The RX 5700 is a mid-tier GPU, that is good for anyone who is just getting into computer building, or gaming. This graphics card comes at a pretty good price and offers pretty average performance, so it is perfect for any middle-of-the-road computer build.
When selecting a graphics card it is also very important to know and understand how much power it consumes because it will determine how big your power supply is, and give you an estimate of how much overclocking you can do.
That’s why I’ve made a power consumption guide on the RX 5700, that way you will know how much power this card draws, and what power supply unit to buy, and I’ve provided a comparison to other cards of similar performance.
How Many Watts Does The RX 5700 Use?
The RX 5700 has a TGP or Total Graphics Power of 185 Watts, which is the typical wattage it produces. When gaming you should expect to see an average of around 165 watts. However, when idle The RX 5700 only uses 7 Watts of Power.
The power consumption of your GPU will change depending on what games you are playing, and what applications you are using on your computer.
Another thing to note is the idle power consumption. The idle power consumption of the RX 5700 is 7 watts.
The idle power consumption of a GPU will increase for every monitor you have in your setup. The more monitors you use the higher your idle power consumption will be.
For example, when the RX 5700 is introduced to a multi-monitor setup it will have a power draw of 35 watts when idle.
This is a fairly high increase in wattage, but that’s to be expected by AMD. Most AMD GPUs have a pretty extreme increase in idle power wattage when you add a second monitor to your setup, with the exception of a few graphics cards.
To know if your GPU has a good idle power draw the wattage should be just around double or less with a second monitor than it is with just 1 monitor.
When you are looking and comparing a GPUs power consumption, you want to look at the GPU TGP or Total Graphics Power, which shows the base power draw you will get when using your GPU for things such as gaming
When talking about power consumption, you might hear the phrase “TDP” used interchangeably with the phrase “TGP”. Essentially TGP and TDP are the same things, but TDP is the total power consumption of a component and TGP is the total power consumption of a GPU specifically.
You should also note that the TGP of a GPU isn’t the true maximum power draw of the specific graphics card, and the power consumption can be increased when computing graphically intensive tasks and while overclocking.
With the RX 5700, the maximum recorded power draw of this GPU is around 180-185 watts. However, this will only happen under extreme load or overclocking, but you should still account for this when calculating the wattage of your computer.
What Power Supply Do You Need For The RX 5700?
The minimum recommended power supply unit for the RX 5700 is 600 watts.
However, that is the minimum and I would always recommend getting a power supply that is a little higher than the minimum recommendation, and here is why.
Going from personal experience you should always go a little bit above the minimum recommended PSU that the manufacturer recommends because there is a very likely possibility that you will go over that power requirement once your computer is fully built, or upgraded.
In my opinion, I would make sure to have a 650-700-watt power supply, that way I will have an extra 50 watts of wiggle room to do any hardware upgrades, or overclocking in the future.
Another reason to have a slightly higher power supply than recommended is that your computer will randomly have power spikes when under intense load, if your PSU just meets the needs of your computer and experiences a power spike, it could damage your PSU or even other parts of your computer.
Trust me, this is what happened with my first computer, and I don’t want it to happen to you.
Although there are many power supply brands and different qualifications out there I would recommend you go for something that is at least 80 Plus certified that comes from a trusted brand such as EVGA, or Corsair.
This will provide you with power supply hardware that is very reliable and can save you on your energy bill as well.
The reason for this is that a power supply unit that is not certified can take a significant amount of electricity out of your wall that doesn’t do anything. Not only that, but power supplies from a brand that isn’t trusted can damage other parts of your computer, or have underlying issues that you will experience sooner or later.
For this reason, I would recommend getting the Corsair RMX series 650 Watt PSU.
The Corsair RMX Series Power Supply is a 650 Watt PSU, that is 80 Plus Gold Certified.
The reason why I am recommending this power supply is that Corsair is a very reliable and well-known brand, their PSU comes with a 2-year warranty, and it is also Gold certified.
This means this power supply will do a good job of taking the power that it needs to run your system (Not using excess power from your home.)
RX 5700 Power Consumption Compared To Other GPUs
The GPUs power consumption is compared using TGP. It is essential to know and compare your graphics cards to other similar models because it will help you get a grasp on the amount of power your system is going to use.
Here is a comparison of a few graphics cards that are around the performance range of the RX 5700.
| GPU | TGP |
| RTX 2060 | 165-180 Watts |
| RTX 3060 | 170 Watts |
| RX 5700 | 185 Watts |
| RX 5700 XT | 225 Watts |
From this table, you can see that the RX 5700 is pretty middle of the pack for the power draw of a GPU.
The RX 5700 is comparable to Nvidias RTX 3060 in terms of performance and when we look and compare the TGP of these GPUs we can see that the RX 5700 produces a bit more power than the RTX 3060.
Now when we compare it to the RX 5700 XT, we can see that there is quite a significant difference in power draw with a 40-watt difference.
Having a 40-watt difference between GPUs isn’t that much, but considering that the RX 5700 XT is just slightly better than the RX 5700, you have to ask yourself if 40 watts is worth it for you.
If you want to compare more graphics cards on their power consumption and TGP I have provided a database where you can look at dozens of different GPUs and their power consumption, that way you don’t have to do the research yourself.
Check out the Database.
I have also provided the average power consumption when gaming, as well as the average power consumption when idle, that way you can get a better understanding.
