RX 6800

The RX 6800 delivers a staggering generational jump in performance. AMD have upgraded the single fan cooler to a more efficient triple fan solution, perhaps indicating a shift in focus from benchmark busting headlines to user experience. Following the widespread issues that users faced with the 5000 and Vega series, we are cautiously optimistic that AMD have taken steps to ensure driver and hardware stability, but this will need to be proven over time. The release of the RX 6800 explains why Nvidia doubled performance per dollar with their 3000 series release just a few weeks ago. A comparison between Nvidia’s previous generation flagship, the 2080 Ti, and the 6800-XT shows that AMD now offer comparable raw performance at half the price. 16GB of VRAM is a key feature of the 6800 cards. At higher resolutions and detail settings, performance can bottleneck without sufficient GPU memory. AMD's marketers often cherry pick obscure games with high res/settings, the details of which are rarely disclosed, then compare the results with cards that have less memory. In that scenario, the cards with less memory look weaker than they would at 1080p. The 1080p results are sometimes omitted, or worse, partially omitted and frame drops are conveniently ignored. Most users will see little benefit in gaming at high resolutions. Without drastic price cuts (MSRP $580 USD) and miraculous marketing via countless promo videos and sponsored reviews, the 6800 will struggle to compete, partly because it lacks RTX+DLSS which is required for the best gaming experience in class leading titles such as Cyberpunk 2077. Users should be wary of AMD’s army of social media accounts whose goal is to dupe shoppers any way they can. ^{[Nov '20 GPUPro]}