I have tried both, and can confirm that sous vide is superior. With a traditional oven prep, you get a pink rare center and brown medium-well outer edge. With sous vide, you get a perfect light pink medium rare all the way through, with only a thin edge of brown from the sear. With sous vide, you just sort of roll it across the skillet on the way to the plate, to get that crust but avoid cooking the interior more.

But to be clear, if you skip the sear with sous vide, your steak will be pink. You’ll miss out on a lot of flavor and mouthfeel from the sear. Sous vide technically cooks the meat, but doesn’t cause any browning (at least, not when cooking it to medium rare) because there isn’t enough heat to cause the Maillard reaction.