
ASUS Radeon RX 6800 XT STRIX OC Liquid Cooled Review - Incredible OC Potential
Cooler Performance Comparison »Temperatures

Temperature & Noise Comparison | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Idle | Gaming | ||||||||
GPU | Noise | GPU | Hotspot | Noise | RPM | ||||
AMD RX 6800 | 48°C | Fan Stop | 70°C | 83°C | 34 dBA | 1613 RPM | |||
AMD RX 6800 XT | 49°C | Fan Stop | 77°C | 98°C | 31 dBA | 1305 RPM | |||
ASUS RX 6800 XT STRIX LC | 41°C | Fan Stop | 57°C | 71°C | 31 dBA | 1055 RPM | |||
ASUS RX 6800 XT STRIX LC (Performance BIOS) | 39°C | Fan Stop | 52°C | 68°C | 34 dBA | 1570 RPM | |||
PowerColor RX 6800 XT Red Devil | 48°C | Fan Stop | 73°C | 90°C | 31 dBA | 1253 RPM | |||
PowerColor RX 6800 XT Red Devil (quiet BIOS) | 49°C | Fan Stop | 75°C | 92°C | 30 dBA | 1032 RPM | |||
Sapphire RX 6800 XT Nitro+ | 47°C | Fan Stop | 75°C | 97°C | 31 dBA | 1615 RPM | |||
Sapphire RX 6800 XT Nitro+ (quiet BIOS) | 48°C | Fan Stop | 76°C | 98°C | 30 dBA | 1346 RPM |
Fan Noise
AMD finally introduced fan stop on their Radeon RX 6800 Series reference designs, which means custom designs from board partners are expected to have that capability, too. ASUS has enabled fan stop for all three fans on their card, of which there are two for the radiator and one for the cooler. The pump seems to always be running, but it's so quiet I couldn't hear it at all.
Gaming noise levels with the silent BIOS are really nice, just 31 dBA, which matches the AMD reference design. I have to admit I expected better from a watercooled card. The two other air-cooled RX 6800 XT cards we've tested today are even 1 dBA quieter. Temperatures are much better than those cards of course, but I feel even quieter would have been possible.
With the performance BIOS active, noise levels are quite high at 34 dBA, with only minimal improvement on already very low temperatures. Not worth it, I'd say.

