Credit: Brad Chacos/IDG
Our test system
Our dedicated graphics card test system is a couple of years old, but it’s packed with some of the fastest complementary components available to put any potential performance bottlenecks squarely on the GPU, especially at the higher resolution these graphics cards target. Most of the hardware was provided by the manufacturers, but we purchased the cooler and storage ourselves.
- Intel Core i7-8700K processor ($300 on Amazon) overclocked to 5GHz all cores
- EVGA CLC 240 closed-loop liquid cooler ($105 on Amazon)
- Asus Maximus X Hero motherboard
- 64GB HyperX Predator RGB DDR4/2933 ($355 on Amazon)
- EVGA 1200W SuperNova P2 power supply ($352 on Amazon)
- Corsair Crystal 570X RGB case, with front and top panels removed and an extra rear fan installed for improved airflow
- 2x 500GB Samsung 860 EVO SSDs ($70 each on Amazon)
We’re comparing the $770 Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 6800 XT with its default Performance BIOS versus the $800 XFX RX 6800 XT Merc 319, as well as AMD’s reference versions of the $579 Radeon RX 6800 and $649 Radeon RX 6800 XT. We’re also pitting the card against the Founders Edition versions of its direct Nvidia rivals, the $500 GeForce RTX 3070 and $700 GeForce RTX 3080. For performance comparisons against last-gen graphics cards, check out our original AMD Radeon RX 6800-series review.
Brad Chacos/IDG
The Sapphire Nitro+ in our test system.
We test a variety of games spanning various engines, genres, vendor sponsorships (Nvidia, AMD, and Intel), and graphics APIs (DirectX 11, DX12, and Vulkan). Each game is tested using its in-game benchmark at the highest possible graphics presets unless otherwise noted, with VSync, frame rate caps, real-time ray tracing or DLSS effects, and FreeSync/G-Sync disabled, along with any other vendor-specific technologies like FidelityFX tools or Nvidia Reflex. We’ve also enabled temporal anti-aliasing (TAA) to push these cards to their limits. We run each benchmark at least three times and list the average result for each test.
Since Sapphire’s card offers the same essential performance as AMD’s reference card, we’re going to preset our traditional benchmarks without additional commentary and skip a deeper ray tracing analysis. (Spoiler: It’s good for ray tracing at 1440p and 1080p resolution, but the lack of an Nvidia DLSS rival leaves it far behind GeForce’s ray tracing performance.) Again, check out our original AMD Radeon RX 6800-series review for more extensive performance analysis in each game.
Gaming performance benchmarks
Watch Dogs: Legion
Watch Dogs: Legion is one of the first games to debut on next-gen consoles. Ubisoft upgraded its Disrupt engine to include cutting-edge features like real-time ray tracing and Nvidia’s DLSS. We disable those effects for this testing, but Legion remains a strenuous game even on high-end hardware with its optional high-resolution texture pack installed. No card can maintain a 60-frames-per-second average with Ultra graphics options enabled, and the game allocates more than 8GB of memory even at 1440p. Oof.
Brad Chacos/IDGHorizon Zero Dawn
Yep, PlayStation exclusives are coming to the PC now. Horizon Zero Dawn runs on Guerrilla Games’ Decima engine, the same engine that powers Death Stranding. Ambient Occlusion can offer iffy results if set to Ultra, so we test with that setting at Medium. Every other visual option is maxed out.
Brad Chacos/IDGNext page: gaming benchmarks continue
