Radeon RX 6800

Radeon RX 6800 is a graphics card developed and released by AMD in 2020. It was created to compete with NVIDIA video cards from the GeForce RTX 3000 series. In this article we will look at the history of the development of the RX 6800, announcement and release dates, architecture, characteristics, prices, gaming performance at the time of release and interesting facts about the video card.

Development and announcement date

The Radeon RX 6800 is based on the new RDNA 2 architecture introduced by AMD in 2020. This architecture is the successor to the original RDNA introduced in 2019. Development of RDNA 2 began immediately after the release of the first generation and was aimed at improving energy efficiency and performance compared to the previous generation.

The Radeon RX 6800 was announced on October 28, 2020 at an AMD special event, along with other RX 6000 series graphics cards such as the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT.

Architecture

The RDNA 2 architecture includes a number of key technologies and improvements. One of the main innovations is support for hardware ray tracing, which allows you to create more realistic images in games using real-time ray tracing.

The Radeon RX 6800 uses the Navi 21 GPU, made using a 7nm process technology. The video card has 3840 stream processors, 240 tensor cores for ray tracing, 60 ROP units and 240 texture units. It also uses a new type of 128MB Infinity Cache, which increases effective memory bandwidth and reduces latency.

Features

The Radeon RX 6800 has 16 GB of GDDR6 video memory with a bandwidth of 512 Gbps on a 256-bit bus. GPU operating frequencies are 1815 MHz in base mode and up to 2105 MHz in Boost mode. The video card consumes up to 250 W of energy, which makes it relatively energy efficient.

Prices

At the time of release, the official recommended price of the Radeon RX 6800 was $579. However, due to the high demand for video cards, as well as the shortage of chips and component shortages, the actual cost on the market could be significantly higher.

Gaming performance at launch

The Radeon RX 6800 was designed for gamers who prefer 1440p resolution and high graphics settings. In most games, the video card showed high performance, comparable to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and superior to the previous generation of AMD video cards.

Comparison with competitors

The Radeon RX 6800 successfully competed with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards, especially the RTX 3070, offering comparable gaming performance at a similar price. However, as new games came out with support for ray tracing and NVIDIA's DLSS technology, AMD released its own answer - FidelityFX Super Resolution, which also improved performance in games using ray tracing.

Interesting facts about the video card

-Radeon RX 6800 was the first AMD graphics card to support hardware ray tracing.
-Within the RDNA 2 architecture, AMD has increased power efficiency by 54% compared to the previous generation RDNA.
-Radeon RX 6800 was the first graphics card to use the new Infinity Cache technology, which significantly improved memory bandwidth.

The Radeon RX 6800 marks a major milestone for AMD graphics cards, introducing the new RDNA 2 architecture and support for hardware ray tracing. It was able to compete with NVIDIA graphics cards, especially the GeForce RTX 3070, and became a popular choice among gamers who prefer 1440p resolution and high graphics settings. Despite some availability and pricing issues in the market due to component shortages, the Radeon RX 6800 continues to be an attractive option for upgrading the video system and enjoying modern games at high settings.