*multiple sources* AMD GPU reveal info thread (Updated: review)

[UltraMega]

 

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Priced at $650, the Radeon RX 6800 XT is positioned similarly to NVIDIA's RTX 3080, which has an MSRP of $700. At that price point, the 6800 XT matches the 3080 almost exactly in Performance per Dollar. Both cards are great options for 4K gaming. The RTX 3080 has better RT performance, but the RX 6800 XT has the better and quieter cooler. Performance differences also vary wildly between titles, good that we have a lot of data for you. Everything NVIDIA offers is currently out of stock, so actual market prices are highly inflated and completely unrealistic. I think this will change in the coming weeks, let's hope AMD has enough inventory available to celebrate this victory, the Radeon RX 6800 Series will fly off shelves.

Source: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-radeon-rx-6800-xt/

 

Another review: https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-rx-6800-xt-review,1.html

 

Video review: 

 

 

Guru3d:

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Hybrid Raytracing 

We have a handful of applications available to measure, to a certain extent, DirectX ray-tracing. Below, the results for the Port Royale DX-Raytracing test. The results below are reference card results. You can argue the test itself and how good it looks, but 3DMark offers a valid hybrid ray-tracing test that applies shadows and reflection that are ray-traced. And as such, we can observe generational performance increases. 

 

 

 

 

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3DMark DirectX Raytracing feature test (full path)

Real-time ray tracing is hefty on the GPU. The latest graphics cards have dedicated hardware that’s optimized for ray-tracing operations. Despite the advances in GPU performance, the demands are still too high for a game to rely on ray tracing alone. That’s why games use ray tracing to complement traditional rendering techniques. The 3DMark DirectX Raytracing feature test is designed to make ray-tracing performance the limiting factor. Instead of relying on traditional rendering, the whole scene is ray-traced and drawn in one pass.  The test result depends entirely on ray-tracing performance, which means you can measure and compare the performance of dedicated ray-tracing hardware in the latest graphics cards. 

Quick note, Hybrid Raytracing is what you see currently in games. Here the game is using the traditional shading render and applies Raytracing effects like shadows and reflections.  So what we see here in this test is pure raytracing. 

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by UltraMega
release

[ENTERPRISE]

Well if those slides are correct and translates into third party review results, then that is pretty darn good, looks like AMD may be starting to get that traction they need !

[J7SC_Orion]

....6900 XT definitely looks very interesting in the crystal ball of a future build...

 

AnandTech also has a decent article on the RDNA2, including on the INFINITY Cache (!) > here

 

 

[mouacyk]

Does anyone know if AMD is planning to go beyond 256-bits for a bigger die for the compute community? It was something in the old days seeing AMD create 512-bit behemoth gaming dies.  It's still amazing they managed to match Ampere with 66% the bus width, by making it up in clocks and pipeline efficiencies.

[J7SC_Orion]

1 minute ago, mouacyk said:

Does anyone know if AMD is planning to go beyond 256-bits for a bigger die for the compute community? It was something in the old days seeing AMD create 512-bit behemoth gaming dies.  It's still amazing they managed to match Ampere with 66% the bus width, by making it up in clocks and pipeline efficiencies.

 

...some AMD slides underscore that INFINITY cache *extends* the bus bandwidth...but pinches of salt until full real-world testing is available...

  

 

 

[mouacyk]

@J7SC_Orion Thanks, that helped but the rabbit hole still leads nowhere yet:

 

https://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/145957-amd-infinity-cache-patent-hints-rdna-2-secret-sauce/

 

I guess from the success of GameCache on Ryzen, it's only reasonable that AMD would try to replicate it on GPUs too.  Caching is great if you love to run around in the same level doing the same thing over and over again.  It's not so great when you want dynamism, streaming open-world with corresponding dynamic events. 

 

I just have a feeling it's not going to work so well for scientific data, which in its raw form is usually a unique series.  The initial loading and processing will be slower, but any re-processing will be much faster.  Hopefully, it all ends up being a wash like Ryzen.

Edited October 28, 2020 by mouacyk

[Mistio]

So they did with GDDR6 what NVIDIA did with GDDR6X?
Interesting because engineers at NVIDIA are not stupid. 
Does that Cache make up for the slower memory?

[W95CIH]

Yes! looking good! Prices could be better but time will tell with 3rd party reviews

[Salty_Pepperpot]

If the review benchmarks are as good as these slides, then FINALLY we have solid competition in the market again, everybody's a winner here. 6900XT is looking like a bargain too (comparatively). 

[ENTERPRISE]

52 minutes ago, Mistio said:

So they did with GDDR6 what NVIDIA did with GDDR6X?
Interesting because engineers at NVIDIA are not stupid. 
Does that Cache make up for the slower memory?

I found this interesting as well that AMD opted for a less advanced memory compared to what Nvidia offers, but in reading it seems they have bridged the gap with Infinity Cache. The memory bandwidth on the 3090 is far superior, can infinity cache really make up for this by not shifting data to the Vram and keeping it in cache...time will tell when the independent reviews come.

[W95CIH]

How far off am i by saying this reminds me of the intel celeron l2 cache on die miracle(first on cpu die(retail)). Which became standard after? Not saying infinity cache is here permanently for all gpus. However the benefit it seems to bring reminds me of the step up from pentium 1/ 2 to celeron 300A

 

Excited to see how it stacks up, and what the future holds maybe larger infinity cache

[Sir Beregond]

According to this page on AMD's site, the 16GB GDDR6 with 128MB Infinity Cache over 256-bit bus has a theoretical 1664GB/s effective speed. Review/benchmarks will tell...

 

Overall looks pretty good, but I think is still overpriced. Would have preferred to see the 6800XT at $599 and 6800 at $499, but I mean, that's just AMD working off of the market price points Nvidia created...

[UltraMega]

I'd rather have 16gbs of vram vs faster ram. I think the extra ram will matter more over time. Having slower ram isn't nearly as bad as running out of ram. 10gbs does not seem like enough to last through next gen.

[Falknir]

Looks impressive from the first-party slides, but going to wait and see how these actually stack up in the third-party reviews.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Falknir

[m4fox90]

Wow, this looks almost too good to be true. Real GPU competition from AMD!

[Mistio]

I can't wait for the reviews now.
It seems the 6900 version was benched vs the 3090 with AMD gimmicks on (Rage mode, etc). 
If the 6900 is 70-80% of the 3090 performance at MSRP then we do have some benefit as consumers. 
I am more worried of AIB pricing. I am sure the AMD partners will take some cards with 20-30W additional TDP and will match without AMD exclusive features the performance Ampere has. 

Sadly this will be reflected in the price. 

[Supercrumpet]

Also very interested in third party reviews, though I am also curious about exactly how much of a difference Rage and SAM make, so hopefully some reviewers will go to that level of detail and provide performance in a few of those cases. I do think they're worth considering though, as quite a few people that are lining up a GPU upgrade are also interested in moving up to Zen 3.

[bwalker36]

With a 50$ difference i'm pretty indifferent between a 3080 and a 6800xt.  I do believe Nvidia is going to have much better ray tracing performance though.  I'm not going go out of my way to try and buy a 3080 but if I see one in stock I will pick it up.  Then when the AMD card launch whichever is in stock first gets my money lol.  They both will serve me great at 1440p 144 for a long time. 

[J7SC_Orion]

1 hour ago, Supercrumpet said:

Also very interested in third party reviews, though I am also curious about exactly how much of a difference Rage and SAM make, so hopefully some reviewers will go to that level of detail and provide performance in a few of those cases. I do think they're worth considering though, as quite a few people that are lining up a GPU upgrade are also interested in moving up to Zen 3.

 

...Hit the nail right on the head. Never mind PCI 4, the other AMD-environment specific features of the 6900 XT look very interesting indeed. It's going to be tricky though for some reviewers to do an apples-to-apples benchmark comparison if they don't test with a Ryzen 5K and thus have all those features enabled.

[bwalker36]

I'm not a fan of features that I need an AMD cpu to take advantage of.  Is there a technical reason that an intel cpu coudln't use the new memory access feature?

[m4fox90]

45 minutes ago, bwalker36 said:

I'm not a fan of features that I need an AMD cpu to take advantage of.  Is there a technical reason that an intel cpu coudln't use the new memory access feature?

There may be, as they haven't released architecture and technical details yet. Probably not, but I'd hazard a guess that PCIe 4 has something to do with it.

[UltraMega]

Intel doesn't make dedicated GPUs (yet), and Nvidia doesn't make CPUs. If there is a feasible design advantage to adding a cache memory pool to the GPU that is supposed to have easy access for the CPU beyond what is currently offered by the PCIe bus, only amd is really in a position to explore this possibility. It doesn't seem far fetched to me at all that the infinity cache on the GPU could make a meaningful difference, but if it's something that does pick up I suspect Intel and Nvidia will respond with something similar soon enough.

[Sir Beregond]

6900XT looks great at $999....compared to a $1500 card. Really this card should be $699 in my opinion. Sure...maybe $799. But let's get real. Only reason it is $1k is because the 3090 exists north of $1k. AMD is a business taking advantage of the current market price-points and playing to them, so it's hard to blame. But as a consumer, I'm just not thrilled about prices from either camp. 

 

As for the 6800XT a slight undercut of an overpriced card is still in overpriced territory as far as I am concerned.

 

Anyway, hoping the benchmarks look good. I'm looking for the next card to drive my new PC for the next 5-ish years (current PC is turning 6 soon), so I am looking hard at the 6800XT/3080 tier (as much as I hate their pricing, sigh). We'll see if my next PC is a 5 year one or if we start advancing fast again, but with current pricing, not interested in upgrading every gen like I used to back in the day. Since I am planning to upgrade to Zen 3, gotta admit, the feature pairings with RX 6000 looks very compelling, so I am definitely leaning Radeon likely this round. But will wait for the benchmarks and see.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Sir Beregond

[bwalker36]

13 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

6900XT looks great at $999....compared to a $1500 card. Really this card should be $699 in my opinion. Sure...maybe $799. But let's get real. Only reason it is $1k is because the 3090 exists north of $1k. AMD is a business taking advantage of the current market price-points and playing to them, so it's hard to blame. But as a consumer, I'm just not thrilled about prices from either camp. 

 

As for the 6800XT a slight undercut of an overpriced card is still in overpriced territory as far as I am concerned.

 

Anyway, hoping the benchmarks look good. I'm looking for the next card to drive my new PC for the next 5-ish years (current PC is turning 6 soon), so I am looking hard at the 6800XT/3080 tier (as much as I hate their pricing, sigh). We'll see if my next PC is a 5 year one or if we start advancing fast again, but with current pricing, not interested in upgrading every gen like I used to back in the day. Since I am planning to upgrade to Zen 3, gotta admit, the feature pairings with RX 6000 looks very compelling, so I am definitely leaning Radeon likely this round. But will wait for the benchmarks and see.

 

Yeah I'm not in a big hurry for zen 3, my 5ghz 8700k works well enough.  But my upgrade path might be 6800xt then the next ryzen revision.  I'm assuming I'll get an 6800xt before I could find a 3080 (I'm not looking hard at all)

[Sir Beregond]

46 minutes ago, bwalker36 said:

 

Yeah I'm not in a big hurry for zen 3, my 5ghz 8700k works well enough.  But my upgrade path might be 6800xt then the next ryzen revision.  I'm assuming I'll get an 6800xt before I could find a 3080 (I'm not looking hard at all)

 

Yeah I am not in a big rush either, but my system can't really drive modern stuff at 1440p without turning everything down, so I am mostly playing older games at the moment. That said, I am not a launch buyer. Will see how things look in Feb-March next year.

 

Also interested to see how Micro Center will end up pricing Zen 3 as we have one here in Denver. I definitely got my 4790k way below its at the time MSRP back in 2014.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Sir Beregond