AMD has just now officially announced their next generation of Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards based on the RDNA2 architecture during the Where Gaming Begins Episode 2 event.
Flagship RX 6800 XT delivers RTX 3080 performance for $649 and available November 18th
We'll be updating this article as more information is revealed...
AMD officially revealed the Radeon RX 6000 series of GPUs which includes the flagship RX 6800 XT, the RX 6800, as well as the enthusiast RX 6900 XT. Let's take a look at the official specs for each Radeon RX 6000 graphics card...
Radeon RX 6000 GPU lineup and official specs:
| Card | Game Clock | Boost Clock | Compute Units | Infinity Cache | Memory | TBP | Price | Launch Date |
| RX 6900 XT | 2015MHz | 2250Mhz | 80 | 128MB | 16GB GDDR6 | 300W | $999 | December 8th |
| RX 6800 XT | 72 | $649 | November 18th | |||||
| RX 6800 | 1815Mhz | 2105Mhz | 60 | 250W | $579 |
Of course, whilst we got all the official specs out the way, one thing that will be of most interest to everyone will be how they perform, and if they are indeed able to compete against Nvidia's RTX 30 series.
But before we jump straight into those performance figures, AMD also announced some interesting new technologies that can help further increase performance on these RX 6000 GPUs by combing a new "Rage Mode" and "Smart Access Memory". Some of these benchmark results below were also conducted using these technologies, so its worth briefly skimming over to understand them.
AMD Rage Mode
AMD's Rage Mode is a new feature built into the Radeon software package. Essentially, it's a one click overclocking button that automatically takes advantage of the extra overclocking headroom that is built into the GPU itself in order to deliver every bit of performance it has left to offer.
AMD Smart Access Memory
The second of these technologies is the AMD Smart Access Memory, which is only possible thanks to AMD being able to supply both high-end processors like the new Ryzen 5000 series, as well as GPUs like the new Radeon RX 6000 series.
Pairing both a Ryzen 5000 processor and a Radeon RX 6000 graphics card will unlock a greater amount of high speed memory. To enable it, you will need to pair both of these devices on a 500 series motherboard and enable the setting from the BIOS, from there the performance uplift becomes automatic.
Enabling both Smart Access Memory and Rage Mode on an RX 6800 XT and Ryzen 5000 CPU can see anywhere between 2% up to 13% performance increase, just for having an all-AMD rig.
Interestingly, and importantly, this is all before any games developers are able to begin optimizing for this new capability. So it's likely we'll see even greater performance boosts from this technology in the future.
Radeon RX 6800 XT performance
First up we have the flagship Radeon RX 6800 XT which was the first GPU to be revealed by AMD. Fortunately, AMD gave us some actual FPS numbers, and not just that, but they cheekily compared the RX 6800 XT to the RTX 3080, which seems to be the Nvidia equivalent for this specific card.
As you can see in the benchmarks below it comes very close to the RTX 3080, but ultimately shows a lot of performance at 4K gaming without the use of any upscaling techniques or AMD's Smart Access technology.
Radeon RX 6800 performance
The next GPU to be revealed by AMD was the RX 6800, a slightly cut down version of the RX 6800 XT but still delivering some great 4K performance. Again, AMD compared this card to one of Nvidia's own RTX 20 series GPUs, the RTX 2080 Ti, delivering even more performance than Nvidia's top end card of the last generation.
Interestingly, these benchmarks show that the RX 6800 was using the new Smart Access Memory technology, so its clear the RX 6800 is just on the cusp of 4K 60fps gaming, but not quite unless you pair it with a Ryzen 5000 CPU.
Ultimately, the RX 6800 is best suited for 1440p gaming it seems if you want over 60fps. Again, the benchmarks here were using the Smart Access Memory technology, but even then regularly achieves more than 100fps across all the titles shown.
This makes the RX 6800 kind of an awkward middle child that's not quite there for 4K60fps but also overachieves at 1440p gaming. Nevertheless, it looks like a pretty solid card for a decent price.
Radeon RX 6900 XT performance
Finally, we have the enthusiast RX 6900 XT, which seems to be a competitor to the RTX 3090 for $500 less. Looking at the specs, it seems to be a slightly beefed up version of the RX 6800 XT with more Compute Units on offer, whereas all the other specs stay the same. It's interesting then that it costs almost $300 more than the RX 6800 XT, but performance does seem to math the RTX 3090 pretty spot on.
Again though, these results were achieved using AMD's Smart Access Memory technology as well as their proprietary "Rage Mode" which automatically overclocks the GPU.
It's still impressive for $500 less than the competition mind you, but when performance is not much higher than the RX 6800 XT and doesn't include a load of VRAM like the RTX 3090, I'm unconvinced as to why you'd spend nearly $300 more than the one below. If you guys have any ideas do let us know!
Unfortunately, AMD didn't supply any ray tracing specific benchmarks, and it's all well and great to see some awesome 4K gaming performance coming from these new GPUs, but if they're anything like the leaked benchmarks from a while ago, we could see some slightly worse performance for ray tracing compared to the RTX 30 series.
I think what's the most amazing here is that this performance is all achieved whilst still requiring less power than Nvidia's competition. Which just makes you think as to what kind of performance AMD could achieve with some extra juice to spare...
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Just as an interesting comparison, here are the specs for the previous-gen Radeon RX 5000 series and how it compares to the new RDNA2 architecture.
Radeon RX 5000 specs comparison:
| Card | Base Clock | Boost Clock | Compute Units | Stream Processors | Memory Type | Memory | TBP | Price |
| RX 5700 XT | 1605MHz | 1905MHz | 40 | 2560 | GDDR6 | 8 | 225W | $399 |
| RX 5700 XT | 1465MHz | 1725MHz | 36 | 2304 | GDDR6 | 8 | 180W | $349 |
| RX 5600 XT | 1130MHz | 1560MHz | 36 | 2304 | GDDR6 | 6 | 150W | $279 |
| RX 5600 | 1130Mhz | 1560MHz | 32 | 2048 | GDDR6 | 6 | 150W | - |
| RX 5300 XT | 1670MHz | 1845MHz | 22 | 1408 | GDDR6 | 4 | 100W | - |
| RX 5300 | 1448Mhz | 1645Mhz | 22 | 1408 | GDDR6 | 3 | 100W | - |
What do you think? Are you excited for the Radeon RX 6000 series? How do you feel about the specs and performance? And what do you think of the price? If you weren't able to get an Nvidia RTX 30 GPU, will you be switching to AMD now? Let us know!
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The prices are ridiculous.The RTX 3070 is my country is 1000 $.Few years back the price for tier x70 was 400$.The PS5 is 500$.
Why would i pay 1000 $ on a single component just so after to be greeted with unoptimized shi*e like Watch Dogs
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Mate, it's up to the retailers that you buy from to set the prices. As PC components are a bit more of a free field than consoles that are shown literally everywhere, the price gouging can be pretty loose. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Second hand is an option if you know how to get your way around it. As for Watch Dogs . . . Ubisoft is not exactly known for it's great performing games on PC, there are a ton of other titles, mind you not the same gameplay. You can't and really shouldn't base your purchase off of a single game.
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The latest pc games i tried were an unoptimised mess: Flight Simulator, Death Stranding, Watch Dogs Legion. Assassins Valhalla, Far Cry 6 will probably be the same.
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I bet RTX 3070 will not sell bellow 800$ in my country even after the supply gets better.
Who says i don't afford it? I just can't get myself to be fooled in buying overpriced things.
Plus games are getting kind of bad lately.
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Ok first of all, why don't you play some well optimized games? I am definitely not keeping up with how well the new games are optimized, since im either just playing them without paying attention, other than keeping my frames over 60, or i just don't play them at all. As for pricing, i can't tell you anything about that. If the retailers have decided to screw you over, that's how it's going to be, the market is bad in alot of places.
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Nvidia rised the msrp of tier 70 and 60 from 300 $ and 200$ to 500$ and 340$.I tried Red Dead Redemption(1080p low) but run like crap 25 fps.Stuttering and hitching. Crysis Remastered -30 FPS(1080p low). Bad optimised also.
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Played God of War, Uncharted and Last of us Remastered on 4k rez on my 4k tv and ps4 pro. No stuttering mess. Looked good. Awsome games. Don't even compare with i play on my pc in either looks, gameplay or quality.
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What optimised titles? Everything i play its not optimised. :)))
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RTX3070 for 1.000$ or even 800$ is messed up.
Especially for Romania (no offense intended) because I expected things to be a bit cheaper over there.
In Belgium I can order an RTX3070 for as little as €600.
And that's from a reputable store, not some back alley vendor.
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Is Death Stranding really that unoptimised?
That surprises me.
Couldn't it be just your specs?
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Had to fiddle with Nvidia Control- mess with anisotropic filtering from it. Had to put memory streaming on default. Problems with texture loading. Couldn't move on in a main mission because textures were not loading and could not see.
the gtx 1080 for 700$ is the biggest rip-off ever.
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that's not unoptimized. that is a lack of VRAM. its minimum is 3gb for a reason. texturing loading issues perfectly describes the problem, that happens in that situation. paging to the mechanical drive is going to make the situation worse. the same gpu with twice the VRAM would make huge amounts of difference.
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the last time we were talking about the entry into a new high resolution (4k) was during the 290x/780ti days ($550/$700). now we are looking into entry level 8k. amd has undercut the current nvidia top gpu again and we are screaming about the price. $1500 for an entry level 8k gpu being undercut by a $1000 gpu. no reason to be upset about prices at that point.
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Well it seems like we have entered the proper competition this year. Intel is struggling with it's high heat, high power guzzling CPUs with new sockets to keep themselves up there in both pricing and performance.
Nvidia comes out with a proper generational improvement over it's last gen, which was a somewhat marginal improvement over the 10 series.
And finally AMD comes in swinging, ready to face both of them at the same time.
So aside from the complaints of the few who like the age old prices, all of these products are going to be bought regardless.
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People disappointed by these prices need a reality check. What were you hoping for? 3090 performance for 500$? You guys need to stop these ridiculous fantasies. AMD is a company just like Intel and Nvidia. If they have a product that matches Nvidia's offering in performance, there is no reason for them to sell it at several hundred dollars less. Grow up
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I think people who aren't disappointed in the pricing need a reality check. We can argue all day about who or what is responsible for this horrendous GPU pricing, be it AMD, be it Nvidia, be it TSMC, be it Sony, be it low yields, or be it Covid-19, but the facts are, we are most definitely getting screwed. In 2014 a mid range card would have cost you $330(GTX 970, R9 390), a high end card $550(GTX 980, R9 Fury), and a flagship $650(GTX 980 TI). Compare that with the price of same tier cards now.
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It would be one thing if the generational performance gains were insanely better, but they're NOT, they've been rather stagnant, if not even LOWER.... and yet we continue paying these higher prices for the same or LESS performance improvement every year, and even have people lauding it as "a good deal"...... if that's not the definition of insanity, I don't know what is! I know prices go up, inflation and all that, but the fact that they've nearly DOUBLED in 6 years and people are OK with that?
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Correction I meant Samsung, not Sony, lol I have no idea why I was thinking Sony.
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AMD's increase for their high-end gpu is a larger push since vega 64, R7 or 5700xt was what they had. their last gpu that actually fought at the top was really fury x and so by that account, 6800xt is doing it right. its trading blows with its competition but this time undercutting it in price.
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you could even say that 6900xt is this generation's 290x since its trading blows with Nvidia's top GPU while undercutting its price. counting it that way, then the 6900xt is a f**king bargain. 290x was 79% of the 780ti price while trading blows and 6900xt is 67% of the price of the RTX 3090.
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Maybe it is a bargain RELATIVE to what Nvidia is currently putting out, then again it could be argued that with the 6900XT you're paying a $350 premium for 8 more compute units and nothing more, meanwhile there's a 12CU AND 200Mhz clock difference between the 6800 and 6800XT for $70..... where then is the justification for the $350 premium of the 6900XT?
The point is OVERALL agnostic of AMD or Nvidia, you're getting LESS gain for MORE money over previous gens!
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let me know the performance difference of a 6900xt vs a 5700xt and then we can go from there. with the 5700xt release price of $400 means if we get a 60% increase in performance, then it's the same price/performance ratio and right in line with the previous gen.
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Also It seems everyone wants to miss the point..... the 290X release price was $549, the 6900XT release price is $999...... DOUBLE, and you still refuse to see that in such a short amount of time GPU pricing has COMPLETELY gotten out of hand! $500+ for a MID RANGE card today?!?! People who build MID RANGE systems don't have the budget for a $500 card! And yet you're all calling these pricing trends "bargains"?!?!
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The 5700XT is a MID RANGE card........ it was released to compete with the 2070..... NOT the 2080TI...... your comparison makes zero sense!
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And just for clarification I've felt the SAME way about the previous gen, the prices have been skyrocketing over the last few generations and NONE of us should be ok with that! While people who buy flagships might treat money as if it is no object and that it grows on trees..... where does that leave people who buy mid range or lower and who are trying to work within a smaller budget? Mid range budgets are relegated to the low end, and low end budgets are just squeezed out entirely!
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How long until a $1000 PC build gets you a great CPU, good RAM, mobo, SSD, PSU, and case but that generations equivalent of a GT 710 for a GPU? From the looks of it NOT LONG by the way prices are going!
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exactly....amd hasnt had a top range card since fury x so your comments about its price increase for performance is irrelevant. its performance increase for the price is insane.
inflation and fab costs increase is part of the reason. if you haven't figured that into your cost analysis, then you are wrong.
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I feel like you haven't read a single word I said, so I'm not even going to bother arguing any further.
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Agreed to everything. Crypto only made it easier for Nvidia to price the RTX series so high because in comparison to how high the prices got during it's peak, the RTX series below the 2080 Ti actually looked like a good deal on the surface.
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Crypto was horrible for Nvidia. The last time AMD had a gpu up to or over $1000 was the 295x2 ($1500). Fury x released at $650. 6900xt compared to the 6800xt on a computer unit scale is irrelevant because that isn't comparing actual performance. Comparing it to the previous gen is what you said - "you're getting LESS gain for MORE money over previous gens!"
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So you can cry all you want about me "not reading what you said" but you can't even stick to what you said which is comparing the top gpu to the previous gen top gpu which is a performance/price ratio of the 5700xt vs 6900xt.
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RADEON IS BACK BABY!
Now waiting to see how well their up-sampling solution be like. I hear its faster but slightly inferior in quality than DLSS, I wonder if FidelityFx would help
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Red Dead Redemption 2 must be on those charts! its a GPU bound game so it'll tell us exactly how far the gpu's can go.
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aye cant wait for Digital Foundry to drop their full review, Red Dead 2, Crysis3, AC Unity, Heck even some Ray Tracing Games if possible
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Yeeeess. I have been waiting to upgrade my gpu for awhile so I can play rdr2 at highest settings. Right now it struggles
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AMD hasn't had a top pushing card truly since fury x and even then it was less performance more often than not. that last single gpu from amd that fought at the top really was the 290/290x and they undercut nvidia by a lot. on its scale, amd has undercut nvidia and and the only thing nvidia can do is release their ti/super cards.
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Nvidia couldn't compete at a lower tgp or tdp. to drop those would mean their performance would drop off the chart in comparison. these are a great price for competition. the price of this fab has proven to cost more and the price increase shows it. I'm okay with all of this and will be avoiding the launch craziness and will pick up a 6900xt when the market has calmed down.
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I must say im disappointed. For one I thought AMD would be the cost leader vs 3080 but that was not be. Secondly, there's nothing here about RTX benchmarks and Nvidia has had years to perfect RT on their GPU's. Thirdly, pair it up with AMD 3rd gen CPU's to get the best possible performance? Come on man
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More VRAM, slightly better performance, and significantly better performance to watt ratio, and $50 cheaper to boot. I could live with lower Ray tracing performance for better raster performance. Also judging by history, AMD cards tend to improve significantly against their Nvidia equivalent over time.
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Slightly better performance? They compare OC to stock cards!
It's 10 percent boost to begin with, if we're being generous to AMD. And Smart Memory Access too, so anyone who does not own a Ryzen 5000 series it's another minus 10%.
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U sound like a madman calm ur tits noone is being forced to buy a specific product its there to chose and all I can say rx6800 xt is damn sexy card for the price and nothing else
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First of all, there were no * for the 6800XT, the 6800 was using rage mode and the 6900XT was using both rage mode and the memory thing. Secondly they have never said these cards were overclocked, if they were that would be their boost frequencies, which Nvidia also has. Finally, the performance increase with both a Ryzen 5000 series CPU for the memory acceleration and Rage mode don't even average 10%. Im only correcting your statements that don't add up to what AMD has said.
All in all the reviews will be coming and that's where we should be looking
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Guess you are saying AMD is a bunch of liars then?
They clearly showed SMA itself is 5-11 percent boost. Rage Mode similar if not more.
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By mid 2022 6800XT will probably outperform the 3090.
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Looks interesting, but so does price increase. I will have to consider and see independent reviews to see if 6800 is worth paying extra opposing to waiting for RTX3070 supply to catch up. I am in no hurry to buy anyway. But Radeon does look interesting,I just want to see more that it can do to justify spending extra.But for now,it seems like beside performance,AMD also matched pricing with nVidia.
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concept of optimized improved performance when using both AMD CPU and GPU is something promising,
I can imagine building an all-AMD rig next time if it proves viable
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Same, I've always loved the idea of a full AMD build. But now it seems possible to have that and not sacrifice performance.
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I'm curious if AMD is planning some sneaky tricks to provide console-only tech on PC platform, like (V)RAM sharing across the system, afterall new consoles are powered by AMD :)
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Well the new CPUs will be offering access to the high speed GDDR6 VRAM, so i guess we're going to be seeing some interesting things.
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Should prove a compelling reason to switch to AMD for the next upgrade.
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indeed, I'm waiting for actual benchmarks in games
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well now its all clear nvidia didnt lower the price caring for the consumer but they saw it comming from amd thats why.. witch is the logical explanation for such a huge price downlift over the 2000 series
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should wait more when my card gets obsolete. Maybe then there will be something worthwhile around 200 price point. These cards are just way too out of my league.
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meh
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^ this entire GPU generation so far.
Compared to the last 2 generations this is the first decent generation.
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Gonna have to disagree with you on that...... though I will grant you that the previous 2 generations sucked as well(except in the mid range with Pascal/Polaris which actually was pretty nice)...... but calling skyrocketing prices "decent"..... nope.
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The 10 series was a realy good bump in performance, this i why people is still using those cards even after 4 years, because 10 seriers are still decent for 1080p gaming, being the 1070/1080 the sweet spot for ultra , 1080p 60 fps
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@Manumunguia I'd still be perfectly comfortable with my RX 480 which I bought in 2016 for $200...... it's still good for high settings 1080P/60.... now THAT is value...... I see nothing here in this gen that comes even close!
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@Manumunguia I totally agree- I just built my Rig almost a month ago and was able to score a 1070 SC for $200, great card and havent ran into any problems w/ it. Ultra on all my favorite games, RDR2, Witcher 3, FallOut 4 w/ a **** ton of mods, FallOut 76 is a little jaggy at times but that might be more of my internet
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Hmm its nice but nothing groundbreaking. Notice that AMD enabled SAM and RAGE modes for few comparisons which combined nets around 8-10% performance improvement. Also notice how little if any they talked about ray tracing and dlss equivalent. And there is availability and drivers which are going to be really important. Definitely "bait for wenchmarks" before drawing any conclusions.
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Yeah it is the drivers im worried about
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Rage Mode is probably 10 percent increase on its own if I only judge from my usual (not over the top) overclocking performances. Turns out that they are weaker than nvidia. That considered, 6800XT is priced very aggressively.
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I've read its only couple of percent, but SAM mode adds bulk of performance gain. SAM mode is kinda nice but using that feature that is only available on new zen 3+b500 series motherboard and that zen 3 is not even available yet... meh
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Kindof as expected...... I'm definitely not blown away, and am highly disappointed even with the pricing of the 6800 which SHOULD have been the clear winner of the entire bunch, but ends up being the worst.... I guess if you are interested in 4K it would be better than a 3070 considering double the VRAM, but for everyone else, that extra VRAM isn't going to do much so the $80 premium over the 3070 makes zero sense, and in the mid range price bracket it NEEDS to make sense!
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To me, this is yet another GPU generation better off just skipped..... neither AMD or Nvidia are giving you any value here, they both expect you to pay exorbitant prices for paltry generational gains, and people keep paying it, so they keep doing it, and with each generation the overpricing gets worse and worse.
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This has always been the case, but this gen seems better than previous gen (cunsidering generational power bump)
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It's really more the pricing I take issue with...... like I mean, essentially there is no mid range anymore...... $500-$580 for a "mid range" card? WTF.
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Maybe mid range will come next year, probably due covid, but those will come eventually
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No, because they keep pricing people who normally buy mid range out of the market..... people who used to buy mid range are now spending the same money or MORE to buy LOW END cards....... that's what I mean when I say the mid range is disappearing.... and I DON'T see it getting better, it's only getting WORSE.
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Judging by the numbers I'll probably end up getting a RTX 3700 rather than the RX6800 as it's cheaper for what should be roughly the same performance. Won't know for sure until benchmarks compare the two, since AMD and Nvidia can currently only provide numbers based on the 2080Ti performance difference.
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I mean I guess the top end 6900 XT is impressive in comparison to the 3090. The 6800 XT is a hard sell no? Only $50 cheaper to trade blows with the 3080, but will almost definitely perform worse in ray tracing and lacks a DLSS equivalent. Craving some actual mid range announcements from both teams honestly.
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Forgot about the VRAM, that might help for the people who didn't like the 10gb of the 3080.
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Honestly is til think nvidia will release a 20 and 16 gb version of 3080 and 3070 next year, only a matter of time
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Do you mean the cards that came up that have already been killed?
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Is RX 6800 non x gonna be a nice upgrade over my 2060 super for 1080p gaming?
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dude.... no, for the price they're asking the ONLY people who should consider the 6800 are people with 4K monitors, in which case it will have a bit of future proofing over the 3070 due to double the VRAM....... for everyone else, the 3070 is probably a better buy, and IMO an overpriced one at that, there's little to nothing here in this generation for a mid range gamer to be excited about..... wait it out till next gen, your card is fine.
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No, that thing is still really good for 1080p ultra settings at 60 fps with some medium raytracing ofc, wait for next gen or go for the 6800 xt if you realy want an improvement, or wait for 3080 20 gb but again that 2060 super you have is decent for 1080p gaming
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Can't wait until Nvidia enters the PC CPU market whether it's ARM or X86.
The upcoming years will be exciting. Thanks AMD for the continuous competition since Ryzen.
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They didn't show anything related to ray tracing and AI upscaling can't choose AMD without knowing how they perform in those department.
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They did not show that for a reason... probably due driver issues making the amd gpus to perfom worse in raytraced titles
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I think amd said to gamers nexus or hardware unboxed, cant remember, that currently there are no games that are ported to amd ray tracing solution but they will have few games supported when cards will be sold. As for performance i would say they will perform worse just of weaker ray tracing hardware probably not because drivers.