Rx 5600 xt and rx 5700 xt can be combined in crossfire x

AMD completely abandoned the idea of ​​CrossFire support when it introduced its Navi line, but if you've ever wondered how two Navi graphics cards will work together, here is an answer. It occurred to someone to combine a Radeon RX 5600 XT with the Radeon RX 5700 XT.

RX 5600 XT and RX 5700 XT can be combined in CrossFire X

In the old days, it was quite common to run a multi-GPU setup. Sometimes a single graphics card was not powerful enough to deliver a proper gaming experience, and other times it was more cost-effective to buy two cheaper graphics cards. Before AMD will launch Navi last year, the chipmaker estimated that less than 1% of gamers still use a multi-GPU configuration. Therefore, the company decided to remove CrossFire support with Navi. If you look at it, it was a wise decision as it frees up resources for AMD to distribute elsewhere.

Two Navi graphics cards cannot be run in a CrossFire configuration. However, a similar effect can still be achieved using the explicit multi-GPU (mGPU) functionality, which is present in the DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs. It is a flexible technology, since you can mix and match different graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia to your liking.

There are many modern games that take advantage of the DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs. However, it is the developer who decides if he wants to support mGPU or not. Uniko's Hardware noted that Rise of the Tomb Raider and Strange Brigade accepted the mGPU configuration without issue. However, Strange Brigade only works with DirectX 12 mode, since the game creates with Vulkan.

	Radeon RX 5700	Radeon RX 5700 + Radeon Rx 5600 XT
3DMark Time Spy	8, 508 points	13, 342 points
3DMark Time Spy Graphics Score	8, 271 points	14, 156 points
Strange Brigade Average	138.6 FPS	228.8 FPS
Strange Brigade 1% Low	98 FPS	151.2 FPS
Rise of the Tomb Raider Average	116.9 FPS	191.3 FPS
Rise of the Tomb Raider 1% Low	87.4 FPS	111.5 FPS
Power Consumption	259.6W	446.4W

Interestingly, Shadow of the Tomb Raider crashes instantly as soon as it runs. AAA titles including Gears 5, Borderlands 3, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, and The Division 2 do not support this feature.

The test platform consisted of the latest Ryzen 7 3700X processor, the ASRock X570 Taichi motherboard, and a 16GB (2x8GB) overloaded 3, 600 MHz G.Skill Flare X DDR4-3200 memory kit with a Cas Latency of 16. The Graphics cards in question are the Asus Dual Radeon RX 5700 EVO OC Edition and the Asus TUF Gaming X3 Radeon RX 5600 XT EVO.

As for the software, Windows 10 was used with the November 2019 update (version 1909) and the Radeon Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.2.1 software. The publication tested with 1920 x 1080 resolution with Ultra settings in Strange Brigade and Very High settings in Rise of the Tomb Raider.

After enabling the mGPU, the 3DMark Time Spy score rose 56.8%. Real game results show performance improvements of up to 65.1% and 63.6% in Strange Brigade and Rise of the Tomb Raider, respectively.

Due to the costs of both, it is not at all viable to bet on a multi-GPU configuration, today, not only for costs, but also because many games do not even support it. We will keep you informed.

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