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AMD Radeon RX 6800, 6800 XT, and 6900 XT aim at Nvidia's best—even the RTX
3090
Hello, RDNA 2. Here's everything AMD revealed about the Radeon RX 6000-series
graphics card, and the new tech inside them.
By Brad Chacos
Senior Editor, PCWorld | OCT 28, 2020 9:28 AM PDT
Welcome back to the high end, AMD.
For the first time since the days of the Radeon R9 290X—seven long years ago
—AMD’s Radeon group is prepared to unleash enthusiast-level graphics cards
that can do battle with Nvidia’s best and brightest. During the company’s
second “Where Gaming Begins” event on Wednesday, AMD revealed a trio of
Radeon GPUs based on a new RDNA 2 architecture, all armed with “
revolutionary Infinity Cache” technology, sky-high clock speeds, and
interesting synergies with Ryzen. They take direct aim at Nvidia’s RTX
30-series offerings, culminating in a $999 Radeon RX 6900 XT that seeks to
seize the gaming crown from the monstrous $1500 GeForce RTX 3090 when it
launches December 8—for $500 less than Nvidia’s beastly GPU costs.
The $579 Radeon RX 6800, meanwhile, will go toe-to-toe with the $500 RTX 3070
releasing tomorrow, and the $649 Radeon RX 6800 XT intends to challenge the
$700 RTX 3080. Both launch November 18, about two weeks after AMD’s Ryzen
5000 CPUs hit the streets.
[ Further reading: Best graphics cards for PC gaming ]
ultimate gaming platform
AMD
While Nvidia’s recent gaming GPU releases went light with raw memory
capacity, opting for an upgrade to faster GDDR6X VRAM instead, AMD equipped
every high-end Radeon RX 6000 card with a substantial 16GB of standard GDDR6,
plenty to handle 4K gaming well into the future. And while Nvidia’s RTX 3080
and 3090 consume much more power than previous GeForce incarnations, AMD
claims it’s achieved its lofty goal of a 50 percent performance-per-watt
increase compared to the original RDNA architecture, which makes the Radeon
RX 6000-series XT graphics cards less power-hungry than their Nvidia rivals.
Yes, you read that right: Radeon GPUs will need less power than competing
GeForce cards. My, how the tables have turned.
We’ll start by diving into the raw specs and performance claims for the
Radeon RX 6800, 6800 XT, and 6900 XT, because we know that’s what you’re
here for, but stick around afterward when we dig into key changes in the RDNA
2 architecture and new Radeon ecosystem features, like Smart Access Memory
that ties into Ryzen 5000 CPUs and AMD’s new Infinity Cache. Those provide
crucial additional context for some of the slides you’re about to see.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Radeon RX 6800 vs. GeForce RTX 3070
Radeon RX 6800 XT vs. GeForce RTX 3080
Radeon RX 6900 XT vs. GeForce RTX 3090
RDNA 2 and Infinity Cache
Ryzen synergy, Rage, and DirectX 12 Ultimate
Radeon RX 6800 vs. GeForce RTX 3070
radeon rx 6800
AMD
Let’s start at the more affordable end.
The Radeon RX 6800 packs 60 compute units and a 1,815MHz game clock—90MHz
higher than the rival GeForce RTX 3070’s rated Boost speed. More
importantly, AMD’s card triumphs in memory capacity, packing a full 16GB of
GDDR6 RAM versus the 3070’s 8GB. Nvidia pitched the 3070 as the ultimate
1440p graphics card, but it can do well in 4K games, too. That 8GB memory
buffer probably won’t hold up well for 4K gaming as the years go on though,
as some games already exceed it. The Radeon RX 6800 won’t suffer the same
problem. Nvidia’s card enjoys a slightly lower total board power rating.
radeon rx 6800 4k
AMD
radeon rx 6800 1440
AMD
Now things are getting interesting. Vendor benchmarks should always be taken
with a grain of salt, and you should always wait for independent reviews of
pricey hardware, but AMD’s data tends to be reliable—and it shows the
Radeon RX 6800 beating the GeForce RTX 3070 across the board here, at both 4K
and 1440p resolution. Wow. Radeon chief Scott Herkelman told me that AMD’s
lab used identical systems for all tests, changing only the graphics card,
and that the company used the best-performing API for a given graphics card
in all tests. So if Nvidia’s GPU performed better in a game using DirectX
11, and AMD’s exceled with DX12, these results reflect apex performance.
It’s not quite as cut-and-dry as it looks, however. See that tiny “+Smart
Access Memory” next to the Radeon RX 6800’s name at the bottom? This graphs
shows AMD performance with that feature active, which can provide an
additional performance boost when you drop a Radeon 6000 GPU into a system
with a Ryzen 5000 CPU installed. We’ll get into it more later, but these aren
’t stock results for the RX 6800.
Radeon RX 6800 XT vs. GeForce RTX 3080
radeon rx 6800 xt
AMD
Stepping up the stack, the Radeon RX 6800 XT increases the compute unit count
to 72, game clock speeds to a hair over 2GHz, and the total board power to
300 watts. It also offers a roomy 16GB of memory. By comparison, Nvidia’s
GeForce RTX 3080 has a Boost clock nearly 300MHz slower (though it tends to
run faster in reality) and just 10GB of memory, though it uses the faster
GDDR6X variety for more bandwidth. The Radeon RX 6800 XT’s 300W power rating
is 20W less than the RTX 3080’s.
radeon rx 6800 xt 4k
AMD
radeon rx 6800 xt 1440
AMD
In these results, AMD isn’t putting its thumb on the scale with Smart Access
Memory. In its stock state, the Radeon RX 6800 XT meets or flat-out beats the
GeForce RTX 3080 in 7 of the 10 benchmarks here at 4K resolution, where Nvidia
’s card performs its best. Drop the resolution to 1440p, where Nvidia’s
Ampere can’t take full advantage of its abundant shaders, and AMD opens its
lead even more, triumphing in every game except Division 2 and Resident Evil
3. Hot damn.
Radeon RX 6900 XT vs. GeForce RTX 3090
radeon rx 6900 xt
AMD
Now we get to the battle of the (almost) Titans. The Radeon RX 6900 XT packs
identical specifications to the Radeon RX 6800 XT except one, boosting the
critical compute unit count from 72 to 80. Yes, it still runs over 2GHz, and
yes, it still sticks to 300W of total board power—50W less than the
power-sucking GeForce RTX 3090.
Nvidia’s marketing for the 3090 revolved around 8K gaming and the card’s
massive, creator-friendly 24GB of GDDR6X memory. The company even calls the
step-down RTX 3080 its gaming flagship—not the 3090. AMD is keeping the
focus on normal gamers with the Radeon RX 6900 XT. This card comes with 16GB
of standard GDDR6 memory, just like the other Radeon GPUs revealed today. It’
s not as spacious and not as fast as the RTX 3090’s memory, but 16GB of
GDDR6 should hold up well for 4K gaming over the long term nonetheless.
Opting for a less extreme VRAM setup means AMD can keep the cost of the
Radeon RX 6900 XT much lower compared to its rival.
radeon rx 6900 xt 4k
AMD
So many people thought this was impossible, but here we are—at least in AMD’
s supplied benchmarks. The Radeon RX 6900 XT beats or ties the GeForce RTX
3090 more often than not at 4K, and substantially so in Forza, with all games
blowing well past the golden 60-frames-per-second mark even with their
highest visual settings enabled.
Note that AMD is tipping the scales again here, and more so than before. Not
only is Smart Access Memory active on the Radeon system, but so is Rage, AMD’
s new automatic overclocking tool in Radeon Software. A victory is a victory,
but you can’t help but wonder how much extra performance those features are
adding to the top. A slide you’ll see later shows the duo improving
performance by anywhere from 2 to 13 percent depending on the game, with an
average uplift of 6.4 percent across eight games.
It’s also worth noting, however, just how much cheaper the Radeon RX 6900 XT
is compared to the luxurious GeForce RTX 3090. $500 ain’t chump change.
That’s it as far as the Radeon RX 6000-series graphics cards themselves go.
For a deeper look at the RDNA 2 architecture and new features inside AMD’s
high-end GPUs—including Rage, Smart Access Memory, and Infinity Cache—keep
reading.
RDNA 2 and Infinity Cache
per per watt
AMD
AMD knew that to catch up to Nvidia, its GPUs needed to become much more
efficient than they used to be. RDNA 1 achieved a 50-percent power
improvement over previous Radeon GPUs, but a large part of the efficiency
gains came from moving to the advanced 7nm manufacturing process. The RDNA 2
architecture stays on 7nm, so AMD’s engineers needed to boost its efficiency
by another 50 percent in other ways.
compute units
AMD
It started with the compute units—the beating heart of the GPU. AMD’s
graphics chief engineer, Laura Smith, said the company went through the
design with a fine-tooth comb to root out inefficiencies: rejiggering data
paths, rebalancing pipelines, and (in a page from the Ryzen design handbook)
enabling “pervasive fine-grain clock gating,” which is an interesting twist
I’m looking forward to hearing more about, as GPUs behave very differently
than CPUs. The new compute units are 30 percent more efficient than before,
which Smith says is crucial for scaling RDNA up to these enthusiast-class
GPUs.
frequency
AMD
AMD’s engineers also managed to squeeze much higher clock speeds out of RDNA
2 on the performance side of things. Where the Radeon RX 5700 XT sported a
1,755MHz game clock, AMD says the Radeon RX 6800XT and 6900XT should sustain
2,015MHz speeds during gaming, and can even go to 2,250MHz in other tasks.
(Smith actually says the Radeon RX 6900 XT’s power-per-watt increase versus
RDNA 1 was even higher, at 65 percent.)
infinity cache
AMD
But the most intriguing—and mysterious—power gains come from the new 128MB
“Infinity Cache” built into the Radeon RX 6000-series. Smith says the
Infinity Cache is a high-density design that has its roots in “Zen 3” Ryzen
’s cache decisions, but rearchitected for Radeon’s gaming needs. Details of
what Infinity Cache actually does remain murky, but Smith says it basically
allows Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards to deliver twice the memory bandwidth at
lower power cost. Including Infinity Cache lets AMD stick to a smaller
256-bit bus for the Radeon RX 6000-series, which provides substantial power
savings over moving to the larger bus sizes you normally see in high-end
gaming cards. We can’t wait to hear—and test—more.
Ryzen synergy, Rage, and DirectX 12 Ultimate
Hardware can’t run without software, and part of AMD’s presentation was
dedicated to showcasing some nifty new capabilities found in Radeon RX 6000
graphics cards. Most intriguing? AMD Smart Access Memory.
amd smart access memory
AMD
Like AMD’s Smart Shift technology in laptops (and the RDNA 2-based
PlayStation 5), AMD Smart Access Memory is designed to give you better
performance if you’re all-in on AMD’s hardware. If you have both a Ryzen
5000 CPU and a Radeon 6000 GPU in your system, AMD Smart Access Memory gives
your CPU access to your graphics card’s full memory buffer, rather than the
usual 256MB chunks. That direct communication cuts down on buffering and
potential latency. Even though game makers haven’t had a chance to optimize
for the closely guarded tech yet, Radeon chief Scott Herkelman told PCWorld
that simply flipping this feature and Rage overclocking on simultaneously in
AMD’s labs resulted in performance increases across a series of games, with
Forza Horizon 4 running 13 percent faster.
amd smart access memory and rage
AMD
Fascinating stuff. As with Infinity Cache, we’re looking forward to seeing
deeper details, but several AMD-supplied benchmarks for the Radeon RX 6000
GPUs show results from numerous games with Smart Access Memory active.
AMD’s new cards will also support Microsoft’s upcoming DirectStorage API,
which will let your GPU talk directly to your NVMe SSD for vastly improved
loading times in games. Getting the various parts of your PC to talk directly
rather than flowing through system RAM suddenly seems like the hot new trend
for 2021. (Nvidia’s RTX 30-series also supports DirectStorage, using “RTX IO
” branding.)
rage
AMD
AMD is also spiffing up the one-click overclocking capabilities found in its
Radeon Software. Going forward, you’ll find a new “Rage” preset tuning
option that applies an automatic overclock tuned to your specific card—a
helpful tool indeed for people who just want their games to play as quickly
as possible with no headaches. Herkelman told me there are some slight
differences compared to the previous automatic overclocking feature offered
by Radeon software, but he didn’t get into specifics.
Fun fact: The “Rage” name is a shoutout to a popular line of graphics cards
released by ATI in the early days of 3D acceleration, before AMD purchased
the company. ATI’s “Fury” moniker made a comeback in graphics card form a
few years back, and now Rage will be back on every Radeon-powered PC. I dig
it.
radeon boost
AMD
Speaking of Radeon Software features, AMD also briefly teased how its
existing “Radeon Boost” and “Radeon Anti-Lag” features combine to improve
latency in games that demand quick responses, especially when paired with a
FreeSync monitor. GeForce cards just gained the Nvidia Reflex suite of
latency boosting features, so it’s clear that game responsiveness is
becoming a new battleground for graphics card makers.
dx12 rdna2
AMD
Finally, like the GeForce RTX 30-series, AMD’s Radeon 6000 graphics cards
will be fully DirectX 12 Ultimate-compliant. Microsoft calls DX12 “a force
multiplier for the entire gaming ecosystem” by unifying an array of new
features—mostly ones introduced in Nvidia’s RTX 20-series, but largely
ignored by developers—across all PC and next-gen Xbox hardware. “When Xbox
Series X releases, there will already be many millions of DX12 Ultimate PC
graphics cards in the world with the same feature set, catalyzing a rapid
adoption of new features, and when Xbox Series X brings a wave of new console
gamers, PC will likewise benefit from this vast surge of new DX12 Ultimate
capable hardware,” Microsoft said when announcing the API.
Being DirectX 12 Ultimate-compliant means the Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards
will support variable rate shading, mesh shading, sampler feedback, and yes,
real-time ray tracing—though AMD didn’t go into details about its hotly
anticipated ray tracing implementation.
dx12u fidelityfx
AMD
AMD wasn’t entirely mum, though. Nvidia has a clear lead on ray tracing, and
the company’s proprietary Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) plays a big
role. The AI upscaling feature leverages the dedicated tensor cores in
GeForce GPUs to speed up frame rates, counterbalancing ray tracing’s
performance impact—but remember, it’s an Nvidia-proprietary technology. AMD
teased a solution of its own as part of the company’s open FidelityFX tools
during today’s presentation. Tucked away in the corner of the slide, there
was a small box that simply said “Super Resolution.”
Herkelman wouldn’t go into details, but he confirmed to PCWorld that this
will be AMD’s open response to Nvidia’s DLSS, designed to work on any
graphics hardware—even APUs—and across various platforms, because AMD’s
RDNA 2 GPUs also power the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.
That broad adoption of AMD technologies could be an ace in the hole for Radeon
’s ray tracing future. The new consoles will be getting off the ground at
roughly the same time as the Radeon RX 6000 series, all bearing RDNA 2 GPUs.
With the Radeon RX 6000 series, Xbox Series X, and even Nvidia’s RTX
30-series all driving DirectX 12 Ultimate forward in the same time frame as
well, AMD is betting that DX12U’s features will become ubiquitous. Everyone
is working on the same page now.
amd consoles
AMD
RDNA 2 isn’t just for the Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards.
As the graphics chip inside the consoles, AMD’s yet-to-be-revealed ray
tracing implementation could become the standard target for game developers
despite Nvidia’s two-year lead and impressive proprietary hardware. If AMD’
s ray tracing becomes the standard, its open-source “Super Resolution”
technology inside of FidelityFX could become the standard as well. DLSS 2.0
is black magic, but it’s locked to Nvidia GPUs on PCs, and requires custom
code.
Of course, as with Infinity Cache and AMD Smart Access Memory, it depends on
the details. AMD isn’t revealing anything more about Super Resolution today.
Bottom line, though? After seven long years, AMD’s RDNA 2-equipped Radeon RX
6000 graphics cards are finally ready to bring the fight to Nvidia at the
very edge of enthusiast-class performance. We’ll need to see if AMD’s lofty
claims hold up to scrutiny by independent testers, but we can’t wait to get
our hands on these graphics cards. Competition is a wonderful thing—and long
overdue at the high end. Welcome back, AMD.
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Related:Graphics Cards Gaming AMD PCs Hardware.
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直播詳細記錄出來了。
簡單就是
RX 6800 的對手是 RTX 3070
RX 6800XT 的對手是 RTX 3080
RX 6900XT 的對手是 RTX 3090
RX6000系列 VRAM 全上16GB…
7nm製程，台積製造，VRAM 16GB...有夠香，
感謝蘇媽讓我們可以買到便宜的Nvidia(咦？)
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想想…，蘇媽這算軟體(光追)不打算跟老黃拼，
直接用硬體輾嗎？
我還沒說完吶~~ 夠多了夠多了，回家吃藥了啦~!
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︵ \○╱/|
. . ﹎ ﹍﹍ ╱￣﹚╱＞
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