SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT Review – Light And Bright

SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT Power Consumption

The flagship Navi based graphics cards have been highly anticipated ever since AMD introduced its first-generation RDNA lineup. While the first generation RDNA gave us a small glimpse of what we could expect from a flagship offering, the lineup never really introduced its own flagship variant & instead focused on the more mainstream performance-ended products. But two years later, the wait is finally over!

AMD has officially launched its Big Navi graphics card lineup and it's not just the biggest Navi GPU we have seen to date but also based on the 2nd Generation RDNA 2 architecture which delivers an impressive leap in performance per watt while offering a range of new features to put AMD Radeon ack in the high-end and enthusiast market segment.

 

The AMD RDNA 2 architecture for its Big Navi Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6900 series graphics cards has a lot to offer. In addition to architectural enhancements, you can expect hardware-accelerated ray tracing, smart access memory, Infinity Cache, and a lot more features on-deck which make the lineup one of the most competitive enthusiast families that AMD has ever positioned against NVIDIA.

Some of the main features for the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards include:

• AMD Infinity Cache – A high-performance, last-level data cache suitable for 4K and 1440p gaming with the highest level of detail enabled. 128 MB of on-die cache dramatically reduces latency and power consumption, delivering higher overall gaming performance than traditional architectural designs.
• AMD Smart Access Memory – An exclusive feature of systems with AMD Ryzen 5000 Series processors, AMD B550 and X570 motherboards, and Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards. It gives AMD Ryzen processors greater access to the high-speed GDDR6 graphics memory, accelerating CPU processing and providing up to a 13-percent performance increase on an AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card in Forza Horizon 4 at 4K when combined with the new Rage Mode one-click overclocking setting.
• Built for Standard Chassis – With a length of 267mm and 2x8 standard 8-pin power connectors, and designed to operate with existing enthusiast-class 650W-750W power supplies, gamers can easily upgrade their existing large to small form factor PCs without additional cost.

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

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 to 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.

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 that 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.

So for this review, I will be taking a look at the SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT. The SAPPHIRE Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT comes is said to feature an MSRP of around $770 US so that's just over a $100 US premium over the 649 US reference MSRP. At this price, you get a triple-fan cooling solution and a factory overclock out of the box.

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?

In case you want to read our full AMD RDNA 2 GPU architecture deep dive and Radeon RX 6800 XT reference model review, head over to this link.

 

Forza Horizon 4

Forza Horizon 4 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series.  The latest DX12 powered entry is beautifully crafted and amazingly well executed and is a great showcase of DX12 games.  We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, unlike its predecessor, does a good job putting DX12 to use and results in higher performance than the DX11 counterpart in this title and because of that, we test this title in DX12.  I do use the second segment of the benchmark run to gather these numbers as it is more indicative of in-game scenarios where the foliage is heavy.

Rainbow 6 Siege

Rainbow 6 Siege has maintained a massive following since its launch and it consistently in Steams Top Ten highest player count game.  In a title where the higher the framerate the better in a tactical yet fast-paced competitive landscape is essential, we include this title despite its ludicrously high framerates.  We use the Vulkan Ultra preset with the High Defenition Texture Pack as well and gather our results from the built-in benchmarking tool.

DOOM Eternal

DOOM Eternal brings hell to earth with the Vulkan powered idTech 7.  We test this game using the Ultra Nightmare Preset and follow our in-game benchmarking to stay as consistent as possible.

Watchdogs Legions sees a return of the Disrupt Engine they've been using since the early days with the original Watchdogs but this time it has been updated to next generation feature support. Dropping DX11 for DX12 we see much better utilization than in the past. Being one of the recent top sellers it earned a place in our test suite.

Call of Duty Modern Black Ops Cold War

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is the latest installment of the Call of Duty Series. Returning with DX12 support just like the Modern Warfare remake we tested this game during the opening of the Fractured Jaw level with the highest settings selected.

Horizon Zero Dawn

 

Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the two major PS4 exclusives that rocked their way onto the PC scene with massive acceptance and sales. Horizon Zero Dawn is powered by the Decima Engine and has been ported to DX12. We used the in-game benchmark to account for performance.

Borderlands 3

Borderlands 3 has made its way into the test lineup thanks to strong demand by gamers and simply delivering MORE Borderlands. This game is rather intensive after the Medium preset but since we're testing the 'Ultimate UW 1440p' card, High it is. We tested using the built-in benchmark utility

Total War Saga: Troy

Total War Saga: Troy is powered by their TW Engine 3 (Total War Engine 3) and in this iteration, they have stuck to a strictly DX11 release. We tested the game using the built-in benchmark using the Dynasty model that represents a battle with many soldiers interacting at once and is more representative of normal gameplay.

Hardware-Based Ray Tracing is here. Where Turing introduced the world to real-time ray-traced effects in games we've now seen the market follow. Perhaps it was always headed that way but the push was certainly jolted by the inclusion of hardware-based ray tracing elements. AMD has finally released hardware that does this included within RDNA2 and they're calling it their Ray Accelerators. Taking advantage of existing DXR games we're now able to see how well AMD implemented their feature against the Ampere architecture.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, unlike its predecessor, does a good job putting DX12 to use and results in higher performance than the DX11 counterpart in this title, and because of that, we test this title in DX12.  I do use the second segment of the benchmark run to gather these numbers as it is more indicative of in-game scenarios where the foliage is heavy. SotTR features Ray Traced Shadows and enabled in the benchmarks with the game set to the 'Highest' preset and RT Shadows at High. DLSS was used only when labeled.

Call of Duty Modern Black Ops Cold War

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War is the latest installment of the Call of Duty Series. Returning with DX12 support just like the Modern Warfare remake we tested this game during the opening of the Fractured Jaw level with the highest settings selected.

Control

Control is powered by Remedy's Northlight Storytelling Engine but severely pumped up to support multiple functions of ray-traced effects. We ran this through our test run in the cafeteria with all ray tracing functions on high and the game set to high. DLSS was enabled for this title in the quality setting when it was available.

Battlefield V

Battlefield V was one of the earlier games in the RTX 20 Series lifecycles to receive a DXR update. Battlefield V was tested on the opening sequence of the Tirailleur war story as it's been consistently one of the more demanding scenes for ray traced reflections that are featured in this game. DLSS was enabled for this game when available.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus was the third entry into the Metro series and as Artym ventures away from the Metro he, and you, are able to explore the world with impressive RT Global Illumination. RTGI has proven to be quite an intense feature to run. Metro Exodus also supports DLSS so it was used in our testing. Advanced PhysX was left disabled, but Hairworks was left on.

Boundary

Boundary is a multiplayer tactical shooter...in space. It's not out yet so treat this one as more of a synthetic benchmark as there are likely to be quite a few improvements but for now, we had access to the benchmark and it's a doozy to run. Featuring full raytracing effects for the benchmark as well as DLSS, we ran that in Quality mode when available.

Amid Evil

Amid Evil is a high energy old school shotoer that seems like an unlikely recipient of RT features, but here we are with insane DXR support in a modern retro shooter. Feature RT Reflections, RT Shadows, and NVIDIA's DLSS support we had to put this one through the rounds and see how things went. The RTX version of this game is still in beta but publicly available for those who want to try it. We tested with all RT features on and DLSS enabled.

Minecraft

Minecraft, yup Minecraft. When it comes to ray tracing Minecraft has it all. The Minecraft with RTX update has recently been updated to DXR1.1 so it gets the latest treatment in that regard. But, we're talking a fully path traced version of Minecraft here. We set up a run in the RTX world of Crystal Palace and set the Chunks to the maximum of 24, up from the default 8 in order to really turn the wrenches. Minecraft with RTX supports DLSS so it was used here.

DiRT 5

DiRT 5 is the latest in the series and it's an absolute joy to play but it is not kind on your hardware. AMD worked with Codemasters to get Ray Traced Shadows and VRS into the game. But as of the time of publishing neither are in the public build of the game. AMD did give us access to the RT enabled Beta build of the game so it's very important to keep in mind these results are from a Beta Private build and not the public game running on public drivers. All variable settings were set to Native, as this game has quite a few variable settings.

 

Graphics cards and power draw have always been quite synonymous with each other in terms of how much performance they put out for the power they take in. Measuring this has not always been the most straight forward when it comes to accuracy and methods for reviewers and end-users. NVIDIA has developed their PCAT system, or Power Capture Analysis Tool in order to be able to capture direct power consumption from ALL graphics cards that plug into the PCIe slot so that you can get a very clear barometer on actual power usage without relying on hacked together methods

The Old Way

The old method, for most anyway, was to simply use something along the lines of a Kill-A-Watt wall meter for power capture. This isn't the worst way, but as stated in our reviews it doesn't quite capture the amount of power that the graphics card alone is using. This results in some mental gymnastics to figure out how much the graphics card is using by figuring the system idle, CPU load, and the GPU load and estimating about where the graphics card lands, not very accurate to say the least.

Another way is to use GPU-z. This is the least reliable method as you have to rely entirely on the software reading from the graphics card. This is a poor method as the graphics cards vary in how they report to software when it comes to power usage. Some will only send out what the GPU core itself is using and not consider what the memory is drawing or any other component.

The last way I'll mention is the use of a multi-meter amperage clamp across the PCIe slot by way of a riser cable with separate cables then more power clamps on all the PCIe power cables going into the graphics card. This method is very accurate for graphics card power but is also very cumbersome and typically results in you having to watch the numbers and document them as you see them rather than plotting them across a spreadsheet.

The PCAT Way

This is where PCAT (power capture analysis tool) comes into play. NVIDIA has developed quite a robust tool for measuring graphics card power at the hardware level and taking the guesswork out of the equation. The tool is quite simple to set up and get going, as far as components used there are; a riser board for the GPU with a 4-pin Dupont cable, the PCAT module itself that everything plugs into with an OLED screen attached, 3 PCI-e cables for when a card calls for more than 2x 8-pin connectors, and a Micro-USB cable that allows you to capture the data on the system you're hooked up to or a secondary monitoring system.

Well, that's what it looks like when all hooked up on a test bench, you're not going to want to run this one in a case for sure. Before anyone gets worried, performance is not affected at all by this and the riser board is fully compliant with PCIe Gen 4.0. I'm not so certain about those exposed power points however, I will be getting the hot glue gun out soon for that.  Now, what does this do at this point? Well, two options: Plug it into the computer that it's all running on and let FrameView include the metrics, but that's for NVIDIA cards only so a pass, OR (what we do) plug it into a separate monitoring computer and observe and capture during testing scenarios.

The PCAT Power Profile Analyzer is the software tool provided to use to capture and monitor power readings across the PCI Express Power profile. The breadth of this tool is exceptionally useful for us here on the site to really explore what we can monitor. The most useful metric on here to me is the ability to monitor power across all sources, PCIe power cables (individually), and the PCIe slot itself.

Those who rather pull long-form spreadsheets to make their own charts are fully able to do so and even able to quickly form performance per watt metrics. We've found a very fun metric to monitor is actually Watts per frame, how many watts does it take for the graphics card to produce one frame at a locked 60FPS in various games, we'll get into that next.

Control Power

Control was the first game that we wanted to take a look at running at 1440p with RT on, and then again with RT off.

 

From these results for Control is shows that NVIDIAs measurements and claims of improvements were accurate, but it's not always the case. We tested Forza Horizon 4 in a spot to test the same way again but this time at 4K and looking at when we target at 4K60 scene in this game

 

Overclocking RDNA2 is great when it comes to numbers, finally, after some time we actually get to crank the clocks on the Radeon side of the family. The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 6800 XT was a decent overclocker from our experience. We've seen reports of others getting wild high overclocks but ours seemed to fair much more conservatively with the GPU Core reaching around the 2600MHz mark and getting the memory up to 2100MHz (base) with Fast Timings. Anything nearing the 2650MHz or greater mark on the core resulted in extremely wild artifacts that I originally attributed to the memory being unstable but it seems that it was starting to interfere with the Infinity Cache at that point.

As you'll see below the result was quite welcome. While the massive clock speed increase doesn't yield insane levels of performance pumping numbers we still see a very competent and good level of uplift that I wouldn't recommend leaving off the table.

Firestrike

Firestrike is running the DX11 API and is still a good measure of GPU scaling performance, in this test we ran the Extreme and Ultra versions of Firestrike which runs at 1440p and 4K and we recorded the Graphics Score only since the Physics and combined are not pertinent to this review.

Time Spy

Time Spy is running the DX12 API and we used it in the same manner as Firestrike Extreme where we only recorded the Graphics Score as the Physics score is recording the CPU performance and isn't important to the testing we are doing here.

Forza Horizon 4

Forza Horizon 4 carries on the open-world racing tradition of the Horizon series.  The latest DX12 powered entry is beautifully crafted and amazingly well executed and is a great showcase of DX12 games.  We use the benchmark run while having all of the settings set to non-dynamic with an uncapped framerate to gather these results.

Watchdogs Legions sees a return of the Disrupt Engine they've been using since the early days with the original Watchdogs but this time it has been updated to next generation feature support. Dropping DX11 for DX12 we see much better utilization than in the past. Being one of the recent top sellers it earned a place in our test suite.

If aftermarket Radeon RX 6800 XT cards are more in line with what your heart desires over the excellent reference design this go around then the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 6800 XT will not, on any level, disappoint. SAPPHIRE has done as they always do on each iteration of their Nitro+ lineup and improved on the critiques of the past and kept the elements that made them a staple name.

The SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 6800 XT is an exceptional reimagining of an already exceptional gaming card. Big, bold, and bright are just some of the easiest words that come to mind when thinking about how I would describe this model of the RDNA2 based card, but it's still contemporary enough to fit in with almost any modern build.

The effectiveness of the cooler can't really be stated in numbers alone as on paper it looks just as effective as the reference cooler, but the fact that it stays even more quiet, even when overclocked can't be understated. Just by the numbers, it looks to be only as effective as the reference cooler but that's not quite the case, and it allows for a much easier and much more user-friendly experience when it comes to keeping it clean in the long run.

The performance of the card sits right in line with that reference experience but with RDNA2's excellent overclock capabilities you'll run out of silicon luck before you run out of power delivery and cooling capabilities, so kudos to SAPPHIRE on their design from that standpoint as well. This card overclocked with ease despite it falling right in the median overclocking range for these GPU cores.

When the AMD Radeon team gets around to explaining to all of us and showing the world what FidelityFX Super Resolution can do then we're still left with middling DXR performance. Perhaps when that is delivered we'll see the RDNA2 architecture compete better on that front, but that's on AMD not SAPPHIRE, and when they do this card will potentially shine even brighter.

But as it stands, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT delivers an excellent gaming experience for those who care more about that traditional raster performance for now but still want to dabble in the next-generation features. It's big, it's bold, it's beautiful, it's fast, it's certainly an enthusiast product and it's great to see that SAPPHIRE has delivered on their long-standing tradition of quality built components. Now, as far as MSRP and availability, at the time of publishing both are fleeting thoughts and it's practically vaporware, let's hope that changes, and when it does, I'll rewrite this section.

 

 

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