Gigabyte RX 6700 XT Gaming OC Graphics Card Review
Ben Enos / 3 years ago
A Closer Look
Gigabyte’s Gaming OC card is generally known as being a mid-range offering. This means the card should offer similar performance to higher-tiered models but not have such a big price tag. While it really is a no-frills card, it has a lot to offer and finds itself sought after for those who want something a bit more than your standard reference card.
One of the first things you will notice when you pick up the Gigabyte RX 6700 XT Gaming OC is that is doesn’t really weigh that much and is quite light. As you can see in the image below, the heatsink is broken up into 3 parts. Gigabyte has also gone with four copper heat pipes to pass the heat between the fin arrays before it is dissipated from the GPU. While it might not seem like much, combined with the triple fan design it does a good job at keeping your GPU cool and avoiding any thermal throttling.
As this is more of a mid-range card, Gigabyte has gone with 8-pin and 6-pin power connectors. While other AIB’s have opted to go with dual 8-pins from what we have seen, Gigabyte is playing it a bit more conservative. Where their cards are aimed more at the mid-range, saving that extra bit of power is actually a good selling point for them. Also, less power means less heat which means they can use a smaller heatsink and save some money on that as well. Crazy how what seems like such a small decision can have such a big impact on the overall card.
On the other side of the card, we can see plenty of the heatsink which again, is going to allow for the heat to dissipate as much as possible. In all our thermal testing for the RX 6700 XT cards, there was only one that really outperformed the rest, the others where all within a degree or two of each other. This says loads for Gigabyte as they went with a more minimalistic compared to other brands but it performs just as good.
Onto the back of the card and I am quite surprised to see Gigabyte has fully covered it up. It would have been nice to see a bit of the heatsink here as this should have allowed for better overall heat dissipation directly resulting in cooler temps. However, as we said, the card it right on par with others so can’t complain, can only just wonder if a bit less plastic here would’ve allowed for better temps.
The backplate has a similar design we are used to seeing from the folks at Gigabyte. One thing we are starting to see more of is the little cut-out towards the rear. This is going to allow for that extra bit of heat to get out and hopefully keep our card just that much cooler during those prolonged gaming sessions.
Gigabyte has broken the mould a bit with their IO on the 6700 XT. They have opted to go with two HDMI 1.4 ports and two DisplayPort 2.1 connectors. This is a welcome change as it evens things out as all of the other 6700 XT cards we have seen only come with one HDMI and three DisplayPort connectors. While you can always get convertors if need be for things like this, it’s is nice to see the two HDMI ports as standard.
