rtx 3080 vs 6900xt

[soltrdc]

Watch the part at 11:39 .. not being a downer but just get a realistic outlook on things

 

[nexusscion]

Which is better is debatable, and really depends on what you want. Its clear that both cards trade blows across different titles and there is no one that stands out. At 4K resolution, Nvidia have an advantage, while at 1440p and lower, AMD's hardware scheduler generally allows them to perform better even with a weaker processor.

If its RT, then I would recommend just going for Nvidia for obvious performance advantage. But again, at EPIC/Very High graphical settings, most people won't even realise the difference between a RT and non RT scene. People realise the difference RT brings to the table when,
1. they read reviews and shown a side by side comparison,
2. they played the game before without RT and now playing the game with RT, vice versa, and the RT implementation is very obvious, i.e. Metro Exodus.

As for DLSS, there are only 50 titles with DLSS support. Its a good to have feature if you one is already using an Nvidia card and need more performance, i.e. RTX 2060. By itself, it does not make any meaningful improvement to user experience because most games run with very high FPS if you are using a RTX 3080 and at a resolution below 4K without RT. Even if you were to add another 50% FPS to that non DLSS FPS number, it generally won't make a meaningful difference. In addition, I think AMD's FSR might have a good chance of displacing DLSS if the IQ is good enough, and at the same time, easier for game developers to adopt. FSR is hardware agnostic, so game developers don't have to waste time optimising their game for a specific technology, when there is one that benefits everyone.

As to RTX 3080 worth more than RX 6900XT, that's because its highly sought after by miners. The prices are artificially propped up. If crypto is to die down, and next gen cards announced, that 3 to 4K that you spent on it may only be worth a fraction of it. The same goes for the RX 6900 XT. That's why I recommend just going for the easiest to get, and cheapest option between the 2.

Totally agree with this bro comment. I owned both card and yes, i will get whichever is faster and nicer and cheaper to get out of these 2. However the recent price hike of 6900XT let me consider 3080 is still a better buy.

 

[Clearnfc]

My comment on DLSS is with the assumption that RT is disabled and with most people not gaming at 4K resolution. I've highlighted this earlier. Surveys from Steam have shown that most gamers are still on 1080p and increasingly on 1440p. At both resolutions, all the high end GPUs can easily handle the game above 100, with some e-sports title hitting 400+ FPS assuming no CPU bottleneck. Now if you were to enable DLSS for these sorts of scenario, it will boost FPS for sure. But my question is for what? In my case, I am using an ultrawide 3440x1440 @ 144Hz. With V-Sync on, the framerates are locked to 144Hz. So what if on benchmarks, I can get 200 FPS with DLSS on?

I am not downplaying Nvidia here. But the truth is, just for the sake of RT and I have to shell out 3+ K for a RTX 3080 is not worth it (speaking for myself here). Its not like the current cards are handling every RT title out there without any problem. CyberPunk, Medium and Metro Exodus EE is already giving the RTX 3080 quite the beating @ 4K, even with DLSS on. The cheapest RX 6900 XT I spotted is around 2599 for a high end build, while a high end RTX 3080 will set you back by 3.2K easily. So if you do or die must have RT, then too bad, then you got to fork out the 500 to 600+ difference.

Yes, I do agree that most people don't game at 4K and they don't use RT. But we are talking about flagship models here. If you tell me mainstream models can't run RT, I am fine. But 6900XT is the fastest gaming card AMD has today and also the most expensive. No doubt most gamers are also on 1080p but again we aren't talking about most gamers here. We are talking about the high end here.

So, for this segment, 1440/4K is considered the norm. Running games at max settings is considered the norm.

 

[final1]

Yes, I do agree that most people don't game at 4K and they don't use RT. But we are talking about flagship models here. If you tell me mainstream models can't run RT, I am fine. But 6900XT is the fastest gaming card AMD has today and also the most expensive. No doubt most gamers are also on 1080p but again we aren't talking about most gamers here. We are talking about the high end here.

So, for this segment, 1440/4K is considered the norm. Running games at max settings is considered the norm.

I game at 4k/120hz on a 6900xt which my GPU runs perfectly.
Looking forward to fidelity fx sr.
Though i do agree most people still game at FHD.
But, once you go to 4k, you can never go back.
Even for normal internet browsing. In FHD, you just have to scroll way too much. It sucks.

Technically, people can still game at 4k on a 3060 or a 6700 xt. It just wont be at 60hz all the time.
If GPU prices were actually at MSRP (hopefully one day), its actually not that out of reach to do 4k gaming.

 

[johnsonheng]

still waiting for people to recommend on 4k monitor

 

[watzup_ken]

Yes, I do agree that most people don't game at 4K and they don't use RT. But we are talking about flagship models here. If you tell me mainstream models can't run RT, I am fine. But 6900XT is the fastest gaming card AMD has today and also the most expensive. No doubt most gamers are also on 1080p but again we aren't talking about most gamers here. We are talking about the high end here.

So, for this segment, 1440/4K is considered the norm. Running games at max settings is considered the norm.

No existing GPUs can run RT at highest settings without some sort of upscaling tech when you consider resolution like 4K and breach 100 average FPS. Most titles are trending towards 60 FPS or much lower and that's only the average FPS that we are looking at here, not even the lowest FPS. If the difference in price is within a couple of hundreds, I think I can still accept paying for the better RT performance on the Nvidia card. But when you have a RTX 3080 @ 3.2K, and RX 6900 XT @ 2.6K, that's a glaring 600 bucks difference. For RT? Eh, may be next generation for me.

So far, most titles shows that Nvidia do better with complex RT implementations, and performance further boosted by DLSS. However over time, we are also starting to see that RT with AMD hardware is not as bad as it sounds when RDNA2 was first released. It all boils down to most of the RT titles we see so far are implemented based on Nvidia's methodology, which made sense since only Nvidia cards offered RTRT hardware with the introduction of Turing cards.

 

[watzup_ken]

still waiting for people to recommend on 4k monitor

For the budget you mentioned earlier, 2x 4K monitors for around 1K, I think will end up with a 4K @ 60Hz display. Unless there is any specific reasons that you need 4K monitors, I do recommend you get a good 1440P with a high refresh rate monitor instead. I went with a BenQ EW2780U to go with my Xbox Series X. I do use it with my computer some times, but its quite rare.

 

[soltrdc]

still waiting for people to recommend on 4k monitor

Why not do your own research. Pretty sure there are plenty of reviews out there for all the mainstream brands.

 

[tremor]

Heng I buy 3090, no such problem RT or no RT. Amazon sell for $3k only.

 

[Clearnfc]

No existing GPUs can run RT at highest settings without some sort of upscaling tech when you consider resolution like 4K and breach 100 average FPS. Most titles are trending towards 60 FPS or much lower and that's only the average FPS that we are looking at here, not even the lowest FPS. If the difference in price is within a couple of hundreds, I think I can still accept paying for the better RT performance on the Nvidia card. But when you have a RTX 3080 @ 3.2K, and RX 6900 XT @ 2.6K, that's a glaring 600 bucks difference. For RT? Eh, may be next generation for me.

So far, most titles shows that Nvidia do better with complex RT implementations, and performance further boosted by DLSS. However over time, we are also starting to see that RT with AMD hardware is not as bad as it sounds when RDNA2 was first released. It all boils down to most of the RT titles we see so far are implemented based on Nvidia's methodology, which made sense since only Nvidia cards offered RTRT hardware with the introduction of Turing cards.

Yes, things may improve for AMD hardware. FXSR and AMD's own RT may be just as good as Nvidia's one. But for now, we have no idea. DLSS wasn't that great when Nvidia first released it. Its DLSS 2.0 that makes a significant improvement.

 

[Clearnfc]

Heng I buy 3090, no such problem RT or no RT. Amazon sell for $3k only.

haha, 3090 still struggles alot with RT. Without DLSS, it can't even hit 60fps in some of the games.

 

[tremor]

haha, 3090 still struggles alot with RT. Without DLSS, it can't even hit 60fps in some of the games.

Yes, but its the best when it comes to RT. Somemore Nvidia DLSS is good.

Really no brainer to choose Nvidia 3080, Ti or 3090. Don't waste time with AMD if u want RT.

 

[Clearnfc]

Yes, but its the best when it comes to RT. Somemore Nvidia DLSS is good.

Really no brainer to choose Nvidia 3080, Ti or 3090. Don't waste time with AMD if u want RT.

This I agreed. Me did say 3080 is better than 6900XT. Me is one who is not impressed with RDNA2....I don't see how throwing in a huge 128MB RAM cache is considered an innovation...

 

[watzup_ken]

This I agreed. Me did say 3080 is better than 6900XT. Me is one who is not impressed with RDNA2....I don't see how throwing in a huge 128MB RAM cache is considered an innovation...

I think you underestimated the 128mb cache. For a GPU with 266bit memory bus and slower DDR6, and yet able to hang out with the RTX 3080 and 3090, and in some cases, outdo both of them, architecture have a part to play. But the cache certainly is doing its work, especially when developers actually optimize their games to make use of it.

 

[tremor]

I think you underestimated the 128mb cache. For a GPU with 266bit memory bus and slower DDR6, and yet able to hang out with the RTX 3080 and 3090, and in some cases, outdo both of them, architecture have a part to play. But the cache certainly is doing its work, especially when developers actually optimize their games to make use of it.

But it’s not innovation. It’s just every year keep making powerful card.

but nvidia has innovation to run RT and dlss to improve performance. Amd add more ram here or there is to make the card run faster for last gen technology.

 

[final1]

I really laugh at this dissing on the 6900 xt.
Its a US$999 card which can fight with the 3090 which is a US$1499 card.
At todays prices, you are looking at S$4k for a 3090 and about S$2.5k for a 6900 xt.
The price of the 6900 xt has been steadily increasing as people realise that its just as good as a 3090 as long as you dont bother with ray tracing. And, if you consider an easily overclocked 6900 xt ultimate, its going to flat out beat the 3090 in non RT scenarios.
Its definitely more bang for buck. I am not an engineer, but the GPU cores on the radeon RDNA2 series are probably better engineered than the geforce 3000 series if it can fight with that card when one is using GDDDR6X ram and the other is only using GDDR6.

 

[watzup_ken]

But it’s not innovation. It’s just every year keep making powerful card.

but nvidia has innovation to run RT and dlss to improve performance. Amd add more ram here or there is to make the card run faster for last gen technology.

I think you are looking at innovation from a 1 dimension angle. The use of the cache should also be considered as an innovation as oppose to brute force with an ever wider memory bus. I am no expert in hardware but just quoting why they decided with the cache is to achieve a higher memory bandwidth without burning too much power. It may not help visually, but it is still beneficial to end users. As oppose to Nvidia pushing for higher memory bus and faster VRAM which they happily limit you to an odd 10GB, which by the way consumes a lot of power and runs very hot.

RT is introduced as a way to differentiate from competition and I believe DLSS is an after thought because they figured they need something to claw back performance with RT on, especially when first gen RT hardware are struggling. But I agree both are innovations as well. But in doing so, Nvidia had to squeeze out silicon budget to house the RT (Nvidia offers higher number of RT cores) and Tensor cores, and leaving the scheduler to run on software. I think you may have recalled that Nvidia cards are more CPU intensive and they tend to run slower at resolution lower than 4K, especially when you have a slower CPU.

At the end of the day, there is no right and wrong answer about each company's approach. From my observations, both have their pros and cons. AMD obviously lags behind in RT, but I don't think they fare any worst than Nvidia's first generation RT hardware. Being the underdog for quite many years, I think it makes sense for them to focus on raw rasterization performance first, and I think they met that very well.

 

[Clearnfc]

I think you underestimated the 128mb cache. For a GPU with 266bit memory bus and slower DDR6, and yet able to hang out with the RTX 3080 and 3090, and in some cases, outdo both of them, architecture have a part to play. But the cache certainly is doing its work, especially when developers actually optimize their games to make use of it.

The cache is showing its limits at 4k. You can see that the fps drop from 1440 to 4k is quite a bit higher than nvidia.

 

[Clearnfc]

I think you are looking at innovation from a 1 dimension angle. The use of the cache should also be considered as an innovation as oppose to brute force with an ever wider memory bus. I am no expert in hardware but just quoting why they decided with the cache is to achieve a higher memory bandwidth without burning too much power. It may not help visually, but it is still beneficial to end users. As oppose to Nvidia pushing for higher memory bus and faster VRAM which they happily limit you to an odd 10GB, which by the way consumes a lot of power and runs very hot.

RT is introduced as a way to differentiate from competition and I believe DLSS is an after thought because they figured they need something to claw back performance with RT on, especially when first gen RT hardware are struggling. But I agree both are innovations as well. But in doing so, Nvidia had to squeeze out silicon budget to house the RT (Nvidia offers higher number of RT cores) and Tensor cores, and leaving the scheduler to run on software. I think you may have recalled that Nvidia cards are more CPU intensive and they tend to run slower at resolution lower than 4K, especially when you have a slower CPU.

At the end of the day, there is no right and wrong answer about each company's approach. From my observations, both have their pros and cons. AMD obviously lags behind in RT, but I don't think they fare any worst than Nvidia's first generation RT hardware. Being the underdog for quite many years, I think it makes sense for them to focus on raw rasterization performance first, and I think they met that very well.

AMD doesnt fare any better in terms of power consumption... 6800xt is 300w. Although its still around 30w less than 3080, its not considered significant.

 

[watzup_ken]

The cache is showing its limits at 4k. You can see that the fps drop from 1440 to 4k is quite a bit higher than nvidia.

Not really. Conversely, I would say that Ampere is more CPU limited and don't do that well below 4K. At 4K, that's when its running at full throttle, thus, it consistently beats AMD. I don't think its anything to do with the cache being insufficient or at its limits.