AMD Teases Radeon RX 6000 Card Performance Numbers: Aiming For 3080?
by Ryan Smith on October 8, 2020 12:30 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- Navi 2x
- RX 6000 Series
As part of today’s Zen 3 desktop CPU announcement from AMD, the company also threw in a quick teaser from the GPU side of the company in order to show off the combined power of their CPUs and GPUs. The other half of AMD is preparing for their own announcement in a few weeks, where they’ll be holding a keynote for their forthcoming Radeon RX 6000 video cards.
With the recent launch of NVIDIA’s Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series parts clearly on their minds, AMD briefly teased the performance of a forthcoming high-end RX 6000 video card. The company isn’t disclosing any specification details of the unnamed card – short of course that it’s an RDNA2-based RX 6000 part – but the company did disclose a few choice benchmark numbers from their labs.
Dialing things up to 4K at maximum quality, AMD benchmarked Borderlands 3, Gears of War 5, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). And while these are unverified results being released for marketing purposes – meaning they should be taken with a grain or two of salt – the implied message from AMD is clear: they’re aiming for NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 with this part.
Assuming these numbers are accurate, AMD’s Borderlands 3 performance are practically in lockstep with the 3080. However the Gears 5 results are a bit more modest, and 73fps would have AMD trailing by several percent. Finally, Call of Duty does not have a standardized benchmark, so although 88fps at 4K looks impressive, it’s impossible to say how it compares to other hardware.
Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that as with all vendor performance teases, we’re likely looking at AMD’s best numbers. And of course, expect to see a lot of ongoing fine tuning from both AMD and NVIDIA over the coming weeks and months as they jostle for position, especially if AMD’s card is consistently this close.
Otherwise, the biggest question that remains for another day is which video card these performance numbers are for. It’s a very safe bet that this is AMD’s flagship GPU (expected to be "Big Navi", Navi 21), however AMD is purposely making it unclear if this is their lead configuration, or their second-tier configuration. Reaching parity with the 3080 would be a big deal on its own; however if it’s AMD’s second tier-card, then that would significantly alter the competitive landscape.
Expect to find out the answers to this and more on October 28th, when AMD hosts their Radeon RX 6000 keynote.
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Meteor2 - Tuesday, October 13, 2020 - link
"the funny thing is, for every 1 person that says amds gpu drivers suck, there is the same that say nvidia's drivers are just as as bad" -- trouble is, Nvidiia outsells AMD >5:1.Spunjji - Monday, October 12, 2020 - link
@TheinsanegamerN - no, I mean posts like yours and flyingpants256 that act as if problems temporarily affecting one generation of their cards apply to everything they've ever released.If you need to pretend that I think literally every criticism of an AMD card is written by a "shill" in an attempt to refute what I'm saying, then you're not really refuting what I'm saying, are you? The post I responded to was about the 570 and 580 - feel free to come back to me with the same reply when those cards magically turn into Navi chips.
Those nebulous "longstanding complaints" are exactly what I was referring to - there has been a sustained narrative of ATi/AMD drivers being crap for two solid decades, periodically fuelled by actual instances of truth. The thing is, Nvidia managed to weather storms like being the number one source of Vista crashes and literally burning out a bunch of their cards with driver releases, and yet they never picked up the same rep... Funny how that works.
Spunjji - Monday, October 12, 2020 - link
For context, I just switched across from two years on a GTX 980M to an RX 580 a month and a half ago. The worst issue I had on Nvidia were the usual issues with selecting the right GPU for an application (I forced dGPU all the time, not ideal but it works) and the system flailing when I plugged in an external display (something neither Intel no Nvidia seem to get right). In other words, nothing remarkable at all.I've not had a single issue on my RX 580 yet. No game compatibility issues, no driver crashes, nothing. Doesn't mean the drivers are perfect, but if they were as bad as folks claims then you'd think I'd have noticed now - or back when I was running a 7970M for 2 years. Somehow, I didn't. 🤔
Qasar - Monday, October 12, 2020 - link
think of it this way spunjji, if intel or nvidia do something, good or bad, its perfectly fine. if amd does it, its a federal offence, and people loose their minds over it, look at the complaints about the 50 buck price increase for ryzen 5000. intel and nvidia have been raising their prices over the years, i dont remember people complaining about that like they are now about ryzen 5k.liquid_c - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link
And it's like Nvidia were right, huh? Disfunctional drivers, overheating cards, high power draw with shitty performance (the 580 had the same TDP as GTX 1080 while offering half of its performance).RSAUser - Wednesday, October 14, 2020 - link
I doubt it unless Nvidia continues their stock shortage, and most would just wait.For professional, lots of workloads are CUDA accelerated, AMD is lacking for a lot of those.
For private use, if they are similar enough in price, most will go Nvidia as they know the branding (GTX or RTX).
AMD's driver support hasn't been that great either, issues with black screen. I still like their control center way more though, and I like Chill, but if performance is the same for both with a similar price, I'd still go Nvidia due to DLSS for 1440p.
haukionkannel - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Heh! 5700xt was $400... so 6700xt will be near $400. This 6900 is douple the size of 6700xt! So the price most likely would be near $800. Very fair price! But there is that $700 3080 (that you can not get) that makes that price hard bargaing... amd does not need to sell at $500. Anything between $650 to $750 is competative prising considering this has more wram!Dlls is used in so few games that you can not count on it... it is very nice if the game has it... but none of the game I play has it and I have hundreds of games... Even new games don`t have it in most cases. So it is like hairfx... interesting, but not really usefull because it does not exist.
Sttm - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
If that VRAM doesnt deliver higher performance in games, how is it worth it?haukionkannel - Friday, October 9, 2020 - link
In a same way people shout about 3080 only to have 10Gb and Are waiting 20gb version even it will be more expensive than normal 10Gb version...In most cases even 8Gb is enough. I am just saying that extra memory Also contributes to more expensive card. I am not saying that extra memory is better deal to customers at this momement.
But don`t Expect tye 6900 to be cheap. It is/will be big rare 4K gpu with eyewatering price tag.
Wreckage - Thursday, October 8, 2020 - link
Even at $499 it will be a tough sell if the 3070 is beating it with ray tracing and DLSS. This is the 5700xt all over again.