Sapphire Radeon RX 6950 XT Nitro+ Pure

[dayne878]

This card looks pretty impressive. From what I see on the games I play the performance is somewhere between the 3080 and the 3080ti/3090. Considering I'm still with a 2080ti I have my eye out for upgrades.

That said, the big roadbloack from switching to AMD (or Intel, down the road) is lack of G-sync compatibility. I have a G-sync monitor and don't have money to buy both a new graphics card AND a new monitor when the monitor I have is working perfectly. When I eventually upgrade my monitor I'll find one that is either freesync or maybe has both technologies (if that's possible) because I don't want to continue locking myself into Team Green just to take advantage of a syncing technology. I love G-sync and it makes gaming very smooth for me, but at the cost of being locked in.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I for one would like to hear what those features you're missing from AMD are, as I frankly have no idea. It's quite well known otherwise that RDNA2 is stronger in rasterized graphics at lower resolutions while Nvidia is stronger at 2160p and with RT. Is anyone contesting that being generally true? But I'd honestly like to hear which features you mean.

I've mentioned that before, I agree with you. I personally consider, as far as performance goes, them to be on equal footing - each with its own commendable strengths.

To address your question, think of the entire breadth of functionality that having tensor processing capabilities brings, a dedicated productivity driver suite with ISV endorsement, a significantly larger framebuffer to make use of these things... many other features AMD does offer, but with limitations (such as the video engine - it currently makes or breaks streaming, which is huge), I rest my case, I could write at length here but it's just not productive to do so. It's gone off-topic, this thread is about the 6950 XT and I'll be happy to debate this some other time.

Looking at it from the lenses of someone who just plays video games, updates their graphics driver maybe once a month and little else is a narrow view of things. The last time AMD offered anything like a Studio driver was with Vega FE and they didn't manage maintaining it, from experience, once proud owner of one...

 

[Charcharo]

@ARF
The graph is correct. Do not use the Gaming X Trio to represent the Reference / basic 6950XT.

 

[ppn]

I wish we can see the release of navi33 already, but oh noes, we can't have it yet because it obsoletes the whole lineup.

 

[ARF]

@ARF
The graph is correct. Do not use the Gaming X Trio to represent the Reference / basic 6950XT.

You are wrong. It is written "Performance estimated based on architecture, shader count and clocks."
and there is no RX 6950 XT that is so slow as in the graph positioning:

Look at all the available models, there is no so slow model:

 

[mechtech]

Have you seen any 3090 Ti reviews? It sits at or above 450W, most OC models approach (and some exceed) 500W.

Still, these power draw levels are pure insanity. I really wish AMD and/or their partners would publish "efficiency" BIOSes for these with lower clocks and voltages, as underclocking and undervolting can be a bit challenging due to AMD's aggressive boost algorithm, but they have tons of potential - I used to be able to run my 6900 XT at a peak of ~190W while losing ~15% performance from stock.

Still, not that it really stands up to the stupid power consumption, but I'm impressed by the overall performance gain. I was not expecting this to beat the 3090 Ti at 1440p, nor to beat the 3090 at 2160p.

Indeed. A regular/OC/default BIOS, and a low power/undervolt/quiet BIOS, at the flip of a switch would be a very nice feature.

I mean, yes, the only way to make Navi 21 perform like a 3090 is by juicing it as haphazardly as possible... there's absolutely nothing new here, nothing we hadn't seen from the 6900 XT LC (which is this exact product, anyway).

You can get Navi 21 to draw 450 to 500 watts of power on the GPU core only by trying to run Port Royal at ~2.8 GHz with the power limits lifted and it still doesn't beat the 3090, mind you. At this point it's just down to architectural differences, RDNA 2 is better and has always been better at traditional raster graphics, but it's slower at raytracing, high resolutions and doesn't have as many features, pick your poison

As for me I love to see competition, I just wish it didn't take twenty months to see a single GPU having the same performance I've had for all this time, with obvious drawbacks.

Blame Covid

Sapphire Radeon RX 6950 XT Nitro+ Pure Review

The Sapphire Radeon RX 6950 XT Pure is a new addition to Sapphire's lineup that comes with a sexy white color theme. In our review, we find out that the card not only looks great, but the quad-slot cooler achieves fantastic noise levels which make 4K gaming at 60 FPS a whisper-quiet experience.

www.techpowerup.com

The extra bandwidth of the 3090Ti starts to show at 4k. I know we need a lot of performance for 4k, but I wonder if increasing the memory bandwidth would allow a reduction in GPU for the same 4k performance??

 

[eidairaman1]

Indeed. A regular/OC/default BIOS, and a low power/undervolt/quiet BIOS, at the flip of a switch would be a very nice feature.


Blame Covid

Sapphire Radeon RX 6950 XT Nitro+ Pure Review

The Sapphire Radeon RX 6950 XT Pure is a new addition to Sapphire's lineup that comes with a sexy white color theme. In our review, we find out that the card not only looks great, but the quad-slot cooler achieves fantastic noise levels which make 4K gaming at 60 FPS a whisper-quiet experience.

www.techpowerup.com

The extra bandwidth of the 3090Ti starts to show at 4k. I know we need a lot of performance for 4k, but I wonder if increasing the memory bandwidth would allow a reduction in GPU for the same 4k performance??

If bios modding was allowed, its possible, afaik Trixx/ab have no means of adjusting memory timings so you can push the GDDR6 further from 18 to 20/22...

Sad enough its not.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Just makes me all the more eager to see RDNA3 cards with massive increases in Infinity cache, IPC and clock speed uplifts and hopefully greatly improved hardware RT cores. 7700XT will beat this in rasterisation and smash it for RT if leaks are to be believed.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Blame Covid

Not only Covid, but also a concurrent burst in cryptocurrency performance as its speculative lure reached new heights during a time where people could not work. The current ongoing crypto crash is only bound to worsen as more and more people cash out and return to a productive life. The strain on the semiconductor industry as a whole was unprecedented.

Still, I feel like this GPU is a nice touch and a great way to send off a great architecture that put AMD back into the map. Same goes for the Tie, either way one decides to go, they will have the best experience one can currently have, and this specific Sapphire SKU looks to be the juiciest one yet.

 

[Count Shagula]

Wasn't expecting it to be so much faster than the 6900. Ordered one this morning to replace my 3080. I'm on a 360hz screen and this absolutely destroys my 3080 which is using a 450w bios. Excited to see how far i can push it with my custom loop. I can almost run my pc maxed atm with no fans. Pretty sure ill def be able to with the lower power draw of this

 

[jigar2speed]

I am confused - Your graph shows RTX 3070 in Elden ring doing 48 FPS average using best CPU at 4K however i am doing 60 FPS full max out using 3100X at 4.3 GHZ. What i am doing different or "wrong" to get such good performance ?

PS: It never drops FPS, its always at 60. (May be my MSI afterburner is showing wrong FPS ? VRR and HDR is also enabled)

 

[W1zzard]

I am confused - Your graph shows RTX 3070 in Elden ring doing 48 FPS average using best CPU at 4K however i am doing 60 FPS full max out using 3100X at 4.3 GHZ. What i am doing different or "wrong" to get such good performance ?

PS: It never drops FPS, its always at 60. (May be my MSI afterburner is showing wrong FPS ? VRR and HDR is also enabled)

Are you running at max settings? in the open world (not in a dungeon)?

 

[jigar2speed]

Are you running at max settings?

Yes sir,

choose Custom setting, all options max out (Some don't go beyond high and some are at maximum) at 3840 x 2160 resolution.

EDIT: GPU is not overclocked, power limited at 80% (Gigabyte RTX 3070 vision oc) but GPU memory is overclocked by 1000 MHZ.

 

[ratirt]

This 6950XT is basically a 6900XT just without power limits. It is hard for me to find any difference except that. I wonder, having a 6900xt Red Devil, if PowerColor releases a 6950XT, would I be able to flash one of my 6900XT Bioses to the 6950XT. I'm ok with the performance I have but just out of curiosity. Having the power limit removed would have been nice.
For the performance increase, yeah it is there but the power consumption is up as well. That is kinda scary.

 

[Charcharo]

You are wrong. It is written "Performance estimated based on architecture, shader count and clocks."
and there is no RX 6950 XT that is so slow as in the graph positioning:

View attachment 246968

Look at all the available models, there is no so slow model:

View attachment 246969

Wrong:

There is a reference 6950 XT. It is on AMD's site too, you can buy it.

 

[ARF]

There is a reference 6950 XT. It is on AMD's site too, you can buy it.

The TPU graph DOESN'T follow a reference card. It is a guesstimate not based on real world performance but simulations.

AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database

 

[Valantar]

Yeah, those database entries have been getting successively weirder recently. First the 6400XT review places it about the same as a 1650, but the database placed it much closer to a 1050 Ti (which has since been fixed). Now this, again, noticeably underestimates the performance of a new AMD GPU compared to TPU's own benchmarks - even if those benchmarks are SKUs with a couple percent faster core clocks than stock. @W1zzard @T4C Fantasy is there something off with the standard methodology behind database performance entries?

 

[Charcharo]

The TPU graph DOESN'T follow a reference card. It is a guesstimate not based on real world performance but simulations.

View attachment 247022
AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT Specs | TechPowerUp GPU Database

Well as per AMD its 5% faster:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/umk48z
SO on the graph it should be edited to 1% under 3080 Ti, or 2% more than it is now.

97x1.05 = 101.85

So a slight edit, but not like with the very fast Nitro Pure.

 

[W1zzard]

I ordered a 6950 XT reference card to figure this out

which has since been fixed

Probably because one was based on the estimation algorithm, and has been updated to use my review data now.

 

[Valantar]

I ordered a 6950 XT reference card to figure this out


Probably because one was based on the estimation algorithm, and has been updated to use my review data now.

Guess it might be time to update that estimation algorithm for RDNA2-based GPUs?

 

[W1zzard]

Guess it might be time to update that estimation algorithm for RDNA2-based GPUs?

you make that sound so easy

 

[Valantar]

you make that sound so easy

Lol, that was not my intention. Something seeming necessary definitely doesn't mean it's easy. Too often the exact opposite, in my experience.

 

[Jism]

380W during gaming... Jesus...
How much power does it use in gaming with the "Quiet" BIOS? @W1zzard

Turn on vsync,
Limit power usage by the simple power slider

Quite some things you can do to limit it. The full power is when you want its highest performance (state).

I like the card. Its fast and it will last for the next 3 years easy. I think ill buy it.

 

[ARF]

Turn on vsync,
Limit power usage by the simple power slider

Quite some things you can do to limit it. The full power is when you want its highest performance (state).

I like the card. Its fast and it will last for the next 3 years easy. I think ill buy it.

Radeon Chill saves power while limiting the unnecessary frames creation.

 

[Valantar]

Radeon Chill saves power while limiting the unnecessary frames creation.

View attachment 247025

Chill is very cool (no pun intended), but has quite a few drawbacks - in games that aren't interaction heavy but need some smoothness it leads to just low frame rates generally (Divinity: Original Sin, for example), while in others it has no effect as you're always using inputs and thus it isn't clocking down. Still, it's a decent idea, and it is very handy in certain situations. It's no replacement for a low power BIOS mode, but it's certainly better than nothing. Then again I also really, really wish AMD could make their global framerate limiter work properly, rather than having it added to and removed from driver releases all willy-nilly (and no, Chill with the same frame rate as both high and low bounds is not a good substitute for a proper framerate limiter).