AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Graphics Card Review

How Much Does It Cost?

The card is set to be available for around $649.99 in the US and £580-ish in the UK. We never actually got a confirmation on the UK price, so that’s our best guess. We’ll update you with links and prices as soon as we can.

Overview

Let’s make it simple, AMD Radeon are BACK. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to say with confidence that AMD are coming out on top. Well, obviously the Ryzen stuff, but I strictly mean graphics right now. This card set a new high score in Watch Dogs Legion 1080p and 1440p, all resolutions in Dirt 5, all resolutions in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, 1080p Godfall, 4K Deus Ex, 1080p and 1440p Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 1080p and 1440p Horizon Zero Dawn, 1080p Metro Exodus, and 1080p and 1440p Ghost Recon Breakpoint. That’s a LOT of new records for a card that’s 1) not the fastest model in the range, and 2) going up against the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090.

While Nvidia had their victories, the ones AMD didn’t win they remained competitive with, and honestly, that’s damn impressive.

Don’t forget, AMD has their SAM technology on the newest motherboards and CPUs too, check out our RX 6800 XT Smart Access Memory Review here to see if it really can make this card even faster!

Ray Tracing

This card seems to love Dirt 5, and even with Ray Tracing on, it smashed past the best that Nvidia has to offer. Watch Dogs did really well too, performing similar to the RTX 3080. Overall though, it edges ahead of the RTX 3070 in the rest of the tests. I suspect it has more to give. Remember the Nvidia launch? Driver updates saw HUGE gains just a few weeks post launch, so sit tight on this one. For now though, I’m happy to see the red team get it’s RT well and truly ON!

Quality Work

This is a wonderfully engineered piece of hardware, and from the moment you take it out of the box, you can see and feel that. It’s great to look at, but also very functional too. In our testing, it used less power than an RTX 3080, never exceeded 70c, and at 42.4 dBa, it’s incredibly quiet too. AMD used to get their performance by dumping lots of power into inefficient hardware, generating a lot heat and noise… those days are long gone, and this card feels like it’s got more to give.

Should I Buy One?

If this is what we can get from the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, then I cannot wait to test the next model up. Furthermore, custom cards should be pretty wild too. When it comes to a premium 4K gaming experience, this is one of the best cards out there right now and a true competitor to the RTX 3000 series.