Independent tests of Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT: AMD successfully returned to the top segment of gaming graphics cards

Yesterday AMD lifted the embargo on the publication of reviews of new Radeon RX 6800/6800 XT video cards, and our colleagues at TechPowerUp were among the first to publish their research on new products:

In its promotional materials, AMD positions the Radeon RX 6800 video card as a competitor to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, and the Radeon RX 6800 XT as a cheaper analog of the GeForce RTX 3080. And looking ahead, the “red” giant practically did not dissemble in the advertising campaign of the RDNA2 architecture: it really worked out wonderfully well.

The following components were used as a TechPowerUp test setup: Intel Core i9-9900K processor overclocked to 5000MHz, 16GB of DDR4 Thermaltake TOUGHRAM RAM with overclocking up to 4000MHz and 19-23-23-42 timings, as well as Crucial MX500 2 TB SSD.

Testing was carried out in the following games with maximum graphics settings:

• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
• Battlefield V
• Borderlands 3
• Civilization VI
• Control
• Death Stranding
• Detroit Become Human
• Devil May Cry 5
• Divinity Original Sin II
• DOOM Eternal
• F1 2020
• Far Cry 5
• Gears 5
• Hitman 2
• Metro Exodus
• Project Cars 3
• Red Dead Redemption 2
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order
• Strange Brigade
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

So, looking at the average score obtained in 22 games, it is noticeable that the RX 6800 outperformed both the RTX 3070 and RTX 2080Ti, and quite decently. This difference can in no way be attributed to an error. Plus, NVIDIA graphics cards have been on the market for a little longer and have already received some fixes and optimizations in new drivers, while AMD software is not yet fully ready for the RX 6000 line, and in the future, the RX 6800 gap from the RTX 3070 increase. In addition, there have been rumors for quite some time about NVIDIA’s intentions to release a more powerful RTX 3070 Ti (SUPER?) Card.

Now let’s talk about the performance of the RX 6800 XT:

And here, everything is far from being as unambiguous as with the usual RX 6800. AMD’s top adapter (albeit not for long, in light of the upcoming RX 6900 XT), was unable to snatch victory from the RTX 3080, although it was close enough to do so. However, by no means can we say that the RX 6800 XT has completely blundered. It shows an excellent level of performance and, moreover, is priced less than the same RTX 3080.

For more detailed tests of the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, we suggest you jump over to the original TechPowerUp material.

Performance with ray tracing enabled:

But with the activation of the ray tracing technology, the new cards from AMD have a very noticeable performance drop. However, our colleagues from TechPowerUp tested only games from NVIDIA partners: Control and Metro. In other projects like Watch_Dogs Legion, there is no such noticeable decrease in performance and lag behind competing cards.

And finally, a few words about the power consumption of the latest AMD cards:

Probably, it is quite difficult to believe in this, especially after the very gluttonous Radeon Vega and Radeon R9 390/290, but the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT turned out to be the most economical video cards (for this level of performance): the consumption of the RX 6800 in game mode is limited to 215 watts, and her big sister doesn’t go beyond 285 watts! Against the backdrop of 242 watts RTX 3070 and “crazy” 348 watts RTX 3080, these are amazing results!

Well, after such serious performance and economic indicators, there is practically no doubt that the upcoming truly top-end Radeon RX 6900 XT video card is quite capable of competing and possibly surpassing the GeForce RTX 3090 sitting alone on Olympus.