AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT & Radeon RX 6800 16 GB Graphics Cards Review – Here’s Big Navi!

AMD Radeon RX 6000 'Big Navi' GPU Lineup - RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 6800

The AMD RDNA 2 architecture that powers the Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards are based on the same 7nm process from TSMC but with its own enhancements. AMD claims a 50% perf per watt uplift for RDNA 2 over RDNA 1 and there is a range of technologies that make it all work. AMD's bet on 7nm definitely seems like it has paid off as users will be receiving massive performance uplifts over previous generation offerings.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series Gaming Graphics Cards - Bringing Competition Back in The Enthusiast Segment

AMD is offering three cards as a start for its RDNA 2 generation which includes the Radeon RX 6900 XT, the Radeon RX 6800 XT, and the Radeon RX 6800.

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Following is what AMD has to offer in its RDNA 2 powered Big Navi Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card stack:

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT "Big Navi 21 XT" GPU Powered 16 GB Graphics Card

The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT will come packed with the Navi 21 XTX GPU which is the fully enabled die featuring 80 Compute Units or 5120 SPs. The card will also feature 16 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus interface, a 512 GB/s total bandwidth, and clock speeds of 2015 MHz base and 2250 MHz boost at reference specs. There are also 80 Ray accelerators for ray-tracing enablement on the graphics cards (one RA per Compute Unit). The graphics card will feature a based TBP of 300W with factory-overclocked models pushing it above 350W and will arrive at a later date.

In addition to the standard memory, the Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card will also feature 128 MB of Infinity Cache on the GPU die. The cache will help boost bandwidth for higher performance at resolutions beyond 1080p HD. The 128 MB Infinity Cache boosts the standard 512 GB/s bandwidth by 3.25x, delivering an effective bandwidth of up to 1.664 TB/s across all Big Navi GPU based graphics cards.

In the performance metrics shown by AMD, the Radeon RX 6900 XT with Rage Mode and Smart Access Memory enabled, features performance on par and even better in some cases than the NVIDIA's fastest GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card. The difference here is that AMD's solution not only features higher performance efficiency but also comes at a $500 US lower price point.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT "Big Navi 21 XT" GPU Powered 16 GB Graphics Card

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT will come packed with the Navi 21 XT GPU which is a cut-down SKU featuring 72 Compute Units or 4608 SPs. The card will also feature 16 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus interface, a 512 GB/s total bandwidth, and clock speeds of 2015 MHz base and 2250 MHz boost at reference specs. The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT also packs 72 Ray Accelerators which are dedicated for real-time raytracing workloads. The card will feature a based TBP of 300W with factory-overclocked models pushing it above 350W and will arrive at a later date.

In addition to the standard memory, the Radeon RX 6800 series graphics cards will also feature 128 MB of Infinity Cache on the GPU die. The cache will help boost bandwidth for higher performance at resolutions beyond 1080p HD. The 128 MB Infinity Cache boosts the standard 512 GB/s bandwidth by 3.25x, delivering an effective bandwidth of up to 1.664 TB/s across all Big Navi GPU based graphics cards.

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In terms of performance, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is shown to compete against the GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card. The card features a 20W lower total board power & delivers better GPU performance in several AAA titles using the best API (Vulkan / DirectX 12). AMD is also bringing its Rage-mode back which is an automatic overclocking tool within its Radeon Software suite which delivers even higher performance along with a nifty new feature known as Smart Access. Gains of up to 13% were showcased with the said features as can be seen below.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 "Big Navi 21 XL" GPU Powered 16 GB Graphics Card

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 graphics card will feature an even more cut down Navi 21 "Big Navi" GPU with 60 Compute Units of 3840 stream processors. The AMD Navi 21 XL GPU is going to feature clock speeds of 1815 MHz game and 2105 MHz boost clocks at reference specs.

It was also stated that the AMD Radeon RX 6800 with Navi 21 XL GPU could feature a TBP of 250W at stock clocks. The card will feature the same VRAM config of 16 GB GDDR6 memory, a 256-bit bus interface with the memory clocking in at 16 Gbps which will deliver a net bandwidth of 512GB/s.

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The AMD Radeon RX 6800 will be featuring performance faster than the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti with smart access memory feature enabled. The graphics card will be ideally positioned against the RTX 3070 for just a $79 US higher price, yet offering much better performance and twice the memory of its main competition.

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AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series "RDNA 2" Graphics Card Lineup:

Graphics Card	AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6800	AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6700	AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6600	AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT	AMD Radeon RX 6400
GPU	Navi 21 KXTX	Navi 21 XTX	Navi 21 XT	Navi 21 XL	Navi 22 KXT	Navi 22 XT	Navi 22 XL	Navi 23 KXT	Navi 23 (XT)	Navi 23 (XL)	Navi 24 (XT)	Navi 24 (XL)
Process Node	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	7nm	6nm	6nm
Die Size	520mm2	520mm2	520mm2	520mm2	336mm2	336mm2	336mm2	237mm2	237mm2	237mm2	107mm2	107mm2
Transistors	26.8 Billion	26.8 Billion	26.8 Billion	26.8 Billion	17.2 Billion	17.2 Billion	17.2 Billion	11.06 Billion	11.06 Billion	11.06 Billion	5.4 Billion	5.4 Billion
Compute Units	80	80	72	60	40	40	36	32	32	28	16	12
Stream Processors	5120	5120	4608	3840	2560	2560	2304	2048	2048	1792	1024	768
TMUs/ROPs	320 / 128	320 / 128	288 / 128	240 / 96	160/64	160/64	144/64	128/64	128/64	112/64	64/32	48/32
Game Clock	2116 MHz	2015 MHz	2015 MHz	1815 MHz	2495 MHz	2424 MHz	2330 MHz	2410 MHz	2359 MHz	2044 MHz	2610 MHz	2039 MHz
Boost Clock	2324 MHz	2250 MHz	2250 MHz	2105 MHz	2600 MHz	2581 MHz	2495 MHz	2635 MHz	2589 MHz	2491 MHz	2815 MHz	2321 MHz
FP32 TFLOPs	23.80 TFLOPs	23.04 TFLOPs	20.74 TFLOPs	16.17 TFLOPs	13.31 TFLOPs	13.21 TFLOPs	11.50 TFLOPs	10.79 TFLOPs	10.6 TFLOPs	9.0 TFLOPs	5.7 TFLOPs	3.5 TFLOPs
Memory Size	16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache	16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache	16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache	16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache	12 GB GDDR6 + 96 MB Infinity Cache	12 GB GDDR6 + 96 MB Infinity Cache	10 GB GDDR5 + 80 MB Infinity Cache	8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache	8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache	8 GB GDDR6 + 32 MB Infinity Cache	4 GB / 8 GB GDDR6 + 16 MB Infinity Cache	4 GB GDDR6 + 16 MB Infinity Cache
Memory Bus	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	192-bit	192-bit	160-bit	128-bit	128-bit	128-bit	64-bit	64-bit
Memory Clock	18 Gbps	16 Gbps	16 Gbps	16 Gbps	18 Gbps	16 Gbps	16 Gbps	17.5 Gbps	16 Gbps	14 Gbps	18 Gbps	14 Gbps
Bandwidth	576 GB/s	512 GB/s	512 GB/s	512 GB/s	432 GB/s	384 GB/s	320 GB/s	280 GB/s	256 GB/s	224 GB/s	144 GB/s	112 GB/s
TDP	335W	300W	300W	250W	250W	230W	220W	176W	160W	132W	107W	53W
Price	$1099 US	$999 US	$649 US	$579 US	$549 US	$479 US	TBD	$399 US	$379 US	$329 US	$199 US	$159 US?

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