AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Graphics Card Preview

A Closer Look

The card is a really tremendous overhaul for AMD and it’s great to see that their stock cards have long since ditched those damn blower cards. Maybe they’ll have some of those further down the range, but here, this is as premium a cooler design as you could expect from the likes of ASUS, MSI, AORUS, etc. You get three enormous axial fans, which are AMDs custom design a heavily scooped 9 blade design. Even while they’re not spinning you know these are going to move some serious air.

Then we’ve got the AMD Team Rocket logo, don’t tell me you can’t see it and if you couldn’t, you can now! I love those silver highlights on the edges of the fan blades too, it’s just a really cool look overall. Just lurking behind it, you’ll see a monster-sized black radiator too.

A nice Radeon logo on the edge, all backlit of course.

Down the side of the card, you can see there’s a big focus on airflow around the card, There’s really not a lot in the way here, so the card should be able to maintain really great airflow.

The power requirements on this card are simple enough, with two 8-pin connectors on the side. They’re standard too, not those freaky custom ones that Nvidia are using.

The rear of the card is closed up, which surprised me, as this part is typically open. It seems AMD are really focused on getting the air in and out in a specific pattern here. There are some screw mounts here too for support brackets.

The same is true here, the back of the card is closed up. It’s clear then that this card vents from the sides. That makes sense, it’s the largest area they can vent from and keeps the airflow pattern very uniform.

You get a Type-C, two Display Ports and HDMI, all to the latest and greatest specifications available to each.

After the drama of some Nvidia cards that may or may not have had enough resistors… well, that looks like enough.

The backplate is simple yet sexy, matching the silver parts on the front of the fans. This just looks and feel incredibly well-engineered, it’s a heavy card, but it feels purposeful and it’s one of the nicest made coolers I’ve had the pleasure of handling.