AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT review: Buy the 6900 XT instead

AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT review: Buy the 6900 XT instead

MSRP $1100.00

“The AMD RX 6950 XT is a new version of the RX 6900 XT, but even calling it an upgrade is too generous.”

Average

• Relatively low power consumption

• Outperforms the RTX 3090

• Cheap compared to Nvidia’s competition

Against

• Nearly identical performance to the RX 6900 XT

• $100 more than the RX 6900 XT

• Poor ray tracing performance

Next-gen upgrades are an opportunity for GPU vendors to take another step on an architecture they will soon be retiring. Updates like this time out, allowing companies like AMD and Nvidia to add extra power, extra cores, and more features based on what they’ve learned since the initial release.

AMD’s RX 6950 XT does not take advantage of this possibility.

Calling it an overclocked RX 6900 XT would be too flattering, and my benchmarks clearly show that. It’s a graphics card that only makes sense in the boardroom, offers little to no advantage over the base RX 6900 XT, and still commands a $100 price bump.

AMD now has new graphics cards available that offer much better value. Be sure to read our RX 7900 XTX review for a breakdown of performance.

specifications and prices

Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

For a next-gen upgrade like the RX 6950 XT, it all comes down to specs. And AMD’s offer isn’t too tempting. Overall, the RX 6950 XT is pretty much the same graphics card as the RX 6900 XT. It has the same number of cores, the same 16GB of GDDR6 memory, and the same 256-bit memory bus.

	RX 6950 XT	RX 6900XT	RTX 3090
cores	5,120	5,120	10,496
Booster/Game Hour	2100MHz	2.015MHz	1.695MHz
Memory	16GB GDDR6	16GB GDDR6	24GB GDDR6X
memory bus	256 bit	256 bit	384 bit
Broadband	576GB/s	512GB/s	936.2 GB/s
Interface	PCIe 4.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x16
TDP	335W	300W	350W
recommended power supply	850W	700W	750W

The differences come in the clock and memory speed. 16 GB GDDR6 jumps from 16 Gbps to 18 Gbps, increasing memory bandwidth by a solid 12.5%. It’s a respectable increase, but memory bandwidth isn’t much of an issue for gaming. And in content creation workloads, the massive bandwidth offered by GDDR6X on the RTX 3090 is a better option.

Otherwise, the RX 6950 XT brings a measly 4.2% increase in game clock. That’s just over 4% boost on the max boost clock. You can easily achieve that boost by overclocking your graphics card, and many third-party RX 6900 XT models even match the clock speed of the standard RX 6950 XT.

The only reason to upgrade to the RX 6950 XT is simply because you want to.

I wish there was more to talk about, but there isn’t. The slight increase in clock speed results in a $100 price increase, bringing the list price of the RX 6950 XT to $1,100. That’s still a lot cheaper than the $1,500 Nvidia charges for the RTX 3090, but compared to AMD’s own RX 6900 XT, it’s strictly a price bump.

It’s even worse when you consider that GPU prices are mostly back to normal, especially for the RX 6900 XT. As of this writing, I found several models available at Newegg for $1,000 or less. Based on the specs and my benchmarks, the RX 6950 XT is basically the same card as the RX 6900 XT. With supplies rising and prices falling, the only reason to upgrade to the RX 6950 XT is simply because you want to.

Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

That’s generally for AMD’s GPU, but I don’t want to disparage the Gigabyte RX 6950 XT Gaming OC that I reviewed. It is an excellent map. The Windforce cooling system is fully operational, keeping temperatures down even with increased power consumption, and the branding is sleek and minimalist. It even has some RGB lighting for the Gigabyte logo, which you can configure via Gigabyte’s RGB Fusion software.

Games

It’s hard to find a place for the RX 6950 XT in today’s graphics card market. AMD seems so focused on competing with the RTX 3090 that they forgot to consider the base RX 6900 XT. Based on my results, the RX 6950 XT is actually slightly worse than the RX 6900 XT, although it still manages to beat the RTX 3090.

Above you can see how the cards stack up on average. All of my testing was done with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D and 32 GB of DDR4-3200 memory. I’ve tested 1080p at 4K, but the results in the table above and the table below are for 4K with the highest graphics preset.

Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Only half the frame separates the RX 6900 XT from the RX 6950 XT, and that favors a weaker card. Not too surprising given that you can easy boost the RX 6950 XT to 2100 MHz (the world record is somewhere around 3300 MHz). Clock speed variances mean this card basically performs as well as the RX 6900 XT, for only $100 more.

This is important to keep in mind. The RX 6950 XT outperforms the RTX 3090 by about 4%, but so does the RX 6900 XT. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s RTX 3090 Ti is ahead of the pack, outperforming the RX 6950 XT by around 6% on average. Based on my results, the RX 6950 XT may not exist outside the range of the RX 6000 for a few more months.

	RX 6950 XT	RX 6900XT	RTX 3090Ti	RTX 3090
3DMark Time Spy	18,611	19,492	19,848	17,078
3DMark Fire Strike	42,692	39,307	IN	37,380
red dead redemption 2	73fps	76fps	84fps	75fps
Fortnite	80fps	80fps	86fps	69fps
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla	68fps	68fps	72fps	63fps
force horizon 4	165fps	162fps	147fps	153fps
cyberpunk 2077	42fps	43fps	49fps	46fps
Cyberpunk 2077 with RT	12fps	13fps	24fps	21fps
far away 6	89fps	IN	IN	82fps

You can see my full results in the table above. There isn’t much to write home about outside of ray tracing performance. IN cyberpunk 2077, The RX 6950 XT is significantly weaker than Nvidia’s cards, just like the RX 6900 XT. AMD’s current generation cards aren’t great when it comes to ray tracing; read our RX 6500 XT review for another example, and the RX 6950 XT doesn’t change that.

content creation

Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Radeon GPUs are always relegated to GeForce when it comes to content creation tasks, and the higher clock speed and slightly higher memory bandwidth on the RX 6950 XT don’t do enough to change that. Compared to the best from Nvidia, the RX 6950 XT clearly lags behind.

	RX 6950 XT	RTX 3090Ti	RTX 3090
PugetBench for Premiere Pro	658	853	882
blender classroom	589	1,691	1,394
blender monster	1,144	2,962	2,826
blender junkyard	557	1,467	1,615

It held up fine in Premiere Pro, but that app puts just as much strain on your CPU and RAM as it does on your GPU. In a graphics-focused benchmark like Blender, the RX 6950 XT is sacrificed. Nvidia has CUDA and Optix rendering, which is significantly faster than the OpenGL rendering that the RX 6950 XT has access to.

Not to mention the memory in the RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti. It uses GDDR6X memory, which is much larger than the GDDR6 available in the RX 6950 XT. If you’re serious about creating GPU-related content, it’s best to stick with Nvidia for now.

power and warmth

Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

Gigabyte’s RX 6950 XT Gaming OC is great for keeping things fresh. In FurMark’s stress test, the card reached a maximum temperature of 67 degrees Celsius on an outdoor test bench. That’s great, and even in one of the best PC cases, it offers plenty of headroom. What was more interesting was the power consumption.

AMD emphasizes the performance advantage of the RX 6950 XT, and it has an advantage.

AMD rates power at 335 watts, but my card tops out at 290 W. That was with the default profile set in Radeon Software. Even with automatic overclocking, the card never drew more than 308W. I’d rather have power too high than too low, but my results show how similar the RX 6950 XT is to the 300W RX 6900 XT.

Like entry-level cards, AMD emphasizes its efficiency advantage. And it has an advantage. Only the RTX 3090 consumes 350 W and from my experience the card can go up to close to 400 W even without overclocking. Meanwhile, the RTX 3090 Ti clocks in at a whopping 450W, easily consuming more power than any other component you can fit into a PC. AMD’s fins look strange by comparison.

Our opinion

The RX 6950 XT is a graphics card that doesn’t have to exist. It looks a lot like Nvidia’s 12GB RTX 3080, an upgrade that was aimed at raising prices without offering clear performance improvements. AMD has already made a graphics card that can beat the RTX 3090, and that’s the RX 6900 XT, not this next-gen upgrade.

Are there alternatives?

That. The RX 6900 XT offers nearly identical performance for $100 less. If you’re interested in content creation work, Nvidia’s RTX 3090 or RTX 3090 Ti are better options.

How long will it last?

Although this is a disappointing release, the RX 6950 XT is still an extremely powerful graphics card. It should last a few years before it needs an upgrade, especially given its modest power requirements.

Should you buy it?

No, buy the RX 6900 XT instead. It is an excellent gaming graphics card that is now being sold at retail. However, if you want more power for ray tracing and content creation, Nvidia’s GPUs are still the winner.

editor’s recommendations

Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn