Radeon RX 6700 XT card was released on the Polish market on March 18, 2021. Are AMD’s assurances that the model significantly outperforms its predecessor reflected in reality?
The key difference between the two graphics cards is the use of the new RDNA 2.0 architecture, a technology that has also been found in dedicated chips for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Interestingly, the base clocking has decreased by 7%, but the difference is made up for by an increase in Boost mode clocking of up to 18%. The new chip offers similar improvements in terms of compute speed, and texture processing can be up to half as fast. This all translates to better gaming performance.
However, the new model does not always mean higher efficiency in every application. Among other things, it is worth paying attention to hashrate, or the speed of calculating hashes in cryptocurrency miners – for the card from the previous generation it is 54.3 MH/s, while RX 6700 XT gets the result at 43 MH/s. That’s a drop of as much as 20%.
One of the biggest differences between the cards from AMD is also the price. Although the Radeon RX 6700 XT offers noticeably worse performance in some applications, the product is more expensive by several hundred zlotys. For this reason, the model will probably not enjoy great popularity among so-called miners, i.e. people who are engaged in “digging” cryptocurrencies.
Although initially it might seem that such a change will negatively affect the perception of the product, the effect may be quite the opposite. Recent months in the graphics card market were marked by extremely low availability of the latest models, which was precisely related to the high demand for components for diggers. In this case, however, AMD focused on gaming performance, which should definitely reduce the interest from miners – due to the relatively low hashrate, gamers will have much better access to the cards.
The Radeon RX 6700 XT card offers some advancement in terms of performance compared to the previous model, but the parameters still deviate from the top Nvidia products. It is worth bearing in mind that the equipment from AMD is characterized by a lower price. Comparing performance to the competitor’s proposal, RX 6700 XT can be placed between RTX 3060 and RTX 3070 – the situation is similar in terms of price.
In addition to the improved architecture, another novelty is the increased GDDR6 VRAM, whose capacity is now 12 GB. AMD has also applied a number of very interesting technological solutions, among which it is worth mentioning the Infinity Cache, the use of which translates into greater VRAM throughput. The card also offers full support for DirectX Raytracing (DXR) through dedicated Ray Accelerators. The product supports HDMI 2.1 standard with VRR function.
The Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card is perfect for 1440p gaming, but it also supports the 4K standard – the maximum resolution is 7,680 by 4,320 pixels. the 7-nanometer lithography translates into a more efficient use of power; you’ll also find support for Smart Access Memory and Radeon Boost technologies. The available connectors are HDMI 2.1 and 3 x DisplayPort 1.4a. The card does not generate a high noise level, which is certainly an added advantage.
In the last several months we can notice a huge demand for graphics cards, as well as a rapid sale of new models. As we have already mentioned, this is directly related to the digging of cryptocurrencies – manufacturers even decide to introduce special blockades to limit the use of this type.
In the case of AMD, users will not encounter such a barrier, but nevertheless, the usefulness of RX 6700 XT in the context of mining is much smaller due to the lower hashrate than in its predecessor. As a result, an interesting market situation may arise – those looking for cryptocurrency digging hardware will focus on the previous generation model, while gamers will be able to get new hardware that still offers improved gaming performance. For now, however, this model also has a lot of availability issues, causing the price to increase by more than 100% since its release.
Interestingly, the initial price of RX 6700 XT was higher than that of Nvidia’s competing model, RTX 3060. However, it is worth bearing in mind that AMD released its product a few months later – perhaps such pricing is an expression of adjustment to the new realities of the graphics card market. The current situation makes it very difficult to give a clear verdict on the cost-effectiveness of this model, but it is certainly a proposal worth attention, especially for gamers.
