AMD has risen to the challenge posed by Nvidias’ RTX 3080 with the Radeon RX 6800 XT. This powerful GPU uses the latest RDNA2 architecture to bring true 4K performance to the table, and challenge Nvidia’s top gaming graphics card at the $700-$800 price point. Using a 7nm core, and pairing it with 16Gb VRAM this card is well placed to see you enjoying top performance for years to come. AMD has used a number of neat features to boost performance, such as ‘Infinity Cache’ to speed memory access for frequently used data, and ‘smart access memory’ on compatible hardware to allow for higher performance.

All RX 6800 XT’s boast the same core specifications, like 16Gb of VRAM rated at 16Gbps, and 4608 Stream Processors. There’s also hardware ray tracing support with 72 ray tracing accelerator cores, although performance is still a little way behind Nvidias Ampere GPUs.  The RX 6800 XT draws 300 Watts and a 750W power supply is recommended. The cards are also physically large with 3 fan, 3 slot designs prominent, so make sure you’ve got enough power supply and case space to fit them. They offer an excellent alternative to the Ampere GPUs with top tier performance at 1440p and 4k resolutions. You can be sure they will offer a premium gaming experience for years to come. 

Let’s look at some of the specific models and make some recommendations of the best RX 6800 XT aftermarket cards based on your priorities. 

Best RX 6800 XT Cards – Our Recommendations

Best Value RX 6800 XT Card

Whilst it’s not the cheapest RX 6800 XT on offer, we do consider the Sapphire Pulse to be the best value RX 6800 XT aftermarket card. It has a number of features that mark it out from the competition. It has a robust 3 fan cooler design with separate VRM and Memory cooling heatsinking, keeping temperatures low. There’s a dual BIOS switch that allows you to flick between a quiet low fan noise version for quiet operation, and a high performance overclocking mode. More than this you can flash the BIOSes individually, allowing you to experiment with upgraded BIOS revisions without risking the operation of the card for a while. Sapphire provides support and software for you to do this. It also has quick-change fans that swap out with a single screw and a special connector, meaning you can easily clean and service this card yourself and swap a fan should one fail. It’s no slouch in the performance department either with a boost clock of 2310MHz, on a par with some of the upper-tier cards. Sapphire has long since been primary board partners with AMD and their customer service and support is excellent. That’s an important consideration, and part of the reason we feel the Sapphire Pulse offers the best value amongst the 6800 XT’s. 

Quietest RX 6800 XT Card

ASUS TUF Gaming RX 6800 XT. Asus has redesigned their TUF gaming cards for high-end GPUs, and this same cooler design appears on both the 6800 XT and the RTX 3080 where it has to cope with an additional 40W of heat loading. The Three fan design and thick fin stack have been praised for whisper-quiet operation even under load, whilst separated cool plates and heatsinking solutions for VRAM, VRMs and the GPU core itself ensure everything stays as cool as can be.  There’s a thick expanse of fins with seven heat pipes cooled by three fans. The fans are a special ‘linked blade’ design, with the centre one contra-rotating to reduce turbulence and thus noise. These move air more efficiently and so can turn slower, making less noise. Under idle conditions, they stop completely. There’s also a metal backplate and extensive reinforcement for the PCB to prevent GPU sag – though a bracket may be advisable with all of these cards as they are heavy. The boost clock remains high at up to 2340MHz so performance isn’t sacrificed. We recommend the TUF Gaming 6800 XT as one of the quietest models you can buy. 

Best Performance RX 6800 XT Card

If you’re looking for the best performance amongst 6800 XT’s then the Sapphire RX 6800 XT Nitro+ is worthy of strong consideration. This GPU boasts one of the highest quoted boost clocks at 2360MHz showing Sapphires confidence in the quality of the GPU core they put into this card along with the supporting circuitry they add. Sapphire has made complete redesigns of a number of their cooler features for the Radeon 6000 series including the fan, heat sink fins, and thermal pads. Design features like an all-metal backplate, custom cooler design with separate VRAM and VRM cooling components, and that large 3 fan, 3 slot thick primary cooling stack ensure the card runs cool even when pushed to the limit. Dual BIOS allows you to switch between a quiet and performance mode but also lets you flash to a new BIOS for increased performance without the risk of rendering the GPU unusable. Sapphires ‘Trixx’ software also assists you in overclocking and tweaking the GPU for best performance, or you can use AMD’s own ‘Adrenaline’ software if you prefer. Overall the Sapphire Nitro+ is a top tier version of the card without the excessive expense and will let you extract the maximum performance out of the RDNA2 platform. 

Best Compact RX 6800 XT for SFF Builds

‘Compact’ is of course a relative term when no manufacturer offers a card with fewer than 3 fans, or even in a true 2 slot thick form factor. However, the Reference/Founders Edition Design, as made by Asus, Gigabyte, ASRock, and Sapphire is the most compact of the designs currently available at 267mm in length. There are still three cooling fans and a shroud that protrudes past the 2 slot backplate. The PCB is to reference specification meaning you will have a choice of custom water blocks to fit these GPUs if you wish. Beyond that being reference specification means you’re guaranteed the full RX 6800 XT experience as AMD intended it, with 300W power consumption, up to 2250MHz boost clock, 16GB GDDR6 VRAM and all the additional RDNA2 features such as ‘rage mode’ and hardware ray tracing. They also have a USB C port to the rear, two DisplayPort, and one HDMI port, whilst most partner cards do away with the USB C port. They’re also the cheapest models, so if you can find one at RRP they represent fantastic value. 

Best Enthusiast RX 6800 XT Card

XFX is another long time board partner specialising in AMD GPUs. The Speedster 319 Merc is their high end 6800 XT offering and goes above and beyond the base specification in a number of areas. This GPU has a 14+2 Phase VRM, exceeding the 12+2 Phase specification of AMD, and uses high-quality components for a power delivery capacity equivalent to the PowerColor Red Devil – the most extreme version of the RX 6800 XT. There’s a number of other features like additional power filtering capacitors and advanced cooling solutions that exceed the basic specification which means higher stability and lower temperatures when overclocked. The comprehensive cooler has 7 heat pipes and a ‘through PCB’ cooling design to extract heat as efficiently as possible, along with an aluminum backplate to actively shed heat. The Speedster Mercury also has the normal high-end features of an AMD card such as a dual BIOS switch to easily enable ‘rage mode’ and zero fan mode for silent operation with the fans only spinning when the card is under load. It also ships with a 3-year warranty for your peace of mind. This Card has a solid basis for an enthusiast to explore the potential on offer in an RX 6800 XT with the confidence that the underlying hardware is well equipped to support overclocking.

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Purchasing the absolute best CPU for gaming that the consumer market has to offer, means purchasing either the Ryzen 9 5950X, or the Ryzen 9 5900X. Not only have benchmarks from multiple sources (Gamer’s Nexus, Techspot, Tom’s Hardware) proven the superiority of these CPUs in gaming performance, single-core performance, and multi-core performance, but they also display how these CPUs have accomplished the task while using far less energy – and at lower temperatures – than their competition. 

If you care little for price to performance ratios, or just need the extra multicore performance, then the Zen 3 Ryzen 9 options are an easy choice to make. But choosing the hardware to pair them with won’t be as simple a task; due to the plethora of available options that can all work well with these processors. For example, what appears to be the gold-standard for RAM kits, at least for testing their performance, is a frequency-latency combination of 3,200 MHz and a CAS of 14 cycles. However, now that the price for DDR4 RAM has dropped considerably, a RAM kit with a speed of 3,600 CL14, which sells for only $189.99 (Via Amazon) (2×8 – total 16 GB) – or an even more extreme, 3,800 MHz CL14 kit which can be found for as low $220 to $290 (2×8 – total 16 GB) – can enhance their performance even further. Then, would you go for an X570 flagship motherboard, or a B550? A Noctua NH-D15 air CPU cooler, or a Corsair H115i Elite Capellix AIO liquid cooler? A Sabrent Rocket 4+ NVMe SSD, or a Samsung 980 Pro?

This is what makes the current generation of hardware one of the best to invest in for an upgrade, or a brand-new PC, there are so many valid options to choose from. This is also the case for choosing a graphics card, as Nvidia’s superiority in the GPU market is in question after AMD “released” their new Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards. And though AMD has added extra incentive for to purchasing one of these GPUs, to be paired with a Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Series processor (like Smart Access Memory), Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs still can’t be counted out. People have grown fond of Nvidia as a brand because their GPUs have proven to be reliable throughout several iterations; whereas AMD has faced multiple issues in the past, related to their graphics cards, including poor drivers and overheating units.

AMD vs Nvidia: Features & Technology

Nvidia GeForce

The GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs feature a new Ampere architecture: with 2^nd generation ray tracing cores, 3^rd generation tensor cores, as well as new Streaming Multiprocessors (SM); all accounting for double the throughput. Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) software is one of their top selling points, as it upscales lower resolution images in real time via the using of deep learning AI – allowing the GPU to achieve faster framerates at higher resolutions. Harnessing the power of AI-acceleration is not solely utilized for their DLSS feature, as Nvidia Studio and Nvidia Broadcast allow for livestreaming, voice chats, and video conference calls that are devoid of background noise, and allow you to switch the background of your video feed with the touch of a button. GeForce Experience is also a very convenient application that allows you to quickly update your drivers – as well as livestream and capture screenshots that you can enhance and customize via the use of Nvidia’s Ansel.

But what is arguably the most important feature that is included with Nvidia’s GeForce 30 Series GPUs – especially for competitive or professional gamers – is Nvidia Reflex. Aimed to drastically reduce render queues, mainly by utilizing direct communication between CPU and GPU, Nvidia has created a feature that brings overall system latency to a minimum. In fact, Nvidia has put significant effort into optimizing Reflex, working with third-party monitor manufacturers to produce displays that carry a hardware component named the Reflex Latency Analyzer.  This input-lag analyzer allows the monitor to display end-to-end system latency in real-time. Through these 360 Hz displays, Nvidia Reflex can reduce input lag by a staggering 66% when compared to a 144 Hz monitor using a GeForce RTX 20 Series graphics card. For professional e-Sports and competitive-gaming enthusiasts, one of these five available 1080p 360 Hz monitors, paired with a GeForce RTX 30 Series GPU, provides the most utility out of all available setup options. Even if the GPU benchmarks a few frames less than its competition, having less input-lag and the ability to monitor system latency in real time, provides far better value, in terms of practicality, than any other hardware combination one can purchase. 

AMD Radeon

AMD does still hold their own against Nvidia’s technological advancements, as certain key architectural elements allow their RDNA 2 GPUs to compete with the GeForce Ampere graphics cards, even on a high level. Firstly, the Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs make use of a 128 MB Level 3 Cache – called the Infinity Cache – which is based on those found in the Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs. This Infinity Cache allows for almost twice the memory bus bandwidth; despite a lower energy expenditure. Additionally, AMD’s new generation of Compute Units (CU) have redesigned data paths, pervasive fine-grain clock gating, and a new pipeline rebalancing.

Perhaps the most impressive, and most useful, of AMD’s new technologies, is the aforementioned Smart Access Memory. Built to provide synergy between both AMD CPU and GPU products (and as an additional incentive to those with a Zen 3 CPU to buy a RDNA 2 GPU) Smart Access Memory creates an expanded data channel by utilizing PCI Express lanes to power the CPU to access more VRAM; effectively removing any inherent GPU memory bottleneck. The increase in performance allowed by Smart Access Memory is quite considerable, as it can provide the edge for the RDNA 2 GPUs to slightly surpass Nvidia GeForce graphics cards which would otherwise hold a slight advantage against them in framerate output.

AMD also has a new set of features that, admittedly may not be as impressive as those offered by Nvidia, but are definitely nice to have. AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition is the equivalent of Nvidia’s GeForce Experience, providing driver updates, single-click overclocking called “Rage Mode”, and performance reports in a convenient and easy-to-use interface. Next, we have AMD Radeon Chill, which automatically caps the framerate of any specific game depending on the monitor’s refresh rate; thus saving energy by limiting the GPU to process only the amount of framerate necessary to maximize the monitor’s capabilities. Another neat feature is AMD’s Integer Scaling, which is used for better capturing the visuals of retro games on modern displays. It basically scales one pixel to multiple pixels, so that the faded look of pixelated graphics on a high-resolution monitor will look clearer and more in-tune with the game’s inherent low-bit graphics.

To increase FPS, and lessen the strain to the GPU, AMD’s Radeon Boost works by lowering the resolution of frames during quick motion (frames that are difficult to notice), in turning giving the GPU the ability to generate faster framerate when the in-game character is in motion. Note, however, than AMD Radeon Boost currently only works for a handful of gaming titles. When paired with Radeon Boost, AMD’s second-generation Anti-Lag can lessen end-to-end input lag, similar to Nvidia Reflex. Still, the 31% reduction figure that is stated on AMD’s website is a result from tests run at a 4K resolution – and, funny enough, using an Intel i7-9700K CPU – so the results will not be nearly as impressive at 1080p. 

AMD vs Nvidia: Top GPU Comparisons

Now that we have a better idea of what each company is offering in terms of new technology and features, let’s compare each of their two best GPUs, and see how they fare against each other in specifications and in benchmarked framerates.

AMD RX 6800 XT vs Nvidia RTX 3080

T

AMD RX 6900 XT vs Nvidia RTX 3090

Verdict

Comparing all four of the above GPUs, we can see that each has its advantages and disadvantages. Indeed, any of these graphic-card models can be used optimally for different types of 5900X and 5950X builds.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X Competitive Gaming Builds

If you take competitive gaming seriously, nothing beats a GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics card paired with a 1080p 360 Hz monitor. Because the benchmarked framerate averages of the GeForce RTX 3090 and the GeForce RTX 3080 are so similar, we recommend pairing the latter with a Ryzen 9 5900X – which displayed an identical average framerate to the Ryzen 9 5950X ta this resolution. 

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 1080p Gaming Builds

For 1080p gaming that isn’t as serious as the aforementioned example, the Radeon RX 6800 XT provides the highest framerate of all GPUs in the market – even surpassing the GeForce RTX 3090, despite costing less than half its price. For 1080p gaming, the best combination is the Ryzen 9 5900X with the Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 1440p Gaming Builds

Going a step above, and into the 1440p range, it appears that the Radeon RX 6900 XT is the most powerful GPU available; even surpassing the GeForce RTX 3090, while costing 50% less (if AMD’s benchmarks are to be trusted). Of course, the Radeon RX 6800 XT still holds better value for its price at 1440p, but if you are aiming for the highest possible performance, the Radeon RX 6900 XT is the way to go. In terms of processors, both Ryzen 9 CPUs have nearly identical single-core performance (benchmarked by Tom’s Hardware), so the Ryzen 9 5900X is the smarter choice.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 4K Gaming Builds

For the highest gaming resolution, the GeForce RTX 3090 reigns supreme in framerate output – and holds a considerable advantage to its competition. That being said, the Radeon RX 6900 XT does seem promising, though chances are it will not outperform the GeForce RTX 3090 at 4K game processing. Do note, that the Radeon RX 6800 XT, once again, does have the better cost per frame ratio for this resolution as well.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X Workstation Utility Builds

Finally, for workstation builds that require high multi-core performance – or for gaming and streaming + content creation PCs – the additional cores and threads of the Ryzen 9 5950X will certainly pay for their extra cost in the long run. When it comes to graphics, the GeForce RTX 3090’s 8 GB of extra GDDR6X – and its 45% faster bandwidth compared to the Radeon RX 6900 XT – make it a more appealing option for dedicated workstation setups, even at its $1,500 price tag.

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In this article, we’re comparing the two ‘real world’ flagships of the AMD and Nvidia GPU line ups: The RTX 3080 and the RX 6800 XT.

It’s only right that we start with an explanation both of the delay to this review, but also around the prevailing situation with GPUs. 

We’re not party to normal press channels to obtain cards so we’ve been subject to all the same pressures as the general market. We’re therefore only too painfully aware of the scarcity of GPUs across the board right now, and it’s part of the reason for the delay to this comparison article.

Of course, the global pandemic is one of the driving factors behind both restricted supply and also heightened demand for GPUs. On the one hand, production lines have been hit by a supply shortage and global supply chains have been disrupted. On the other hand, demand has skyrocketed with more people working from home or looking for means to entertain themselves. AMD in particular is struggling to produce sufficient GPUs on the 7nm production lines alongside the console APUs and Zen 3 CPUs that all vie for the limited capacity at TSMCs’ foundries. And finally of course Cryptocurrency mining has again come to the fore with miners buying up ‘gaming’ GPU’s in bulk to mine Ethereum. We all know the results of this: The cards we’re reviewing here sell via side channels for two to three times their launch MSRP, and are near impossible to buy via normal retail channels.

We’re going to keep this review straight down the line: You might be looking for one or other card and be prepared to pay. You might want to know if you can reasonably substitute one for the other and not suffer any major performance loss. This review simply seeks to answer the question: ‘how do these cards perform’, because it’s impossible to answer the question ‘are these cards worth your money’ until such time as the market stabilizes and they become available anywhere close to their suggested retail pricing.

First, let’s remind ourselves of the key specifications of these cards:

RX 6800 XT vs RTX 3080: Specifications

	AMD RX 6800 XT	Nvidia RTX 3080
Design
GPU Architecture	AMD RDNA 2	Nvidia Ampere
Process	TSMC 7nm	Samsung ‘8nm’
Transistors	26,800 million	28,300 million
VRAM	16Gb GDDR6	10GB GDDR6X
Memory Bus	256Bit 512GB/s	320bit 760 GB/s
Ray Tracing Cores	72 – RDNA2	68 – Ampere ‘2nd Gen RTX’
Tensor Cores		272
‘Enhanced Memory Access’	Smart Access Memory	Resizeable BAR
PCIe Version	4	4
Power Draw (tested)	300W	320W (340W)
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

It’s not possible to make direct comparisons between clock speeds or the number of shader units for these two GPUs – their architectural differences make the comparison meaningless.
We can directly compare memory specification and the RX 6800 XT has a massive 16GB VRAM, but it is just standard GDDR6. The RTX 3080 has 10GB of VRAM but it’s higher performance GDDR6X, produced by Micron under an exclusive partnership. This combined with a 320bit bus gives the Nvidia card higher memory performance but less capacity. In respect of additional features, Nvidia is obviously a step ahead in hardware ray tracing, but the RX 6800XT does also have hardware ray tracing cores and few games currently utilize this feature. Both have a mechanism to enhance memory access and boost performance – Smart Access Memory for AMD and ‘Resizeable BAR’ for Nvidia, but again this is specific to certain titles, and in the case of the RX 6800XT it can be detrimental to performance in some games. Finally, both have similar power draw requirements although the RTX 3080 is slightly more demanding, hitting 340W under peak load or when overclocked. 

The test set-up:

Both GPUs were tested in the same system – our Ryzen Test bench which comprises a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, with PBO enabled but no additional overclocking. It runs 16GB of 3600MHz CL16 RAM and has a 1Tb Sabrent Rocket PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. It is powered by a Fractal Design Ion 860W Platinum power supply to ensure sufficient power. SAM and ReBAR were not enabled for any testing.

Synthetic benchmarks: 3D Mark

Running through the 3D Mark suite of benchmarks, we can see that in both of the straight ‘gaming relevant’ tests the RX 6800XT has the upper hand. 

In Fire Strike which is a 1080p rendered DirectX11 based test, the RX 6800XT turns in an absolutely stellar performance with a score of nearly 53,000 – that’s over 10,000 points or 20% ahead of the RTX 3080, an impressive achievement indicating very high performance in titles using DX11 and running at 1080p.

Time Spy, which uses the more recent DirectX12 API and renders at 1440p also shows a slight advantage to the RX 6800XT although the margin is reduced here to 1000 point or about 5%. 

Port Royal is a new benchmark that uses DirextX12 Ultimate to bring the GPUs hardware ray tracing to bear, and both cards run this benchmark fine but the RTX 3080 with its’ second-generation RTX cores has clearly better performance, by about 1,800 points or 20%. I’ve included the score of the RTX 2080ti here as well for reference, showing how closely the RX 6800XT matches the performance of Nvidia’s last-gen Ray tracing tech – although this score is an aggregate of rasterized and ray tracing performance and without a score break down it’s impossible to ascertain how much of that is the core rendering performance of the RX 6800XT and how much is the ray-tracing component. Nonetheless, it’s not fair to say the RX 6800XT is ‘poor’ at ray tracing, simply that it can only use DirectX12 Ultimate, and that it’s not at Amperes performance levels.

Blender

As a quick test of the relative rendering performance, we ran Blender 2.83s benchmark renders, BMW27 and classroom. Blender has a range of rendering options depending on the GPU used, and we tested cards in all compatible modes to get an idea of how they perform. The RTX 3080 can use CUDA or ‘OptiX’ acceleration, whilst the RX 6800XT can only use Open CL. The results aren’t favorable for the RX 6800 XT: The BMW render takes it 39 seconds to the 3080’s 11 seconds, whilst the classroom scene takes 74 seconds to the RTX 3080’s 41. The OPTIX rendering pipeline uses tensor cores to accelerate the process, and it’s dramatically faster. Even an RTX 2060 KO matches the RX 6800 XT in BMW27 using the OPTIX renderer vs Open CL, although the RX 6800XT is much faster at the Classroom render. This highlights how specific these benchmarks can be to one or other aspects of a GPUs performance.

Overall, if you’re intending on using these cards for productivity or 3D rendering, it does pay to look closely at performance in metrics specific to your needs and software. It may be a more readily available or cheaper Nvidia card that can serve the purpose as well as the RX 6800XT – as an example, the RTX 3060 combines an Ampere core with 12GB VRAM and would seem an excellent choice for a 3D content creator – if you can find one.

Games: First Person Shooters

We’ve grouped the results here in a per-game basis to simplify the comparisons, and to make it easy to focus in on the games or game types that interest you.

1. Call of Duty: Warzone

Firstly, looking at Call of Duty Warzone we can see that the two cards are relatively evenly matched: We run a full 5-6 minute Battle Royale, but against bots as this is the only way to make the benchmark a consistent and repeatable test. Settings are at the ‘High’ preset. The RX 6800XT has a very slight advantage at 1080p, but just 10 FPS at 250FPS isn’t a noticeable difference. At 1440p the two GPUs are evenly matched, and at 1440p Ultrawide they’re absolutely equal. At 4K the 3080 has a slight advantage, ahead 9 FPS at 128 FPS. We haven’t included other metrics to keep the chart legible, but the Minimum, Maximum, and 1%, and 0.1% lows are almost identical too. CoD Warzone doesn’t appear to have any particular preference and you’ll have an equivalent experience on either card. At 1080p you would be better looking at a lower-tier card and achieving nearly as high performance – an RTX 2060Ti achieves 220FPS at 1080p high settings, for example. 

2. Rainbow 6 Siege

Rainbow 6 Siege is a much faster-paced title and it shows in the benchmarks. Here, the RX 6800 XT takes a commanding lead at both 1080p and 1440p – it’s around 10% faster at 1080p and nearly 20% faster at 1440p. Initially, we felt this might be down to the rendering pipelines of the RTX 3080 being optimized for higher resolutions, but Hardware Unboxed and others have found interesting discrepancies in the Ampere cards performance when CPU limited: It appears their drivers have a higher overhead and as such it can dent the performance potential of the GPU. This game (and Flight Sim 2020) presents the most CPU-limited test we run, and as such, it may be one or both of these effects preventing the RTX 3080 from performing. It might also go some way to explaining that stellar 3DMark Fire Strike result at the start of this review. Again, at 1440p ultrawide resolution, we see that performance is about equal, and at 4K the RTX 3080 has taken the lead with 304Fps to 239 for the RX 6800 XT.

3. Doom Eternal

Finally, Doom Eternal is a well-optimized title using the Vulkan API and scales very well with both hardware and settings. We see a slight lead for the RX 6800 XT at 1080p at 409 FPS to 384, but at all other resolutions, the two GPUs perform identically on average. However looking at the underlying statistics, 1% and 0.1% lows are significantly lower for the RX 6800 XT indicating a less consistent experience and this occurs at every resolution. This isn’t something we see in the other First-person shooters where the results for these metrics are closely matched.

AAA Titles

Looking at the more demanding titles, this is where we expect to see both of these high end GPUs really shine.

Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption still ranks amongst the best looking and most demanding titles and again it uses the Vulkan API. Here we’ve run it at very high settings, near ultra, but with a couple of performance tweaks such as water being reduced to medium for a representative experience. Across the board these two GPUs perform near identically, exceeding 100 FPS at 1080p, close to 100FPS at 1440p, and exceeding 60FPS in 4K. Both provide a top tier experience, which is what you’d hope for flagship cards.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider always impresses us not only with its graphics but with its consistency when benchmarking – it reliably highlights very minor changes in system configuration or performance. At highest settings the numbers generated between these two cards are spookily similar, and not just the average frame rates, but the rest of the metrics as well. The experience on either card is identical, with one caveat: You can’t enable RTX Shadows or DLSS on the RX 6800 XT. However, in this title and with these GPUs this is a moot point as you don’t need either of these technologies for either visual improvements or performance. It’s a dead heat in this title.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Finally we’ll look at Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.

This title continues to receive updates that fix bugs and improve performance, and it’s certainly a demanding test of a whole system. Our benchmark run is a four-minute AI piloted flight from LaGuardia over Manhattan at 2,500 – 3,500 ft – a worst-case scenario and highly demanding of the CPU as well as the GPU. 

It’s the CPU that limits the ultimate frame rate here, and even at low settings, 65FPS average is the absolute best performance that can be obtained. At more realistic and rewarding high settings, we can see how little the FPS scale with such powerful GPUs; at 1080p, 1440p and even 1440p ultrawide we achieve the same results, at our around 60FPS. We’re mostly CPU limited here. At 4K we start to see the impact of a demanding resolution AND settings even on these cards: High settings see 45-47FPS on both, whilst ultra settings cut performance to just over 30 FPS for both cards. The inconsistencies at lower resolutions are caused by CPU limitations, and not indicative of the relative performance of the cards, but we did have trouble extracting performance from the 6800XT at ultra settings and lower resolutions – it was reluctant to exceed 45FPS despite driver updates and tweaking. Complex games and hardware sometimes deliver these anomalies. At higher resolutions, it performed fine, and it’s likely a minor setting adjustment would have resolved the issue but invalidated the controls to our benchmark. 

The lesson here is how important balancing the whole system to the target resolution is in Flight sim 2020, as well as settings needing to be tweaked for optimum performance. Both of these cards are capable of playing MS Flight 2020 at high resolutions, a mix of high and ultra settings, and both are more than capable of an acceptable VR experience as well.

Related: Flight Simulator 2020 Performance Analysis: Get the most out of MS Flight 2020

Conclusions

As you’d hope and expect, both of these GPUs turn in an excellent performance. There’s nothing they won’t run well. Having spent over a month of tenting and general use with both of these cards, they are truly equal in performance in our opinion. There are some games and certain corner cases where one outperforms the other but on balance, the differences are infrequent and slight. 

It’s really in feature set and versatility where we see the RTX 3080 offer more to a prospective buyer. RTX and DLSS may or may not be the next big thing for gaming, but it’s nice to have the option and in many titles, it just isn’t there if you’ve got the AMD card. We hope that developers will use the DirectX 12 ultimate API to bring hardware Ray tracing to the broadest audience possible, rather than sticking to Nvidias’ ‘RTX’ walled garden, whilst AMD need to develop and deliver their ‘Super Resolution’ functionality to the FidelityFX suite, to challenge Nvidia in dynamic upscaling. 

Users who need a GPU for more than just gaming: for 3D content creation or data analysis, or to accelerate rendering – should look closely at benchmarks specific to their usage case. The RX 6800 XT performs better at some functions, and if you need a very high VRAM capacity then this or the 6800 is the cheapest way to get 16GB. It also offers better compatibility in Hackintosh and some Linux applications. However, for most tasks, the versatility of CUDA and Tensor cores combined with the higher bandwidth memory access make the 3080 a great choice. It will come down to what exactly you need to do.

Finally, the choice may well be out of your hands: If you see an opportunity to buy either of these GPU’s at a non-ridiculous price, and need a high-end gaming GPU, then either offers more than satisfactory performance at the highest resolutions and settings and will stand the test of time.

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After conquering the consumer-grade CPU market, AMD has aimed their sights on dethroning Nvidia, as the GPU manufacturing king, and asserting a newfound gaming-GPU market dominance. In the past, AMD has several times attempted to challenge Nvidia, but to no avail, proven by overall sales. This time around, AMD is hopeful that the new RDNA2 architecture of the Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs, will deliver a significant blow to Nvidia’s RTX Ampere 3000 Series lineup, especially after the failure to properly launch their two high-end GPUs. Hopefully, AMD will not follow suit and botch their own launch, because, if they have not misled us with their benchmarks, these new GPUs do look incredible. 

During their Radeon RX 6000 Series announcement presentation, AMD displayed three new Navi 21 GPUs, as well as how they fair against their Nvidia RTX counterparts. To remove some of the doubts that their info-graphics were deceptive, as some of the benchmarks they displayed did include overclocking for their GPU but not for their competition (6900 XT vs 3090), AMD has now created a webpage which allows one to compare benchmarks for several gaming titles between all their newly announced GPUs, as well as with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080, GeForce RTX 3090, and GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. This page also allows us to see the full build that was used to carry out their benchmarks, as well as new graphs that feature FPS per price metrics for each of the aforementioned options. The only concerns for AMD’s newly announced GPUs have to do with their thermals, as past RDNA GPUs (like the Radeon RX 5700 XT) would operate with temperatures upwards of 100 degrees Celsius, as well as the drivers.

The additional features that AMD has included for these new series of graphics cards are not quite on the level of Nvidia’s DLSS or Reflex, but they still do offer a substantial performance enhancement to their GPUs. Firstly, to rival Reflex, AMD has improved their input latency reducing technology, now offering second generation AMD Radeon Anti-Lag, which, together with Radeon Boost, can reduce end-to-end input lag by a considerable amount. Still, what AMD is lacking is the native Reflex Latency Analyzer and 360 Hz monitors, that manufacturers have partnered with Nvidia to create, in order to enhance Reflex in order lowers end to end input lag (by up to two-thirds) and also display this overall latency to the user in real time. 

What AMD’s does have, that Nvidia cannot match, is Smart Access Memory: A feature that allows new Radeon RX GPUs to share memory with Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs, which allows for an overall boost in gaming – and perhaps other – application performance. 

Another new element found in these RDNA 2 AMD GPUs is AMD’s Infinity Cache, which is based off the Ryzen 5000 Series Level 3 Cache, allowing a 256-bit memory bus to deliver more than twice the bandwidth of a typical 384-bit memory bus, while expending less energy. This allows the two most powerful GPUs announced by AMD: The Radeon RX 6800 XT and the Radeon RX 6900 XT, to offer similar, and sometimes even greater, gaming performance than their Nvidia counterparts, despite having less power demands and, in the case of the RX 6900 XT, a smaller form factor as well. Because the Nvidia GeForce RTX Ampere 3070 had not yet been released when AMD held their RDNA 2 launch presentation, we do not know how well the Radeon RX 6800 fares against this GPU, but, instead, we were given benchmarks comparing the RX 6800 to Nvidia’s, previous generation, GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

Given that we are now reaching the end of the life span of both the AM4 chipset, as well as the DDR4 RAM memory type, makes it the best time to build a rig that will last well into the future, as current-generation technology has reached its peak – not only in terms of performance but also in cost efficiency. For the ultimate high-end, value-performance ratio focused build, we ask: Which GPU is the best to pair with one of AMD’s new Zen 3 processors (which are now the most powerful CPUs for gaming) when it comes to building a high-end gaming setup? Additionally, which combination will provide the highest FPS per dollar ratio?

In terms of which CPU is best, from what we know so far, it does appear that the Ryzen 7 5800X will be the performance-value king of the Zen 3 lineup, as it fully utilizes AMD’s new Zen 3 architecture; maxing out the number of cores and L3 Cache that a CCX can hold, without having the need to communicate with a second CCX like the Ryzen 9 CPUs do. 

To determine which GPU will constitute the best choice for a new high-end gaming rig, let’s compare the two more expensive options AMD has announced; both in terms of specifications and benchmarks, as well as how well they fare against their Nvidia competition.

RX 6800 XT vs 6900 XT Comparison

	Radeon RX 6800 XT	Radeon RX 6900 XT
Design
Price	$649	$999
Processing Node	7 nm FinFET TSMC	7 nm FinFET TSMC
Transistor Count	26.8 Billion	26.8 Billion
Die Size	536 mm²	536 mm²
VRAM Storage	16 GB GDDR6	16 GB GDDR6
Memory Bandwidth	512 GB/s	512 GB/s
Pixel Rate	288 GP/s	288 GP/s
Shading Units	4608	5120
TMUs	288	320
ROPs	128	128
Compute Units	72	80
RT Cores	72	80
TDP	300 W	300 W
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

Specifications

Radeon RX 6800 XT

The Radeon RX 6800 XT comes with a Navi 21 XL GPU variant, which is built on a TSMC FinFET 7 nm processing node, and has 26.8 billion transistors on a 536 mm² die. It has a Base Clock speed of 1,487 MHz, a Gaming Clock (partial overclock) speed of 2,015 MHz, and an impressive 2,250 MHz Boost Clock frequency. With 4,608 shader units, 288 TMUs, 128 ROPs, 72 ray tracing cores, and 72 CUs, this GPU has a FP16, FP32, and FP64 processing power of 41.47 TFLOPs, 20.74 TFLOPs, and 1.296 TFLOPs respectively. Additionally, with the use of 128 MBs of AMD’s new Infinity Cache, the Radeon RX 6800 XT has a 256-bit memory bus capable of 512 GB/s bandwidth speeds, using 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM with a Memory Clock speed of 2,000 MHz (16 GB/s effective). Like its RTX Ampere 3080 counterpart, it has a 2.5-slot width, but only a 300 W TDP; which is 20 Watts lower than that of the RTX 3080. Finally, the RX 6800 XT will launch with an MSRP of $649 on November the 18^th, 2020.

Radeon RX 6900 XT

The high-end Radeon RX 6900 XT makes use of a Navi XTX GPU variant, which has the same processing node, transistor count, and die size of the Navi 21 XL GPU. It has comparable clocking frequencies, as it has a base clock speed of 1,429 MHz, and equal Game, Memory, and Boost clock speeds (2,015 MHz, 2,000 MHz and 2,250 MHz respectively). Its memory is also identical to that of the Radeon RX 6800 XT: 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, and 128 GB of L3 cache. In regards to rendering performance, its 5,120 Shader Units, 320 TMUs, 128 ROPs, 80 CUs and 80 RT cores are capable of 46.08 TFLOPs of FP16, 23.04 TFLOPs of FP32, and 1.440 TFLOPs of FP64 theoretical performance power. Despite being more powerful than the Radeon RX 6800 XT, this CPU has the same, 2.5-slot width, as well as the same, 300 W, TDP. The Radeon RX 6900 XT is set to release on December the 8^th, 2020, with an MSRP of $999. 

Specification Comparison

Though the GPUs are very similar – with an identical foundry, die size, VRAM, clock speeds, TDP and form factors – the Radeon RX 6900 XT still costs $350 more than the Radeon RX 6800 XT. The difference between the two GPUs lies solely in their rendering power. The Radeon RX 6900 XT has 512 more Stream Processors, 32 more TMUs, 8 more RT cores, and 8 more Computing Units. This translates to a discrepancy of computing power of 4.61 TFLOPs of FP16, 2.3 TFLOPs FP32, and 0.144 TFLOPs of FP64 theoretical performance. Still, for a price differential of $350, these differences do seem quite minor. But, before we come to that conclusion, let’s check what kind of performance differences these two GPUs exhibit in their benchmarks.

Benchmark Comparison

The tests that AMD has released are carried out in two resolutions: 1440p and 4K, using a Ryzen 9 5900X CPU, 16 GB of 3200 MHz (most likely CL 14) DDR4 RAM, a X570 motherboard, and Smart Access Memory enabled. At the 3840 x 2160 resolution, the RX Radeon 6900 XT leads the RX Radeon 6800 XT at framerates ranging from 5 FPS (The Division 2) to 12 FPS (Doom Eternal). When it comes to 1440p, it leads by anywhere between 2 FPS (Battlefield V) to 15 FPS (Wolfenstein Youngblood), while both GPUs trading blows with the Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3000 series counterparts.

Where the Radeon RX 6800 XT overshadows the competition, is the FPS per dollar ratio results, where it comes out first in the vast majority of comparisons. For the 10 gaming titles that AMD tested, in both 4K and 1440p, it is only outclassed twice: Battlefield V at 1440p by the Radeon 6800 (0.01 FPS per dollar difference), and The Division 2 at 4K, by the GeForce RTX 3080 (0.002 FPS per dollar difference). Other than that, the Radeon RX 6800 XT destroys the competition in all 18 other benchmarks. 

It is important to note, that there are titles where the Radeon RX 6800 XT actually outperforms Nvidia’s $1,500 flagship GeForce RTX 3090 (namely: Battlefield V, at 4K and 1440p, Borderlands 3, at 4K and 1440p, Forza Horizon, at 4k and 1440p, and Gears V, at 4K and 1440p), despite costing $850 less – which is crazy. Of course, the argument in favor of the GeForce RTX 3090 is that this GPU is not meant for gaming as much as it is for workstations; and AMD has not released any benchmarks for workstation applications. Therefore, we cannot tell how the Radeon RX 6800 XT and 6900 XT will fare against the RTX 3090 in this regard.

Verdict

When Nvidia launched their GeForce Ampere RTX 3090, on September the 24^th, consumers were well aware that this GPU was definitely not a cost-efficient graphics card. It was, in fact, apparent that the RTX 3090 is a workstation-optimized GPU, similar to the previous generation Nvidia RTX Titan. Still, within minutes of its release, the RTX 3090 sold out. Though we can blame Nvidia for their limited stock of the product, it still does not take away from the fact that the demand for this GPU is extremely high. 

Gamers have shown that they are willing to spend disproportionate (to value) amounts of money for the bragging rights of having “the most powerful” gaming build – which may be the reason why the Radeon RX 6900 XT is priced so high. If AMDs benchmarks are to be trusted, the RX 6900 XT performs on an equal level to the RTX 3090 in gaming benchmarks; leading in some titles and trailing in others. If you would like to build a PC that provides peak gaming performance, then the Radeon RX 6900 is the best choice for you, as it leads the RTX 3090 in most titles (that AMD tested) and costs $500 less. If you have any specific gaming titles that you would like to achieve a performance peak for, it would be best to wait for user-tested benchmarks of that specific game.

For professional e-Sport players, the best performing GPU will be an RTX Ampere 3000 Series graphics card, due solely to Nvidia Reflex, and Nvidia’s partnership with monitor manufacturers for the release of 1080p, 360 Hz, monitors. Because these monitors include the integrated Reflex Latency Analyzer hardware, and are optimized to reduce end-to-end input lag so drastically, it is difficult to recommend anything AMD has to offer – even with their Anti-Lag and Radeon boost features. 

These two exceptions aside, for every other PC builder (and vast majority of users) looking to make a high-end gaming setup, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is the superior GPU – no matter what the resolution you’ll be gaming in. It has high performance in 4K, 1440p, and, most likely, 1080p, at an excellent price. Not only is this GPU cheaper than the Nvidia RTX 3080, but it also outperforms it in almost every title AMD tested. Even without the use of Smart Access Memory, the Radeon RX 6800 XT is still the superior GPU to the RTX 3080, due to its cheaper price and superior energy efficiency. Also, since it is looking like game developers will be optimizing their games for an AMD interface (since both next generation consoles have RDNA 2 GPUs), this advantage may grow as new games release.

The differences between the Radeon RX 6800 XT and the RTX 3080 in FPS performance are minimal, and may ultimately be negligible, but the fact that AMD has managed to develop GPUs that rival Nvidia is an impressive feat; one that Nvidia will have to face despite their latest botched releases. Still, the fact that Nvidia now has a more serious rivalry with AMD is a great benefit to the consumer, since both companies are now forced to compete in developing the most powerful hardware possible, and sell them at more competitive prices. Currently, for this generation of GPUs, it appears that the Radeon RX 6800 XT will reign supreme, and is a force to be reckoned with for Nvidia and their future RTX 3000 Series GPU launches.

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