AMD releases performance figures for the Radeon RX 6000 family

The first three cards in Nvidia’s Geforce RTX 3000 series have been rolled out, and now it is also clear which models AMD is counting on. During Wednesday’s Radeon RX 6000 event, the red team officially unveiled the RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT and simpler RX 6800, a trio reportedly supposed to be able to compete with Nvidia’s fresh cards in the top performance segment.

►AMD presents RDNA 2 – Radeon RX 6000 and “Big Navi”

Independent tests and Radeon launches are a few weeks away and on November 18, the RX 6800 sycophane will be released, with follow-up to the top model in December. During the presentation, however, AMD showed its own performance figures in ten games for each graphics card with Geforce cards as a yardstick. At the time, however, no further details were mentioned about test systems, settings and exact figures for measured frame rates. That will change now, when AMD publishes the results on the web.

The site shows the same games as during the presentation and all have performance figures in the resolutions 3,840 × 2,160 and 2,560 × 1,440 pixels. Despite the drop-down menus, each title has only been tested with one type of graphics settings and one graphics interface. Whether this will be expanded before launch remains to be seen. As for the test system, it is specified that the twelve-core AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is used together with 16 GB DDR4 memory in 3,200 MHz, as well as a self-made X570 motherboard.

The small print also reveals that the test results should be swallowed together with a large amount of salt, as the Smart Access Memory function is active. During the Radeon presentation, AMD introduced the Rage Mode overclocking mode along with Smart Access Memory, which are performance-enhancing features for the Radeon RX 6000 series. With the latter, the processor gets full access to the graphics memory, if the system pairs an RX 6000 card with the Ryzen 5000 and 500 series motherboards.

This increase in performance is thus not possible with Nvidia’s cards and according to AMD it can extend up to 11 percent in the example Forza 4, with a more typical level around 5 percent. However, the Rage Mode feature is not used for the results on the website, as the company did when they compared the Radeon RX 6900 XT to the Geforce RTX 3090 during the presentation.

To highlight a few concrete examples, AMD claims that in Battlefield V they break the Geforce RTX 3090 with all Radeon RX 6000 cards if the game is run in 1440p, while the two strongest Radeon cards still hold the top places in 4K UHD. However, the margins in the latter case are small, with 110.7 FPS for the Nvidia top model and 120.5 and 113.1 FPS for the red team, respectively. With a five percent increase excluded, the AMD cards end up at 114.8 and 107.7 FPS.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a title where Nvidia brings home narrow victories, apart from the comparison between the Radeon RX 6800 and the Geforce RTX 2080 Ti. With 4K UHD resolution, the RTX 3090 ends up at 95.99 FPS – just over FPS before the RX 6900 XT. The profit margin drops to 0.01 FPS when the RTX 3080 reaches 88.10. The Radeon RX 6800 reaches 75.61 FPS while the 67.82 FPS is part of the Turing family’s flagship card. With the resolution lowered to 1440p, the AMD cards instead go up in line with all cards, but not necessarily with margins that are larger than the Smart Access Memory surcharge.

AMD is also trying to cement an image of superiority by translating the performance charts into variants with the unit FPS per USD, and with the lower prices and a similar level of performance, the company’s products also end up at the top. The reference prices are used for the comparisons, but especially with the Geforce RTX 2080 Ti comparison is that the launch price is USD 1,199. Nvidia’s new RTX 3070, on the other hand, is very similar in performance, but at a target price of 499 USD.

Since these charts are also based on AMD’s own figures, speculators should look at the figures with some caution. Ray tracingfunctionality is promised with the Radeon RX 6000 series, but during the presentation the company talked very little about this. Even among their own performance figures, such tests shine with their absence. Anyone interested in such features will thus have access to tests in November, which will also establish how well AMD’s published figures are in line with reality.

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