AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Review

[jbc029]

"The advantages of the GeForce GPU may be more mature ray tracing support and DLSS 2.0, both of which aren’t major selling points in our opinion unless you play a specific selection of games. "


This sounds like an uninformed youtube or reddit comment. There are several dozen games already using both those tech. The paroting of "not enough games" might have been true 2 years ago. Might have even been true 1 year ago. Certainly not as of now. Right when 4 of the biggest 5 games releasing at the end of 2020 have either ray tracing or dlss - Watch Dogs, Cyberpunk, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft.

RTX and DLSS are absolutely a selling point for buying new cards. Why would you buy one without them especially now after consoles got this tech too ? It makes no sense.

You dont need DLSS in any random game, its enough to have it in the heaviest hitters of the year. The games that require top of the line hardware to run well. Since AAA games arent releasing in the hundreds per month, of course its not gonna be a huge number of games when you say it in a vacuum. But that number is a fair one as of now and it's getting bigger each passing month.

The number of games that support ray tracing *today* is in the low 20s. There are only slightly more than that slated through the next year.

For DLSS 2.0, the list is shorter than ray tracing.

I'd like to see a source on "Several dozen" that support both.

 

[Phantom88]

The number of games that support ray tracing *today* is in the low 20s. There are only slightly more than that slated through the next year.

For DLSS 2.0, the list is shorter than ray tracing.

I'd like to see a source on "Several dozen" that support both.

You just count them by hand, theres no official sourse. As I've said in my post, I've added games with both dlss and ray tracing - that have either one of them or both.

Anthem
Amid Evil
Battlefield V
Bright Memory
Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Control
Cyberpunk 2077
Death Stranding
Deliver Us The Moon
Dirt 5
Edge Of Eternity
Enlisted
F1 2020
Final Fantasy XV
Fortnite
Ghostrunner
Justice
Marvel’s Avengers
Mechwarrior V: Mercenaries
Metro Exodus
Minecraft
Mortal Shell
Mount & Blade II Bannerlord
Monster Hunter: World
Pumpin Jack
Ready Or Not
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Xuan-Yuan Sword VII
Watch Dogs Legion
Warthunder
Wolfenstein Youngblood


Its not in the low 20's and games are now coming out each month that support either dlss, or ray tracing or both. The argument that there arent enough games simply doesnt hold water as of now. Like I've said, you will get new games with these features every month. You cant have a gigantic list of games suporting this becaues only a fixed nr of games come out every month and not all of them need dlss. Only the largest games. The way steve leanes towards amd in his article and ignores and shits over rtx and dlss is frankly embarassing and people are pointing him out in forums already

 

[emmzo]

Finally, AMD lives up to the hype and delivers impressive performance. I don`t see it, but I hope all benchmarks here skipped Rage mode. Btw, thank you for adding RT benches even if you are not fond of it. As presumed, atm AMD is somewhat behind in that area, but I`m confident they will improve.

 

[Freedom Now]

O my god, better performance per watt than Nvidia , Cheer to amd , and welcome the competition , hope price will go down

This article showed me how good the 3070 is regarding perf per dollar and perf per watt. Combine this with DLSS for games like Call of Duty +85%, you can't beat it all for the price of a PS5. It sucks I can't buy one, I know at least 5 people personally who got lucky, right as soon as they told me it was "poof" gone, I don't understand why we don't have a waitlist.

 

[hahahanoobs]

LOL. Attitude + Contention - Coherence < 0.

Facts.
AMD caught up. Big woop. Software and features are still trash tbh. AMD is a component company. Nvidia is a software company that has lead for consecutive years.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Yes, well done *because* they were so far behind in the top end for years.

Before that, they were competing with the 2070 (Navi) and 2600 (Vega 64 - but only on performance, never mind efficiency).

Now you have a card that is actually a bit more efficient, reference model is more silent, temps are great (remember the "hot and loud" reference cards?) and performance is pretty even averaging resolutions and titles.

Are you seriously saying that this amount of catching up (with fewer resources) is not a job well done ?

With fewer resources?
You should really dump that damage control handbook.

 

[hahahanoobs]

When you are competing with a 10th the budget split between CPU and GPU development, this type of advancement is to be praised, nto merely expected.

Fantastic job AMD!

Funny how that always comes up every time AMD comes up short....

 

[Irata]

With fewer resources?
You should really dump that damage control handbook.

Whatever floats your boat, but I see no reason for damage control in the first place as the 6800XT appears to be a very solid product.

If you feel differently that's fine. I just find the inability to appreciate others achievements pretty sad.

 

[scavengerspc]

If you correlate those % with the amount of stock at launch, Techspot is spot on in omitting 1080p.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

 

[Nargg]

The unavailability to purchase of all this new silicon magic is really disenchanting. The industry has to get this figured out ASAP.

 

[Lew Zealand]

You just count them by hand, theres no official sourse. As I've said in my post, I've added games with both dlss and ray tracing - that have either one of them or both.

Anthem
Amid Evil
Battlefield V
Bright Memory
Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
Control
Cyberpunk 2077
Death Stranding
Deliver Us The Moon
Dirt 5
Edge Of Eternity
Enlisted
F1 2020
Final Fantasy XV
Fortnite
Ghostrunner
Justice
Marvel’s Avengers
Mechwarrior V: Mercenaries
Metro Exodus
Minecraft
Mortal Shell
Mount & Blade II Bannerlord
Monster Hunter: World
Pumpin Jack
Ready Or Not
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Xuan-Yuan Sword VII
Watch Dogs Legion
Warthunder
Wolfenstein Youngblood


Its not in the low 20's and games are now coming out each month that support either dlss, or ray tracing or both. The argument that there arent enough games simply doesnt hold water as of now. Like I've said, you will get new games with these features every month. You cant have a gigantic list of games suporting this becaues only a fixed nr of games come out every month and not all of them need dlss. Only the largest games. The way steve leanes towards amd in his article and ignores and shits over rtx and dlss is frankly embarassing and people are pointing him out in forums already

HUB does game optimization videos on YT to help people get the most out of their cards with the fewest compromises to image quality. Which is pretty much what we all want.

The problem with that list is that even though RT effects are supported on a particular title, lets pick AAA ones like SotTR and Battlefield V, they don't add materially to the game and are recommended to be turned off to gain those additional FPS with, frankly, similar visual quality.

DLSS 2.0 however is very good for the few games that support it, though it's best only at 4K Quality and there is a notable visual quality loss at lower resolutions and quality settings. However, even those settings may be visually good enough for some gamers.

So the real questions are:

How many games support DLSS 2.0 and do those gamers play them at 4K (or 1440p) where it's a real advantage?

How many games are actually *better games* with RT on to make it worth the 40% FPS reduction? Control is certainly one, and it looks like Cyberpunk could leverage RT very well. Cyberpunk may be RT's killer app, we'll see as we're still waiting.

Basically I'm mulling this over for myself as I play at 1440p and this 6800XT looks to be mildly better than the 3080 and I'm not playing many games that take *real* advantage of DLSS or RT. I am playing Control though, so there's one.

One. So far.

 

[Gregtombstone]

Competition at last, may it continue, That said My RX480 8gb is still rocking. fine for fps at 1080p avg 70 to 100 on ultra bf5 etc.
getting 45 plus steady in Assasians Creed valhalla on very high. Think my 3700x, strix x570 and sabrent rocket 1t might be helping a bit. note valhalla is using 5.25gb of video so the 8gb choice was a sound one. dont think you can use 16gb, who knows in 2 or 3 years. can see me buying the 6800xt after xmas.

 

[JimboJoneson]

Well done?
...

I agree with you -- we should be looking down on them with a stern face for not have been destroying Nvidia all along.

AMD should get no praise or recognition for this launch. All they can muster is trouncing the competitors $1500 flagship GPU at half the price in 1080p gaming, and only slightly beat out the direct competing part at 1440p for $50 and 30 watts less? Pathetic showing.

Not well done AMD ... not well done at all. [/s]

 

[Shadowboxer]

HUB does game optimization videos on YT to help people get the most out of their cards with the fewest compromises to image quality. Which is pretty much what we all want.

The problem with that list is that even though RT effects are supported on a particular title, lets pick AAA ones like SotTR and Battlefield V, they don't add materially to the game and are recommended to be turned off to gain those additional FPS with, frankly, similar visual quality.

DLSS 2.0 however is very good for the few games that support it, though it's best only at 4K Quality and there is a notable visual quality loss at lower resolutions and quality settings. However, even those settings may be visually good enough for some gamers.

So the real questions are:

How many games support DLSS 2.0 and do those gamers play them at 4K (or 1440p) where it's a real advantage?

How many games are actually *better games* with RT on to make it worth the 40% FPS reduction? Control is certainly one, and it looks like Cyberpunk could leverage RT very well. Cyberpunk may be RT's killer app, we'll see as we're still waiting.

Basically I'm mulling this over for myself as I play at 1440p and this 6800XT looks to be mildly better than the 3080 and I'm not playing many games that take *real* advantage of DLSS or RT. I am playing Control though, so there's one.

One. So far.

Minecraft is the biggest game changer with RTX. And I mean the survival mode, those demo levels which is all thats officially available right now are boring. It is the most advanced visual experience available right now and as someone who has easily sunk over 200 hours on my RTX survival map it’s something I’ve become very excited about, I just wish my friends on my server could see what I’m seeing! But there are several other games with RTX features that users will benefit from.

DLSS 2.0 looks subjectively better than native, several outlets have claimed this and I would agree from my experience also. Quite a few games support it too, more than you’re claiming. It’s in F12020 and Death Stranding features in this review, in both it was turned off for Nvidia testing and I don’t understand why, which users would choose worse image quality and frame rates on purpose? In both instances game reviewers claim it looks better than native whilst giving a performance boost.

Testing with DLSS off is unfairly gimping Nvidia. Nvidia who have spent literally billions developing these techs to give users a better experience and the reviewers just switch them off because it would basically show that there isn’t actually much competition in the marketplace..

https://www.ozarc.games/best-dlss-games/

 

[EdmondRC]

I don't understand why there is a complaint about the performance hit from ray-tracing. To be honest, ray-tracing is a bigger boon to visuals in games like Control, WDL, and COD BOCW than 4K is over 1440p resolution. Often the performance hit from 1440p to 4K is just as large as it is to enable RT on the 3080. The bottom line is that right now even the latest GPUs are not capable of doing both 4K Ultra and RT in games, though the 3080 is pretty close. Even without DLSS you get playable framerate in those games at 4K, just not the 60 fps gold standard that PC gamers expect. But the 3080 is able to meet the 60fps standard with RT on in just about all RT games at 1440p, the RX 6800 XT, while having a bit better 1440p performance, does not hold up nearly as well as the 3080 with RT at 1440p. As RT is a new technology and has just now been fully adopted by Sony, MS, AMD, and Nvidia, the number of games enabling the technology will rise dramatically over the next months and years. By 2022 it will likely be a standard option in all AAA titles.

I hate to say it, but this article seemed a little bias toward AMD. Even many of the games chosen here were ones where AMD performed particularly well. No RT benchmarks for Control or WDL seems a bit odd considering you admit they are the best Ray Tracing has to offer at the moment.

 

[NightAntilli]

I came specifically to see the 4K comparisons for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
The 6800 is plenty capable, but the 3080 /3090 is where to be.

None of them reach 60 fps at even 1440p, and all are above 30 fps at 4k.
But most of us already knew you were biased towards nVidia.

 

[wiyosaya]

I agree with you -- we should be looking down on them with a stern face for not have been destroying Nvidia all along.

AMD should get no praise or recognition for this launch. All they can muster is trouncing the competitors $1500 flagship GPU at half the price in 1080p gaming, and only slightly beat out the direct competing part at 1440p for $50 and 30 watts less? Pathetic showing.

Not well done AMD ... not well done at all. [/s]

Blame Rory Reed.

It seems that we should be expecting nVidia to raise their prices now since AMD is giving them competition?

Whether or not anyone agrees that this is a competitive product from AMD, it will temper nVidia's tendendy to price gouge - just like the competition in the CPU space is tempering sIntel's overpriced CPUs. Being competitive in both the CPU space and the GPU space is no easy task, I imagine.

 

[yeeeeman]

I like how you downplay the importance of ray tracing and dlss.
If AMD would have had these technologies and nvidia not, you would beat the bush here on and on about how nvidia is shi**y cause it doesn't offer the same features.
I've started to see this bias towards AMD products in the last few reviews. I get it that everyone wants amd to succeed and get back to competing. But I don't see how this is an excuse for a PROFESSIONAL reviewer to start and lose its objectivity and favor one brand.
Lets be honest. Nvidia has better drivers, better features, better performance and as it seems, better availability.
AMD has better bang4buck, better efficiency, higher total VRAM but less features and shitty drivers.
Let the user decide what it wants, but PLEASE, state the truth and don't sugarcoat anything like you do in your article. Missing DLSS is a minus, a big minus. Having bad RT performance and even not being able to run some games cause they support only RTX is a minus.
Please state these clearly and don't downplay them like if it were nothing.
Otherwise, a great product, very good efficiency, very good performance in general, very good price.

 

[NightAntilli]

Funny how that always comes up every time AMD comes up short....

Funny yow you are always there when some AMD bashing needs to be done.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I agree with you -- we should be looking down on them with a stern face for not have been destroying Nvidia all along.

AMD should get no praise or recognition for this launch. All they can muster is trouncing the competitors $1500 flagship GPU at half the price in 1080p gaming, and only slightly beat out the direct competing part at 1440p for $50 and 30 watts less? Pathetic showing.

Not well done AMD ... not well done at all. [/s]

You took a left somewhere. Extremes aren't necessary.
I'm not a die hard Linus fan, but he nailed it in his video.
Good but not great.

I would not choose this over an equally priced Nvidia card. I like Zen 3, but big Navi isn't big enough.

 

[JimboJoneson]

You took a left somewhere. Extremes aren't necessary.
I'm not a die hard Linus fan, but he nailed it in his video.
Good but not great.

I would not choose this over an equally priced Nvidia card. I like Zen 3, but big Navi isn't big enough.

Your preference of choice does not conclude that AMD does not deserve a "well done", (which clearly was the aspect I was responding to) for now bringing full competition in the high end with a showing of better value in $ per frame and performance per watt and unmatched 1080p performance from even the competitors $1500 product.

Do you really think that it does?

Its not blowing Nvidia out of the water (except at rasterized 1080p), but for almost everyone, except perhaps the most die-hard green fans and those that only play RT games (or 4k MS flight simulator ), it deserves full consideration and respect based on this showing.

 

[Evernessince]

Curious as to how much of an advantage DLSS gives Nvidia. But even without it looking at the numbers and from my poor recent experience with AMD drivers I’d pick the 3080.

As if anyone had to question whether shadow boxer would pick Nvidia over AMD, you have yet to miss bashing AMD in any related article. This is less a discussion thread and more a pre-composed play. Everyone you expect to be negative towards AMD are all here on time.

 

[scavengerspc]

Everyone you expect to be negative towards AMD are all here on time.

And blind brand loyalty bullshit aside, the facts speak for themselves.

 

[McMurdeR]

The while point of having competition is to bring prices down. What a pity this won't happen due to the stock issues across the board. It's nice to see AMD back in the mix, but there's no benefit for the consumer for the time being.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

"The advantages of the GeForce GPU may be more mature ray tracing support and DLSS 2.0, both of which aren’t major selling points in our opinion unless you play a specific selection of games. "
This sounds like an uninformed youtube or reddit comment. There are several dozen games already using both those tech. The paroting of "not enough games" might have been true 2 years ago. Might have even been true 1 year ago. Certainly not as of now. Right when 4 of the biggest 5 games releasing at the end of 2020 have either ray tracing or dlss - Watch Dogs, Cyberpunk, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft.

RTX and DLSS are absolutely a selling point for buying new cards. Why would you buy one without them especially now after consoles got this tech too ? It makes no sense....

The examples you listed are irrelevant to ray tracing or dlss. Cyberpunk hasn't even come out yet and hasn't been independently assessed in performance and graphical details. The other games don't look noticeably different with these features on - look at the comparison for Watch Dog Legions for example.

World of Warcraft uses graphics from 10+ years ago and people aren't buying $700 GPUs to improve the graphics in WOW.

Ray Tracing continues to be a gimmick that is barely used by games and is underutilized or provides very little difference in games that do use it.