Overall and Final Verdict
When the XFX RX 6700 XT MERC 319 came in I was a little surprised that it nearly shares the same footprint as the XFX RX 6800 XT MERC 319. But being a large card I was excited to see how it would affect cooling performance and performance overall. XFX was able to dial in a higher wattage limit which translated to a touch more performance over a similarly overclocked card. Most impressively the cooling performance was top notch with the large cooler. The only downside as far as performance goes was on the noise side of things, the large card was loud across all of my tests. Overall though, like the previous 6700 XT that I had the chance to check out it offers great performance at 1080p which can work well with a high refresh monitor, even with modern demanding games. Then at 1440p, it was solid as well, handling anything I threw at it.
XFX kept their styling simple, even cutting out the dimples that the 6800 XT had for a very clean blacked-out look that completely avoided the angular designs that everyone else seems to go with. It shows what model of card you have up on top and backlit and they included a metal backplate which ends up being the most aggressive part of the card with all of its ventilation holes. The only thing it is missing for me is a matching black PCI bracket but that is a small detail and almost no one includes that.
As for pricing, it is listed at $569.99 which isn’t exactly cheap compared to the $479 6700 XT base price but it is significantly lower than the MSI card I previously took a look at. This is a more realistic price for an overclocked card with a huge cooler like the XFX RX 6700 XT MERC 319 has. But of course, availability is the big issue and while it is completely out of XFX’s hands I do still have to mention it. ANY card is hard to come by, especially a card like this at retail. We can only hope that things settle down sooner rather than later so people can get a chance to put the XFX RX 6700 XT MERC 319 to use. Given its 1080p and 1440p performance, it is a solid option for most builds. Though I might play with the fan profiles a little bit if I were living with it every day.
Live Pricing: HERE