AMD’s RDNA 2-based GPUs have become something of a big thing and are stacking up quite well against Nvidia. The ongoing shortages of GPUs caused by semiconductor shortages are a big issue in 2021. This all means that the competition between the two GPU companies is more about who can have stock.
AMD has roared back into relevance as they have leveraged various SKUs within the 6000-series GPUs to compete with their rivals. Nvidia has a definite edge in terms of getting to market, as well as a bit more consumer confidence. The outcome of the battle between RDNA 2 and Ampere is largely dependent on the mix of who can get stocks out fastest, and who can offer the best gaming experience.
Nvidia has been trying some interesting pushback against mining demand with cryptocurrency mining processors (CMP). These are an off-shoot product from mainline GPUs that are altered to be exclusively for the mining market. But that alone won’t deal with the issues. . The shortage doesn’t look to be abating either. In response, the manufacturer has announced the new Nvidia CMP and new drivers. This innovation is aimed at engineering gaming GPUs so that they don’t work as well for cryptocurrency mining. Nvidia’s 3060 and 3060 Ti cards have been pegged for this alteration first, and Nvidia might add the change to future GPUs as well.
AMD on the other hand, hasn’t announced such plans, and will instead bank in performance for now. The Radeon 6700 cards will be the next push from the Navi line. AMD’s Radeon RX 6700 XT will be the latest addition to the Radeon RX 6000 series and it will compete directly with the GeForce RTX 3060 TI which has an MSRP of $399 US. The plan is to announce the GPU on March 3.
AMD will announce the Radeon 6700 GPUs on March 3. The pricing model is not well known. During that announcement, we’re likely to see cards actually ship outside of MSRP. Having another option in the $300 price range will be good, but many doubt they will be able to get one. Scalpers and miners will be likely to snap them up when they do come out, because they’re all a bunch of wankers.
Anyway, back to the GPU. The new GPU will be based on the Navi 22 XL chipset and will have 12 GB GDDR6 memory buffer along with a 192-bit bus. It’s important to note that these 12 GB memory allotments aren’t that important. Most games at 1440p won’t make use of that memory buffer on this card. The video card just can’t handle anything into 2K or 4K at decent framerates for gaming. The push for 12 GB GDDR6 for both GPU companies is effectively just a way to inflate the marketing power of the products.
As for other considerations, the Radeon RX 6700 XT will have two variants. One will be a more pricey version with 230W TDP. There will be a mildly cheaper version with a TDP of 189W.
