[SOLVED] RTX 3080 Ti vs RX 6900 XT

[mihailt]

Hi fellas,

This may seem like a weird question, but such is the market where I live in that these two GPUs make the most sense.

For all practical purposes, consider that they're sold for nearly identical prices and are also the least overpriced compared to MSRP.

So here's the question - which one should I choose? Just to be a bit more specific - let's say between Powercolor's Red Devil Ultimate (XTXH chip I believe) and Zotac's 3080Ti Trinity GPU. There's also the option for a Sapphire Nitro+ SE.

My new CPU will almost certainly be a 12700K with a Z690 board and 32GB of DDR5 5600Mhz CL36 RAM.

I've got a 1440p monitor that is Gsync compatible and has Freesync Premium.

From the benchmarks I've seen the AMD GPU is actually a bit ahead for this resolution, but I keep coming across these threads where people complain about the AMD drivers causing blackscreens, crashes, etc. Is this accurate info, or were these some early issues that have been since fixed? I've also read about transient power spike on the 6900XT in excess of 600W, which would potentially mean a new PSU for me, as my current one is a Seasonic Focus+ Platinum 750W.

Then there's the issue of Ray Tracing and DLSS. I don't actually play many games that have RTX and the DLSS implementation doesn't look very good to me especially when in motion with an RTX 2070. Then again, I don't know what the future holds and how many upcoming games will feature Ray Tracing.

It's also weird that the Nvidia GPUs are pulling ahead at 4K - does this mean that they might perform better in future titles?

 

[Lutfij]

You're asked to have at least 750W of power from your PSU available for the entire system with either of those cards, ideally you should have more wattage as headroom. So if you do for either of those cards, I'd pick out an 850W reliably built unit alongside the GPU purchase.

FYI, Powercolor's overclocked GPU's tend to draw more power so that's another story altogether. IMHO, you can't go wrong with either of them if it's for gaming. Content creation wise, that would need us to know what app's you're going to use/tax the system with. I've come to appreciate that updates from AMD and Nvidia are nearly the same. Each camp have their fair share of mishaps with a new driver update.

Not all titles will fair the same for the same GPU, some will be backed by Nvidia or by AMD, depending on that info, your titles might be one step above the other card, which is also why we ask people what games they'd like to tax their system at this moment of time. Since we can't predict what titles will be favorable to which GPU, we have to leave future title's support for Nvidia or AMD tech off the table.

 

[Darkbreeze]

The transient power spikes on the AMD cards are real, and have been a problem for longer than just the current generation. Many of the Vega and earlier RX cards have had similar issues with transient spikes and so far I haven't seen anything that indicates this has been addressed or corrected via driver or firmware updates unless I've missed something completely.

I can tell you for certain that I'd definitely spend my money on a Zotac product, and not just because it's on the Nvidia side of the river, than I would on Powercolor, despite Powercolor having been around for quite a long time. Plus, Foxcon manufactures the majority of Powercolor graphics cards and Foxcon is a real shxxheel when it comes to poor worker conditions and sweatshop labor practices with underage workers. I would not support them any more than I support MSI for it's poor business practices and low moral compass. Those might not be things you are concerned about, but it's something everybody ought to at least think about.

I go through this AMD through Nvidia thing all the time and while I have nothing at all against AMD for CPUs or graphics cards, and do builds with their products all the time, my recommendations unless there is a significant price difference between otherwise mostly comparable products is generally Nvidia for the fact of stabler driver support and better optimization in many games.

I agree with Lutfij on the power supply too. Especially if you go with the AMD card. If you go with the 3080 ti I'd recommend seeing how it does with the power supply you have now, first, since it's a pretty darn good unit already. Likely that Focus Platinum can do better than 750w easily, but I wouldn't want to subject it to it on a regular or continuous basis. In truth, it's likely ok for either card, but it's definitely possible to see problems if there are significant spikes on the AMD card.

 

[mihailt]

Thanks for the quick replies, fellas!

So here's a list of games that I've been playing lately.
PUBG, Modern Warfare 2019, the Remastered versions of MW1 and MW2, Ghost Recon Wildlands, GTA V, several Battlefield titles, ARMA 3, Far Cry 5.

You can count Hitman 2 and potentially to the list above but I'm limited in storage currently, so haven't played them in a while. Oh, also I mentioned 1440p, but didn't say the monitor is 165Hz, so we're targeting high FPS as well.

Regarding the brand - ideally I'd want an EVGA 3080 Ti, but those are just not easily accessible in my country or the prices on available units are stil skyhigh - with good reason I'd imagine, since I'm happy with my EVGA 2070.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you are happy with your RTX 2070 then maybe this isn't the right time to upgrade.

Graphics card prices are trending downward right now and availability is supposed to be getting better, but whether that is true for any given country I obviously can't say. In my opinion, it might be worth waiting a bit just to see if availability on what you actually want opens up and which direction prices seem to be trending. Are you buying from local shops or online? What country are you in?

 

[mihailt]

If you are happy with your RTX 2070 then maybe this isn't the right time to upgrade.

Graphics card prices are trending downward right now and availability is supposed to be getting better, but whether that is true for any given country I obviously can't say. In my opinion, it might be worth waiting a bit just to see if availability on what you actually want opens up and which direction prices seem to be trending. Are you buying from local shops or online? What country are you in?

I meant that I'm happy with the general quality of the EVGA GPU, cooler, noise, temps, etc. Unfortunately, the 2070 is a bit dated for my requirements at this point.

You're right that it's probably best to just wait a bit more, but after 2 years of atrocious market I think my brain has melted and I'm seeing what's still slightly above MSRP as a deal of a lifetime...

I'm from Bulgaria and I shop online from the local equivalent of Ebay. I also tend to keep tabs on listings from the actual Ebay by users in the EU (no hassle with customs charges and so on). Local shops are still listing 2-3xMSRP prices btw...

 

[Karadjgne]

Considering your answers to questions, buid quality of present pc and thoughts on all this, I'm of the opinion that a pc is more to you than a toy, an overpriced console. That said, the assumption would be that your current build is well taken care of, something of personal pride and satisfaction.

That puts your 2070 in high demand. I'd not have a single quibble about buying your used components, if I lived locally to you. Even your psu, which could very well suffer from power loss from either cards transient load spikes (3000 series are pretty bad for them too, it's not so much the level, but the time on the caps, the caps have a hard time filling back up fast enough to hold power levels)

I'd go with nvidia. You have a well capable gsync monitor, might as well use it since you paid extra for it. Sell your 2070 while it'll still fetch a decent price in return, there's somebody out there who needs a good card and can't afford new prices of a 3060 class card. The 4000 series is a thing, already in the works, once they hit or get very close, the bottom will drop out of 2000 series sales on mid range cards, like not many now will purchase a used 1070 unless desperate.

 

[mihailt]

Considering your answers to questions, buid quality of present pc and thoughts on all this, I'm of the opinion that a pc is more to you than a toy, an overpriced console. That said, the assumption would be that your current build is well taken care of, something of personal pride and satisfaction.

That puts your 2070 in high demand. I'd not have a single quibble about buying your used components, if I lived locally to you. Even your psu, which could very well suffer from power loss from either cards transient load spikes (3000 series are pretty bad for them too, it's not so much the level, but the time on the caps, the caps have a hard time filling back up fast enough to hold power levels)

I'd go with nvidia. You have a well capable gsync monitor, might as well use it since you paid extra for it. Sell your 2070 while it'll still fetch a decent price in return, there's somebody out there who needs a good card and can't afford new prices of a 3060 class card. The 4000 series is a thing, already in the works, once they hit or get very close, the bottom will drop out of 2000 series sales on mid range cards, like not many now will purchase a used 1070 unless desperate.

Thank you for the kind words, sir!

I was thinking about a Seasonic GX-1000 for a new PSU, that should handle either of the GPUs + a 12700K stock, right?

Seems like the consensus is for the 3080 Ti, will go for that one.

 

[fastfed]

just got a 6900xt after years of owning Nvidia, I must say I like the software better and the OCing is really high level.

I am hitting 2500-2700GHZ and on my 3440x1440 UW monitor I am still hitting 150FPS in all sorts of aaa games, even DCS

 

[Eximo]

Thank you for the kind words, sir!

I was thinking about a Seasonic GX-1000 for a new PSU, that should handle either of the GPUs + a 12700K stock, right?

Seems like the consensus is for the 3080 Ti, will go for that one.

Plenty of power.

 

[Eximo]

Overclocking on GPUs has lost its appeal to me. They are usually very close to their max performance with boost profiles already and that extra few hundred Mhz on AMD is still a relatively small percentage gain. GTX1080 at stock ran 2012Mhz under ideal boost conditions, I was able to increase that to 2101Mhz. Similar minor increase on memory performance.

Haven't bothered changing the settings on the 3080Ti. With water cooling it pretty much already reaches a high clock speed under all conditions (and I am pushing it a little with my PSU, so I will keep that in reserve after my next CPU upgrade) For 1440p gaming still getting well over 100FPS in heavy titles.

CPUs too, even went with a locked model as its boost profile is faster than my old overclocked CPU by a long margin, and has six more cores on top of that. Not the best performer today, but good enough.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I don't see much reason to overclock anymore on graphics cards either. And now with CPUs as well. Maybe down the road or if I get bored. Both are so capable now that just isn't really a necessity like it used to almost be for some hardware.

I don't think you need a 1000w power supply in any stretch of the imagination. A good 850w model is plenty, and unless the price difference is very close to what you can get the 1000w for, I'd save the money to put towards your other hardware because there is very little chance you are ever going to see that 3080 ti plus 12700k pulling or spiking near that 850w and if it's a good unit it wouldn't matter if it did. Unless you plan to upgrade to a higher end graphics card than the 3080 ti in the next two or three years, I think a 1000w unit is totally unnecessary.

 

[mihailt]

just got a 6900xt after years of owning Nvidia, I must say I like the software better and the OCing is really high level.

I am hitting 2500-2700GHZ and on my 3440x1440 UW monitor I am still hitting 150FPS in all sorts of aaa games, even DCS

Thanks for sharing, fella, always useful to hear from the Red team as well. I'm sure you're very happy with your 6900XT, it's truly a beast. Have you had any issues whatsoever in any games? Another thing I've read was that RDNA2 did very poorly in older titles on DX11 or prior.

@Eximo , @Darkbreeze , it's interesting that you mention it, technically I would have gone with a 12700 instead of a K (or even 12700F to cheap out as much as possible ), but I need the four m.2 slots on the Z690 chipset, so...

Thanks for recommending an 850W PSU, I think I was scared about transient spikes over 600W (can't remember where I saw that), and considering I would have 3 nVMEs, at least 2 SATA SSDs, bunch of fans, AIO pump and some lighting inside the case, I was worried that 850 might be right on the edge. Even though I don't do any applications that would tax 100% both GPU and CPU at the same time.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Thanks for sharing, fella, always useful to hear from the Red team as well. I'm sure you're very happy with your 6900XT, it's truly a beast. Have you had any issues whatsoever in any games? Another thing I've read was that RDNA2 did very poorly in older titles on DX11 or prior.

@Eximo , @Darkbreeze , it's interesting that you mention it, technically I would have gone with a 12700 instead of a K (or even 12700F to cheap out as much as possible ), but I need the four m.2 slots on the Z690 chipset, so...

Thanks for recommending an 850W PSU, I think I was scared about transient spikes over 600W (can't remember where I saw that), and considering I would have 3 nVMEs, at least 2 SATA SSDs, bunch of fans, AIO pump and some lighting inside the case, I was worried that 850 might be right on the edge. Even though I don't do any applications that would tax 100% both GPU and CPU at the same time.

NP