AMD has released a new flagship graphics card, and it is good.
For more on the RX 6900 XT, and details concerning other GPU changes in our chart, read on.
The (By Now Familiar) RX 6900 XT Pros and Cons
AMD seems to have taken a page from nVidia’s book: The RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and now the RX 6900 XT are all great launches in terms of specifications. Their performance is competitive; the cards are high-end; and their efficiency is high.
Hey, if AMD can keep this up for a bit more, maybe we can start complaining that AMD is “boringly good”. The RX 6900 XT now shares the spotlight in the Extremist and Monstrous tiers.
The usual caveats apply: the card is very expensive ($1000!) and went out-of-stock within seconds of launch.
Which brings us to our next update item…
A Few Older Graphics Cards are Returning to the Chart
All modern GPUs and CPUs are facing severe supply shortages. At launch, these items go out-of-stock immediately, and you can only find them on places like eBay at inflated prices. We have seen this type of supply drought before with the cryptocurrency crazes, and perhaps this what we can expect for the near future.
As such, we are adding back some older graphics cards that are worse-performing, but are more likely to be available for purchase, until this issue passes.
The following cards are being added back:
Excellent tier:
- RX 5700 XT
- RTX 2060 Super
Outstanding tier:
- RTX 2070 Super
Exceptional and Enthusiast tiers:
- RTX 2080 Super
These older cards will have warnings, just in case someone misses this memo.
A New Benchmark GPU is Being Implemented
Our previous benchmark GPU was the GTX 1080 Ti. This means that, when you moused over a graphics card in the chart and saw a percentage describing the performance of that card for the past few years, that percentage was always relative to the GTX 1080 Ti being considered “100%”.
With some years having passed, I have changed the benchmark GPU to be the newer RTX 3080. All GPUs on the chart have had their performance percentages adjusted accordingly.
That is all for now!