AMD Radeon RX 6800 vs 6800 XT vs 6900 XT- Which provides better value?

Nvidia released the RTX 3080 back in September 2020 in response to which, AMD released the RX 6800 XT in November to compete directly with the RTX 3080. At the same time, Nvidia also released its flagship GPU the RTX 3090, and AMD also came up with their flagship GPU the RX 6900 XT.

Now with so many options available in the market, a user might get confused about which one they should go for. Furthermore, if you are having an AMD processor then it will be in the best interest for you to select your GPU from these three the RX 6800 or the RX 6800 XT or the RX 6900 XT depending on the rest of your configuration. But you may have the question: “among which of these GPUs from AMD is best suited for high-end gaming for the price?”

Thus in this particular topic, we will uphold the key difference between these three GPUs and will also explain which one is best among them.

AMD Radeon RX 6800

The RX 6800 can be coined as a powerful GPU that is best suited for gaming scenarios at 1440p on the highest settings and a very capable GPU at 4K too. It is the smaller sibling of the RX 6800 XT that offers less in terms of specification when compared with that of the RX 6800 XT. The reference RX 6800 comes with a base clock of 1700 MHz along with a boost clock of 2105 MHz and a game clock of 1815 MHz.

The RX 6800 is priced at $579 making it cost $80 more than that of the RTX 3070 but it is $80 cheaper than its elder sibling the RX 6800 XT. The RX 6800 has been tuned down a bit slightly on compute cores, ray-tracing compute units (CUs), and max boost clock, which makes the RX 6800 a toned-down version of the RX 6800 XT. But at the same time, the TDP of the card is also lower which is roughly 50W less compared to the 6800 XT.

The Radeon RX 6800 is quite similar in terms of layout to that of the Radeon RX 6800 XT, offering up two DisplayPort 1.4b ports, one HDMI 2.1 output, and a single USB Type-C output for compatible monitors or VR headsets.
[box type=”shadow” align=”alignleft” class=”” width=”100%”]

AMD Radeon RX 6800

AMD RX 6800 XT

Released at the same time as that of the RX 6800, the RX 6800 XT is the elder one that means it comes with higher specification when compared with the RX 6800 and is also said to provide better performance than the RX 6800.

Looking at the spec we can clearly see that the RX 6800 XT should be capable of running any games with max graphics settings at 1440p with steady FPS and it will also be able to perform at 4k with high settings as well. Games like Horizon Zero Dawn, RDR2 and Metro Exodus easily run with 100+fps on max settings at 1440p which is insane¹⁾https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z21CPnd0ib8. Moreover, a good thing is that it is priced at around $650 which is $50 cheaper than the RTX 3080 which is the sole targeted competitor of the RX 6800 XT.

The RX 6800 XT’s 72 CUs contain 4,608 stream processors in total along with a Base Clock of 1825 MHz and offers a boost clock of 4608 MHz. In terms of performance, the RX 6800 XT is capable of running all games at ultra graphics settings at 1440p resolution and is ahead when compared directly with Nvidia’s RTX 3080. When it comes to 4K the RX 6800 XT is capable of performing quite well.

Related:- RX 6800 XT vs RTX 3080

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT

RX 6900 XT

The RX 6900 XT is said to be the flagship from AMD and is supposed to compete directly against the RTX 3090. In terms of specification, the reference edition comes with a base clock frequency of 1825 MHz along with a game clock of 2015 MHz and a boost clock of 2250 MHz. It is equipped with 5120 shading units and also comes with 80 Ray accelerators. A more detailed specification is as follow-

Looking at the specification, it is clear that this card is promised to perform, however, we are not able to get it tested due to the unavailability of the card. However, we have seen other reviewers who have reviewed the card and from those reviews, it is quite clear that this card is capable of performing quite well on 4K.

Compared to the RTX 3090, it is almost equivalent to it in gaming performance and provides way over 60 fps in almost every game and surpasses 100 fps in many games on the highest settings²⁾https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAMFf3y0G54. It’s a great competitor to the 3090 for almost $500 less but the only problem right now is its availability.
[box type=”shadow” align=”alignleft” class=”” width=”100%”]

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT

Comparison

All three cards come with the latest technology from AMD and are built on 7nm architecture. They are equipped with:

Infinity Cache: It is a high-performance, last-level data cache suitable for 4K and 1440p gaming with the highest level of detail enabled which has 128 MB of on-die cache that can dramatically reduce latency and power consumption and is capable of delivering higher overall gaming performance.

Smart Access Memory: It is an exclusive feature of systems with AMD Ryzen 5000 Series processors, AMD B550 and X570 motherboards, and Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards. It gives AMD Ryzen processors greater access to the high-speed GDDR6 graphics memory that accelerates the CPU processing and provides up to a 13% performance increase on AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Direct Storage: It is future support for the DirectStorage API that enables lightning-fast load times and high-quality textures by eliminating storage API-related bottlenecks and limiting CPU involvement.

If you are looking for a use case scenario at 1440p resolution then the RX 6800 is going to be the best option for you to choose from. And if you are looking for 1440p as well as 4K gaming scenarios then the RX 6800 XT is the best option that you should opt for. However, the RX 6900 XT is a top-notch performer but the price vs performance benefit of the RX 6900  XT is not quite beneficial. One will be able to get a somewhat similar performance from the RX 6800 XT. If you are surplus of budget then only considering the RX 6900 XT is a valid reason for you.

Conclusion

All three cards are offering all the latest technologies but the user choice should depend on the resolution they are looking to use these cards with. If you are already using the Ryzen 5000 processors from AMD, then having either RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT would be the perfect companion to work with as the Smart Access Memory does increase the performance noticeably.

But do keep one thing in your mind, the RX 6000 series are the first from AMD that are coming with support for Ray tracing and Nvidia has been in the Ray tracing segment for quite a long period of time which has resulted in more fine-tuned Ray tracing performance. Hence if Ray tracing isn’t your point of concern then you can go for the RX 6000 series card as we have suggested above else you should be opting for Nvidia.