AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Review

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Big Navi’s little brother looks great!

The Radeon 6000 series from AMD has been revealed and we cannot wait to take a look at the RDNA2 architecture that has been added to the RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and the RX 6800. For those looking to get 4K gaming at a great price, the RX 6800 XT is a great choice.

Offering over 60 FPS at 4K in all the 10 benchmark tests AMD labs completed, the RX 6800 XT is the right choice for those that do not want to throw $999 at AMD’s Big Navi 6900 XT or at NVidia’s RTX 3090 – which is no less than $1499!

Let’s check to see the specs, features, and benchmarks to see how the Radeon RX 6800 XT performs compared to its direct competitor, the RTX 3080 Founders Edition. We will also compare the RX 6800 XT against its two siblings – the RX 6900 XT and the RX 6800.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Review

XFX Speedster AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT CORE Gaming Graphics Card

$699.99

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03/26/2024 11:58 pm GMT

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Specs and Features

• GPU: Navi21
• Interface: PCI Express 4.0
• GPU Cores: 4,608 Stream processors
• Ray tracing cores: 72 Ray Accelerators
• Base clock: TBD
• Game clock: 2,015MHz
• Boost clock: 2,250MHz
• Memory: 16GB GDDR6
• Memory speed: 16Gbps + 128MB Infinity Cache
• Memory bus: 256-bit
• Memory Bandwidth: 512GBps
• TDP: 300 W
• Minimum recommended PSU: 750 W

The RX 6800 XT is a powerful enough GPU to deliver 60+ FPS at 4k gaming. We like that premium features such as full DirectX 12 Ultimate support, Infinity Cache, Rage Mode, and Smart Access Memory that are found in the high-end RX 6900 XT are also available for the cheaper RX 6800 XT and the RX 6800.

As we mentioned in our AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT article, these features work together in boosting performance. For instance, Rage Mode, and Smart Access Memory will make the RX 6800 XT 13% more powerful when used together with a Ryzen 5000 CPU and 500-series chipset.

The difference between the RX 6800 XT and its more powerful sibling, the RX 6900 XT stands in the number of stream processors and ray tracing cores. The RX 6800 XT has 4,608 Stream processors compared with the RX 6900 XT which has 5,120 Stream processors. As for ray tracing cores, since each compute unite has one ray accelerator, the RX 6800 XT comes with 72 Ray Accelerators – a tad less than what the RX 6900 XT has (80 Ray Accelerators).

Now, looking at the NVidia RTX 3080, we see a boost clock of only 1710 MHz and the biggest difference would be the memory, which is 10GB GDDR6X instead of AMD’s 16GB GDDR6.

Let’ see how the RX 6800 XT compares to the other GPUs in AMD’s benchmark tests at 4k resolutions and the highest settings available.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Benchmarks

System Configuration for benchmark tests:

• CPU – AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
• RAM – 16 GB DDR4-3200
• Motherboard – X570 reference platform
• BIOS – RQ21082B – Smart Access Memory enabled
• Radeon drivers – 20.45-201013n
• GeForce drivers – 456.71
• OS – Windows 10 Pro x64 19041.508

Benchmarks – 4k Test Results

Battlefield V – Ultra, DX11

Battlefield V played at 3840×2160 shows that not only the RX 6800 XT beats the GeForce 3080, but also the GeForce 3090! We see the 6900 XT reaching over 110 FPS in this game.

Borderlands 3 – Badass, DX12

The RX 6800 XT comes second after its more powerful sibling, going head to head with the GeForce 3090 at around 65 FPS. Meanwhile, the GeForce 3080 is lagging behind by almost 10 FPS.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare – Ultra – Filmic SMAA T2X – 16xAF, DS12

For the same high settings at 4k, the RX 6800 XT reaches 90 FPS, around 5 FPS less than the competitor GPU.

Doom Eternal – Ultra Nightmare, Vulkan

The RX 6800 XT reaches nearly 140 FPS at the highest settings in 4K, and it lags behind the GeForce 3080 by a couple of FPS.

Forza Horizon 4 – Ultra, DX12

Both Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6900 XT surpass the GeForce RTX 3090 in terms of FPS at Ultra when running Forza Horizon. The RX 6800 XT offers 151 FPS, while the competitor lags behind at around 145 FPS distance.

Gears 5 – Ultra, DX12

Radeon RX 6800 XT is once again on the second spot after the 6900 XT and offers the same performance in terms of FPS as the top NVidia GPU. Meanwhile, the GeForce RTX 3080 lag behind the RX 6800 XT by around 6 FPS.

Resident Evil 3 – Ultra, FXAA+TAA – 16xAF, DX12

Neither the RX 6800 XT nor the RX 6900 XT topped the chart in Resident Evil 3 testing. The RX 6800 XT is placed fourth, but delivers over 115 FPS, which is 5 FPS less than the GeForce RTX 3080.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Highest – noAA, DX12

Just like we see with the top GPUs from AMD and NVidia, the second best GPUs are in a tight competition, both delivering nearly the same FPS, at a distance of less than 2 FPS.

The Division 2 – Ultra – TAA SS High – 16xAF, DX12

This game is where the both the RX 6800 XT nor the RX 6900 XT get dethroned once again, with the RX 6800 XT offering nearly 75 FPS. Meanwhile, the GeForce RTX 3080 reached around 82 FPS.

Wolfenstein Youngblood – Mein Leben, Vulkan

The RX 6800 XT reaches over 145 FPS at 4k and high settings, with the GeForce RTX 3080 lagging behind at only a couple of FPS.

It’s important to note that AMD has tested their 6000 series GPUs with both Rage Mode on and using the Smart Access Memory feature. This means that systems that will not use a Ryzen 5000 CPU and a 500-series chipset will have around 13% less performance.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Price and Release Date

Revealed on October 28, the Radeon RX 6800 XT will be launched together with the RX 6800 on November 18.

The RX 6800 XT will sell starting with $699, which is $50 cheaper than its direct competitor RTX 3080. Of course, once the third-party models from various brands will be released, we will see bigger prices and perhaps higher clock speeds.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Last Thoughts

At around the same price as its direct competitor (RTX 3080), the RX 6800 XT is still a great choice considering that in some benchmark tests, the performance is closer to the more expensive RTX 3090.

The RX 6800 XT offers around 5% more performance at 4K compared to the RTX 3080, and almost 10% more performance at 1440p.

The downsides in AMD 6000 series is that in terms of ray-tracing, NVidia still has the upper hand. We don’t have tests to show how the 6000 series compares with NVidia’s 30 series, but we do know that RDNA2 is much better than the previous architecture.

You can also check our article about the RX 6900 XT at this link or the RX 6800 here to learn all you need to know about the entire Radeon 6000 series.