Is the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT worth buying in September 2022?

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is a high-end offering from Team Red. This card was launched in 2020 as an equivalent to RTX 3080. Although the card did not come with a good price-to-performance ratio when it debuted, the current market scenario gives it the upper hand over the competition.

With graphics card pricing on a downward trend, users can expect to find the 6800 XT for $600 these days. The Nvidia equivalent at this price point is the RTX 3070 8 GB video card. The 6800 XT is more capable than the 3070 in every workload and beats it by a solid margin.

This makes the 6800 XT a solid option to consider if users want to solely game on their systems. However, a few more points should be considered before buying an RX 6800 XT.

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Gamers should not buy the RX 6800 XT today, here's why

The Sapphire Nitro+ RX 6800 XT video card (Image via Sapphire)

The RX 6800 XT is one of the most powerful rendering machines available in the market. It packs enough power for 4K gaming at playable framerates. The card comes with the Navi 21 GPU, which is also seen on the RX 6900 XT.

The graphics card packs 4.608 shading units, 288 Texture Mapping Units (TMUs), 128 Render Output Units (ROPs), and a massive 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM which is based on a 256-bit bus. The memory has a bandwidth of over 500 GB/s.

The RX 6800 XT is a brick that takes up over 2 slots in a system. It has a hefty power draw of 300 W. On paper, it is a giant. It was introduced at $649 back in 2020. Now, it has been discounted by $50.

Users can expect competitive gaming performance out of the 6800 XT. The numbers get quite close to RTX 3080 in most titles and the Radeon card even beats an RTX 3080 in numerous scenarios. Thus, it is no wonder that the RX 6800 XT is a top choice among gamers these days.

However, Radeon graphics cards have their share of disadvantages. The ray tracing implementation in these GPUs is not as polished as in Nvidia's Ampere offerings. Thus, in video games with heavy ray tracing implementation, the Radeon 6800 XT falls behind the competition.

Apart from this, the main reason to avoid buying any graphics card costing northwards of $500 today is a bad idea. Both Nvidia and AMD will come up with their next-gen RTX 40 series and Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards within another month. The next-gen graphics cards will bring better performance at cheaper prices.

Thus, if gamers have waited this long to get their hands on a high-end graphics card, it is recommended to wait another month and upgrade to the next-gen GPUs. Analyzing common trends, the upcoming Radeon RX 7700 XT will outperform the 6800 XT while being a cheaper offering.

However, gamers who already own a 6800 XT need not worry. Their graphics card will remain at the top of the performance charts for at least a couple of years to come. The GPU has been built for next-gen 4K gaming without compromise and the Radeon giant delivers without faltering.