RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090 vs RX 6800 XT Comparison & Benchmarks

Radeon RX 6900 XT is the most powerful graphics card in AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 graphics card series. It is also one of the most powerful AMD graphics cards ever and it competes against the RTX 3090, which is currently the most powerful Nvidia graphics card to date. Radeon RX 6900 XT also competes with its younger brother, which is RX 6800 XT, because both cards are strikingly very similar in almost all aspects. You can say that RX 6800 XT is derived from the RX 6900 XT. If you want to find out how AMD’s flagship graphics card RX 6900 XT stands against the RTX 3090 and RX 6800 XT, I will compare them based on various important parameters. The comparison can help you choose the right high-end graphics card for your ultimate gaming rig.

RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090 vs RX 6800 XT Comparison

Below is the comparison between RX 6900XT, RX 6800 XT, and RTX 3090 graphics cards based on their specifications, performance, pricing, power consumption, and features.

GPU Architecture

Radeon RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT are built on the AMD’s RDNA 2 GPU architecture on the 7nm fabrication process. Both the cards use the same Navi 21 chip, but the RX 6800 XT is a cut-down version of the Navi 21 chip with some cores locked. RX 6900 XT comes with 5120 Stream Processors, while the RX 6800 XT comes with 4608 Stream Processors. Both the cards support Ray Tracing and come with 80 and 72 Ray Accelerators, respectively. On the other hand, RTX 3090 is built on Nvidia’s Ampere GPU architecture on the 8nm fabrication process. It comes with 10496 CUDA Cores, 82 RT Cores, and 328 Tensor Cores. The Tensor Cores are used for processing Artificial Intelligence (AI) tasks, which the Radeon RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT cards lack.

Must Read: CUDA Cores vs. Stream Processors Difference

Video RAM [VRAM]

Radeon RX 6900 XT and 6800 XT cards come with 16GB GDDR6 memory having a 256-bit interface, operating at 16 Gbps. The effective memory bandwidth offered by them is 512 GB/s, but the peak memory bandwidth can reach up to 1664 GB/s (3.25x effective bandwidth) by 128MB Infinity Cache, which is an ultra-fast cache memory present on the RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT GPUs. On the other hand, RTX 3090 comes with 24GB GDDR6X memory having a 384-bit interface. The memory runs at 19.5 Gbps and delivers a bandwidth of 936 Gb/s. So, when it comes to memory capacity and speed, then RTX 3090 is way ahead. It offers 8GB extra VRAM, and the memory also runs at a much higher speed and provides much greater bandwidth if we only consider effective memory bandwidth.

Features

All these cards support the latest APIs that include DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan and support variable refresh rate technologies (G-Sync/FreeSync) to reduce stuttering in games for a smoother gaming experience. Moreover, they all support PCIe 4.0, Real-Time Ray Tracing, HDMI 2.1, AV1 decode, Microsoft DirectStorage API.

Radeon RX 6900 XT and 6800 XT lack multi-GPU support, which means you cannot use them in SLI or CrossFire configuration. On the other hand, RTX 3090 does include multi-GPU SLI support, and you run multiple RTX 3090 cards in the same PC working together using the NVIDIA RTX NVLink Bridge.

The features exclusive to RX 6900 XT and RX 6800 XT include a USB Type-C connector and Smart Memory Access (SAM). SAM supports Ryzen 5000 series CPUs and 500 series motherboards and allows the CPU to access all graphics card memory for improved performance in select games.  On the other hand, the features exclusive to RTX 3090 are the Nvidia Reflex and DLSS 2.0 (Deep Learning Super Sampling).

Gaming Performance

Here are the gaming benchmarks of these cards at 1440p and 4K resolution.

1440p Benchmarks

4K Benchmarks

From the above benchmarks, you can see that RTX 3090 is the most powerful graphics card and delivers excellent gaming performance, especially in the 4K gaming department. RX 6900 XT gives RTX 3090 a tough fight and beats it in some games at both 1440p and 4K resolution. On average, we can say that RX 6900 XT is around 7% slower than RTX 3090. RX 6800 XT is the slowest card here, but its performance is very close to RX 6900 XT in almost every game. It is around 6% slower than RX 6900 XT on average.   

Power Consumption

The card with the lowest power consumption here is the RX 6800 XT, followed by RX 6900 XT. Although the power consumption of both these cards is rated at 300W, but in reality, RX 6900 XT does consume more power than RX 6800 XT. On the other hand, RTX 3090 has a higher power consumption figure of 350W and requires an 850W PSU for its working.

Pricing and Availability

The most expensive card here is the RTX 3090 that retails at $1499 for the Founders Edition. The second most expensive card is the RX 6900 XT with an MSRP of $999 for the reference model. The cheapest card in this comparison is the RX 6800 XT, whose reference model is priced at $649 only.

Check RX 6900 XT Price on Amazon

Check RX 6800 XT Price on Amazon

Check RTX 3090 Price on Amazon

RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090 vs RX 6800 XT Specifications

See also:

• RX 6800 XT vs RTX 3080 Comparison and Benchmarks
• RTX 3080 Ti vs RTX 3090 vs RTX 3080 vs RX 6900 XT Comparison
• RTX 3090 vs TITAN RTX vs RTX 3080 Comparison & Benchmarks

Final Thoughts

Well, there is no doubt that RTX 3090 are RX 6900 XT packs an incredible amount of power and are the best cards for 4K gaming. However, their price does not justify the performance as they are too expensive even for an enthusiast gamer. The card here that offers the best value is the RX 6800 XT as it delivers excellent performance for the price it sells. It is not far behind in performance compared to RX 6900 XT or even the RTX 3090. It is a very capable card for 4K gaming and a beast for 1440p gaming. If I have to pick the best card here taking into account all the parameters, it would be RX 6800 XT.