ASUS TUF GAMING Radeon RX 6800 XT OC or Gigabyte RTX 3080 Eagle OC

Muutmuut · April 21, 2021

Hello everyone,

I would like a few advice regarding a choice that I have between those 2 graphic cards.

I'm currently playing with a Gigabyte RTX 3070 Gaming OC with an Intel i5-9600k (4,9 ghz all cores) on an Aorus Z390 Elite with 2x8 gb 3000mhz DDR4.
I'm pretty happy with this setup since I play at 1440p G-sync on. I have Resizable bar ON, which is nice.

I have a friend who does a lot of sim racing games / flight simulator at 4K (well actually 2 4k monitors side by side) and plays with a Gigabyte RTX 3080 Eagle OC and he found he was getting limited with the 10 gb of VRAM and wanted to upgrade to a RTX 3090 or a RX 6900 XT.

Because of the market in its current state and the price he would have to pay to acquire either one of those cards, I told him he would do fine with a 6800 XT if it's only additionnal VRAM he is looking for.
I found an Asus Tuf RX 6800 XT in stock and bought it to propose my friend to swap his RTX 3080 (+150 euros) with the brand new RX 6800 XT I bought.
He agreed but now I'm starting to think the 6800 XT would be a great card for me and maybe not so much of an upgrade for my friend as the 6800 XT dominates at 1440p and is slightly below the 3080 at 4K (which is the resolution my friend play at).

A few things are pulling me back :

- Losing DLSS (even though AMD is supposed to bring an alternative feature from what I understood) and I only play a few games which is compatible atm.
- I fear the RX 6800 XT won't provide the upgrade my friend is looking for at 4k, whereas it's a huge upgrade for me at 1440p
- The Asus Tuf looks like it is higher quality overall, compared to the Gigabyte eagle OC.
- There is also the fact I do a bit of crypto-mining with my GPU at night when I'm asleep, and the 3080 is a lot better than the 6800 XT for that (I'm not buying a gpu for this purpose so it's not very important, but it's just a small "nice to have" bonus).

Also, beside I want to upgrade my CPU as it reaches 100% usage in some games and I feel it's a great time for CPU upgrades at the moment, and my 6C/6T isn't very "future proof".
So in France, my choices could be:

- I9-9900kf for less than 300 euros (no need to change motherboard)
Or
- I7-10700kf for less than 300 euros and can find a good refurbished z490 motherboard for 120-150 euros
- Ryzen 5 5600x for 350 euros (price in France) + good motherboard (at least 150 euros for a nice B550) + 3200 mhz RAM (around 100 euros) = 600 euros...
- Ryzen 3700x for 270 euros, 3800x for 320 euros

I am trying to consider the following options :

1. Sell RTX 3070 and keep RX 6800 XT and cancel the trade with my friend
2. Do the trade and swap RX 6800 XT with RTX 3080 (+150 euros from him to me to compensate price difference)
3. Try to sell my whole build, and buy an AMD build (Ryzen 5 5600x) (note: I already have a brand new Corsair RM750x PSU waiting to be used) and keep RX 6800 XT so I can use SAM.

Here is my current build (would 1800-2000 euros be a fair price?) Let's pretend 1€ = 1$ and prices are the same in France and the USA):

- Case : Fractal Design R5
- MB : Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Elite
- Processeur : Intel I5-9600KF
- Cooler : beQuiet Dark Rock 3
- Ram : Crucial Ballistix DDR4 3000MHz CAS 15 - 16gb (2x8gb)
- PSU : beQuiet pure power 10 600w
- Storage : Crucial MX500 256gb (3D NAND, SATA, M.2 (2280))
- GPU : Gigabyte RTX 3070 Gaming OC 8gb

Sorry for that long post, I'm not good at being straight to the point in English, as it isn't my language (I'm French).

Anyway, thank you very much for your help !

Ar558a · April 21, 2021

Personally I would get the 3080. Better RT performance plus DLSS gives you better future proofing. I'm guessing if you sell the 3070 on the open market you may well make a profit overall.

SavageNeo · April 21, 2021

get the 10700kf and sell the 9600k.

if you paly at 1080p 6800XT will perform better than the 3080 since it's cores run at much higher frequenzy.

at 1440p 6800XT is only slightly faster than 3080.

over 1440p rtx 3080 will win 6800Xt since it has faster VRAM and higher bandwith.

Muutmuut · April 21, 2021

Hello, thank you both for your answers.
Well I'm not really sure what to do since ar665a suggests the 3080 and SavageNeo, you recommend the 6800 XT (since I play at 1440p).

You seem to say I should go Intel for the CPU what ever the choice of GPU.

Is there a real advantage of taking a 10700kf over an i9-9900kf considering the i9 is cheaper to get at the moment here ?

Performance seem close between the 2 cpu's but if I buy the 10700kf, I need to buy a new motherboard aswell. (Although I bought the 9600kf for 120 euros secondhand, my Z390 Aorus elite was bought brand new 6 months ago and I only paid 130 euros for it).