The Radeon RX 6800 offers AMD's latest RDNA 2 GPU design and features for less than US$600

AMD has introduced the RX 6000 series today, touting them as new "leaders" in 4K gaming. This extends from the flagship 6900 XT flagship card to the plain 6800. At a "high-performance" CU count of 60, a 250W power requirement, a base clock of 1815MHz and a boost clock of 2015MHz, it is decidedly the baby of the bunch. However, its maker claims it can still hold its own against its nearest NVIDIA RTX counterpart.

The 6800 does match its most premium sibling - as well as the RX 6800 XT - in its 16GB GDDR6 memory, PCIe 4.0 support and Infinity Cache. This new facet of the RDNA 2 architecture is rated to deliver twice the bandwidth compared to its predecessor, yet while using less power. It may also deal "dramatically" with latency, thus generating all-round improvements in gaming performance.

The RX 6800, like the 6900 and 6800 XTs, has 128MB of this new cache type. They also all share AMD Smart Access Memory, a feature that is only enacted in a system composed of a Ryzen 5000-series APU, a B550 or X570 motherboard and one of these graphics cards. AMD claims it provides more complete access to the GPU's memory, "thus accelerating CPU processing".

Therefore, all-AMD builds may have an edge in the future...maybe. Indeed, the OEM strongly hinted that the RX 6800 is best paired with the Ryzen 7 5800X chipset during its latest launch. It also asserted that the card itself could defeat the RTX 2080 Ti in a range of benchmark games (from Battlefield V through Gears 5 to Wolfenstein: Youngblood) at 4K/60Hz - if only in the presence of Smart Access Memory.

Similarly, AMD now hypes the RX 6800 for "1440p Gaming Leadership" over the 2080 Ti in the same tests. The new card also supports RDNA 2's new DirectX 12 Ultimate-, DirectX Raytracing-, AMD FidelityFX (a new panel of visual effect enhancements)- and Variable Rate Shading-related aspects.

These technologies are leveraged to great effect in titles such as DIRT 5, Godfall, RiftBreaker, World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, and FarCry 6, according to their developers, who have apparently worked closely with the OEM on RX 6000-series compatibility in the months leading up to its launch.

This new line of GPUs may also benefit from Microsoft DirectStorage Support, new Radeon Software Performance Tuning Presets, and Radeon Anti-Lag tweaks in terms of gaming performance. They are also equipped with 8-pin connectors and a chassis design that AMD asserts will fit into most standard cases around most standard components.

The 6800 variant will be released alongside its XT counterpart on November 18, 2020, and has been set at an estimated price of US$579.

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