Today AMD formally revealed the next-generation Radeon GPUs powered by the RDNA 2 architecture and it looks like they’re going to thoroughly give NVIDIA a run for your money.
What was announced: Radeon RX 6900 XT, Radeon RX 6800 XT, Radeon 6800 with the Radeon RX 6800 XT looking like a very capable GPU that sits right next to NVIDIA's 3080 while seeming to use less power. All three of them will support Ray Tracing as expected with AMD adding a "high performance, fixed-function Ray Accelerator engine to each compute unit". However, we're still waiting on The Khronos Group to formally announce the proper release of the vendor-neutral Ray Tracing extensions for Vulkan which still aren't finished (provisional since March 2020) so for now DirectX RT was all they mentioned.
Part of the big improvement in RDNA 2 comes from what they learned with Zen 3 and their new "Infinity Cache", which is a high-performance, last-level data cache they say "dramatically" reduces latency and power consumption while delivering higher performance than previous designs. You can see some of the benchmarks they showed in the image below:
As always, it's worth waiting on independent benchmarks for the full picture as both AMD and NVIDIA like to cherry-pick what makes them look good of course.
Here's the key highlight specifications:
| RX 6900 XT | RX 6800 XT | RX 6800 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compute Units | 80 | 72 | 60 |
| Process | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm |
| Game clock (MHz) | 2,015 | 2,015 | 1,815 |
| Boost clock (MHz) | 2,250 | 2,250 | 2,105 |
| Infinity Cache (MB) | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| Memory | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 | 16GB GDDR6 |
| TDP (Watt) | 300 | 300 | 250 |
| Price (USD) | $999 | $649 | $579 |
| Available | 08/12/2020 | 18/11/2020 | 18/11/2020 |
You shouldn't need to go buying a new case either, as AMD say they had easy upgrades in mind as they built these new GPUs for "standard chassis" with a length of 267mm and 2x8 standard 8-pin power connectors, and designed to operate with existing enthusiast-class 650W-750W power supplies.
There was a big portion of the event dedicated to DirectX which doesn’t mean much for us, but what we’ve been able to learn from the benchmarks shown is that they’re powerful cards and they appear to fight even NVIDIA’s latest high end consumer GPUs like the GeForce 3080. So not only are AMD leaping over Intel with the Ryzen 5000, they’re also now shutting NVIDIA out in the cold too. Incredible to see how far AMD has surged in the last few years. This is what NVIDIA and Intel have needed, some strong competition.
How will their Linux support be? You're probably looking at around the likes of Ubuntu 21.04 next April (or comparable distro updates) to see reasonable out-of-the-box support, thanks to newer Mesa drivers and an updated Linux Kernel but we will know a lot more once they actually release and can be tested.
As for what’s next? AMD confirmed that RDNA3 is well into the design stage, with a release expected before the end of 2022 for GPUs powered by RDNA3.
You can view the full event video in our YouTube embed below:
Direct Link
Feel free to comment as you watch as if you have JavaScript enabled it won't refresh the page.
Additionally if you missed it, AMD also recently announced (October 27) that they will be acquiring chip designer Xilinx.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: WJMazepasI have a RX470 and honestly, im pretty happy with it. Of course i would love to have a Big Navi with a Ryzen 9 5950X but it would be really expensive and i just dont want to deal with problems of a new release. I got a Ryzen 2700 instead of a 3600 because it was cheaper and all the issues had gone already
If you buy a new card from AMD and decide to use Mesa, there will be issues, but a older card will work just fine
I have a slightly different upgrade strategy. Buy the best mobo and heaviest PSU you can, skimp on ram, NVME, GPU, and CPU. Each one basically drops in one at a time.
I bought an x570 & Corsair 850 in January. It got an on-sale Samsung 970 evo 500gb, a standard on-sale 2600, 16gb ddr4, and a recycled 1060-6GB to run a 60hz 1080p tv. Now running 32gb of TridentZ Neo c16 timing. Been waiting on Sabrent and AMD to release the rest, and the IRS to get me my money back.
Hoping there won't be any major issues with Mesa or kernel support by end of Q2 2021. There were some weird bugs with the Ryzen 2000 series, but I haven't experienced any this year. The 850 should handle the power draw of the 6900XT just fine, according to LTT the 3090 has issues with a psu that small iirc.
And I was gonna go AMD this gen no matter what simply because I'm on me third XX60 NVIDIA gpu and I'm sick of NVIDIA's proprietary drivers. More than once I've had to revert back and wait for a kernel update because the new driver breaks my system.
Last edited by jarhead_h on 29 October 2020 at 4:13 am UTC
TheRiddick Oct 29, 2020
I did try to buy a 3080 on launch but no stop exists anywhere except for for %200 marked up models...
Quoting: jarhead_hThe 850 should handle the power draw of the 6900XT just fine
Why do people think they need a 850W PSU for a 300W card? I've always been confused by this thinking. Is your CPU drawing 500W?
Quoting: KristianThe last time I had a ATI card(as they were called back then) it resulted in a "hardware manufacture error". Being boycotting them ever since.
If I had this policy, I would actually not being using computers right now because all brands have burnt me at some point. (basically bought all cpu/gpu and brands over the decades at one point or another).
Last edited by TheRiddick on 29 October 2020 at 10:39 am UTC
Quoting: GuestI thought that it is sensible to think that GamingOnLinux.com would focus on gaming
Now see, there's the root of all your problems. This site is not about GamingOnLinux, it's about GamingOnLinux. Linux is the main focus. And people who've deliberately chosen to game on an open platform like Linux, as opposed to closed platforms like Windows and MacOS, obviously consider openness a priority when choosing what hardware to buy. Otherwise why the fsck would we bother with Linux in the first place? If we only wanted pure performance like you claim, then we'd be gaming on Windows and arguing semantics on TenForums, yeah?
It's all a matter of ideology (like the Purple dude correctly tried to tell you but you obviously failed to listen) and yours is blinding you to these simple facts.
Quoting: Guestlinux gaming is pretty much on life support. Proton keeps it alive but for how long? Valve created linux gaming because they saw it as a not-windows-but-kinda-works alternative
Quoting: GuestNot that wayland is going to make the linux desktop competitive with macos or windows when it barely competes with xorg...
Wtf? Birdie, is that you?
Quoting: GuestLinux will never get really popular if it won't get with the times and deliver actual value instead of advertizing ideologies.I'm sorry to disagree, but I am part of the people who think performance is not the only valuable metrics.
Linux, without these ideologies, is basically Windows. Right now, I honestly don't see the interest a user would have in moving from Windows to Linux without these ideologies, considering Linux is not really supported by companies outside of the server world.
Oh and these so-called ideologies do have concrete consequences in real life: for instance I can still run very old AMD GPUs thanks to AMD open sourcing at least their specifications at the time and the performance are still pretty good (considering the GPU). On the other hand, I recently revived a PC with an old NVIDIA GPU and wasn't able to install the official NVIDIA drivers because they decided not to support this card anymore, so the only fallback was nouveau, which is less then ideal 3D performance-wise. Another example is that AMD cards do work with Wayland right now, while it is still not possible with NVIDIA's. And another example is that I'm not afraid to upgrade my system because I know the AMD drivers are coming with the new Linux kernel. Oh and I like the fact that any developer can improve the AMD drivers now as some improvements in mesa can benefit the whole graphics stack.
To me, thinking Open Source is merely an ideology means you completely missed the point here. Open Source is a way to prevent monopolies by releasing control over the source code and letting anyone to read, modify, and run it.
And, please, don't say things like "For most people(>99%)" if you don't have at least one source to prove it. This statement is a bias that is but an extrapolation of your way of thinking: "if I think this is the best, then everyone must be thinking the same".
Last edited by Creak on 29 October 2020 at 12:28 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestThis topic is also going into dangerous territory and no longer relevant to the article, other than that it's rather obvious that open source drivers really do matter to some people, it's not something to be dismissed, and will be a factor in purchasing decisions.You are so right about this. This comments thread looks more and more to look like a Phoronix forums thread
On a personal level, I've just bought my 5700XT and it plays every game I own at 4K with no hiccups (GOL Discord user, Michael, has a great series of videos demonstrating the 5700XT's 4K performance on their Youtube channel - all the vids from about April onwards are the 5700XT), but who doesn't love a bit more power and future proofing? And that Ray Tracing... that's going to be big in the coming months and years. Unlike PhysX, Ray Tracing is properly cross-platform (or will be soon) and I think it's going to take off in a pretty big way.
I might take a look at upgrading early next year, assuming the prices don't sky rocket thanks to mining (again).
Quoting: scaineI might take a look at upgrading early next year, assuming the prices don't sky rocket thanks to mining (again).
I've read somewhere, AMD are planning to introduce new cards specifically for mining, so it should be better than before.
The '499 USD' 3070 just hit the stores here at prices equivalent to 667* USD, so there is some room to compete.
*) calculated from DKK back to USD using todays currency rates.
Of course, maybe I'm just being ideological for prioritizing good integration with the rest of the ecosystem and valuing silly things like open source drivers over brand loyalty
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