% in UHD), but this is not enough compared to the competing GeForce RTX 3090. The performance is balanced only when ReBAR is active on the RX 6900 XT Toxic LE and inactive on RTX 3090 (Gaming X Trio). This is, of course, an unfair and senseless comparison. But at least it gives us an idea.

In Borderlands 3, the performance compared to the RX 6800 XT is 20–23% higher, in Cyberpunk 2077 it’s similar. Ray tracing is a struggle in this game, even in Full HD. But Battlefield V in QHD with RT looks quite smooth, similar to Shadow of the Tomb Raider. It may be not enough for the RTX 3080, but it beats the RTX 3070 here. In Control, the performance is comparable.

SAM (ReBAR) optimization can be noticed in DOOM Eternal, where there is already a clearly measurable increase in performance, although you will not miss it in this game under any circumstances. Even in UHD resolution, it reaches around 200 fps. Noticeable improvement can be also spotted in Mafia: DE. The RX 6900 XT (Toxic LE) is, however, not enough for the RTX 3080 (Gaming X Trio). Only that you use TriXX Boost, which, however, reduces the image quality to achieve higher fps. And watch out for this feature in third-party tests, Sapphire requires reviewers to use this exclusive technique.

In non-gaming tests, the RX 6900 XT in Blender (Cycles, Radeon Pro Render) leads by 3–5% over the RX 6800 XT. But more interesting is the performance increase in decryption, which is typically over 10% and gets closer to 20% with some ciphers. However, the GeForce RTX 3090 is always significantly faster, and if you take into account the exclusive support of CUDA, OptiX or DLSS, the GeForce card is a more attractive card for similar money. This Radeon also has a worse price/performance ratio, both in terms of gaming and computing.

The unnecessarily noisy cooler is a whole ‘nother level (in a negative way). And it doesn’t matter if you set the “silent” or “powerful” BIOS mode, the result is roughly the same. The temperature is despite the high TDP of roughly 360 W still relatively low and the fans could easily run slower. However, it is always possible to adjust the PWM control curve manually. But what you can’t affect is the gently groaning pump. Avid gamers won’t mind, but someone with a computer for work could have reservations. Of course, the pump also runs at no load when the fans are in passive mode.

The Sapphire graphics card in a gaming rig also stands out with its outstanding RGB LED lighting. This card will be especially attractive for the most demanding fans of Assassin Creed: Valhalla, where it gives unrivaled performance. The frame rate stays above 60 fps even at the highest settings in UHD resolution (3840 × 2160 px).

At last, it should be noted that the GPU’s game clock speed varies according to the load between 2400–2450 MHz. This can be an advantage over typically cheaper versions. Without ray-tracing graphics, the performance of the RX 6900 XT Toxic LE is also suitable for playing in 4K resolution.

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