A Confusing Move: AMD's Latest Graphics Card Launch

Hey! Ow, quit it. What are you... Stop! Hey! - I'm launching paper at you! - What is... Ah-ha-ha-ha! I get it! AMD, you, on the other hand, I just don't get sometimes. We're in the middle of one of the biggest chip shortages in a long time, maybe ever, and here you are proudly announcing your newest graphics card to the world. Is it that you know something I don't? Because this move feels like a confusing one, given how people have reacted to all the other graphics cards that have launched this year, with functionally zero stock available to actual gamers. Maybe there's a method to the madness, though. Maybe there's a 4D chess game here that we just can't see. Maybe there's a segue to today's sponsor, Honey.

Honey is a free web browser extension that'll find you the best promo codes on shopping websites like Amazon, eBay, and more. Get it today at joinhoney.com/LTT (upbeat music) Our first glimpse at the RX 6700 XT came just one day before Nvidia launched their RTX 3060, which seemed kinda like a rotten move, but you know what they say: all's fair in love and gaming.

The first-party card has a design similar to the larger RX 6800 and 6900 series, except that Team Rocket stole the third fan, and as soon as that teaser went up, speculation and leaks began to fly. Leaks that turned out to be rather accurate. What they got exactly right was the price. At $479 U.S. dollars, it's much higher than the RTX 3060 MSRP, but this card isn't targeting the 3060. It's landing somewhere between the 3060 Ti and the RTX 3070.

You might be scratching your head, thinking, "What's going on here?" Trying to understand why AMD would launch a new graphics card during a time when the market is saturated with other options from Nvidia. The answer may lie in the strategy behind this move. Is it a bold statement that shows AMD is not afraid of competition? Or is it a calculated risk that aims to corner the mid-range segment of the gaming market?

The RX 6700 XT's pricing puts it firmly in the sweet spot between the 3060 Ti and the RTX 3070, which are two cards with very different architectures. The 3060 Ti offers improved performance over the base RTX 3060 but comes at a slightly lower price point. On the other hand, the RTX 3070 is a more powerful card that can handle the most demanding games but also carries a higher price tag. By positioning itself between these two cards, AMD may be trying to attract gamers who are looking for a balance between performance and affordability.

The question now is whether this move will pay off for AMD. Will gamers flock to the RX 6700 XT in droves, or will Nvidia's other offerings continue to dominate the market? Only time will tell if AMD's strategy has been a masterstroke or a misstep. One thing is certain, though: the graphics card market just got a whole lot more interesting.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Ow.Hey! Ow, quit it.What are you...Stop! Hey!- I'm launching paper at you!- What is...Ah-ha-ha-ha!I get it!AMD, you, on the other hand,I just don't get sometimes.We're in the middle of oneof the biggest chip shortagesin a long time, maybe ever,and here you are proudly announcingyour newest graphics card to the world.Is it that you know something I don't?Because this move feelslike a confusing one,given how people have reactedto all the other graphics cardsthat have launched this year,with functionally zero stockavailable to actual gamers.Maybe there's a methodto the madness, though.Maybe there's a 4D chess gamehere that we just can't see.Maybe there's a segue totoday's sponsor, Honey.Honey is a free web browser extensionthat'll find you the best promo codeson shopping websites likeAmazon, eBay, and more.Get it today at joinhoney.com/LTT.(upbeat music)Our first glimpse at the RX 6700 XTcame just one day beforeNvidia launched their RTX 3060,which seemed kinda like a rotten move,but you know what they say:all's fair in love and gaming.The first-party card has a designsimilar to the largerRX 6800 and 6900 series,except that Team Rocketstole the third fan,and as soon as that teaser went up,speculation and leaks began to fly,leaks that turned outto be rather accurate.What they got exactly right was the price.At 479 U.S. dollars,it's much higher than the RTX 3060 MSRP,but this card isn't targeting the 3060.It's landing somewhere betweenthe 3060 Ti and the RTX 3070.Now, you might be scratchingyour head, thinking,\"Didn't AMD target the RTX3070 with the RX 6800?\"Yes, but as AMD points out,the lower VRAM available to the RTX 3070can be a potential bottleneckfor more demanding titlesat higher resolutions.And AMD wants 1440p maxquality out of this card,all at a price point thatwill still be appealing.Just like this insulated40-ounce Stealth water bottlefrom LTTStore.com.Ah. Tastes like winning.Of course, the price AMD targetsmatters very little right nowthanks to the one-two punchof a cryptomining boomand a worldwide silicon shortage.It's gotten so bad that retailersare now raffling off theopportunity to buy a cardinstead of selling them directly.Nvidia's attempt to tackle thisinvolved nerfing Ethereummining efficiency on their 3060,nevermind that there are tonsof other GPU-mined cryptos,and launching a separateseries of mining GPUs,while AMD is taking a different approach.They're going to be sellingthe cards directly to gamers.And AMD tells us they'llbe releasing the RX 6700 XTin weekly drops on AMD.com,giving consumers multiple chances to buy,this is at suggested pricing,in spite of the retail landscape.This could be a viable methodof getting the cards intothe hands of actual gamers,but one of the problemswith announcing when the cards will dropis that you're still relyingon strong protectionsagainst bots and scalping groups,which is not going to be easy.And it also doesn't tell us anythingabout how many units willbe available for each regionor even in each drop.Fortunately, if you'renot into that strat,it's not just AMD who'sgonna be selling these.So on March 18th, both AMD'scards and their partner boardswill go on sale simultaneously,which also gives better oddsthat they won't all be sold outas soon as they go live,and they've also got ahost of system integratorsthat are geared up and ready to go.But hold on a minute:are these things gonna be worth buying?Well, we will have a full review,make sure you're subscribedso you don't miss it,but here's what we know so far.Compared to the RX 6800,the 6700 XT has a thirdfewer Compute units,25% less Infinity Cache,and four fewer gigs of GDDR6 memory.To offset that, though,the game clock is substantially higherat 2,424 megahertz, a 25% increase.As a result, we can probably expectray tracing performance to be lacking,even compared to AMD'sown higher-end cards.But as we've seen when weoverclocked the RX 6800 XTto near-6900 XT levels,higher core clocks can have a huge impacton the RDNA 2 architecture'sraster performance.With that said, though,there's a bigger gap inCompute units with the 6700 XT,so we'll have to seehow this all plays out.Now, AMD didn't mentionthis in the presentation,but there's another potentialpitfall for the 6700 XT,and that is memory bandwidth.Unless AMD is usinglower-capacity chips for memory,which we doubt,it's likely the memory interfacehas dropped from 256-bit to 192-bit.Now, AMD may be clocking the memory higherin order to compensateand we were surprised athow much of a differencethe Infinity Cache makesin memory-intensive gameson the bigger Radeons,so maybe it won't be such a big deal here,especially at sub-4K resolutions.But remember, the InfinityCache is smaller, too,so this gives me reasonto temper my expectations.As for what resolution whatpeople will be gaming at,1440p display adoption,at least according to AMD,has increased by 44% over last year.And while that still puts itbelow high-refresh rate 1080p,high-refresh rate 1440p displayshave made a 98% jump in salesthanks to declining pricesand improved capabilities.What this means is that agrowing percentage of gamersare looking to drive fast 1440p panelsand that's exactly what AMD is banking onfor the RX 6700 XT.On paper, though, high-refresh rate 1440plooks like a bit of a stretch,especially in triple-A titles.But AMD hopes their Radeon Boosthardware-acceleratedadaptive resolution functionin DirectX 11 modeand variable rate shadingin DirectX 12 modewill make up some of this ground,that is, as long as you're willingto give up some image qualityin your peripheral areasand in high-motion scenes.Curiously missing from the presentationis any further explanationas to how and whenFidelityFX Super Resolution,that's AMD's answer to Nvidia's DLSS,is going to make an appearance.What they did do is givea few insights, though,into what's taking them so long.Apparently, rather thanrushing it out the dooron only one new top-end card,they want it to be cross-platformin every sense of the word,so they actually want itrunning on all of their GPUs,including the ones inside consoles,before they pull the trigger.It would've been nice to have it readyby the time the cards launched,but as we saw with Nvidia'sDLSS 1.0 versus DLSS 2.0,it could be for the best.I mean, lots of peoplestill think that DLSS sucksthanks to the poor image quality of v1and Nvidia's confusing marketingwhere they actually referred to itas an anti-aliasing technique,still more proof if you needed itthat lots of people, andNvidia for that matter,can in fact be wrong about things.Anyway, in the meantime AMDis pointing to Radeon Boostand FidelityFX ContrastAdaptive Sharpeningfor their upscaling.Whether that's an acceptable compromiseor whether it's worth itto wait for FidelityFX Super Resolutionor whether this questionis utterly meaninglessuntil such time as these cardscan be purchased for a reasonable price,all of that is up to you, the viewer.What's not up to youis whether I'm gonna tell youabout our sponsor, FreshBooks.FreshBooks is easy to useand it's accountingsoftware that's designedspecifically with you in mind,the small business owner.FreshBooks has everythingyou need to manage your booksso you can invoice, track expenses,track your time, and more.And because it's designedto be so easy to use,it lets you spend more timedoing what matters most,which is growing your business.So whether you're a tradesperson,creative agency, or a YouTuber,FreshBooks has the planthat is right for you.And if you have any trouble,they have award-winningToronto-based supportand they are always happyto help you if you need it.So try FreshBooks for free for 30 days,no credit card required,at freshbooks.com/linus.We're gonna have that linked down below.If you guys are lookingfor another video to watch,you can check out our reviewof the 6800 and 6800 XT,which might give you anidea of what to expectfrom Team Red's latest offering.\n"