AMD announces the Radeon RX 6800, 6800XT, and 6900XT Graphics Cards.

AMD's "Where Gaming Begins Ep.2" event has just finished up. And what was showcased was not just 2 GPU's but 3. When Nvidia released their 3000 series RTX cards, AMD stated they were planning on taking on the 3080. Well, turns out we also got a competitor for the RTX 3090 as well. The 3 announced cards are the Radeon RX 6800, 6800XT, and the 6900XT. The cards announced have two seperate release dates. The 6800 cards will release on November 18th while the 6900XT will release on December 8th. AMD also announced a DLSS alternative, a new Overclocking mode known as Rage Mode, a new technology known as Infinity Cache and AMD Smart Access Memory. I will just detail the GPU's. I will talk about everything else on my blog (https://www.cthulhusbff.com).

The RX 6800 makes it's presence known!

Radeon RX 6800 was showcased to be AMD's answer to the RTX 3070. Unfortunately AMD did not have the chance to compare specs nor compare benchmarks to the 3070 since Nvidia just dropped the 3070 FE launch event yesterday (Oct. 27). So AMD decided to go head to head with the 2080 TI. Please remember that these are the official specs and should be taken with a grain of salt since these have yet to be confirmed with 3rd Party.

(Image source: AMD)

With the 3rd party benchmarks released for the 3070 FE. Looks like the RX 6800 will (according to released benchmarks. Again, grain of salt) will blow the 3070 out of the water. However the USD $579 price tag may sway more consumers to the 3070's USD $499 price. The 6800 also consumes more power (300w vs 220w) than the 3070 yet the 6800 sports 8 GB (16GB vs 8GB) more than it's Nvidia counterpart while showcasing a 2.1Ghz boost clock pummeling the 3070's 1.73Ghz. That USD $80 surcharge may just be worth it. 

(Image Source: AMD)

 In this corner, the AMD's 6000 series flagship. The RX 6800XT!

AMD wasted no time trotting the 6800XT around. The sneak-peek we got of RDNA during the Ryzen 5000 series event turns out (to no ones surprise) to be the 6800XT. Same amount of memory and required board power as it's non XT cousin (16GB and 300w). The 6800XT sports a 2.25Ghz (vs. the 3080's 1.71Ghz) Boost clock with the and 12 more compute cores (72 total) than it's weaker sibling while reaming 20 watts lower in required board power than the 3080's needs (320w). While the 6800XT has more VRAM (16GB vs. 10GB) than the 3080, the 3080 comes in to the game with GDDR6X while the 6800XT has the (slightly) slower GDDR6. This package can be yours for USD $659 vs the Nvidia's 3080 price tag of USD $699.

(Images Source: AMD)

A New Foe has Appeared! Challenger Approaching.

As the event was winding down. Dr. Lisa Su, the AMD CEO, stated that she had one more surprise. That AMD was going to tackle the RTX 3090. She revealed the RX 3900XT. 

(Image Source: AMD)

While being very similar to the 6800XT. The 6900XT comes packing 80 Compute Units (that is 11% more than the 6800XT and 25% more than the 6800). This card is poised to take on the RTX 3090 FE. The tale of the tape goes as follows.

                         6900X  |    3090 FE

Power (W):       300      |     350

Memory (GB):   16       |      24 (GDDR6X)

Boost (Ghz):      2.25    |     1.7

Here is their official benchmarks (again, take it with a grain of salt.)

(Image Source: AMD)

Needless to say, the 6900XT is AMD's declaration of war for dominance in the GPU realm for sure. The card shares the same dimensions as it's 6800XT counterpart and comes in at a hefty USD $999 vs the 3090's heftier price tag of USD $1,499.

What to expect?

I expect this is a start to a true price war. This only means good things for the consumer. AMD is looking to dominate the GPU market since the success of the Ryzen series CPU's launched them as just a minor issue to flat out dominating foe in the CPU world. I look forward to seeing pre-builts getting cheaper and seeing computer prices getting lower. How the graphics landscape will look like in the next year is anyone's guess but the future looks bright since we will also have Intel joining the fray in the near future. Be prepared Gamers! Expect bigger deals and lower prices soon!

What do you think? How do you feel? Let's discuss it in the comment section below.