After Nvidia’s incredibly successful reveal of its RTX 3000 Series, many gamers were highly doubtful that AMD would be able to produce cards that could truly compete at the high-end of the gaming market. The company dropped hints that it was confident in its upcoming RDNA 2 powered Radeon RX 6000 Series, and following the official reveal gamers can see just why.
AMD has surprised almost everyone by making substantial gains, unveiling graphics cards that can not only compete with Nvidia’s new range, but can even beat them.
AMD announced three new graphics cards, each with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory. The top-end $999 RX 6900 XT with 80 Compute Units, a boost clock of 2250 MHz, and a game clock (meaning an average clock speed while gaming) of 2015 MHz. The high-end $649 RX 6800 XT with 72 Compute Units, a boost clock of 2250 MHz, and a game clock of 2015 MHz. Lastly, the $579 RX 6800 with 60 Compute Units, a boost clock of 2105 MHz, and a game clock of 1815 MHz.
The RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 will launch on November 18, while the RX6900 XT will launch on December 8.
AMD has made substantial gains in efficiency with RDNA 2, claiming a 65% increase in performance per watt over RDNA, which itself was a 50% increase over the previous GCN architecture. This has allowed it to get far better performance than gamers expected, using a comparatively huge GPU chip to enable its new cards to match or beat the equivalent Nvidia cards whilst using less power. The Big Navi nickname appears to have been very appropriate in terms of size, and the performance is unquestionably big too.
Yes. At least according to the information shared by AMD, which shows the cards’ raw performance beating the equivalent Nvidia cards. The RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 appear to do so without enabling AMD’s Rage Mode, which automatically overclocks the card, or the Smart Access Memory feature, more information on which is covered later.
The RX 6900 XT beat the RTX 3090 in five out of ten games at 4K – albeit using the Rage Mode and Smart Access Memory features, the RX 6800 XT beat the RTX 3080 in five out of ten games without the extra features, and the RX 6800 beat the RTX 2080 Ti in ten out of ten games without the extra features. AMD used the RTX 2080 Ti as an equivalent for the RTX 3070, as the latter card had not launched at the time of the presentation. The only real questions remaining are how AMD’s first generation ray tracing solution will compare to Nvidia’s second generation solution, and whether AMD will be able to produce a strong equivalent of Nvidia’s DLSS AI-based sampling system.
Based on the revealed launch pricing, the RX 6000 Series provides strong value compared to Nvidia’s RTX 3000 Series. According to AMD’s calculations, all three cards offer better performance per dollar than the Nvidia equivalents. In particular, the RX 6900 XT makes the RTX 3090 seem incredibly expensive, if AMD’s data is accurate, its flagship card offers better gaming performance at two-thirds of the price: $999 to $1499. This appears to be mainly down to memory costs, AMD has utilized existing GDDR6 memory and used its Infinity Cache system to boost the throughput significantly, whereas Nvidia has used newer but much more expensive GDDR6X memory.
For any gamer with the budget to afford one of the unveiled cards, they will provide great value. Gamers looking specifically to boost ray tracing performance may want to wait and see how AMD’s solution compares with Nvidia before deciding though.
According to AMD, the RX 6800 XT has the highest “frames per dollar” score of all AMD and Nvidia’s new cards, winning in nine out of ten games tested, with Nvidia’s RTX 3080 winning only in The Division 2. The RX 6800 came second in frames per dollar, behind only the RX 6800 XT in nine games, and third behind the RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT in The Division 2. It should be noted that these tests were combined with a Ryzen 5000 Series processor, which is important for reasons to be discussed below.
Gamers after maximum value from their graphics card should probably look at the RX 6800 XT, but any of AMD’s new cards offer great value compared to the previous generation hardware. Gamers and content creators who were considering paying $1499 for the RTX 3090 should absolutely consider the $999 RX 6900 XT. People with a lower budget will need to wait and see how the lower-tier ranges from AMD and Nvidia pan out.
While traditionally CPUs and graphics cards have been essentially separate purchases, AMD has looked to take advantage of the fact it manufactures both, introducing a feature known as Smart Access Memory. It allows the CPU to access the faster GDDR6 memory from the graphics card, which AMD claims can improve performance by up to 11% in some titles. It means that gamers who own a Ryzen 5000 Series CPU, and a 500 Series motherboard, will get extra performance from their RX 6000 Series graphics card than those with Intel or older AMD systems. If developers effectively optimize for this feature, the advantages could increase over the coming years, especially if AMD continues using it on future CPUs and graphics cards.
The high performance per dollar of both Ryzen 5000 Series and the RX 6000 Series make them strong buys individually, but with up to 11% extra performance to be gained by combining the two, any gamer looking at a new build should now at least consider a dual AMD system.
Yes. Nvidia has been playing close attention to the surprising leaks that preceded AMD’s reveal, and is raising its game to compete. Rumors suggest that Nvidia has scrapped its originally planned RTX 3070 Ti model, and will release a considerably beefed up version using the full GA102 GPU from the RTX 3080 and 3090. Likewise, rumors state that the company is preparing an RTX 3080 Ti, which will be almost as powerful as the RTX 3090. There is also the potential for Nvidia to reduce prices on the RTX 3000 Series where it feels that AMD has an advantage in performance per dollar, which is especially true for the $999 RX 6900 XT versus the $1499 RTX 3090.
The RDNA 2 / RX 6000 Series cards are almost certainly going to sell out within minutes of launch. AMD has suggested that it will have more stock than Nvidia did for the comparable RTX 3000 Series launches, which isn’t hard, but demand is likely to be huge given the stronger than expected performance and value propositions. Perhaps unusually, the decision between graphics card manufacturers for many gamers may end up being decided by who actually has stock available, especially given both the RX 6000 and RTX 3000 Series offer considerably better value performance than the previous generation graphics cards.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards launch starting November 18.
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