The AMD Radeon RX 6800 Non XT and RX 6800 XT: Aiming for High Refresh Rates and Visual Fidelity

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 non-XT and RX 6800 XT are cards that are aiming to handle a little bit higher frame rates or even Raytracing. These cards are kind of aimed at people who have 1440P or 1080P high refresh rate monitors, that they want to really drive at higher visual fidelity and higher frame rates.

In contrast, the 6800 XT is aimed more towards people who have 4K displays or 1440P high refresh rate displays, who not only want to have that high refresh rate, high gaming, new frame rate experience but also have the power to do a lot of sightseeing. Things like Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Minecraft RTX, that kind of thing. If you're looking at what is the best bang for the buck, it really depends on what you're doing.

If you're doing streaming or anything, really with work from home, conferencing, that kind of thing, then the 3070 is better all-rounder than this, even though this is more powerful. Really depends on what your priorities are. This guy though is actually priced below the 3080, meaning that you have less of a do I wanna go higher for less but better performance and more of a do I want to go lower for less but the same or better performance? I think this is the better value proposition, personally.

But you know, your mileage may vary. Some people might prefer to have a little bit extra horsepower and they don't care about RTX voice noise canceling or anything like that. They just want the frames or maybe they're into content creation. All of them cards on lineup from the 6800, all the way up to the 6900 XT, not only have 16 gigabytes of GDDR6 memory but they also have 128 megabytes of Infinity Cache which is something that AMD is saying runs 1.6 terabytes per second in terms of speed.

Which is about three plus times faster than the main memory in this card. It's ridiculous. But at the same time, for a lot of things that your GPU is going to be doing, it's not going to be like that major I'm gonna write the whole video memory back again kind of deal you know. It's gonna be the same kind of thing that's updating over and over and over again, while you have your assets all in the main memory.

So in that respect AMD might have the right idea here. They're saving money on the memory and then just giving you the same amount of memory across the board. And then they're just going to give you really fast cache memory. That's on the actual GPU diet itself. It's an interesting take on things, and I'm very excited to figure out whether or not that's actually going to help them.

Obviously I haven't tested these yet, and you guys won't know until two days from now whether or not it's any good. Aside from that, the only question that's really left to answer is will it be available at launch? Because Nvidia has had nothing but problems with their RTX 3000 series, and AMD's launch of Ryzen 5000 has been similarly disastrous.

Depending on who you ask, that's because it's a paper launch, which I don't think is true. Or it could be because scalpers, which I guess is also true. But it's also because there's unprecedented demand for new computers and faster parts because we just haven't had anything that was this good in a long time.

So the appetite is there. People have seen that the appetite is there, and they're very much willing to go out and spend the money to get it now so that they can charge you way more later. Is it gonna be the same for the Radeon RX 6000 series? According to AMD, and I quote, I can tell you that we've planned for a successful launch.

We are working very hard to ensure we have product supplied at launch time around the world. And we were actively working with our partners to at least be sure that we can get the products out in the hands of gamers. We do expect that we're going to have great global availability at launch, and we're really excited to get products out to as many people we can.

Which I mean of course, they're gonna say that. You believe them? I don't know. Guess it all depends on actually, you know what? It doesn't depend on anything. Nobody's going to wait for our purview. You should, but most people won't. So I don't know. Guess we'll just have to see.

Just like you'll have to see another episode of ShortCircuits some time later. Subscribe. Thanks for watching. Take care and good luck.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- AMD hasn't been,shall we say competitiveat the top end of GPU'sfor a long time now,but that's changing.At least we think it iswe don't have reviews available yet.And these guys herehave not yet been openedbutstill pretty exciting. Isn't it?Like when was the last time?It was likeI don't know, fury,you could make the argument for fury.Like,come on. (laughing)It's been such a long ride,but here we are.And now we've got theRadeon RX 6000 Series.We've got the 6800 on top herein this comparatively tiny boxalthough it is quite fetching,I must say.And the 6800 XT.The RX 6800 XT is what AMDis pitting against the RTX 380.This guy here.And it looks likeit's gonna be a little bit biggerphysically.Don't know yet,but at $649,it's actually going to beabout 50 bucks cheaperwhile purportedlyhaving roughly the same performancein traditional games.The RX 6800 meanwhileis sort of a competitorfor the RTX 3070.I mean,it looks like it completely trounces itbased on AMD's data,but at the same time,it's like, what is it?$80 more?Yeah, 579.Thisonly costs what?$70 less than this.What is AMD smoking right now?That's ridiculous.So let's get into itand let's start off with the little one.Look at that.It's never even been opened,not even in our inventory.I could walk away with this right nowand nobody would knowexcept for you guys.All right.Let's see what we got here.Actually really nice packaging so far.Uncompromised 4k gaming,AMD fidelity of FX optimized,16 gigabytes of memoryand PCI express 4.0 ready.So we pulled this off.Oh yeah. Look at that.It's got a little fanning herefor the cardand we've also gotsafety precaution and FCC compliance.I am so sorry.And of coursewe have the main event in here.Oh man.That looks and feels really nice.Like this is,this is solid.And yet it's got curves to it.So our display outputswe've got a USB type C,two display portswhich support display compression 1.4and HDMI 2.1which supposedly supportsthe full 48 gigabits per secondAMD doesn't specifically say this,what is it?Fixed rate link.I don't know why they called it thatit makes no sense whatsoever,but Hey, HDMI.Round back we've got that therepower delivery.Those are really tinysurface-mount devices there.I really liked the look of this card.The two tone.It's just so nice.And they got this little guide hereto say this is the screwyou should take out first I guess.I can't take it apart for youunfortunately.But yeah,and these fans look really nice.They feel nice too.And yeah, the whole thingis basically made of metal.This is sweet.So this is the RTX 3080.Yeah, and bear in mindthis is the 6800 non XTand it's a little shorter,roughly the same thickness.This is a little thicker actually.And as far as width goes,okay, the Radeon is a bit bigger.Which one weighs more.I feel like this weighs more.Let's get our scale and see.So this boyweighs about 1.29 kgor two pounds 13.5 ouncesas for our Radeon1.32 kg,two point 14.Sorry. That's not how pounds work.Two pounds, 14.5 ounces.I hate imperial. Thank you.2.91 pounds.So yeah, this is a little bit heavierand I guess that would be expectedbecause they're notreally relying on thatrevolutionary pass throughflow-through designthat Nvidia has going here.Like you canlet's put it over this.Yeah. You can see through the fan.So yeah,they don't have that going for them.This is just a straight, traditionalblow through the, what's that?Oh, I bit my tongue.So this is just the traditional type ofexhausting to the case kind of cooler.So this is what it's competing against.The RTX 3070andthat is quite a size difference.And if I were to plop thisdown onto thisthat's not even a kilogram,which is two pounds, 2.8 ounces.But then again, I mean,this is the thingit's not directly competingwhich is kind of unfortunatebecauselike how do we compare,like what this is compared to. Nothing.It doesn't compare to anything.This is gonna bea real nightmare to benchmark.It's closer to a 3080 than a 3070.Let's just put it that way.That's a very good segueintothe 6800 XTwhich is a good $70 more.I think- You had a good,really good segueto the sponsor.- Oh, I'm being toldthat I should have segue to the sponsorinstead of this other card.Well, that's me for you, I guess.Thanks to SteelSeriesfor sponsoring thisthe SteelSeries Aerox 3 wirelessis the newest mouse by SteelSeries.That weighs only 66 gramsmaking it one of the latest mice availableand uses quantum wireless 2.0for nearly zero latencyfor speed and stabilityit can use 2.4 gigahertz RFand Bluetooth connectionsalong with a USB type Cfor fast chargingend up with a 40 hours of battery lifein 15 minutesawkward barrier technologymakes it the first IP 54dust and splash resistant gaming mouse.Go to steelseries.comto check out the Aerox 3 wireless today.Let's unbox this guy.There is alsoan unbroken seal here,but this box is much more substantial.I slashed the box.Just in case anyone's wonderingthere's basically nothingon the back of the box.Now this is the one that everyonewants to see.This is the one that everyone's kind ofsalivating over,aside with a 6900 XT,which is much nicer.Here we go.Welcome to the red team.You've joined a select communitywith an uncompromising passionfor premium gamingthat share desiresat the heart of everything we do.It's why we've engineered the fastestAMD Radeon RX graphics cards everto deliver a powerful gaming experience,have fun#AMDRedTeam.And then we had this useless little,thing again.It doesn't look much different,- He thick!- But it feels different.Yeah.That is a thick stackof fins right there.Is it roughly the same size though?Yeah, it kinda is.There's more fan area.They're not more densebut they are definitely taller,but I know what this is.This is the 6800 XTand on the top,we've got exactly the sameselection of ports.We have USB type C,two display portwith displacement and compression 1.4and the HDMI 2.1which presumablyis the full 48 gigabits per second.I was hoping that I would havemore to say about this,but it's just thicker.That's kind of weird.The Radeon text is a different color.So this is just red.This looks like it might be glossyor maybe it might even behiding some RGBwho knows.All right,let's see how much this guy weighs.1.366 kg,three pounds, 0.2 ounces.You're probably gonna want a GPU braceto support this guy.Good thing there's actually partner cardsthat are going to be coming outwith a built-in liquid cooling.Note thatAMD says that it's necessary actually,because both of these cards.And in fact even the 6900 XTare going to bepotentially less power hungryand less thermally badthan either of these.Yeah, the 6800 XT is 250 Wattswith a 650 Watt recommended power supplywhile the 6800 XTis 300 Wattswith recommended 750 watt power supply.And that is exactly the sameas the 6900 XT,despite that card's extra powerwhich is interestingbecause the only real differencebetween this card and the 6900 XTis thatthis card has eight pure compute units.So this is 60 compute units.This is 72and the big boy is 80.Each one of those has a Ray acceleratorthat AMD is addingfor the first time in this generation.And presumablyit'll just work with any gamethat supports RTXwhich is just really fancy wordsfor Vulkan Raytracingor DirectX Raytracing.Interestingly,AMD is marketing both of these cardstowardspeople who might have a GTX 1080 tiand they wanted to upgradeto something that's gonna handlea little bit higher frame ratesor even Raytracing.The 6800 non XTAMD is kind of aimingat people who have 1440P or 1080Phigh refresh rate monitors,that they want to really driveat higher visual fidelityand higher frame rates.The 6800 XTis aimed more towards peoplewho have 4k displaysor 1440P high refresh rate displayswho not only wantto have that high refresh ratehigh gaming, new frame rate experiencebut also have the powerto do a lot of sightseeing.So things like Rise of the Tomb RaiderShadow of the Tomb Raider,Minecraft RTX,that kind of thing.You know if you're looking atwhat is the best bang for the buckit really depends on what you're doing.If you're doing streamingor anything, really with,you know work from home,conferencing, that kind of thing.Then the 3070 is better all-rounderthan this,even though this is more powerful.Really depends on whatyour priorities are.This guy thoughis actually priced below the 3080,meaning that you have less of ado I wanna go higherfor less but better performanceand more of a do I want to go lowerfor less, butthe same or better performance?I think this is thebetter value proposition,personallybut you know, your mileage may vary.Some people might prefer to havea little bit extra horsepowerand they don't care aboutRTX voice noise cancelingor anything like that.They just want the framesor maybe they're into content creation.All of them cards on lineupfrom the 6800,all the way up to the 6900 XT,not only have 16 gigabytesof GDDR6 memorybut they also have 128 megabytesof Infinity Cachewhich is something that AMD is sayingruns1.6 terabytes per second,in terms of speed,which is about three plus times fasterthan the main memory in this card.It's ridiculous.But at the same timefor a lot of the thingsthat your GPU is going to be doingit's not going to be like that majorI'm gonna write the wholevideo memory back againkind of deal you know.It's gonna be the same kind of thingthat's updating over and overand over again,while you have your assetsall in the main memory.So in that respectAMD might have the right idea here.They're saving money on the memoryand then justgiving you the same amount of memoryacross the board.And then they're just going to give youreally fast cache memory.That's on the actual GPU diet itself.It's an interesting take on thingsand I'm very excited to figure outwhether or notthat's actually going to help them.Obviously I haven't tested these yet.And you guys won't know untilI think two days from nowwhether or not it's any good.Aside from thatthe only questionthat's really left to answer iswill it be available at launch'cause Nvidia has hadnothing but problemswith their RTX 3000 seriesand AMD's launch of Ryzen 5000has been similarly disastrous.And I mean,depending on who you askthat's because it's a paper launch,which I don't think is trueor it could be because scalpers,which I guess is also truebut it's also becausethere's unprecedented demandfor new computers and faster partsbecause we just haven't had anythingthat was this goodin a long time.So the appetite is there.People have seen thatthe appetite is thereand they're very much willing to go outand spend the money to get it nowso that they can charge you way morelater.Is it gonna be the samefor the Radeon RX 6000 series?According to AMDand I quoteI can tell you that we've plannedfor a successful launch.We are working very hardto ensure we have product suppliedat launch time around the world.And we were actively,working with our partnersto at least be surethat we can get the productsout in the hands of gamers.We do expectthat we're going to havegreat global availability at launch,and we're really excited to get productsout to as many people we can.Which I meanof course, they're gonna say that.You believe them?I don't know.I guess it all depends onactually, you know what?It doesn't depend on anything.Nobody's going to wait for our purview.You should, but most people won't.So I don't know.I guess we'll just have to see.- Subscribe!(laughing)- Yeah, we'll just have to see,just like you'll have to seeanother episode of ShortCircuitsometime later.Subscribe.Thanks for watching.Take careand good luck.\n"