AMD’s RX 6900 XT and Nvidia’s RTX 3080 are two of the best graphics cards you can buy today. Both are great for 4K gaming, but only one can win this comparison. I’ve thrown both cards on my benchmark to see how they stack up so you can find the best 4K GPU for your next gaming PC.
If you want to go deeper, be sure to read our RTX 3080 Ti review. We also have a roundup of the best GPU deals each month, so be sure to check that page for a deal on one of these graphics cards.
Glasses
| RTX 3080Ti | RX 6900XT | |
| GPUs | GA102-225 | Navi 21XTX |
| Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x16 |
| CUDA Kernels/Shaders | 10,240 | 5,120 |
| tensor nuclei | 320 | IN |
| RT Cores/Accelerators | 80 | 80 |
| basic class | 1.365MHz | 1825MHz |
| turn up the clock | 1.665MHz | 2250MHz |
| Memory | 12GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6 |
| memory speed | 19Gb/s | 16Gb/s |
| Broadband | 912GB/s | 512GB/s |
| memory bus | 384 bit | 256 bit |
| TDP | 320W | 300W |
| Price list | 1199 dollars | 999 dollars |
Prices and availability
GPU prices are dropping every day, which means we can finally have a fair comparison between the RTX 3080 Ti and the RX 6900 XT. The RTX 3080 Ti launched in mid-2021 with a retail price of $1,200. It blew up in price due to the lack of a GPU, but now you can find it for less than retail. The Gigabyte RTX 3080 Ti Gaming OC, for example, costs around $1,100.
That’s still on the lower limit. Some overclocked RTX 3080 Ti models go for around $1,350, and if you want the top-of-the-line model, you could spend close to $1,500. However, there are several models available at or below the retail price. You can find models on the used market for around $1,000, saving you a few hundred bucks if you don’t mind a used card.
The RX 6900 XT is older, released at the end of 2020, so it is sold at a lower price. The card was issued for $1,000, but the vast majority of models are available for less than that. The MSI RX 6900 XT Gaming X Trio, the model I tested for this comparison, is available for around $900, for example. You can save about $100 on the used market, but you’ll have to do some searching.
A big reason why the RX 6900 XT is so much cheaper is that AMD recently released the RX 6950 XT. This model is a bit faster and is priced a bit higher: around $1100 for most models.
Whether you’re looking at list price or current prices, around $200 separates the RTX 3080 Ti and RX 6900 XT. Even if you find a deal on the RTX 3080 Ti, you’ll spend more on it than the RX 6900 XT on average.
gaming performance
I tested the RTX 3080 Ti and RX 6900 XT on a variety of titles at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. All my tests were done with Ryzen 9 5950X and either ReBAR or Smart Access Memory (SAM) enabled. Both are 4K graphics cards, but there’s very little difference in that resolution. The RX 6900 XT has a small advantage of 1.8%, which is barely noticeable.
At lower resolutions, pull forward. AMD’s card was 8.7% faster at 1440p and 13.7% faster at 1080p, mainly showing off the power of SAM. Even the best gaming processors will limit your GPU to lower resolutions, so I recommend buying our list of the best 1080p graphics cards if you don’t plan on gaming at 4K.
While it sounds like a clear win for the RX 6900 XT, the problem is in the details. There are two titles where the RX 6900 XT has a commanding advantage: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and horizon Force 5, where the RX 6900 XT shows an advantage of 19% and 28.9% respectively. These games tend to prefer AMD graphics cards, and SAM further enhances their performance.
The RTX 3080 Ti leads in the other four games I’ve tested, but the advantages aren’t as pronounced. The biggest advantage has arrived rainbow six siege — I ran it with Vulkan instead of DirectX, where the RTX 3080 Ti shows a 10% advantage. As is typical with AMD vs. Nvidia, performance comes down to whether you want a big edge in some games or a small edge in most other games.
Assuming you’ll be gaming in 4K, the RTX 3080 Ti and RX 6900 XT are nearly identical in raster performance. But if you play a lot of different games and use an Intel processor instead of an AMD one, the Nvidia card is a better option.
Ray tracing performance
Ray tracing is where AMD and Nvidia cards show the biggest differences. The RTX 3080 Ti comes with dedicated ray tracing cores, while the RX 6900 XT has a “ray accelerator” built into each compute unit. The result is much lower ray tracing performance on AMD’s RX 6000 graphics cards.
You can see it in action at cyberpunk 2077 and metropolitan exodus above (two of the best ray-traced PC games). Nvidia’s card leads with 21.6%. metropolitan exodus and a whopping 46.2% in Cyberpunk 2077. Enhancement techniques help improve RT performance on both cards, but that’s another major area where they differ.
DLSS and FSR
AMD
For ray tracing, you need a supersampling solution. The RTX 3080 Ti comes with Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), which uses the card’s Tensor cores to enhance visuals at lower resolutions. DLSS is great, but it only works with RTX graphics cards.
AMD has FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), which works with any graphics card. Still, it doesn’t look as good as DLSS, and you won’t find it in as many games. DLSS is still the number one reason to buy Nvidia graphics cards, especially if you want to use ray tracing in demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077.
As you can read in our FSR vs DLSS comparison, AMD has another version of FSR in the works that looks great. It currently sticks with the RTX 3080 Ti for DLSS and ray tracing. In the future, the RX 6900 XT could be a serious contender.
RTX 3080 Ti vs RX 6900 XT: The Verdict
Overall, I would recommend the RX 6900 XT to most people. It’s cheaper, offers similar performance to the RTX 3080 Ti, and can play games with one of AMD’s best processors. However, this does not mean that the RX 6900 XT is the best option for everyone.
The RTX 3080 Ti may be more expensive, but the DLSS and ray tracing performance are worth it. It depends on what games you want to play, but the RTX 3080 Ti is better positioned to handle the latest and most demanding games available on PC, even if it lags behind the RX 6900 XT in some titles.
editor’s recommendations
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn