Radeon RX 6800 XT

The Radeon RX 6800 XT has become one of the most anticipated AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards released in October 2020. This was AMD's response to the high-end graphics market previously occupied by NVIDIA products such as the GeForce RTX 3080.

Development and announcement date: The development of the Radeon RX 6800 XT was based on the RDNA 2 architecture, the second generation of the RDNA architecture that debuted in 2019 with the Radeon RX 5000 series. started November 18, 2020.

Architecture: The RDNA 2 architecture on which the Radeon RX 6800 XT is based was created with energy efficiency and performance optimizations in mind. The graphics card uses the Navi 21 GPU, which offers hardware support for ray tracing, and also features Infinity Cache, a unique caching technology that improves memory efficiency and increases bandwidth.

Specifications: The Radeon RX 6800 XT has 72 compute units (CUs), providing 4608 stream processors. The GPU runs at a base frequency of 2015 MHz with an increase to 2250 MHz. The video card is equipped with 16 GB of GDDR6 video memory with a 256-bit bus and a bandwidth of 512 Gb / s. The power consumption is 300W.

Pricing: At launch, the recommended price for the Radeon RX 6800 XT was $649. However, due to the shortage of microcircuits and high demand, the real prices in the market could significantly exceed the official cost.

Gaming Performance: The Radeon RX 6800 XT was a direct competitor to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX3080 and it delivered impressive performance in a variety of games. In most tests, the AMD graphics card is comparable in performance to the GeForce RTX 3080, outperforming it in some cases and falling behind in others. The results also depended on the optimization of games for the RDNA 2 architecture.

At 1440p (2560x1440), the Radeon RX 6800 XT provided excellent performance at maximum graphics settings, maintaining a solid 60+ fps in most modern games. At 4K resolution (3840x2160) it also handled most games, but in some cases compromises in graphics settings might be necessary for consistent performance.

Interesting facts about the video card:

1. The Radeon RX 6800 XT was the first AMD graphics card to support hardware-accelerated ray tracing, allowing it to compete with NVIDIA products in this area.
2. Infinity Cache technology, introduced with the Radeon RX 6800 XT, has helped AMD reduce power consumption and increase memory bandwidth without sacrificing performance.
3. The Radeon RX 6800 XT supports AMD Smart Access Memory (SAM), which allows Ryzen 5000 series processors to have full access to video memory, improving performance in some scenarios.

Overall, the Radeon RX 6800 XT was AMD's successful entry into the high-end graphics market. It offered competitive performance compared to NVIDIA's top graphics cards, improved power efficiency, and introduced new technologies such as hardware ray tracing and Infinity Cache.