Radeon RX 6750 XT Review With MSI: Strong 1440p PC Gaming
AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT Review: Real Game Tests
We chose to test a relatively broad array of games this time around, but reduced the amount of tests we performed with each game (besides one) down to a single resolution and settings preset. We made this choice with the intention to give an idea of the card's performance in a variety of games and game engines. Each title was benchmarked three times, and the results shown here are the average of the three results.
Most of the games here support resolution scaling, either by way of a simple resolution scalar, a "smart" upscaler like NVIDIA's DLSS or AMD's FSR, or both. We elected not to use resolution scaling in this review simply because it complicates testing considerably. It's difficult to guarantee that you're getting a true apples-to-apples comparison when using different resolution upscaling methods.
What this means in practical terms is that most players for most of these games will actually be getting superior performance to the listed scores because there's really not much reason to play for pleasure without using resolution scaling. Just keep that in mind as you read over the benchmark results.
Total War: Warhammer III Performance
Total War is a series that has been around for quite some time, and so is the Warhammer table-top war-game that this title licenses. This reviewer can't profess to being a fan of Total War: Warhammer III, but it's currently the most popular strategy game on Steam, so we reckon someone will probably appreciate these results.
Total Warhammer (as it should have been called) is a surprisingly difficult game to run given it's level of graphics detail. Being a strategy game, this title doesn't require the liquid-smooth performance of a first-person shooter or fighting game, so really everything besides the RTX 3060 puts out playable performance at these settings. The RX 6750 XT ends up exactly where we expect it to be, a notch above the RTX 3060 and 6700 XT.
Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis Tests
Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis is the latest title in SEGA's long-running science-fiction RPG series. As you could surmise from the "Online" in the title, it's an online game, which would normally make it very difficult to benchmark. However, SEGA publishes a free character creator and benchmark utility that performs a deterministic test and then spits out scores at the end. A score of over 5000 is considered "smooth" gameplay.
In this poorly-optimized DirectX 11 title, we initially benchmarked the game at 2560×1440 as with most of the rest of our titles. However, the scores were so astronomically high for some of our cards that we elected to bump the resolution up to our monitor's native 3840×2160 (4K UHD) and re-test. Unfortunately, at that resolution, most of our GPUs were unable to produce solid performance.
Forza Horizon 5 Benchmarks
In contrast to the previous two titles, Forza Horizon 5 is an extremely well-optimized game. Not only do we see excellent performance despite the punishing settings used in our testing, but the minimums tend to run very close to the average, meaning that the game is producing very stable performance.
Indeed, going over the benchmarks, everything besides the GeForce RTX 3060 card comes up with an average framerate over 60. While we've generally been a bit dismissive of the difference between the Radeon RX 6700 XT and the new RX 6750 XT, the extra bit of speed brings up the minimums enough that Forza becomes just-perceptibly smoother. It's a nice improvement overall.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider Benchmarks
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the third game in the second Tomb Raider reboot series. This game debuted ray-traced shadows for the series, and as a result, has a heavier emphasis on stealth and nighttime action compared to the previous two titles.
If you just look at the averages, the Radeon cards put up solid performances here, but just like in PSO2: New Genesis, it's a somewhat worse experience than playing on the GeForce cards, and this is borne out by the lower minimum framerates. It's not a bad experience on any of these cards, but enabling the ray-traced shadows definitely has a deleterious effect on smoothness for the Radeons.
The RX 6750 XT comes out marginally faster than the RX 6700 XT here, but the difference is so small we wouldn't have been able to tell were it not for the game reporting its performance at the end of the benchmark.
Gears 5 Performance
Gears 5 is the fifth main-series game in the Gears of War franchise, although there have been several spinoff titles including an X-COM-like tactical title. This game intertwines the series' trademark cover-shooter action with a twisting tale full of drama and intrigue, something the series has tried before and not really succeeded at.
The settings we picked were a bit conservative; even the GeForce RTX 3060 manages a minimum framerate over 77 FPS here. Still, it's a lot of fun to play when the framerate is soaring over 120 FPS. Gears 5 has always been very friendly to Radeon cards, and indeed, we see stellar performance from the red team—even if the RX 6750 XT is still just inches from the RX 6700 XT.
Red Dead Redemption 2 Performance
A greater cowboy action video game there has never been, and may never be. Red Dead Redemption 2 was an instant classic when it released in 2018, and it still looks fantastic today. Unsurprisingly, it can really put a hurt on a machine, too, although doing the real damage requires rooting around in the game's advanced settings by hand. We didn't fiddle with all that nonsense; we just set the quality slider all the way to "Favors Quality" and called it a day.
We didn't publish minimum framerates for this title because the benchmark in this game is non-deterministic and thus gives pretty inconsistent minimum FPS numbers, but the averages were all pretty close. As our only Vulkan title, it's no big surprise that RDR2 is very happy with the Radeon cards. The game looks fantastic with these settings, and runs great on the RX 6750 XT.
Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition Tests
Metro Exodus is the third title in the Metro franchise, which started with Metro 2033 and continued with Metro: Last Light. This game continues the story of beleaguered survivor Artyom as he ventures out to the surface with the people who have been dwelling in the Moscow metro system. It's a post-apocalyptic nightmare of an FPS game, like only the Russians could make.
The Enhanced Edition of Metro Exodus makes heavy use of ray-traced visual effects, so it's not too surprising to see our mid-range Radeons stumble a bit here. Still, their performance is playable at these settings, and would be even better with the help of resolution scaling (or at 1920×1080). The game is nearly maxed-out on these settings, so this isn't a bad showing at all.
Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks
Much has already been written about Cyberpunk 2077 and its failings, so we won't reiterate them here. It's a shell of a brilliant game, gorgeous and polished on the surface, but so, so empty on the inside—just like the residents of Night City. It has a built-in benchmark, so we used that for our testing.
Put simply, Cyberpunk 2077 with ray-tracing on puts a beating on all of the cards. Only the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti produces something approaching playable performance, and this is at 1920×1080. These settings aren't appropriate for any of these cards, really, but using DLSS or FSR would help.
