AMD RX 6800 XT Review

1. Introduction2. RDNA 2 Architecture3. AMD RX 6800 XT4. Testing Methodology5. 3DMark Fire Strike & Time Spy6. 3DMark DirectX Raytracing7. Borderlands 38. Control9. Death Stranding10. The Division 211. F1 202012. Far Cry New Dawn13. Gears 514. Ghost Recon: Breakpoint15. Metro Exodus16. Middle Earth: Shadow of War17. Red Dead Redemption 218. Shadow of the Tomb Raider19. Total War Saga: Troy20. Watch Dogs: Legion21. Performance Summary (14 Game Average)22. Cost Per Frame Analysis23. Ray Tracing - Control24. Ray Tracing - Shadow of the Tomb Raider25. Productivity Benchmarks26. Clock Speed27. Temperatures28. Acoustics29. Noise-Normalised Temperatures30. Power Consumption31. Performance Per Watt32. Overclocking33. Closing Thoughts34. View All Pages

For our temperature testing, we measure the peak GPU core temperature under load. A reading under load comes from running the 3DMark Time Spy stress test for 30 minutes.

Thermal performance may seem a bit underwhelming when taken in isolation; the RX 6800 XT, despite its triple-fan cooler and 2.5-slot heatsink, ran at 80C during our testing, with a peak edge temperature of 81C. This is identical performance to the Vega 64 and its blower-style cooler, so it certainly looks a bit disappointing. However, the reason for this is that the card operates an incredibly relaxed fan curve to reduce noise levels. As we test later in this review, temperatures can be dropped significantly by running a more aggressive fan speed.

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