AMD Radeon "RDNA 2" GPU Ray Tracing Performance Detailed

Hassan Mujtaba writes, "The first AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards were unveiled just a few hours ago and they look stunning given their specifications, performance numbers and especially, the prices. But the announcement was lacking a key element which we were all hoping to get more details which is the ray-tracing performance of the next-generation RDNA 2 lineup."

[ABizzel1]

I really want to know how well or badly their Ray Tracing scales. This is their 72 Core variant, so as shown here it can match and slightly surpass the RTX 3070, and in other benchmarks, it basically matches the 2080 Ti (within margin of error).

So the GPU is on par, possibly slightly better than the RTX 3080, but the Raytracing component ranges from RTX 2080 ti / RTX 3060 - RTX 3070 performance. It's not bad for their first attempt, but it's a clear win for NVIDIA here across the board, because NVIDIA's cards are using 30% - 40% less CUs and cores, and still matching AMD's best in this one area, add DLSS (in the handful of games that support it) and the Ray Tracing battle clearly goes to NVIDIA.

AMD still released some amazing cards, so it really comes down to AVAILABILITY, if you care about Ray Tracing, Price, and if more games will start to support DLSS and AMD's answer to it. AMD by all means should have the win in availability because they've been on this node for a while now, CPU and GPU, it's can they keep up with supply and demand. Ray Tracing is clearly NVIDIA's win, and price is kind of mid-range and lower battle which we haven't seen from either company yet so more from that later. So AMD really needs to get an answer to DLSS and soon (a talk about it at the beginning of the year), if they can do that they can get around 5% more marketshare back from NVIDIA, and get ready for an even bigger battle when AMD has 5nm GPUs and NVIDIA just gets to 7nm.

[Fishy Fingers]

I'm geniunely impressed at their performance, they've really made strides compared to the 5700xt and they deserve the props and more market share (which they'll get) and while I (struggling to source a 3080) have seriously considered biting the bullet and grabbing a 6800xt if I can find one, I just know I'll end up regretting it down the line if I dont wait it out for the 3080. RT and DLSS even more so, are going to be a big deal over the coming years.

[SierraGuy]

RTX cards are power hogs... AMD cards operate below 300w tdp...I think AMD might have something here...did you not watch linus' video yesterday?

Also AMD cards have dx12 support...they have an answer to dlss.

The cu quality is better in the AMD cards this time around.

[Fishy Fingers]

They're working on an answer, one they didnt even have ready to show. Do you think what they deliver will match the 2nd gen (and rumoured soon to be 3rd gen) performance of DLSS (which also have dx12u support)?

"The cu quality is better in the AMD cards this time around. " not even sure what that means :/

[crazyCoconuts]

Do you think the additional memory on the AMD cards should be emphasized more? I would think the extra 6gb could be used for more high resolution textures

[IanTH]

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. The RTX 3070 was butting up against its 8GB limit when gaming at 4k/Ultra in Doom Eternal (according to Digital Foundry). I can only imagine the frame buffer being more and more of a concern as time goes on.

If you tend to buy and replace your graphics card every 1-2 years, it's probably not a big deal. If you're willing to game at 1440p, pretty much not a problem. But I'm a little surprised they didn't fit the 3070 with a 10GB buffer and the 3080 with at least 12GBs. The 2080ti had 11GB for a reason, and it's because 4k can get hungry for VRAM. It's at least worthy of consideration.

[DonDon3000]

I might just have to go with AMD simply because of availability. I would prefer Nvidia's new cards but after today, I am so done with trying to get a 30 series card.

[FPSFox]

I think they could've released cards with 0 ray-tracing ability and I'd still be compelled to buy it over Nvidia this time around simply because it's slightly cheaper and with a massive 6GB VRAM advantage. I've never owned a single AMD GPU in my life. I read the drivers are terrible.

So long as major reviewers aren't boiling AMD alive with drivers issues again at launch, I think AMD is getting my money this time around.

[Fishy Fingers]

It's the thing to say about AMD but in all honesty, their drivers have been solid for years.

[Dwarrior]

That is untrue. Drivers sucked for 5700 for months on end. Opengl support still sucks. Likely to never be improved. Emulation taking a hit there. Although many emulators moving to vulkan, so there's that. DX9 support for retro games still sucks. Likely never to be improved. Unreal engine performance still sucks and has for years on AMD. Especially UE3. And UE3 covers a huge gamut of games. And I own many.

I was very active on AMD forums for a long time and ultimately gave up on them. When I bought my 5700XT on release, I wanted to stick it to Nvidia for their outrageous pricing. But it was me that got stuck. It's relatively stable now. A year+ later. But I am patiently waiting for 3080 to become more available, and I am back to team green.

[Fishy Fingers]

Cannot disagree with user experience, but quite contradictory to every 5700 review.

[FPSFox]

Nah, that's definitely not true. I am neck deep in this stuff and watch everything like a hawk. AdoredTV put out an excellent video "Still Something Wrong At Radeon" Feb of 2020 and it highlights everything wrong with the Radeon team and their driver situation. Again, I'm eager for competition and would like to give someone other than Nvidia my money this time around, but they need to dump more resources into their driver development.

https://youtu.be/_x-QSi_yvo...

[GameBoyColor]

Their older polaris cards are fine everything after has been riddled with bugs that dont seem to get fixed and new ones introduced every update. It was sad to see especially after they went through the trouble of rebranding and overhauling their drivers.

[Father__Merrin]

One things for sure everyone was getting sick and tired of only reading that so and so was tested on 980ti,1080ti,2080ti etc now they can happily test on 6800xt 6900xt etc as their high end tests.

The new amd cards are excellent high ends no doubt and as usual they will get better. The Nvidia shills on twitter have been in total meltdown. What's even better is if you pair these cards with the new ryzen chips. Amd is back, and from rdna 3 hopefully they are on top.

[MocBistro]

I dont care shit about things they say. I care about actual benchmarks. AMD has bad impressions to me about good specs but shitty performance