AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT review roundup – a niche buy

AMD has released the newest member of its Radeon RX 6000 series: the Radeon RX 6900 XT. The card is based on the same Navi 21 silicon as the rest of the RX 6000 series so far and is billed as the fastest Radeon card yet. Based on reviews, it’s a step up from previous generations when it comes to performance, but it’s not worth its $ 1,000 price tag to most consumers.

Reviews agree that this card is a racehorse. “This is an incredibly fast GPU,” concludes Brad Chacos of PC world, While Hot hardwareMarco Chiappetta called it “the most powerful Radeon of all time”. In Tom HardwareIn testing, the RX 6900 XT averaged 85 fps in its 13-game benchmark suite at 4K resolution and ultra settings and 136.1 fps at 1440p.

Image: AMD

Reviewers also agree that the Radeon RX 6900 XT is a better buy than Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3090 for most gamers. Hardware performance will always vary by game, but PC world and Hilbert Hagedoorn of Guru3D report that the 6900 XT and RTX 3090 achieved comparable frame rates at lower resolutions, while Nvidia advanced with higher resolutions. Due to the lower price of the 6900 XT, both posts recommend it as the best value buy.

Hot hardware covers a bit more, noting that “the Radeon RX 6900 XT and GeForce RTX 3090 are pretty nip and tuck, and they trade wins based on title, although the RTX 3090 has the overall advantage.” While the review notes that the AMD card is “well positioned relative to Nvidia’s competitive offerings,” Chiappetta also concludes that it “definitely does not outperform the competition.”

But the AMD card has a significant disadvantage when it comes to ray tracing. Reviewers are divided on the importance of this. Guru3D suggests that not everyone cares about ray tracing, and as long as you don’t, the AMD card is a better buy. Jarred Walton of Tom Hardware states that people considering cards that are so expensive should not overlook ray tracing; Walton does not recommend the card for games in general.

But reviews also agree that anyone who really cares about value could also buy the 6800 XT, a more affordable card than Edge Senior editor Tom Warren found it quite capable of 4K and 1440p gaming. PC world emphasizes that the 6900 XT is truly intended for content creation professionals. Y Tom Hardware regrets that the 6900 XT is only “4-7 percent faster” than the 6800 XT, “such an incremental increase in performance that it doesn’t seem worth it.”

Overall, it seems like the 6900 XT is quite a niche buy for people who are willing to spend $ 1,000 on a really powerful GPU, but don’t mind a downside when it comes to ray tracing. However, to be clear, this is all a theoretical discussion at this point – these cards are available in fairly limited quantities, and the first batch of Radeon RX 6900 XT cards sold out within minutes this morning. But hey, it’s good to keep it in mind for the future.