AMD Radeon RX 6800 review
The AMD Radeon RX 6800 is a little more expensive alternative to the GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition from Nvidia. It has the same issues with performance consistency as the flagship AMD card we tested beside it. The card might be a terrific addition if AMD can work out the problems with future firmware upgrades. Early adopters, on the other hand, might wish to keep their wallets in their pockets until then.
Features and chipset:
The PS5 and Xbox One use the same graphics technology as the AMD Radeon RX 6800. This implies little to nothing for now, but it could have an impact on PC game optimization in the future. AMD has been working hard to improve efficiency, and they’ve succeeded to increase frequency by a significant amount. In Metro Exodus, the card is much slower than its Nvidia counterpart, the RTX 3070, in terms of raw ray tracing performance with Ray Tracing on and DLSS off (Deep Learning Super Sampling) switched on.
In some games, Rage Mode and Smart Access Memory can improve performance by up to 10% and provide you access to pre-mapped memory rather than merely pre-mapped memory. You won’t be able to use AMD’s new features on the RX 6800 unless you have a UEFI-compatible installation. You’ll need to upgrade your BIOS first, then go in and fix the problem.
Design:
Instead of the blower that plagued prior cards, the business has gone with a sturdy triple-fan shroud design this time. Two DisplayPort, one HDMI 2.1, and one USB-C connection cover about every form of display output you’ll need in 2020.
Thermals:
The AMD RX 6800 has a consistent OC profile of 2,550MHz, which is a little more than a 20% bump in clock speed. Depending on the game being tested, this equated to roughly 10% better performance in actual benchmarks. The card reached a peak temperature of 77 degrees C after a 10-minute stress test in 3DMark Port Royal. This is only a few degrees cooler than the GTX 1080 Ti, which reached a scorching 81 degrees Fahrenheit.
Performance:
The AMD Radeon RX 6800 outperforms the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 across the board when it comes to classic rasterization performance. In DirectX 11 titles like Far Cry 5 and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the disparity rises dramatically. There’s little doubt that if you’re looking for a graphics card that can produce better framerates under conventional workloads, this is the best option. AMD has re-entered the high-end GPU market with Big Navi. The AMD Radeon RX 6800 is more than capable of delivering a smooth 4K 60 frames per second experience.
Ray tracing exists, and it works, but without DLSS and driver maturation, you’ll have to look elsewhere for a better ray-tracing experience. Windows 11 is still plagued by a bug that causes some NVMe SSDs to operate more than 50% slower, and Microsoft has yet to solve it. Apple’s decision to use Intel in Macs and MacBooks may have been the smartest decision it’s ever made.
Pros:
- Overclocking ceiling is quite high.
- With cooler temps than the Radeon RX 6800 XT, there is a slew of additional options to try out.
Cons:
- With AAA heritage games, we’ve had mixed outcomes.
- Limited ray-tracing support compared to Nvidia competition.
Conclusion:
While AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 performs admirably in some testing, its inconsistent performance in others makes it a challenging Day One graphics-card recommendation when compared to Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3070.
Read Also
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Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Founder Edition Review
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Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 Founder Edition Review
