Both these companies became market superpowers. Product specification is what matters in the market. With this, the comparison between graphic cards started. The efficiency, performance, and cooling power were some topics under consideration by analysts. A few months from today, both the companies released their most powerful GPUs in the market. They are the RX 6900 XT from the AMD Radeon series and the RTX 3090 from NVIDIA’s GeForce series. We will be looking at the functionalities they provide in detail.
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT vs Nvidia RTX 3090: Flagship battle
The Graphic cards that I will be discussing are the top-of-the-line cards by AMD and NVIDIA. These cards are developed with the latest technology and provide peak performance. Related comparisons:
3060 vs 3060 ti RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3080
They are the latest models of graphic cards that both the companies have released and are second to none. We will now be diving deep into the features and specifications that cards provide users with.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: The Specifications
I know you are here for the graphic card’s description. Aren’t you? Well, you won’t be disappointed. They are just that good. In the RX 6900 XT and RTX 3090, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT contains some splendid specifications. But its competitor is evenly matched with. RX 6900 XT has 5120 Shading Units which is a lot compared to its predecessors. But in comparison with the NVIDIA RTX 3090 GPU, they seem a lot less. The RTX 3090 has around 10496 Shading units. Texture Mapping Unit (TMU) which you may also know as texture cores are mainly used for creating highly textured graphics. In high-end GPUs, these things are in abundance. But when it comes to 6900 XT and 3090, the latter one contains around 328 TMU cores. On the other hand, 6900 XT provides almost the same amount, 320 TMU cores. ROP cores are known widely in two different names. One is Render Output Unit, and the other one is Raster Operation Pipeline. To be precise they work on the final steps of rendering the image before presenting it to the user. Looking into their quantity in the GPUs, the RX 6900 XT from AMD contains around 128 such cores. On the other hand, the GPU GeForce RTX 3090 has 112 ROP cores. The 6900 XT does not contain any Tensor cores or SM count. Instead, the RTX 3090 has around 328 Tensor cores and 82 SM count. Compared to that, the RX 6900 XT does contain 80 Compute Units. Ray Tracing is a new feature in the latest GPUs. The focus of this technology is to work on the sharpness of the image and lightning distribution. This all is done in such a way that the image quality is enhanced greatly. All high-end GPUs contain RT cores. As they are a new technology, so old GPUs do not have these cores. The RX 6900 XT contains around 80 such cores whereas, the RTX 3090 contains around 82 RT cores. Even though AMD did not add any CUDA cores to the GPU, they did add a memory of 16 GB with a surplus of 128 MB for the infinity cache. The main purpose of the CUDA cores was to make decisions with the data being fed to the GPU. According to AMD, like CUDA, cores were being shared with other cores same is the case with infinity cache. This is a high-speed cache used by all other GPU components for their fast working. The 6900 XT has a GDDR6 memory type with a bus speed of 256 bits. Whereas the 3090 has a memory type of GDDR6X with bus speeds of about 384 bits. The memory clock speed for the AMD card is 2000 MHZ with an effective speed of 16Gbps. The memory clock speed for NVIDIA 3090 card is 1219 MHz, with an effective speed of 19.5 Gbps. The base clock speed for 6900 XT is 1825 MHz, whereas for RTX 3090 is 1395 MHz.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: The Architecture
Talking about a high-end GPU, there is only one thing that can help us know the peak performance that the GPU can achieve. That one thing is the number of games it can run. From statistics, it has been proven that people buy most GPUs for gaming rather than for work. Playing the game at ultra-graphics and the best performance possible. It is the dream of any enthusiast gamer. To achieve that goal having the best GPU in the market is what every user looks forward to. In previous years, the GPU market has updated itself, the same goes for the gaming market. Games nowadays focus on providing an immersive feeling so that the user can enter an unreal world. This requires a lot of simulation work which requires good GPUs. Now let’s move on to the architecture of both these in detail. This information will help us know what makes both these GPUs the best of the best. As far as graphics card architecture is concerned, the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT has a NAVI 21 GPU chip. This chip comes from the NAVI II group, which is specifically designed for the RX 6000 series. RX 6900 XT by AMD was released on December 8th, 2020. This GPU is the best up-to-date by AMD. The features that it provides are second to none. Even though NVIDIA presented a competitor, still it is one of the top GPUs in the market. The AMD RX 6900 XT contains x16 the latest PCIe port. By latest, I mean that the PCIe port is the 4.0 version. It is a 16 GB GDDR6 with a 256-bit bus speed. With this much memory, we get a memory clock of 2000 MHz which 90% plus of the GPUs in the market can not provide. The base clock speed of the GPU is 1825 MHz. Architecture-wise, the RX 6900 XT from the Radeon series created by AMD is a very nicely built GPU. It keeps in mind the requirements for all types of users. The architecture of RTX 3090 is quite like that of RX 6900 XT. Some features are better than those provided by AMD, whereas others are not. Now let’s dive deep into the architectural build of NVIDIA’s RTX 3090. The RTX 3090 is the second most powerful card (3090 Ti is coming) released in the GeForce 3000 series presented by NVIDIA. NVIDIA’s RTX 3090 was released on September 24th, 2020. This card was mainly released as a competitor to the hyped-up RX 6900 XT. The GPU contains NVIDIA’s latest GA102 graphics card chip for best performance. Some predecessors also contain this same GPU chip. But this chip combined with other components of the GPU makes it run at the best performance possible. It has the same PCIe ports (PCI express ports) as 6900 XT. Also, they are the ports for the latest 4.0 version. So, you can plug in those components and play full high speed and response time games. Regarding memory, the RTX 3090 contains 24GB GDDR6X memory with 384-bit bus speed. The memory clock that this GPU provides is 1219 MHz which is less compared to the RX 6900 XT. But it does not affect the performance to that much extent. Also, the base clock speed that the NVIDIA GPU provides is quite solid compared to other competitors. Overclocking a GPU is also one of the things that most users do for max performance. So, overclocking a GPU with this much base clock speed makes it the best GPU.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: Gaming Benchmarks!
Its time! Let’s investigate some games and their benchmark results. I will be running these games in 1080p, 1440p, and 4k resolution with the ultra-graphics settings. One thing I want to make clear before we move on. These benchmark results are with the Ray tracing and DLSS off. The benchmarks with ray tracing will be discussed later in the article. I will be using the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, vs the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090. The processor I’ll be using is the Intel Core i9-10900K. First, I will be running these games on 1080p resolution with ultra-graphics settings. Metro Exodus: The first game will be Metro Exodus. A story-based game that focuses on surviving against hordes of enemies. This game takes you to the battlefield with it so you can feel the world over there. First up I’ll use the RX 6900 XT graphics card, the max FPS reach is 139. The average FPS I got is 125. When this GPU is exchanged with RTX 3090, the maximum FPS I was able to get was 138. An average of 124 FPS is what can be farmed with this GPU. Far Cry New Dawn: The next game on the list with 1080p resolution and ultra-graphic are Far Cry New Dawn. This game is the 6th game in the Far Cry series. It continues the story of the previous Far Cry series. An FPS game that is highly graphics demanding. The ambiance, the graphics, everything is beautiful in this game. Firstly, the GPU on which this game will run is the RX 6900 XT by AMD. Let’s set the resolution to 1080p and graphics to Ultra. Start! The maximum FPS that I could achieve with this setup was around 251. The average FPS I could achieve was 225. Which is good for such a high-end game. On interchanging the graphics card with the RTX 3090, I saw a slight improvement in FPS. The maximum FPS bounce to 256.6. The average FPS I could get from this benchmark was 230. Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Coming up next is the Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The latest release to the Tomb Raider series that used to be my favorite game series for years. This game puts the legend, Lara Croft, in a desperate situation for survival against a group. They are trying to find the same thing as Lara Croft, due to which they need to eliminate her. When RX 6900 XT is installed on the computer, the game provides a maximum of 223 FPS. The average FPS that I was able to achieve here is 200. On interchanging the GPU with RTX 3090, the maximum FPS increases to 213.9. The average FPS that this GPU can farm is 192. Cyberpunk 2077: One of the most anticipated games of this year was Cyberpunk 2077. A game that requires high graphics (with a lot of bugs ;). Moving on to the RX 6900 XT I came to find out. The maximum FPS in this game was 106.9 and the average FPS was 96. Moving on to the stats with RTX 3090. The maximum FPS the game could farm with this GPU is 107.6 and an average of 96 FPS are achievable. Resident Evil Village: The next game is the well-known Resident Evil Village. This is the 8th part of the Resident Evil series. A game mainly based on the end story of the main character Ethan Winters. Coming to the point at hand, let’s install the RX 6900 XT 16 GB on the PC. I got an average FPS of 307.5. Now let’s interchange it with the RTX 3090 24 GB I got an average of 262.3 FPS. GTA V: The next game on the benchmarking list is the infamous Grand Theft Auto V, also known as GTA V. This game is an all-out banger. An RPG game that immerses players in a world of infinite possibilities. The old versions of this game were GTA San Andrea’s and GTA Vice City. One of the best classical games I played when I was a child. The GTA V with an RX 6900 XT gives a maximum FPS of 206 and an average FPS of 185. On the other hand, RTX 3090 outclasses it in this game. The RTX 3090 gives a maximum of 237.1 FPS. The average FPS it gives is 213. Horizon Zero Dawn: The last game I will benchmark in 1080p resolution is Horizon Zero Dawn. A game developed by Sony itself. This game is quite nicely optimized. The action and calm environment in the game make it the best game released by Sony. On benchmarking, the RTX 6900 XT provides a maximum of 140 FPS, the average FPS I got here is 138 FPS. When using RTX 3090, the max FPS is 286, and the average FPS is 166. This game is benchmarked on an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X. Now let’s change the resolution to 1440p and check the benchmark results. As we now know about all the games, we are looking into. So, let’s quickly go through the FPS for these games. Metro Exodus: On 1440p and maxed-out settings with an RX 6900 XT, Metro Exodus gives a maximum of 108 FPS. An average of 86 FPS. As the GPU is changed to RTX 3090, the maximum FPS becomes 110.3, and the average FPS becomes 88. Far Cry New Dawn: With the same configuration and an RX 6900 XT, Far Cry New Dawn gives a maximum FPS of 194.0. And the average is 155. On changing the GPU to RTX 3090, the maximum FPS comes out to be 203.4, and the average FPS is 162. Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Next up is the “Shadow of the Tomb Raider,” which gives a maximum of 151 FPS with RX 6900 XT. An average FPS of 120 is provided by the 6900 XT, with an RTX 3090, a max of 152.2, and 121 average FPS is provided. Cyberpunk 2077: With RX 6900 XT, Cyberpunk 2077 provides a maximum of 99.8 and an average of 79. With RTX 3090, I got the max FPS of 100.5 and an average FPS of 80. Resident Evil Village: Resident Evil Village, on the other hand, with an RX 6900 XT, provides an average FPS of 220.4 FPS. Whereas with RTX 3090, I got an average FPS of 196.6. GTA V: GTA V with RX 6900 XT gives an average FPS of 116, and RTX 3090 gives 143 FPS. Horizon Zero Dawn: The last one is Horizon Zero Dawn. With RX 6900 T, it gives an average of 114 FPS, and with RTX 3090 146 FPS. Let’s see the change in FPS when the resolution is changed to 4k or 3840 x 2160. Running Metro Exodus with an RX 6900 XT gives an average of 44 FPS, and RTX 3090 gives 51 FPS. The next game is Far Cry New Dawn. RX 6900 XT gives an average of 69 FPS, and RTX 3090 gives 78 FPS on average. Shadow of the Tomb Raider with an RX 6900 XT gives an average of 51 FPS. With RTX 3090, it gives an average of 60 FPS. Cyberpunk 2077, a highly demanding game. With an RX 6900 XT, it gives an average FPS of 43. On exchanging with RTX 3090, the average FPS comes out to be 46. RX 6900 XT when running Resident Evil Village gives an average of 119.0 FPS. For RTX 3090, I got an average of 116.5 FPS. GTA V ran with RX 6900 XT gives an average FPS of 51, whereas, with RTX 3090, it gives 65 FPS. The last game in 4k is Horizon Zero Dawn. On RX 6900 XT, I got an average FPS of 68, and with RTX 3090 93 FPS on average.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: Design & Value
Up till now, I have talked about the components that work in the GPU for improving its performance. But now, Let’s investigate the design of these GPUs, specifically the RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090. The components in the PC are connected through the motherboard. In the GPU, the components are connected through a board. Each board has a heat sink which helps reduce the temperature. One of the cool things about GPU companies is that they work a lot on the designing of the GPU. Most of the GPU makers do not keep this in consideration which causes problems in the GPUs later. But overheating is one of the problems that render most GPUs useless. Now let’s talk a bit about the board’s configuration. The board in RX 6900 XT is a triple slot board with a length of 267 mm, a width of 120 mm, and a height of 50 mm. A triple slot board contains 3 slots for the attachment of external components like cooling fans, etc. The length, width, and height in inches will be 10.5″ 4.7″ 2″. This is a normal-sized board with enough cooling area. Due to this, the RX 6900 XT, even on overclocking, remains at normal temperature. RX 6900 XT contains 1 HDMI, 2 Display ports, and 1 USB type C port. The function of these ports is to connect the GPU with the outside world. To cope with the heating problem, cooling fans are also added to the design. RX 6900 XT contains 3 cooling fans. It is quite a large-sized GPU. Looking into the board specification for RTX 3090, I found out that it is also a triple slot GPU that has a length of 336 mm, a width of 140 mm, and a height of 61 mm. These specifications in inches are 13.2″ 5.5″ 2.4″, respectively. The triple slot for RTX 3090 contains 2 fans and one cooling system in most 3090 GPUs. After all, the outer design depends on the vendor. He can either change it or go with the same design. It contains 1 HDMI port and 3 Display ports. The ports bring the data which the GPU processes to provide the best results possible. The board size for RTX 3090 is even bigger for RX 6900 XT. Before buying it, do keep in mind to have a large-sized case for these bad boys. Now let’s move onwards to the pricing of these GPUs. As we all know, COVID was a big hit to the world. Even the industrial world also had to face its wrath. The price range in which the RX 6900 XT is available in the market is $2000 -3000 but the actual MSRP by the AMD is $999. Now the price is a lot right now because of the pandemic but if we consider the actual MSRP I think it’s a solid deal. Moving on to the price range for RTX 3090. Currently, this card or any other GPU is costing a fortune due to the cell shortage and pandemic, right now it can cost you around $3000 – 4000, but again the actual MSRP is very much low as compared to the current market rate, the official MSRP given by the Nvidia is $1,499. Now if we compare both of these GPUs by the official MSRP the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT is a better choice but considering the ECOsystem that Nvidia has, the RTX 3090 is not a bad option either.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: Software, Drivers, And New Features
AMD and NVIDIA have both been in the market for quite a long time now. During the first releases of the GPUs by AMD and NVIDIA, there used to be a lot of software bugs. The occurrence of black screen, sudden shut down of the graphics driver, blue screen issues. These were some common problems in the GPUs at that time. As time passed by, the companies started to release updates for these GPUs. The main purpose was to remove the software issues. These problems still occur when companies release their new GPUs for the first time in the market. But gradual updates remove these issues time by time. Each GPU supports a certain amount and type of software that help improve its performance. This software is the link between the virtual world and the physical world. To be precise, they are the links between the GPU and the monitor. Now let’s investigate what these software’s do in 6900 XT vs 3090. The RX 6900 XT uses a few software that helps improve the quality performance of the GPU. The graphic feature software’s like DirectX, Open GL, etc. Let’s dive deep into what these software’s are and what they do. When you log into a game and go to video settings for changing some graphic settings. You might have noticed a setting with the name of Direct X. This setting is mainly used for improving the UI performance of the games. The RX 6900 XT supports the latest DirectX 12 Ultimate or DirectX 12_2. From reviews, the Direct X 12 Ultimate is much better than the previous versions. The RTX 3090 supports the DirectX 12 Ultimate also. This equalizes the competition between both. This is not all! The 6900 XT supports Open CL as well. The Open CL is a programming language that is the juice for the CUDA cores. This language runs on different cores to provide the best performance possible. The OpenCL 2.1 is used by RX 6900 XT. The Open CL 3.0 is used by RTX 3090. Even though RTX 3090 has a better version of Open CL, but no major differences have been noted. Let’s talk about the Open GL in both the GPUs. The Open GL is an Open Graphics Library used to render the provided high-end image. This is one of the most important software required by the GPU to run the best graphics possible. In this context, RX 6900 XT uses the 4.6 version. This is the latest version. The RTX 3090, also uses the same version. So, the performance of both GPUs is not affected at all. They can run the best settings possible. Moving on to the next software used for better performance. The RX 6900 XT and RTX 3090 use Vulkan as well. Vulkan is a specific type of API used for 3D graphics simulation. Rendering a 3D graphic is the work of the GPU and showing those graphics on the screen is the work of the Vulkan API. Both AMD and NVIDIA GPU under discussion use the Vulkan 1.2. Let’s look at another famous software used by GPUs nowadays. It is the Shader Model. As the name suggests, they work on shaders. Shaders are the files added in games to make them more aesthetically pleasing. The rendering of shaders is also done by the GPU using Shader Model software. The RX 6900 XT uses Shader Model 6.5, whereas RTX 3090 uses the 6.6 version. One more thing that is specific to NVIDIA is the use of CUDA API. This API specifies the GPU that a specific software can use to run itself. RTX 3090 uses CUDA 8.6.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: Ray-Tracing Benchmarks
Ray tracing is a feature implemented first time in the RTX GPUs by NVIDIA. This feature works on controlling the lighting in the game. Lighting plays a key role in the aesthetics of the game. The ambiance if it’s a scary game, the beauty if it’s an adventure game, all depend on the lighting. By controlling this aspect of the game, the true power of the graphics card can be seen. As good as this feature is, there are still some issues with this. To control the lighting, the graphics card must work extra. This sometimes causes a considerable drop in FPS. So, you should use this as you please. If you are more of an FPS lover person, then you might not care about the aesthetics that much. So, you can use the GPU with Ray tracing feature off. But if you care about aesthetics, then you should use the GPU with Ray Tracing On. Now let’s investigate the difference in FPS when Ray tracing is on for some games on 1080p and 1440p. Cyberpunk 2077: For RTX 3090 vs RX 6900 XT, the first game that I have here is Cyberpunk 2077. The resolution is 1080p, and the game graphics have been set to Ultra. At this point, the RTX 3090 gives an average of 60 FPS. The max FPS reach is 71.3. On the other hand, the RX 6900 XT gives an average FPS of 33.3. The max FPS that it peaks is 38.2. These FPS are much lower than those of RTX 3090. Metro Exodus: The next up is the Metro Exodus. On this game with 1080p, ultra-graphics the RX 6900 XT gives a maximum FPS of 92.0. The average FPS is 57.3. Moving on to its competitor from NVIDIA, I saw much better results. It gives a maximum of 116.4 FPS. The average FPS that it provides is 67.2. Comparison between both the GPUs shows that Metro Exodus will run best with RTX 3090. But RX 6900 XT also provides decent performance. Shadow of the Tomb Raider: The next game on the list to benchmark with ray tracing is the Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The resolution will be set to 1080p, and the graphic quality will be on Ultra. The RTX 3090 provides a max FPS of 133.8 with these settings. The average FPS that it can reach is 98.1. With this, RX 6900 XT also starts well. The 6900 XT provides a maximum of 114 FPS. The average FPS it provides is 91.3, which is not too low compared to the 3090. Now let’s investigate some of the ray tracing benchmarks when the resolution is changed to 1440p. On this resolution, gaming is a whole new experience. The frames and clarity on these monitors/screens are second to none. Getting into details of the game with the ultra-settings is an experience of its own. Now, let’s benchmark RTX 3090 on some games. The settings will be a 1440p resolution monitor with the game set to ultra-graphic settings. Cyberpunk 2077: Cyberpunk 2077, a game that has graphically been one of the most demanding games in the previous year. Playing this game on ultra-graphics is an amazing experience. If the graphics card installed in the PC is RTX 3090. Then Cyberpunk farms up a maximum of 47.9 FPS and a solid 43.1 FPS on average. On the other hand, interchanging the graphics card with RX 6900 XT gives a lot of different FPS. At maximum, the FPS will reach 25.7, nothing more. These FPS will fluctuate between 22.7 – 25.7. This makes 22.7 the average FPS. Metro Exodus: The next game I’m about benchmark with the RTX 3090 GPU, 1440p resolution, and ultra-graphics is Metro Exodus. This game is also a story-based shooter which is highly demanding in terms of graphics. 94.4 FPS is the max this GPU can reach. On average, it farms around 57.7 FPS. The RX 6900 XT provides a maximum of 68.9 FPS on Metro Exodus. The average FPS generated is 46.2. Shadow of the Tomb: The next game is the Shadow of the Tomb Raider. With RTX 3090 and previous settings, I got a maximum of 98.2 FPS. The average FPS it reaches is 70.2. With RX 6900 XT and the same settings, the max FPS that it reaches is 81.1. An average of 68.2 FPS can be reached. Now after these benchmarks you can clearly see that there is not much of a difference between 3090 vs 6900 XT when talking about playing games at 1440p with ultra-graphical settings and ray tracing on, the results are extremely close to each other. Which makes both the GPUs on par for the graphics on 1440p display. On 1080p, the RTX 3090 is the better option.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: Noise And Thermal
Noise is one of the factors of the GPUs that most people want to know before buying one. Louder graphic units are not the choice of every user. Quitter and more calmer GPUs are what most users want. The noise that the GPU makes is mostly because of the cooling Fans attached to it. As the name specifies they are used to cool down the GPU. Consider you are in a room with a slightly high temperature than normal. You will turn on the fan to cool yourself down. But if the temperature rises even higher, you will turn up the fan same is the case with GPUs. When the GPUs are being used extensively, like in gaming or some graphic designing work. The fans on the GPU must run faster to cool down the components. This helps avoid unnecessary damage to components inside the GPU. There has been a lot of work done on GPU cooling. Most companies like MSI or MEGABYTE make the GPU, keeping in mind the aerodynamics. This helps cool down the GPU more easily with low fan power. Let’s discuss a few Temperature and Noise values in different states of 3090 vs 6900 XT. GPUs will always be in any of these three states. Idle, Load, Load + OC. First up is the RX 6900 XT. It is a triple-slotted GPU. In its Idle state, the 6900 XT has a temperature of 45°C. Which is the normal room temperature. The Noise dissipation is 0 dBA because the GPU is not working at all. In Load state, this GPU had a temperature of 78 – 80 °C. This means when I run a game, the GPU temps will not exceed 80°C. The warning limit for GPU temperature is 90 – 95°C. If your GPU reaches this temperature, then you need to stop using that application. Otherwise, you might damage your components. In the Load state, the GPU might produce up to 30dBA of sound. This is the lowest of all the other RTX 6000 series GPUs. Next up is the RTX 3090. This GPU is a triple fan slotted GPU. After all, the number of fans depends on the company that creates it. We will be looking into the three states of the GPU again. On Idle state, the GPU has temps of around 46°C. Which is the normal temperature that a GPU can have. In this state, the 3090 is quiet with a 0dBA sound level. In the Load state, the temps as well as the sound increase. The temps reach between 70 – 80 °C. Temperature less than 90°C is fine, but higher is dangerous for the GPU. The sound level also rises to 31 – 34 dBA. This is less than the normal sound level for humans, which is 90 dBA. Therefore, this GPU is considered one of the quietest GPUs of all. You can easily buy one of these without caring for the noise or the temperature. There is a reason they are called high-end GPUs.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: Power And Efficiency
PSUs or the power supply units are one of the main components of the PC. They help control the power input to each component of the PC. Each component requires a set amount of power for its work. If more power is provided than needed, the components might short circuit. To refrain from this loss, PSUs are installed on the computer. GPUs are one of the most power-consuming components of the computer. Their power consumption is also relative to their state of work. A high-working GPU will extract more power from the PSU. Getting the perfect power supply for your build is also a challenge. If you install a power supply that can not provide all the components with the required amount of power. This might cause problems with your system like the sudden shut down of the computer, etc. The two GPUs, which are the discussion for the topic, require a lot of power as they contain new features. The features like Ray tracing and DLSS have their own separate set of cores. Ray tracing cores run when ray tracing is turned on, thus extracting more power from the PSU. Before buying a Power Supply Unit, you should sum the voltages that your build requires. Nowadays, all the PC components have a required amount of voltage listed on them. Your PSU should be able to produce more or equal voltages. Let’s talk about the power requirements for RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090 GPUs in different states. First comes the AMD RX 6900 XT. In Idle state, the 6900 XT takes 7W of power for running. Even in a multi-monitor state, the power usage remains 7W. This shows how small the consumption of power is for RX 6900 XT. In the media playback state, the RX 6900 XT uses up 48 W of power. The most among the RX 6000 series GPUs. Playing a game is the time when most power is used by the GPU. It takes on average 299W of power while gaming. In extreme gaming states, the GPU uses up around 322W of power which is a lot. There are still some GPUs that take more power while peak gaming. Next is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090. This GPU in its Idle state takes up to 13 W of power. This is a lot compared to RX 6900 XT. In a multi-monitor state, it takes about 26W of power, and in a media-playback state, it takes even more. Around 32W of power is consumed in this case. While playing an average game, 365W of power is needed, and in peak gaming (the time when the GPU is used the most) 474W of power is extracted from the PSU. From these values one thing is clear, RTX 3090 uses a lot more power than RX 6900 XT. Talking about the efficiency, from the benchmark results and other data I have seen so far. RTX 3090 seems more efficient than RX 6900 XT.
RX 6900 XT vs RTX 3090: The Winner
The Radeon RX 6900 XT vs GeForce RTX 3090 are closely matched in several categories. The categories in order of priority are. Gaming Performance, in this category the GeForce RTX 3090 is without a doubt the fastest gaming GPU on the market right now. If you limit your performance results to games that don’t support ray tracing or DLSS. AMD’s RX 6900 XT appears very decent, but with those features, there is a gap between the two. More than 30 games come with DLSS 2.0 support. And at least two dozen titles with various forms of ray tracing are now available for purchase. In both areas, there will be more to come. AMD won’t be able to compete with Nvidia’s finest without FSR, and even FSR may not be enough. Price, on the other hand, is where the AMD shines. But people who are willing to pay, do not care about the prices rising. The problem arises for people who must gather money to buy this GPU. Due to COVID and other variants, the prices have increased a lot and are still increasing. This does not fit well for such people. Features and Tech, the winner is Nvidia with its advanced features. Power and Efficiency, Drivers and Software. These are the deciding factor. RTX 3090 succeeds in the Power and efficiency category. Whereas both RTX 3090 and RX 6900 XT fail in terms of drivers and software. Even after this many years, there are still bugs in the graphics drivers. Nvidia’s sheer performance and features triumphed over AMD’s pricing and power. More related comparisons:
3060 Ti vs 3070: (Head To Head) RX 6800 XT vs RTX 3080: (Benchmarks) 2080 Super vs 2080 Ti: The Difference, The Benchmarks Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 vs. RTX 2080 Ti
But the benchmark results have made a few things clear. In 1080p and 1440p without RT or DLSS, RX 6900 XT performs better than or almost equal to the RTX 3090. In 2160p RX 6900 XT is outperformed by RTX 3090. When RT and DLSS turned On, RTX 3090 clean sweeps RX 6900 XT. If you have a limited budget, then RX 6900 XT is a good choice. You might need to sacrifice the 4K with ray tracing experience. So, it’s up to you. Either wait for the prices to go down or get RTX 6900 XT.
#1 – Is the RX 6900 XT better than the RTX 3090?
The RTX 3090 offers more sophisticated ray-tracing capabilities and DLSS technology to increase performance over the RX 6900 XT in terms of 4k resolution To get these extra features, you will have to spend more money.
#2 – Does 6900 XT have ray tracing?
Yes, accelerated ray tracing is supported. It’s basically on par with the RTX 2080 Ti’s implementation – that is, it’s a nice feature to have, but comparing it with RTX 3090, the ray tracing is not yet matured.
#3 – How much will the 6900 XT cost?
After COVID, the industrial world also had to face its wrath. The price range in which the RX 6900 XT is available is $2000 -3000, whereas the original price was $1000.
#4 – Is RTX 3090 the best GPU?
The ASUS STRIX RTX 3090 is the finest overall if you want something that performs well in all areas. You receive excellent overclocked core clocks right out of the box while being quiet and cool. Any of the variants you will not be dissatisfied with your choice.
#5 – Is 3090 an overkill?
This card is designed to replace the Titan RTX; thus, it is a professional-grade card that can also play. In regular 4k games, the 3090 has only a 10% advantage over a 3080, although costing more than twice as much. This seems to be overkill at low resolution.
#6 – Is the RTX 3090 future-proof?
In technology, there is no such thing as “future-proofing.” A 3090 card will allow you to play games at Ultra settings for a few years. As for today, this is the best card available it still has some future.
#7 – How powerful is a 3090?
The RTX 3090 has around 10,000 CUDA cores. This helps it provide 36 TFLOPs of shader performance, approximately three times more than the 2080 Ti’s 14.2 TFLOPs. While this implies that the 3090 is more than twice as fast as the 2080 Ti.
#8 – Is RTX 3090 Ti coming?
Though it has not solid news yet, there is still a chance that RTX 3090 Ti might be launching next year. It is also said to beat all the other top-tier cards in the market.
