AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT Review: Cool-Headed Asus ROG Strix

Minor upgrades

AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

Tom's Hardware Verdict

The Asus RX 6750 XT ROG Strix delivers a minor upgrade in performance to AMD's $500-class offerings. It also comes with a higher MSRP and slightly increased power draw, with a memory speed upgrade from 16Gbps to 18Gbps. Unfortunately, the memory speed boost and other updates don't seem to help as much as expected, and the Strix price premium is difficult to justify.

Pros

  • +

    Good performance

  • +

    Capable cooling

  • +

    Lots of RGB bling

Cons

  • -

    Not a significant upgrade from RX 6700 XT

  • -

    Higher cost amid dropping GPU prices

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    Next-gen GPUs are coming "soon-ish"

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Along with the Radeon RX 6950 XT, AMD recently launched two other new GPUs: the Radeon RX 6750 XT and RX 6650 XT. Like the 6950 XT, both come with faster 18Gbps GDDR6 memory, plus higher GPU clocks and slightly higher power consumption. However, prices are also slightly higher than the 6x00 XT models they replace, making the overall prospects a wash at best. You can see how the newcomers rank in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, where they're just slightly ahead of the existing models.

AMD didn't provide samples of its new cards, so we turned to the AIB (add-in board) partners for review units. Asus sent us its ROG Strix 6750 XT, which looks identical to the ROG Strix 6700 XT other than that little "5" on the sticker. We actually have a Strix 6700 XT in hand as well, so we'll get to see exactly how much more performance you get from the two factory overclocked variants. Note that most of the other cards we've reviewed, including Nvidia's RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3070, run reference clocks, so you can add a few percent in performance if you're after like-for-like comparisons.

Here's the breakdown of the specs for the AMD Navi 22 GPUs along with Nvidia's competing 3070 and 3070 Ti.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
GPU Specifications
Graphics CardRX 6750 XT AsusRX 6750 XTRX 6700 XTRTX 3070 TiRTX 3070
ArchitectureNavi 22Navi 22Navi 22GA104GA104
Process TechnologyTSMC N7TSMC N7TSMC N7Samsung 8NSamsung 8N
Transistors (Billion)17.217.217.217.417.4
Die size (mm^2)336336336392.5392.5
SMs / CUs4040404846
GPU Shaders25602560256061445888
Tensor CoresN/AN/AN/A192184
Ray Tracing Units4040404846
Boost Clock (MHz)26432600258117651725
VRAM Speed (Gbps)1818161914
VRAM (GB)12121288
VRAM Bus Width192192192256256
ROPs6464649696
TMUs160160160192184
TFLOPS FP32 (Boost)13.513.313.221.720.3
Bandwidth (GBps)432432384608448
TBP (watts)250250230290220
Launch DateMay-22May-22Mar-21Jun-21Oct-20
Official MSRP$649 $549 $479 $599 $499
Street Price$779$539$484$699$599

Asus bumps the GPU clock up by 43MHz relative to the reference 6750 XT, which, in turn, has a 19MHz "improvement" over the reference RX 6700 XT. Of course, the higher TBP (typical board power) on the new model means it may end up boosting a bit higher in practice, but we'll get to that later. At least on paper, the main change is the switch to 18Gbps GDDR6. That's 12.5% more bandwidth in theory, but we don't know if other aspects of the memory like subtimings may reduce the real-world gains.

There's good news in terms of the general availability of graphics cards. As we've noted recently, many GPUs can now be found in stock for prices close to the MSRP. Above, we've listed the best street prices we've been able to find for the various GPUs. That presents some difficulties for the Asus ROG Strix, a premium card that commands much higher prices. At the time of writing, the least expensive RX 6750 XT we could find costs $240 less than the Asus model, and you can shave off another $55 by opting for an RX 6700 XT.

It feels very much as though AMD and its partners came up with a pricing structure based on how much GPUs were selling for several months ago. In the meantime, cryptocurrency (and stock) prices plummeted, which now means the new products cost too much. Short of changes in supply or demand, we expect prices to continue to decline, and the 6750 XT really shouldn't cost much more than the 6700 XT, which has us wondering why it even exists.

We know AMD is hard at work on its upcoming RDNA 3 architecture, and Nvidia is likewise working on its Ada architecture. We expect to see the first cards using those to arrive before the end of the year, perhaps as early as July for the RTX 40-series. Doing a relatively minor refresh with higher official prices less than six months before the next-gen cards arrive strikes us as odd. Perhaps the supply chain has finally started catching up with backorders, but there's a real chance AMD and Nvidia could end up with a glut of "old" GPUs on their hands in the coming months, much like what happened with the RX 570 back in 2018. 

Jarred Walton

Jarred Walton is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on everything GPU. He has been working as a tech journalist since 2004, writing for AnandTech, Maximum PC, and PC Gamer. From the first S3 Virge '3D decelerators' to today's GPUs, Jarred keeps up with all the latest graphics trends and is the one to ask about game performance.

  • tennis2
    My brother has the 3060Ti with this same cooler. It. is. CHONKY. Sooo overkill for this class of card is gloriously hilarious.
    They're using the same cooler all the way through their 3090.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    tennis2 said:
    My brother has the 3060Ti with this same cooler. It. is. CHONKY. Sooo overkill for this class of card is gloriously hilarious.
    They're using the same cooler all the way through their 3090.
    Yeah. The annoying thing to me is that Asus doesn't seem to do much with all the cooling headroom. Surely the 6750 XT can clock higher than this without any issue? Efficiency be damned, bump those clocks and voltages and give me 3GHz!
    Reply
  • hotaru.hino
    Surely staying under 60C with Furmark running on air must amount to something :tonguewink:

    Like I get the idea of recycling designs because it means less variations and whatever, but at some point you have to make something different. Lest we see this on a GTX 1630.
    Reply
  • tennis2
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    Surely the 6750 XT can clock higher than this without any issue? Efficiency be damned, bump those clocks and voltages and give me 3GHz!
    I'd say that falls on the side of "user risk" rather than something Asus would want to cover with a warranty. With this cooler and card, you've certainly got the tools.
    Reply
  • tennis2
    hotaru.hino said:
    Like I get the idea of recycling designs because it means less variations and whatever, but at some point you have to make something different. Lest we see this on a GTX 1630.
    The Strix 3050 and 3060 is basically the same cooler, but with 5 heatpipes.

    Strix 3090 for reference (exact same as the 3060Ti/6700XT on up):
    Reply
  • Sleepy_Hollowed
    I mean.... if it's the only thing you can buy, I guess it's nice, but for that price if there's other options, nah.

    That is one killer cooling solution though, and I do like they reuse it, though it looks like a tank.
    Reply