I hadn’t a lot hope for this technology of graphics playing cards ever promoting for near their producer set costs. But lookie right here, a Gigabyte Radeon RX 6900 XT Gaming OC for beneath MSRP ($950 with rebate). What a world!
The Radeon RX 6000-series launched at precisely the improper time: December 2020. The world was wrestling with continued disruption to simply about the whole lot as a consequence of Covid-19, and graphics playing cards had been about to enter the worst interval of shortages I’ve ever personally skilled. It was an actual disgrace, too, as AMD had created a graphics structure in RDNA 2 that would genuinely compete with Nvidia’s high-end playing cards.
The RX 6900 XT, admittedly, wasn’t one of the best of the bunch on the time. The RX 6800 XT was a way more spectacular counter to Nvidia’s RTX 3080 than the RX 6900 XT was to the RTX 3090. The reference RX 6900 XT launched at $999, which felt like an enormous sum of money for a GPU on the time—little did we all know it could solely worsen from there.
Subsequent Nvidia launches with increased costs, such because the 12GB RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti, have seen the RX 6900 XT age higher than its competitors, nonetheless. Now you can choose up a triple-fan Gigabyte RX 6900 XT for $950, or lower than the RTX 3080 12GB is commonly going for and beneath the reference MSRP. Undoubtedly not a foul value for an ultra-high-end GPU that tears via 4K gaming prefer it’s pong and comes with a buffet of GDDR6 reminiscence, at 16GB whole.
The ray tracing efficiency of the RX 6900 XT leaves a little bit to be desired, and it is not the quickest in each recreation, nevertheless it feels as a lot of an enthusiast-class GPU because it ought to for this value.
Maybe one purpose for the cheaper price ticket of AMD’s RX 6900 XT is in its rumoured imminent substitute on the prime of the 6000-series stack by the RX 6950 XT. That top-tier card is reportedly coming subsequent week, which is able to use the identical GPU however provide quicker 18Gbps GDDR6 reminiscence for that little additional oomph in gaming.
Equally, AMD will exchange the RX 6000-series with its next-generation GPUs later this yr, which is able to use the model new RDNA 3 structure. Granted, all of the rumours of those next-gen chips sound fairly engaging for PC players, nevertheless it might nonetheless be some time earlier than we see these arrive on the cabinets.
We nonetheless have love for the RX 6900 XT. Whereas nonetheless a dear buy, the comparatively excessive price of the playing cards it competes with makes the RX 6900 XT a surprisingly sensible purchase proper now.
![Jacob Ridley]()
Jacob earned his first byline writing for his personal tech weblog from his hometown in Wales in 2017. From there, he graduated to professionally breaking issues as {hardware} author at PCGamesN, the place he would later win command of the equipment cabinet as {hardware} editor. These days, as senior {hardware} editor at PC Gamer, he spends his days reporting on the newest developments within the know-how and gaming business. When he is not writing about GPUs and CPUs, nonetheless, you may discover him attempting to get as distant from the fashionable world as doable by wild tenting.
