AMD's response to Nvidia's 30 Series graphics cards has now been revealed. During a highly-anticipated presentation today, AMD revealed its three top-of-the-line new Radeon graphics cards, including the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT. The RX 6800 XT received significant focus during the presentation, being AMD's direct competitor with Nvidia's GeForce 3080 card, and of particular importance is AMD's price for the RX 6800 XT, which is set specifically to undercut Nvidia.
The official price of the RX 6800 XT will be $649, $50 cheaper than Nvidia's RTX 3080 card. Built on AMD's RDNA architecture, the hardware manufacturer posits that its more affordable card is comparable to Nvidia's card when it comes to high-end gaming performance. AMD even goes so far as publishing frame-rate comparisons between the RX 6800 XT and the RTX 3080 for a variety of games at 4K resolution, with the 6800 XT coming out ahead for games including Battlefield V, Borderlands 3, and Forza Horizon 4.
As for the official specifications of the RX 6800 XT, they're quite impressive. The GPU features 72 compute units and a "game" clock of 2015 MHz that can boost up to 2250 MHz. The RX 6800 XT also features 16GB of GDDR6 memory, topping the RTX 3080's oft-criticized 10GB of memory. Finally, AMD confirms that the RX 6800 XT will require just 300w of total board power, again undercutting the RTX 3080's 320w power rating.
AMD's two other new video cards are also quite impressive. The RX 6900 XT is being positioned to compete against Nvidia's RTX 3090, but will be priced at just $999 compared to $1,499. The RX 6800, on the other hand, is somewhat out of step with the other cards. It's being positioned to compete with Nvidia's RTX 2080 ti and will cost $579. However, Nvidia's 3070 is also being marketed as such, but it will retail for just $599.
One other announcement made during the presentation has to do with AMD's lack of a DLSS alternative. Nvidia's DLSS, or Deep Learning Super Sampling, is an AI-rendering feature that adds massive frame rate increases with little to now dip in visual quality, even at 4K and higher resolution. As such, games that support DLSS will have much better frame rates on Nvidia cards, even if the cards are similarly powerful like the 6800 XT and the 3800. AMD did announce it has an upcoming DLSS alternative.
AMD fans won't have to wait long to start placing their orders. Both the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and the 6800 XT will be available starting November 18, while the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT will be available starting December 8.