On Wednesday evening AMD showed off its all new RDNA 2 powered RX 6000 GPUs and given what we saw, we suspect a few folks will be seriously considering an all Team Red PC.
Much like Nvidia, AMD showed off three new GPUs namely the Radeon RX 6900 XT, Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800.
The GPUs are still using a 7nm process technology but AMD has made several improvements to the architecture of RDNA 2.
The most interesting feature for us is the AMD Infinity Cache. This is last-level, on-die cache that clocks in at 128MB which AMD claims will reduce latency and improve performance in 4K and 1440p gaming.
Another notable feature is AMD Smart Access Memory. Here you will need to have an AMD B550 or X570 motherboard and if you do you will benefit from accelerated CPU processing.
But what about raytracing and a competitor to DLSS?
AMD says its new RX 6000 GPUs will support DirectX Raytracing (DXR) and AMD FidelityFX which means “developers can combine rasterised and ray-traced effects to ensure an optimal combination of image quality and performance”.
As for a competitor for DLSS, well that is an unknown as of right now. AMD did mention something called Super Resolution during its presentation but it was just a mention. This one instance gives us pause as AMD’s performance might not be comparable as it showed us last night with DXR and Super Resolution enabled. That’s going to be something to look for in reviews.
But let’s look at the physical cards now.
All RX 6000 GPUs will ship with 16GB of GDDR6 that runs at 16Gbps with a bandwidth of 256-bit.
Each GPU will need a regular 8-pin PCIe power connector and the cards have a total board power of 300W (the smaller RX 6800 has a TBP of just 250W) so we’re hoping there’s a lot of headroom for overclock there.
Not that you’re likely to need it though.
Despite it’s lower power draw, AMD is competing with Nvidia insofar as the speed of RDNA 2.
The beefy RX 6900 XT and its little sibling the RX 6800 XT each boast a base clock speed of 2015MHz and a boost speed of 2250MHz. And despite its smaller size, the RX 6800 has a base clock of 1815MHz though it boosts to an incredible 2105MHz.
All of this means that AMD is actually performing on par with Nvidia though in some instances AMD wins out.
What AMD didn’t show us, however, was how these GPUs performed when you chuck a bit of rendering or CAD work at them. With that having been said though, these cards are aimed at gamers who want to use them for gaming.
As for availability, both the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT will launch on 18th November for $579 and $649 respectively.
The Radeon RX 6900 XT is expected to be available from 8th December for $999.
Add-in-board partners including ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE and XFX will also be launching their iterations of the RX 6000 series in November as well.
You can compare all three cards in the table below.
[su_table responsive=”yes”]
MODEL | AMD RADEON™ RX 6900 XT | AMD RADEON™ RX 6800 XT |
AMD RADEON™ RX 6800
|
FAMILY | AMD Radeon™ 6000 Series | AMD Radeon™ 6000 Series |
AMD Radeon™ 6000 Series
|
LINE | AMD Radeon™ 6900 Series | AMD Radeon™ 6800 Series |
AMD Radeon™ 6800 Series
|
TYPE | Component | Component | Component |
LAUNCH DATE | 10/28/2020 | 10/28/2020 | 10/28/2020 |
OS SUPPORT | Windows 10 – 64-Bit Edition, Linux x86_64 | Windows 10 – 64-Bit Edition, Linux x86_64 |
Windows 10 – 64-Bit Edition, Linux x86_64
|
ADDITIONAL POWER CONNECTOR | 2×8 pin | 2×8 pin | 2×8 pin |
COMPUTE UNITS | 80 | 72 | 60 |
BOOST FREQUENCY | Up to 2250 MHz | Up to 2250 MHz |
Up to 2105 MHz
|
GAME FREQUENCY | Up to 2015 MHz | Up to 2015 MHz |
Up to 1815 MHz
|
RAY ACCELERATORS | 80 | 72 | 60 |
PEAK PIXEL FILL-RATE | Up to 288.00 GP/s | Up to 288.00 GP/s |
Up to 202.10 GP/s
|
PEAK TEXTURE FILL-RATE | Up to 720.00 GT/s | Up to 648.00 GT/s |
Up to 505.20 GT/s
|
PEAK HALF PRECISION (FP16) PERFORMANCE | 46.08 TFLOPs | 41.47 TFLOPs | 32.33 TFLOPs |
PEAK SINGLE PRECISION (FP32) PERFORMANCE | 23.04 TFLOPs | 20.74 TFLOPs | 16.17 TFLOPs |
ROPS | 128 | 128 | 96 |
STREAM PROCESSORS | 5120 | 4608 | 3840 |
TEXTURE UNITS | 320 | 288 | 240 |
TRANSISTOR COUNT | 26.8 B | 26.8 B | 26.8 B |
GPU POWER | 300 W | 300 W | 250 W |
PSU RECOMMENDATION | 850 W | 750 W | 650 W |
INFINITY CACHE | 128 MB | 128 MB | 128 MB |
MEMORY SPEED (EFFECTIVE) | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps |
MAX MEMORY SIZE | 16GB | 16GB | 16GB |
MEMORY TYPE (GPU) | GDDR6 | GDDR6 | GDDR6 |
MEMORY INTERFACE | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
MEMORY BANDWIDTH | Up to 512 GB/s | Up to 512 GB/s | Up to 512 GB/s |
HDMI 4K SUPPORT | Yes | Yes | Yes |
4K H264 DECODE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
4K H264 ENCODE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
H265/HEVC DECODE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
H265/HEVC ENCODE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
DISPLAYPORT | 1.4 with DSC | 1.4 with DSC | 1.4 with DSC |
HDMI | Yes | Yes | Yes |
AV1 DECODE | Yes | Yes | Yes |
LENGTH | 267 mm | 267 mm | 267 mm |
SLOT SIZE | 2.5 slots | 2.5 slots | 2 slots |
[/su_table]