AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Review

With AMD's launch of its new Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs, the company's Radeon RX 6800 XT ($649) finds itself in the unenviable position of diving into shark-infested waters. With its sights set squarely on Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition, AMD has set the goal for itself of 

remaining competitive with all takers; Intel on the CPU side, and Nvidia on GPUs. While AMD's CPU division has pummeled Intel over the past year and a half, its graphics card arm still finds itself on defense versus Nvidia. And that narrative doesn't change much with the Radeon RX 6800 XT (dubbed

 during its development "Big Navi"). At times, it's the fastest GPU we've tested to date in its price range. At others, it returns inconsistent results across some modern AAA titles, legacy AAA games, and synthetic benchmarks.

At $50 less than the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition, the Radeon RX 6800 XT does present an enticing value proposition—and, unlike, the latest GeForce RTX "Ampere" cards, may prove to be made of something other than unobtainium. (Maybe you'll be able to buy one in the hours after its launch, or maybe not?) But the early drivers and firmware behind it, in its launch state, make us 

withhold our seal of approval. With substantial overclocking headroom and plenty of new features to show off, the Radeon RX 6800 XT holds a lot of promise. But until its drivers can regularly deliver on that potential, early adopters might want to hold off. (We'll keep an eye out for firmware updates and re-test and re-evaluate our score as necessary.)

The first thing I noticed about the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT as I pulled it out of the box was just how big it was. Now, at 10.5 inches long, it's actually the same length as its nemesis, Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition. But it's thick, too. The 2.5-slot width and the sheer weight remind you that this 


 

is a top-end, big-iron GPU.But in contrast to the RTX 3080 Founders Edition, where the total length of the card is made up of only about 50% PCB (with the rest dedicated to the heatsink and cooling system), the PCB of the Radeon RX 6800 XT runs the full length of the card. And it features many of 

the traditional design elements we've seen on reference versions of AMD cards in the past. You'll see some refinements here and there, but none is nearly so drastic as the changes Nvidia made between its GeForce RTX 20 Series and RTX 30 Series of GPUs.