ASUS ROG Strix LC RX 6800 XT OC Review

The ROG team enter the arena with their liquid cooled Strix RX 6800 XT. Can this combination of using a high-performance cooler and large factory overclock mark this graphics card out as the best 6800 XT available?

Product on Review: ROG STRIX LC RX 6800 XT GAMING OC
Manufacturer: ASUS
Street Price: USD $950 | AUD $1800 | GBP £950

If you’re a gamer seeking to have access to the very latest tech and make use of 1440p or 4K then the RTX 3080 or RX 6800 XT will likely be on your radar. Either of these graphics cards will allow gamers to run the very latest games with all the eye candy enabled at acceptable framerates and yet in the current climate, obtaining one is a challenge in and of itself due to the global stock shortage.

Today we’ll be exploring one of the ASUS ROG’s newest models to join the 6800 XT family – the Strix LC. For those unaware, the LC stands for Liquid Cooled. This GPU features a closed loop for its thermal design and promises to provide a step-up in terms of cooling performance.

Is the combination of a high-performance cooler and significant factory overclock able to elevate this graphics card above others? Let’s find out!

ASUS on their Strix LC

Deep in ASUS R&amp labs, engineers theorized the optimal thermal solution for AMD’s latest RDNA™ 2 Architecture. The beast that emerged is a liquid-cooled leviathan capable of drawing maximum performance out of the new chips, while remaining completely cool and quiet. Performance aficionados in search of the most ferocious RX 6800 XT card have found their game.

Technical Specifications

Below are the technical specifications surrounding the Strix LC:

GPU
Navi 21 XT
Shader Units
4608
Video Memory
16GB GDDR6
Memory Bus
256-bit
Engine Clock Boost
2360MHz
Memory Clock
16000MHz Effective
PCI Express
4.0
Display Outputs
2x DisplayPort 1.4
1x HDMI 2.1
1x USB Type-C
Recommended Power Supply
750W
DirectX
12 API feature level 12_2
OpenGL
4.6
Cooling
Closed Loop (Liquid)
Slot Size
2
Supported OS
Windows 10
Card Length
Card 27.7 x 13.08 x 4.36 cm
Radiator 27.6 x 12 x 5.17 cm (including fan)

Closer Look Video Review

For this review we’ve produced a video of Strix LC. In this video we go into great detail about this graphics card, walking you through all of the features and detaching the cooler for a look at the thermal solution and innards. View the video hereor watch below:

Test Setup & Methodology

HOW WE TEST GRAPHICS CARDS

Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphics card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and even out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and latest drivers so this does certainly need to be taken into consideration when viewing our testing results. Each game and benchmark is tested times with the lowest and highest scores omitted out of the 5 results and the average then taken from the three remaining to give us our final result for each resolution and setting used.

HARDWARE

In Q3 2020 we decided to move on from our Intel X99-based graphics card test system to embrace AMD Ryzen Gen3. The basis for this was quite simple, AMD’s platform is one of the most popular choices for gamers and by using such a configuration, we can hopefully showcase to our readership what they can expect. In the past we’ve used HEDT platforms and while this does indeed align itself to the bleeding edge for a computer system, it doesn’t reflect what most gamers will be using.

With NVIDIA and AMD now using PCIe 4.0 for their bus interface on graphics cards, AMD Ryzen Gen3 and the X570 chipset are well-equipped to test appropriately.

Graphics Cards on test:
AMD RX 5700
AMD RX 5700 XT
AMD RX 6800
XFX MERC 319 RX 6800 XT
ASUS ROG Strix LC RX 6800 XT
NVIDIA RTX 2060
NVIDIA RTX 2060 SUPER
NVIDIA RTX 2070 SUPER
NVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER
NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti
ZOTAC RTX 3060 Ti Twin Edge OC
GIGABYTE RTX 3070 GAMING OC
Colorful iGame RTX 3070 Advanced OC-V
ASUS TUF RTX 3080 OC
AORUS RTX 3080 Master
ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3090 OC

Special thanks go to AMD, MSI, Corsair, Noctua and AverMedia for providing the hardware configuration for our graphics card reviews:

Motherboard: MSI PRESTIGE X570 CREATION
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X
RAM – 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair LPX Vengeance DDR4 @ 3000MHz
Power Supply – CORSAIR HX1050
Hard Drive – Samsung 830 EVO 250GB + Crucial MX300 2TB
Cooler – CORSAIR Hydro Series™ H150i Pro 360mm Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Capture Card – Avermedia Live Gamer Extreme 2

BENCHMARKS

If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we’ve chosen:

Horizon Zero Dawn
Control
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
F1 2020
A Total War Saga: Troy

To capture framerates we use a combination of in-game benchmark tools and FRAPS.

We also take into consideration the benchmarkers out there so have included three of the more popular synthetic benchmarks available:

3DMark Time Spy
3DMark Port Royal
Unigine: SuperPosition

In light of the new RTX and DLSS features, we have also added in some tests to cover this tech to provide some analysis, showcasing what users can expect with/without such a feature enabled. For this we are using:

3DMark DLSS
Control – RT Off/RT On

Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…

Power, Temperatures, Acoustics

To test for power consumption, we take a measurement from the plug socket. It is important to note that the figures below represent total system power use and not just the GPU. The CPU was always in a fixed state so did not affect the additional power load when the GPU was placed under 100% load using AIDA64 stability test (GPU Only) which was ran for 20 minutes at which point a load reading was taken. Idle readings were taken 5 minutes after system boot to ensure any background services and applications had loaded.

TEMPERATURE

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests we set Unigine SuperPosition running in game mode continuously for ~30 minutes and recorded the peak/maximum GPU temperature.

ACOUSTICS

For the purpose of testing audio levels we have the NDI KC-3300 sound level meter. During the temperature recording above, while in Unigine SuperPosition gamemode we monitored the audio and the results are found below. All graphics cards are tested in their out of the box state (auto).

Overclocking

To overclock our RX 6800 XT we used the ASUS Tweak II software since this is an ASUS card, as well as GPU-Z.

Taking this GPU as it is, the GPU clock has a factory overclock of 2360MHz and the memory is at reference – 16 Gbps (2000MHz).

We were able to modify both parameters easily and achieved 2725MHz for the GPU clock and 2112MHz for the memory clock. This represents a 15% GPU increase and 5% memory increase, which is certainly more than significant. It’s rare to see such a huge modification for a GPU clock boost, an impressive result!

DX12: 3DMark Time Spy

Download your copy now

With its pure DirectX 12 engine, which supports new API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, 3DMark Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of the latest graphics cards.

DX12: 3DMark Port Royal

Download your copy now

3DMark Port Royal is the world’s first dedicated real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers. You can use Port Royal to test and compare the real-time ray tracing performance of any graphics card that supports Microsoft DirectX Raytracing. As well as benchmarking performance, 3DMark Port Royal provides a realistic and practical example of what to expect from ray tracing in upcoming games.

DX11: Unigine SuperPosition

Superposition is a new-generation benchmark tailored for testing reliability and performance of the latest GPUs. Top-notch visuals, support for VR-devices and an interactive mode with mini-games — the list of features built into Superposition could go on and on.

DX12: Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The plot follows Aloy, a hunter in a world overrun by machines, who sets out to uncover her past

DX12: Control

Control Ultimate Edition contains the main game and all previously released Expansions (“The Foundation” and “AWE&quot

in one great value package. Winner of over 80 awards, Control is a visually stunning third-person action-adventure that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

DX12: Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game developed by Eidos Montréal in conjunction with Crystal Dynamics and published by Square Enix. It continues the narrative from the 2013 game Tomb Raider and its sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider, and is the twelfth mainline entry in the Tomb Raider series.

DX12: F1 2020

F1® 2020 allows you to create your F1® team for the very first time and race alongside the official teams and drivers. Alternatively, challenge your friends in new split-screen with casual race options for more relaxed racing. Compete on 22 circuits, with current and classic content.

DX12: A Total War Saga: TROY

A Total War Saga: TROY is the first in the award-winning strategy series to focus on the Bronze-Age Mediterranean and the legendary twenty-year conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenaean Greece, known as the Trojan War.

Overall Performance

Here we take a look at the overall performance of the graphics card. This figure is determined by finding the average FPS across all of the settings used in a particular benchmark(game) to give us an overall value.

Value For Money

We make a simple calculation for this set of results. For each game we add all of the resulting FPS totals together and then divide by the four sets to give us an overall performance figure. While the figures alone do not give you an accurate picture of how the card will perform in any given scenario, they do tell you, when averaged, which GPU is the more capable across all of the benchmarks and settings tested.

Please note: we’ve used GBP for currency but since this is relative – regardless of which currency you use, this will give you a good indication of value for money.

DLSS Analysis: 3DMark DLSS

Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) is an NVIDIA RTX technology that uses the power of deep learning and AI to improve game performance while maintaining visual quality.

Ray Tracing Analysis: Control

Control is an action-adventure video game title which has the ability to take advantage of real-time ray tracing. For this test we ran the game in 1440p with Ultra Detail set. Under the settings we enable Ray Tracingand assign the preset as “High”. Below are the results with RT On and RT Off.

Conclusion

We’ve seen graphics cards feature closed loop solutions before, but never have we seen one employed as well as the Strix LC. Not only does this entire package take a visual enhancement but the cooling figures are mightily impressive.

Up against other factory overclocked 6800 XT cards, the Strix LC will output similar performance. Although this is model is marked out as one of the fastest on paper, in reality this translates to slightly better performance. The bonus comes in that you are able to lift the GPU and memory clock speeds to significant heights – we managed to squeeze 15% out of the GPU clock speed alone.

Cooling is where this graphics card comes into its own. By isolating the GPU with a pump and 240mm radiator/fan combo we get exceptional thermal results, because the other minor components all have separate, designated cooling using the onboard heatsink and fan. Having such ferocious cooling does come at a cost though, the noise emitted bumps up compared to the conventional air-cooled graphics card, with the RPM climbing into 2000+ on the radiator fans.

The Strix LC will come in as one of the most expensive 6800 XTs on the market at $950 USD | £950 GBP | $1800 AUD but we are reminded that there are extras to pay for such as the water cooling system and additional headers at the end of the card. Admittedly, this card isn’t for everyone. There are cheaper models available which will serve a similar purpose but this particular model has all the bells and whistles and has ‘collectors’ status.

Offering an alternate approach to GPU cooling, the Strix LC not only looks spectacular, but it delivers on performance in more than one way!

Pros
+ Stunning visual design
+ The best cooling solution for 6800 XT
+ Impressive RGB lighting
+ Zero decibel tech for radiator fans
+ Features additional fan headers on card
+ Excellent gaming performance
+ Great at overclocking

Cons
– Adequate space inside computer case required for radiator
– Very expensive
– Pump cables could be concealed

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