AMD provides the first two “Big Navi” graphics cards with the Navi graphics chip 21 before: The Radeon RX 6800 XT for 650 Euro kicks off Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080, the further slimmed down Model Radeon RX 6800 for 580 Euro against the GeForce RTX 3070. Our own top model Radeon RX 6900 XT with fully activated GPU as RTX – 3090 – Competitor is to follow in December.

The Navi – 21 – GPU brings 26, 8 billion transistors on a chip area of ​​519 mm² under; A 7-nanometer process from the chip applicator TSMC is used. So “Big Navi” is more than twice as complex as the Navi – 10 – GPU of the Radeon RX 5700 XT (10, 3 billion transistors on 251 mm²). AMD uses some transistors to design the design for higher clock frequencies – the Radeon RX 6800 XT runs ex works with more than 2000 MHz. There is also a 128 MByte huge SRAM cache used, which relieves the memory interface. So are “Big Navi” 256 Highways with 512 GByte / s to the 16 GByte GDDR6 to use the shader cores well. You can read more about the RDNA-2 architecture used here:

The test shows that AMD’s architecture and clock improvements are fruitful carry: For the first time in generations, Nvidia’s GeForce graphics cards no longer occupy the top performance alone, provided that the classic rasterization performance without ray tracing effects is considered.

Game benchmarks In 3D games, the GeForce RTX 3080 in front, sometimes the Radeon RX 6800 XT. The two action adventures “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey” and “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” can be viewed in 4K resolution (3840 × 2160 pixels) and ultra graphics settings on both graphics cards smoothly with a pleasant frame rate of well over 60 play fps.

AMD’s reference model, the Radeon RX 6800 XT with 300 Watt power limit not before a factory overclocked GeForce RTX 3080 hide – here MSI’s Gaming X Trio with 340 Watt power limit. The differences are mostly measurable, but not particularly noticeable. The smaller offshoot Radeon RX 6800 may differ from overclocked versions of the GeForce RTX 3070, partially with 25 percent (“Assassin’s Creed Odyssey”, WQHD) clearly.

Game benchmarks, measured under Windows 10 (2004), Ryzen 9 5900 X, 32 GByte DDR4 – 3600 – RAM, Radeon 20. 45. 01. 12 – 11. 6 Beta, GeForce 457. 30 WHQL Game Assasin’s Creed Odyssey Shadow of the Tomb Raider Settings Preset “Ultra” / AA “High” / 16 x AF / DX 11 Preset “Ultra high” / SMAA / 12 x AF / DX 12 Average 1% percentile average 1% percentile 2560 × 1440 Pixel (WQHD) RX 6800 XT 95 69 150 115 RX 6800 91 68 129 99 RX 5700 XT 62 49 79 64 RX Vega 64 50 41 67 53 RTX 3080 (OC) 88 67 150 117 RTX 3070 (OC) 73 58 116 93 3840 × 2160 Pixel (Ultra HD) RX 6800 XT 68 54 83 68 RX 6800 59 47 71 58 RX 5700 XT 37 29 42 34 RX Vega 64 32 26 37 29 RTX 3080 (OC) 65 52 85 71 RTX 3070 (OC) 50 41 63 53 Special case ray tracing It looks worse for AMD if you turn on ray tracing graphics effects such as global lighting, reflections or shadows. With the current Radeon driver – AMD provided us with a preliminary version – these can be written in DirectX – 12 – Activate playing with DirectX Ray Tracing API (DXR) from day 1. So far this only worked with Nvidia’s GeForce graphics cards.

All Radeon models with navigation – 21 – GPUs accelerate ray tracing graphics effects in hardware by so-called ray accelerators testing acceleration structures (bounded volume hierarchy, BVH) for intersection points of rays. The process costs more power than Nvidia’s approach, so the Radeon RX 6800 XT with activated ray tracing always behind the GeForce RTX 3080 lies. The Radeon RX 6800 falls behind the GeForce RTX 3000.

Game benchmarks, measured under Windows 10 (2004), Ryzen 9 5900 X, 32 GByte DDR4 – 3600 -RAM, Radeon 20. 45. 01. 12 – 11. 6 Beta, GeForce 457. 30 WHQL Game Shadow of the Tomb Raider Control Settings Preset “Ultra high” / SMAA / 16 x AF / DX 12 Raytracing shadow “Ultra” Preset “RTX” / 16 x AF / DX 12 Average 1% percentile average 1% percentile 2560 × 1440 Pixel (WQHD) RX 6800 XT 82 53 63 44 RX 6800 70 45 54 37 RTX 3080 (OC) 101 72 79 52 RTX 3070 (OC) 76 53 61 40 3840 × 2160 Pixel (Ultra HD) RX 6800 XT 45 30 36 26 RX 6800 38 25 31 22 RTX 3080 (OC) 55 40 47 31 RTX 3070 (OC) 39 28 35 23 The difference depends on the amount of ray tracing graphics effects used. In “Shadow of the Tomb Raider”, where only the shadows are rendered with virtual rays, the distance between Radeon RX 6800 XT and GeForce RTX 3080 at just under 20 percent. In “Control” the difference in the lower “RTX” presets grows up to 25 percent. If you maximize the graphics settings there, the Radeon RX falls 6800 XT even 40 Percent behind the competition model – but then the GeForce RTX itself packs 3080 only 1440 p with smooth frame rate.

The higher ray tracing performance from Nvidias 3000 series is also reflected in the 3DMark Port Royal graphics benchmark, in which the Radeons fall behind. In older DirectX – 10 – Benchmark Fire Strike Extreme (without ray tracing) they are still ahead. AMD’s first litter with ray tracing acceleration is sufficient for ray tracing titles in 1440 p-resolution with fluid frame rates.

Synthetic graphics benchmarks, measured under Windows 10 (2004), Ryzen 9 5900 X, 32 GByte DDR4 – 3600 – RAM, Radeon 20. 45. 01. 12 – 11. 6 Beta, GeForce 457. 30 WHQL 3DMark Firestrike Extreme [Punkte Graphics] Port Royal Raytracing [Punkte Graphics] RX 6800 XT 25156 9031 RX 6800 21339 7601 RX 5700 XT 12995 – RX Vega 64 10805 – RTX 3080 (OC) 21200 11540 RTX 3070 (OC) 16724 8241