Question Cost-benefit of different brands of RX 6800 XT?

[PlayerDot]

I am in a dilemma when it comes to finishing up my PC build. I want the RX 6800 XT to go with it, but there is a huge price disparity between different brands on amazon.de.
For example the MSI and XFX version of the RX 6800 XT are around €550, but the Sapphire (which I think is considered the best?) is around €800.
Obviously with a €250 difference it strongly affects my budget and paying almost 50% more for a different manufacturer of the same card makes me feel like I'm getting ripped off.

Is it worth paying the extra premium for it? How much better are the parts of a Sapphire vs an XFX to justify the difference?

 

[TechyInAZ]

In reality, most of the AIB card's are really close to each other in both performance and temps. If you compare a triple-fan variant to a triple-fan variant from another brand for instance, they will be incredibly similar.

Sapphire is definitely considered the best, since they often hold the highest reputation for reliability, but all of the manufacturer's make good cards. There might be a couple of cards that get a bad rep, but in general most are good.

I haven't heard anything horrible about XFX' 6800 XT cards, and they look pretty well built from what I've seen. I was originally going to buy a RX 6800 XT XFX graphics cards before i opted for an RTX 4070 instead.

I'm not sure how well the MSI version does compared to XFX, but I am a MSI fanboy and prefer MSI cards in general LOL. But either one should do fine, especially if both cards share similar sized coolers.

 

[PlayerDot]

In reality, most of the AIB card's are really close to each other in both performance and temps. If you compare a triple-fan variant to a triple-fan variant from another brand for instance, they will be incredibly similar.

Sapphire is definitely considered the best, since they often hold the highest reputation for reliability, but all of the manufacturer's make good cards. There might be a couple of cards that get a bad rep, but in general most are good.

I haven't heard anything horrible about XFX' 6800 XT cards, and they look pretty well built from what I've seen. I was originally going to buy a RX 6800 XT XFX graphics cards before i opted for an RTX 4070 instead.

I'm not sure how well the MSI version does compared to XFX, but I am a MSI fanboy and prefer MSI cards in general LOL. But either one should do fine, especially if both cards share similar sized coolers.

A RTX 4070 was something I was also considering, but got held up by the price differences and lower VRAM. Though, my issues with AMD drivers are making the proposition more and more compelling every day.

 

[Order 66]

A RTX 4070 was something I was also considering, but got held up by the price differences and lower VRAM. Though, my issues with AMD drivers are making the proposition more and more compelling every day.

As I constantly tell people, most of the "issues" people have with AMD drivers are due to people not uninstalling their old nvidia drivers with DDU creating god knows how many incorrect registry entries.

 

[bill001g]

Mostly the larger difference between cards is going to be how good/poorly the company deals with defective units. Since it is extremely rare to have to deal with a RMA it is also hard to say how much weight you put on that factor.

The difference in performance between cards gets very tricky. Although a benchmark might show some difference the values are still fairly small. More the difference are going to be in physical size of cards and maybe appearance between brands. There are difference between the overclock models and non overclock models but if you compare similar spec cards it get very hard tell the difference.

Trying to compare a nvidia card to a amd card gets messy fast. It all depends on what feature you value the most. I mean if you really want to use all the new features in cyperpunk 2077 you have to have a 40 series nvidia card. If you are going to play starfield then it appears amd cards have a advantage.

 

[PlayerDot]

As I constantly tell people, most of the "issues" people have with AMD drivers are due to people not uninstalling their old nvidia drivers with DDU creating god knows how many incorrect registry entries.

I'm not sure what is happening on my end.

The GPU I'm using (RX 580) is the only GPU I ever had on the system when I started having issues. I did a fresh install of Windows every time I changed my hardware. I scratched my head, thinking maybe my PSU, CPU or RAM are <Mod Edit> with it, and kept trying to debug this for over a month without ever finding a solution.

I bought a more modern one that was barely any better than my current, I believe a RX 6500 or 6600, did a clean install of Windows, only to get the exact same issues as soon as I started gaming, and after a month of debugging, I got so desperate that I built myself an entire new PC (the one that I'm using now). Lo and behold, I start it up with my new GPU -- same issues.
Reinstalled, used the old GPU. Same issues. Each time I tried both Windows 10 and 11, different versions of drivers, and kept having the same issues. For example, when playing BG3, I had hardware timeouts, crashes to desktop due to some display driver hardware exceptions, black boxes all over the screen, and random strobe effects. Often, my entire PC would crash, with Adrenalin straight up telling me I physically removed the GPU, and Windows 10 would disable my GPU for system stability, and I had to manually reenable it . It's not exclusive to BG3 either, though other games never have crashes that are this severe.

That's not really what the thread is about, but this is why I am pretty particular about getting a GPU that would not have these issues. The last thing I want is to spend €800, boot up a game and see the same issues I've been having, return the card, and play whack-a-mole with some random other graphical cards while I wait 2 months to get my money back and feel defeated because I cannot play games normally.

 

[Order 66]

I understand your issues but if you use DDU it can solve a lot of those issues. Even going from AMD to AMD can cause issues with registry entries.
Maybe try this and see if it helps.
Make sure you follow ALL the instructions.

Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) download version 18.0.8.9

Download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) - Remove AMD/NVIDIA/INTEL Graphics Drivers Cleanly - DDU is a driver removal utility that helps you completely uninstall AMD/NVIDIA graphics card drivers and packages from your system, leaving no leftovers behind, including registry keys, folders, files...

www.guru3d.com

 

[geofelt]

The chips used in a 6800 XT all come from the same source, namely amd.
They are binned as to quality and the better performing chips are used in the factory overclocked cards that can be sold for more.
You probably get fair value at any level excepting the highest performing factory overclocked cards.
Past that, it is cosmetics and support.
I always wonder if one could test customer support by calling the support center for a card and seeing how you are treated.

Do not plan on trying to get something for nothing via overclocking.
If you need more performance, buy a stronger card.
Use a general performance guide like tom's gpu hierarchy chart to estimate performance.

GPU Benchmarks and Hierarchy 2023: Graphics Cards Ranked

We've run hundreds of GPU benchmarks on Nvidia, AMD, and Intel graphics cards and ranked them in our comprehensive hierarchy.

www.tomshardware.com

Do not buy based on specs.
amd and nvidia use vram differently.

 

[PlayerDot]

I understand your issues but if you use DDU it can solve a lot of those issues. Even going from AMD to AMD can cause issues with registry entries.
Maybe try this and see if it helps.
Make sure you follow ALL the instructions.

Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) download version 18.0.8.9

Download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) - Remove AMD/NVIDIA/INTEL Graphics Drivers Cleanly - DDU is a driver removal utility that helps you completely uninstall AMD/NVIDIA graphics card drivers and packages from your system, leaving no leftovers behind, including registry keys, folders, files...

www.guru3d.com

To clarify, I did a fully clean install of Windows 10/11 every time, formatting my drives in the process.

 

[Order 66]

fair enough, but maybe you got extraordinarily unlucky and received two defective cards.

 

[Zerk2012]

A lot of the price difference can depend on the country you live in.