AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT Review: Better than RTX 3070?

[EdmondRC]

Even with the best machine learning algorithms you can't upscale a lower res image to have more information that the native res image.

Why? Information theory. The information gained (I: quality of upscale) is limited by the quality of the input dataset: I(X,Y)≤min[H(X),H(Y)]. It's always less than or equal to the input dataset to train the upscaler. Right now even the best upscaler using tech like tensor cores (oooh sounds fancy) is nowhere close to the upper limit (where upscale is equal to original).

Simple put you can not create more information than what's in the native image.

DLSS adds TAA and can sometimes make textures look sharper and that can result in slightly better image quality on some game assets, but overall DLSS tends to only slightly degrade image quality, but is a much better solution than simply turning down the resolution. Overall, the tech is impressive, I almost always turn it on if its available and the game is averaging under 90 fps.

The tensor cores are simply better than the FP32 cores at the tensor math doing the grunt work of upscaling and they are important because they also allow the FP32 cores to keep doing their primary function. Any solution that AMD comes up with to rival DLSS, at least with the current generation of GPUs, will put extra workload on the FP32 cores which more than likely will mean the returns are not nearly as big as they are on Nvidia cards. It will be somewhat of a balancing act. I don't think that AMD will be able to compete with DLSS with RDNA2. Ampere > RDNA2, but we'll see with RDNA3 and Nvidia's next gen. AMD made up a country mile on Nvidia this go around, there's no denying that, but are still behind.

 

[punctualturn]

You know DLSS2.0 supported by big high selling AAA tiles such as latest call of duty, cyberpunk, watch dogs ligion, Avengers, Control. etc.

There is also Nioh 2, Crysis Remaster but those are not big titles

Oh I know, but the question was, which ones are you CURRENTLY playing that uses DLSS and RT right now?

and about all the games that support RT, its funny that they always needs to be paused and then focus on puddles, to really "appreciate" whatever RT is currently doing for the games.

About DLSS, it took nvidia a while to get it right and guess what, seems like AMD is doing the same.

In the end, you missed the whole point of Nvidia MO, they love to release proprietary cr@p that forces the consumers to buy their stuff.

And I dont know about you, but me as a consumer, I love options and run away from whichever company tries to lock me to their stuff.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Dumb or not, DLSS is overrated, for the simple reason that it causes a very annoying shimmering that nobody talks about. Look at this video;

Look how it looks in motion with all that shimmering, on the building and on the ground... Even DLSS Quality has it. And when he freezes the footage, suddenly everything looks a lot better for DLSS.
He goes on to compare the screenshots and how quality DLSS looks better than native. But that is deceptive and marketing, because it didn't look better in motion with all that additional shimmering.

And what kills me, he never mentions that shimmering, ever, and only talks about the positives the whole video. DLSS has a lot of keyboard warriors, and obviously a lot of influencers are pushing the tech on behalf of nVidia. But in actuality, it's not nearly as good as it's touted to be. In multiple games it also has a ghosting problem, but that's generally less noticeable than the shimmering.

DLSS looks great in screenshots, but in motion it's another story, which matters a lot in games.

You should try actual using it on your own system. The video of that doesn’t look like my system when it uses DLSS. I actually would say screenshots make DLSS look worse than it is and in motion - where you can feel the fps boost you notice the benefit the most.

Shimmering lol, what a load of crap.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Oh I know, but the question was, which ones are you CURRENTLY playing that uses DLSS and RT right now?

and about all the games that support RT, its funny that they always needs to be paused and then focus on puddles, to really "appreciate" whatever RT is currently doing for the games.

About DLSS, it took nvidia a while to get it right and guess what, seems like AMD is doing the same.

In the end, you missed the whole point of Nvidia MO, they love to release proprietary cr@p that forces the consumers to buy their stuff.

And I dont know about you, but me as a consumer, I love options and run away from whichever company tries to lock me to their stuff.

I have played over 600 hours of Minecraft RTX in 2021 alone. This isn’t possible without DLSS. I’ve also played 80+ hours of Cyberpunk 2077 with RT and DLSS, 70 hours of control, 80 hours of death stranding. Gutted if you’ve missed out on all those games mate.

Claiming that people are “locked” to Nvidia because it offers DLSS is like claiming that people are “locked” to AMD if they want higher core count CPUs. It’s a really dumb thing to claim. We are all more than welcome to stop using Nvidia, we will still be able to play our games. Albeit on Radeon with more driver issues, much higher temperatures and considerably lower frame rates. We just choose not to. Absolutely nobody is forced to use DLSS mate. Stop trying to claim they are.

 

[punctualturn]

I have played over 600 hours of Minecraft RTX in 2021 alone. This isn’t possible without DLSS. I’ve also played 80+ hours of Cyberpunk 2077 with RT and DLSS, 70 hours of control, 80 hours of death stranding. Gutted if you’ve missed out on all those games mate.

Claiming that people are “locked” to Nvidia because it offers DLSS is like claiming that people are “locked” to AMD if they want higher core count CPUs. It’s a really dumb thing to claim. We are all more than welcome to stop using Nvidia, we will still be able to play our games. Albeit on Radeon with more driver issues, much higher temperatures and considerably lower frame rates. We just choose not to. Absolutely nobody is forced to use DLSS mate. Stop trying to claim they are.

All that and you still missed the point.

Oh well...

 

[Theinsanegamer]

*activates tin-foil hat mode
Maybe all of the scalpers are actually system builders, forcing everyone to buy whole new PCs to arrest the steady decline in unit sales

Edit: With regards to the 6700XT, it's a shame it doesn't have more memory bandwidth. Despite being better than the 5700XT -- 23% better overall at 1080p and 30% better at 1440p -- the new card has 35% higher Boost clocks and 38% higher Game clocks. This is what happens when you drop 14% bandwidth.

Honestly that ruins it's value. It's 23% faster but 20% more expensive. It's like Turing all over again.

This card should have been ~$385 at most.

 

[neeyik]

Honestly that ruins it's value. It's 23% faster but 20% more expensive. It's like Turing all over again.

This card should have been ~$385 at most.

The Navi 22 chip in the 6700XT is just over 33% larger than the Navi 10 in 5700XT - that means wafer yields will be lower and thus the price for each fully functional die will be higher. The 5700XT launch price was $399, so there's no way AMD would ever release the 6700 at a lower price than that.

 

[b3rdm4n]

DLSS looks great in screenshots, but in motion it's another story, which matters a lot in games.

You should try actual using it on your own system. The video of that doesn’t look like my system when it uses DLSS. I actually would say screenshots make DLSS look worse than it is and in motion - where you can feel the fps boost you notice the benefit the most.

Shimmering lol, what a load of crap.

I've played several games with DLSS on and either the didn't exhibit shimmering or shimmering is drastically reduced from the native image output. It's one of my most hated image artifacts and DLSS has improved it in every case for me, on top of producing a comparable image to native in terms of outright quality and sharpness, with better antialiasing, at a higher framerate.

Nobody I know that has a DLSS capable card, that has played DLSS 2.0 supported games prefers to play with it off, in my experience, it seems to be limited to people on forums that like to argue against it... To each their own I guess, nobody is forcing/locking anyone into anything with it, buying an RTX card this gen doesn't lock me in or force me to buy one next time I upgrade.

 

[Angga B]

The other take is, after several launches of the RX6000 series it become very clear to me that hardware performance is one thing but the game engine optimization also play a very crucial role. With more AMD optimized titles and thus diluting Nvidia optimized titles, can we really expect that AMD rules in the end?

I have a hunch they can. We'll see.

 

[zamroni111]

If they are available and at close to MSRP then they will fly off the shelves (especially in the UK as GPUs are scarce to non-existent) . It is getting to the stage where buying a pre-built from Dell or HP is the only way to get hold of a new GPU (not including scalpers at the usual places).

$450 5800x cpu only has 6.5 billion transistors while this $479 6700xt needs 17 billions transistors only for the gpu chip.
And I haven't counted the cost of gddr, vrm, fans etc.

 

[Avro Arrow]

After reading this review, I arrived at the conclusion that the best card to buy right now is the 6900 XT.

It has terminated everything else with extreme prejudice.

Maybe in a year or so when the madness has run its course.

Yeah, I guess that if someone's dumb enough to pay over $1000 for a video card, then they're dumb enough to get the 6900 XT.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Maybe I'll get lucky and snag one around MSRP. I'd be very content getting a new GPU that's on par with a 2080Ti performance around the $500 range.

Need to find something to replace my 980Ti. She runs all my games still, but at almost 6 years old....I'm just waiting for the day I power on my computer and she's dead.

Man, I remember when video cards had lifetime warranties. Hell, my XFX Radeon HD 4870s are still covered by XFX's "double lifetime" warranty. That means that even if I sell the cards to someone else, they're also protected by a lifetime warranty. LOL

Both of those 4870s are tanks though. I've never had problems with either of them.

 

[EdmondRC]

After reading this review, I arrived at the conclusion that the best card to buy right now is the 6900 XT.

It has terminated everything else with extreme prejudice.

Maybe in a year or so when the madness has run its course.

The RX 6900 XT is certainly a powerful GPU, the most powerful from a pure rasterizing performance perspective. But, at a $999 MSRP, I definitely cannot see how its the best card to buy when the $699 MSRP RTX 3080 is not really that far behind. It also has much better RT performance and supports DLSS in many games. But even without those, at 4K (which is what these cards are designed for) the margin of advantage for the RDNA2 is diminished or even erased. At 1440p, both cards are often producing framerates well into the margins of "who really cares when the fps is this high range". So these cards should be mostly compared at 4K not 1440p. The RTX 3080 is still the value leader at the enthusiast level in my opinion and at the mid-range level, both the $499 3070 and $399 3060 Ti are better values than the $479 RX 6700 XT. The card no one talks about, the $579 MSRP RX 6800 is probably the best value on the AMD side, it's comfortably ahead of the RTX 3070 and not too far behind the RTX 3080 with a price point that actually makes sense for its performance, but lack of DLSS and lower RT performance.

 

[punctualturn]

RT performance and supports DLSS in many games.

I really wished that people would stop with this. Its not essential right now.

Pricing wise, I agree that AMD is doing some really stupid pricing with their cards. They simply dont make sense.

But then again, both AMD and Nvidia knows how many cards the scalpers and miners will get and if is more than their projected inventory, they decided to price the cards for them, not for the gamers.

 

[nnguy2]

The RX 6900 XT is certainly a powerful GPU, the most powerful from a pure rasterizing performance perspective. But, at a $999 MSRP, I definitely cannot see how its the best card to buy when the $699 MSRP RTX 3080 is not really that far behind. It also has much better RT performance and supports DLSS in many games. But even without those, at 4K (which is what these cards are designed for) the margin of advantage for the RDNA2 is diminished or even erased. At 1440p, both cards are often producing framerates well into the margins of "who really cares when the fps is this high range". So these cards should be mostly compared at 4K not 1440p. The RTX 3080 is still the value leader at the enthusiast level in my opinion and at the mid-range level, both the $499 3070 and $399 3060 Ti are better values than the $479 RX 6700 XT. The card no one talks about, the $579 MSRP RX 6800 is probably the best value on the AMD side, it's comfortably ahead of the RTX 3070 and not too far behind the RTX 3080 with a price point that actually makes sense for its performance, but lack of DLSS and lower RT performance.

Until cards can run AAA games at min frames of 120fps @4K, those cards will always be 1440p cards to me.

 

[EdmondRC]

I really wished that people would stop with this. Its not essential right now.

In the enthusiast GPU market I'm not sure 'essential' is how you determine value. Who buys a Lexus with clothe seats? You are buying the top end 4K GPU for top dollar, then you probably want more than just the essentials.

 

[punctualturn]

In the enthusiast GPU market I'm not sure 'essential' is how you determine value. Who buys a Lexus with clothe seats? You are buying the top end 4K GPU for top dollar, then you probably want more than just the essentials.

One thing is having the games there and the other is sitting and waiting for that game to ever show up.

Simple concept really.

Two examples:

1- RT card released around 2 years ago, did you demanded a RT library at the same time the card came out?

2- DLSS, same as above.

So, again, why continue parroting this nonsense when there are so few games that allows you to use these features?

 

[EdmondRC]

So, again, why continue parroting the nonsense when there are so few games and that allows you to use the features?

Maybe because these feature actually do make a difference. To say they are 'non-essential' and so who cares, well obviously if its being 'parroted' some people do care. You are not the only one with an opinion.

 

[EdmondRC]

Until cards can run AAA games at min frames of 120fps @4K, those cards will always be 1440p cards to me.

Indeed, but that is a preference. I play a lot of action games, like Seiko and Fallen Order and I would much rather play them on my 4K TV relaxing on my couch at 60fps+. I have a 120hz 4k panel that supports VRR, so I guess I'm spoiled a bit, but for shooters, I do play mostly play those on my 1440p 144hz monitor.

 

[HardReset]

The RX 6900 XT is certainly a powerful GPU, the most powerful from a pure rasterizing performance perspective. But, at a $999 MSRP, I definitely cannot see how its the best card to buy when the $699 MSRP RTX 3080 is not really that far behind. It also has much better RT performance and supports DLSS in many games. But even without those, at 4K (which is what these cards are designed for) the margin of advantage for the RDNA2 is diminished or even erased. At 1440p, both cards are often producing framerates well into the margins of "who really cares when the fps is this high range". So these cards should be mostly compared at 4K not 1440p. The RTX 3080 is still the value leader at the enthusiast level in my opinion and at the mid-range level, both the $499 3070 and $399 3060 Ti are better values than the $479 RX 6700 XT. The card no one talks about, the $579 MSRP RX 6800 is probably the best value on the AMD side, it's comfortably ahead of the RTX 3070 and not too far behind the RTX 3080 with a price point that actually makes sense for its performance, but lack of DLSS and lower RT performance.

Source for "better RT performance"? No, Nvidia sponsored titles will not count. And neither will synthetic benchmarks.

 

[Shirley Dulcey]

The price is all about the availability situation. Were it not for that, the card probably would have been launched at $399; at that price it would represent a good value. AMD decided to capture some of the money from the current market situation for itself rather than letting all of it go to board partners and scalpers. For now I'm going to stick with the 5700XT that I got for $300 a year ago (open box with all warranties).

 

[b3rdm4n]

Source for "better RT performance"? No, Nvidia sponsored titles will not count. And neither will synthetic benchmarks.

Well aside from Ampere basically dominating performance in those, but you want neither, which leaves AMD sponsored titles then?

How about Dirt5, where DF tested a 6800XT against an RTX3080 in ray tracing games, where they calculate the additional cost to render time in the form of milliseconds penalty the RT effects add, and in Dirt5 although the 6800XT has higher overall performance, the RT effect still incurs a bigger penalty relative to the 3080.

 

[punctualturn]

Maybe because these feature actually do make a difference. To say they are 'non-essential' and so who cares, well obviously if its being 'parroted' some people do care. You are not the only one with an opinion.

Opinions are not facts, neither is brand loyalty.

oh, by the way, stop defending a corporation thats filling your mind with slides from the marketing dept.

 

[EdmondRC]

Opinions are not facts, neither is brand loyalty.

oh, by the way, stop defending a corporation thats filling your mind with slides from the marketing dept.

You are a piece of work, haha.

 

[EdmondRC]

Source for "better RT performance"? No, Nvidia sponsored titles will not count. And neither will synthetic benchmarks.

Seriously, absolutely no one denies this, not even AMD.