Home

 › 

Vs.

 › 

AMD RX 6800-XT vs Nvidia RTX 3070: Full Comparison With Specs, Price, and More

laptop, eyewear, people, women, student, technology, business, modern, sitting

AMD RX 6800-XT vs Nvidia RTX 3070: Full Comparison With Specs, Price, and More

AMD RX 6800-XT vs Nvidia RTX 3070: Four Must-Know Facts

  • The RTX 3070 has DLLS and Ray Tracing abilities, AMD’s 6800-XT does not have either of these capabilities, and FSR (FidelityFX Super Resolution) doesn’t stand up to DLSS. 
  • The RX 6800-XT is built on a new architecture for AMD called RDNA 2. Many consider this new architecture a massive leap forward for AMD.
  • With AMD’s new line of CPUs, the RX 6800-XT will get even better performance than with Intel. Proving that AMD benefits by making both CPUs and GPUs complement each other. 
  • The RX 6800-XT performance-wise ranks closer to the RTX 3080 or RTX 3090, more so than the RTX 3070. 

AMD and NVIDIA have always been bitter rivals. Some years the other one would run away with the lead, but now both of their products are extremely competitive again. AMD has seemed to strike gold with the RX 6800-XT. It is a great representation of the red brand across the board. It is one of the most powerful AMD GPUs in recent history and does not have any asterisks at the end of that statement. In a vacuum, the RX 6800-XT is an excellent card, but how does it stack up against NVIDIA’s RTX 3070?

The question is no longer so cut and dry in this stilted GPU price market. Luckily it seems like we are coming out to the other side of the GPU shortage, but we are not quite back down to MSRP pricing. In this comparison, we will attempt to answer the question asked previously and, ultimately, what card you should get? 

 AMD RX 6800-XT vs Nvidia RTX 3070: Side-by-Side Comparison

AMD RX 6800-XTNvidia RTX 3070
Release Date:November 18, 2021September 17, 2020
Orignal MSRP :$649 $499
Actual Price Today:$700  $615
Boost Clock/ Base Clock:2.25GHz/1.82GHz1.725GHz/1.5GHz
VRAM:16GB GDDR68GB GDDR6
Memory Interface:256 Bit256 Bit
TDP:300W220W
Our Pick
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
$869.99
  • 3 fans
  • PCI-Express x16 interface
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
03/10/2024 02:57 pm GMT
NVIDIA_GeForce RTX 3070 8GB GDDR6 Graphics Card, 1x HDMI 2.1, 3X DisplayPort 1.4a, 4-Monitor Support, G-SYNC Compatible, VR-Ready, Dual Fan - OEM Non Retail Version
  • GPU Engine Specs | 5888 NVIDIA CUDA Cores, 1500 MHz Base Clock, 1730 MHz Boost Clock
  • Memory Specs | 8 GB GDDR6 Standard Memory Config, 256-bit Interface Width
  • Display Support | 7680x4320 Maximum Digital Resolution, 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, Multi Monitor Support, 2.3 HDCP
  • Technology Support | VR Ready, NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible, Ray Tracing Cores, Tensor Cores, NVIDIA DLSS, PCI Express Gen 4
  • Warranty & Packaging | 1-Year Warranty by Techno Intelligence, OEM Packaging - Non Retail Version
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

 AMD RX 6800-XT vs Nvidia RTX 3070: What’s the Difference?

GeForce RTX
Nvidia RTX graphics cards have two special hardware components: RT cores and Tensor cores.

Gaming

In previous generations, NVIDIA has blown AMD out of the water regarding high-resolution gaming. Still, they are making up ground with the new RX 6000 series and especially the RX 6800-XT. In these results, we are going to look at 4 modern-day games played in 1440p at ultra settings. 

The RX 6800-XT has kicked butt with these results. As far as hardware goes, the RX 6800-XT is closer to the RTX 3080, but price-wise, its closest competitor is the RTX 3070. So with an extra $100, you can see markedly better performances across the board in our gaming benchmarks.

Gaming FPS in 1440p (Ultra Settings)

Of course, the NVIDIA RTX 3070 does have DLLS or Deep Learning Super Sampling on its side, which allows you to boost the performance of games by 30 to 50% without seeing a drop in resolution. AMD has tried to come up with a similar offer with AMD FSR of FidelityFX Super Resolution. Unfortunately, while it is an awe-inspiring feat of engineering, FSR does not hold a candle to DLSS, and FSR is not as widely supported as DLSS is. 

3D Rendering 

As much as we would not like to admit it, gaming is not everything. You might be looking at these two cards for your next creative workstation PC. We will benchmark this by taking a look at Blender benchmarks. This test will render three scenes in Blender and then give an overall score for each of the GPUs overall. 

As you can see, this is where the RTX 3070 and NVIDIA take back their control. Largely thanks to the RTX architecture. NVIDIA RTX lineup supports Optix, an SDK that accelerates rendering through Ray Tracing. Unfortunately for AMD, NVIDIA across the board for creative programs is more efficient and optimized. For example, Adobe recommends NVIDIA cards for Adobe Creative Suite, so if you are a video editor (or similar), NVIDIA is the way to go.

Bender Render Benchmarks RX 6800-XT vs. RTX 3070

3DMark Benchmark

The last performance test we will be looking at is 3DMark’s Time spy benchmark results. This is not a 1-for-1 real-world performance test, but it does give us a good idea of the ability of the GPU to withstand a hefty load for a prolonged period. 

RX 6800-XT vs. RTX 3070 3DMark Time spy results in a bar chart.

This is another great showing for the RX 6800-XT. This is probably due to the 6800-XT’s higher clock speed at 1.82GHz base speed to the RTX 3070’s 1.52GHz and thermal cooling capabilities. Keep in mind that these results do not mean that the RX 6800-XT is a better overall card, just that it can handle the stress test of a synthetic load. 

Streaming

Everybody and their mother is live streaming. If you are looking to upgrade or make a new PC to start streaming or up your game, these cards might be for you. The RTX 3070 and NVIDIA’s NVENC encoder make that decision more or less a no-brainer. AMD’s encoder does not do the RX 6800-XT any favors here. 

If you are looking at the RTX 3070 strictly for a streaming upgrade, I would recommend shopping for the RTX 3080 or RTX 3080-Ti. These two are more expensive but will give you a lot more performance when it comes to streaming and playing games at the same time. 

Power and Thermals 

If you have looked at NVIDIA’s RTX 3000 series before, you will know that they are all very power-hungry and notorious for power spikes. AMD’s latest series, on the other hand, including the RX 6800-XT, is much more considerate about their power consumption. 

Cooling is another place where AMD holds the advantage. The RTX 3070 does pretty well with keeping everything cool in a more significant case, not so much when it comes to small form factor cases. Nevertheless, AMD’s RX 6800-XT is a cool running beast, especially for how powerful it is. I would be much more comfortable putting the 6800-XT in an ITX case than I would an RTX 3070. 

The AMD RX 6800-XT has 16GB of VRAM.

 RX 6800-XT vs Nvidia RTX 3070: Who Wins?

Our Pick
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
$869.99
  • 3 fans
  • PCI-Express x16 interface
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.
03/10/2024 02:57 pm GMT
NVIDIA_GeForce RTX 3070 8GB GDDR6 Graphics Card, 1x HDMI 2.1, 3X DisplayPort 1.4a, 4-Monitor Support, G-SYNC Compatible, VR-Ready, Dual Fan - OEM Non Retail Version
  • GPU Engine Specs | 5888 NVIDIA CUDA Cores, 1500 MHz Base Clock, 1730 MHz Boost Clock
  • Memory Specs | 8 GB GDDR6 Standard Memory Config, 256-bit Interface Width
  • Display Support | 7680x4320 Maximum Digital Resolution, 1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a, Multi Monitor Support, 2.3 HDCP
  • Technology Support | VR Ready, NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible, Ray Tracing Cores, Tensor Cores, NVIDIA DLSS, PCI Express Gen 4
  • Warranty & Packaging | 1-Year Warranty by Techno Intelligence, OEM Packaging - Non Retail Version
We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

Looking at all these results, you might be asking yourself, which one should I buy: The RX 6800-XT or the RTX 3070? I wish I didn’t have to include this stipulation still, but keep in mind that neither of these cards is at their original MSRP. That being said, both of these are at pretty reasonable prices nowadays, which is more than I would have been able to tell you a couple of years ago. 

If you are looking for a strict gaming PC, I would by far recommend the RX 6800-XT; it has excellent gaming performance in 1440p and will also beat out the RTX 3070 in 4K results as well. If you are looking to save $100, though, the RTX 3070 is still a phenomenal GPU. 

If you are looking to make a new or upgrade a creative workstation PC, I would have to recommend the RTX 3070. Again it’s a case for NVIDIA’s RTX architecture. Until AMD works on making its architecture more optimized for creative programs and 3D rendering, it will be hard to recommend AMD. Not to mention NVIDIA’s NVENC encoder for streaming absolutely destroys AMD’s encoder, which is far behind. 

At the end of the day, these are both killer GPUs that make the Red vs Green brand wars fun again and more competitive. So whichever GPU you choose for your use case will be an excellent time, and remember, don’t let someone online convince you that paying upwards of $1,000 for either of these is a good deal. 

Up Next:

To top