6900XT are the same price as 3080 in my region with 3080Ti only 250 more -- Lots of questions, need advice and recommendations please

[Euphoria]

Skip to Prices: if you're not interested in my dribble.

 

It kills me to pay insane prices but I've held out for 15-months without a video card and without playing any games at all after my GTX 1080 went deaded, I couldn't justify the ridiculous prices so I waited... and waited... until now.
I can't go any longer without gaming, it's catharsis for me, it's my hobble and my safe go to space where I lose myself and forget the bills, pandemic, illness, and stress.

 

So, after recently building my new system, I'm buying a GPU. I knew the specs and rough idea of the benchmarks for the RTX 3080 so that was my target, however, then I saw the prices of other cards are the same or very close but I don't know too much about them, especially AMD cards as I haven't really looked at AMD cards since I had a 7970. Now I'm really confused and torn on what to do.

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Prices: 

• 3080 = 1400 dollarydoos -- ASUS ROG Strix V2 OC
• 6900XT = 1425-1450 -- Sapphire Nitro+ Special Edition / or / MSI Gaming Z Trio
• 3080Ti = 1700 -- EVGA FTW3 Ultra Gaming LHR

I could stretch to the 1700 but it would mean my new chair would have to wait a couple months so the performance increase would have to be actually noticeable, not 60 vs 62fps, haha 

 

What I will be using it for:

• Gaming only, no mining at all
• Resolution will be 4k, 120Hz but as long as games run at 60fps I don't mind
• Types of games: I really want to play through some older games again; heavily modded Elder Scrolls, Bioshock Trilogy, Fallout 3 and NV, and obviously newer games too, No Man's Sky, Horizon Zero Dawn, Fallout 4 (I never got to play that yet) and also a big one I really want to pick up again (don't judge)... Minecraft but heavy modded with ultra shaders. So no competitive twitchy FPS games, I prefer open-world singleplayers now.
• I don't know if I would use DLSS as I've never used it
• I also don't know about RT as I've never used it - I would definitely try it to see what it looks like but I'm unlikely to play with it on very often from what I've seen of it

Many Questions:

• Does AMD still have terrible drivers? - I know Nvidia's aren't great but last time I used AMD the drivers were so bad
• Is the 6900XT *Really* in real world Rasterization gaming better than a 3080Ti?
• Do lots of games still get terrible optimisation for AMD cards? - Again last time I used AMD there were so many games where a top-tier AMD card would get the same FPS as a low to mid-tier Nvidia card because of bad/no AMD optimisation
• Are AMD cards reliable? (I know this depends on the board partner too)
• Do AMD cards play nicely with old games? - I swear I remember reading AMD cards are issues with older engines or something like that.
• I've read in a few places now that the 10GB buffer on the 3080 can be and is a fairly big limitation for 4k gaming? That 12GB and above is needed.

 

I would really appreciate any feedback, first-hand experience, and recommendations. Thanks so much everyone.

 

[Mark Kaine]

Basically all of your concerns  - yes pretty much, hence I would (and did) go Nvidia. 

 And Nvidia drivers really aren't that great,  but its rather small issues,  at least they are (usually) stable.

 

Rt and dlss are great features but you aren't really missing out much either,  except i would argue dlss certainly helps longetivity. 

 

21 minutes ago, Euphoria said:

I've read in a few places now that the 10GB buffer on the 3080 can be and is a fairly big limitation for 4k gaming? That 12GB and above is needed.

This... depends on the games,  but I think generally its over exaggerated,  I don't really see a huge difference in vram usage at 4k , but again that obviously depends on the game. 

 

The amd obviously has more ram, its biggest advantage...

 

In the end you have to decide,  ram, speed,  supposed reliability... also the price is also a factor,  common sense would say get the fastest card  with more vram end of story lol

 

Edit: wait, the 3080ti is faster? Didn't think so... Nvidia are so odd...

 

 

Then its still up to you, 6900xt, or 3080ti, both have advantages... do you really need the fastest card... or 4GB more? I think 12GB is good enough tbh.

 

 

[Jeppes]

Try to get a 6800XT from amd's store. Its about 10% slower than 3090 in 4K but AMD sells those for msrp. Should be enough for more than 4K60fps in those games.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

16 minutes ago, Jeppes said:

Try to get a 6800XT from amd's store. Its about 10% slower than 3090 in 4K but AMD sells those for msrp. Should be enough for more than 4K60fps in those games.

the 6800xt is way more than 10% slower than a 3090, its slower than a 3080....

The 6900xt is solat at about 1200$ (us) on the amd website I though, which that card is 10% slower than a 3090

[GamerDude]

On a side note, many peeps don't seem to realize that nVidia cards carry a pretty hefty price premium, in my neck of the woods, an RTX 3070 is usually about the same price as an RX 6800 (though many would compare the RTX 3070 to the RX 6700XT on an alleged 'tier' basis). Honestly, the RTX 3070 with just 8GB of VRAM is trounced by the RX 6800 16GB in non-RT game (that is, rasterized gaming if one doesn't care about DLSS and RT). 

 

I have a Sapphire Nitro+ RX 6900 XT and I game at 3840x1080 (32:9) and I can max out just about every AAA game I'd gotten - RE Village, Metro Exodus PC Enhanced, Gears of War series, COD Warzone, etc. With RE Village, even with RT and max ingame setting, I'd not needed to resort to FSR as my rig can still net about 90fps and higher.

 

As for drivers, nVidia's is a little more polished especially for newer architecture, but AMD had had some time to learn with the RX 5000 series, so the drivers for the RX 6000 series is better. Heck, when I had an RX 6800 in my rig, from the very first official AMD driver for it till now (for my RX 6900 XT), I've had only one game issue, that was with vanilla Metro Exodus (non-PC Enhanced) which crashed, I'd reported it as I'm sure others had and that issue was resolved a driver update (or two) later.

 

Now, I've had no issue except green checkered corruption when I play high res movies VLC player (corruption and stuttering back and forth after I'd fast forwarded or had jumped to a random scene with the cursor). This issue didn't exist previously, but it was broken from a few driver updates in the past, I've reported the bug to AMD already.

[jones177]

I have a ASUS Rog Strix 3080 and it is the coolest 30 series card I own.

 

With my stock i9 9900k it does 87fps in Shadow of the Tomb Raider with the highest preset.

My EVGA XC3 Ultra 3080 ti only does the bench in 91fps with a 5800x so there is not much between the high end 3080 and a low end 3080 ti at 4k.

 

Horizon Zero Dawn at 4k ultra is:

ROG Strix 3080 OC 80fps

EVGA XC3 Ultra 83fps

Both my MSI Gaming X Trio 3090 and 3080 ti do the 4k bench at 89fps but they both use Intel 10 core CPUs.

 

 

I also have a heavily moded Skyrim and Fallout 4 and all frames are over 60 at 4k even with ENB and Reshade with over 250 mods installed on all my 30 series cards.

 

As for vram.

I had no issues in the 10.5gb test I did with the 3080 but a budget 3080 ti may be better in the future.  The EVGA XC3 Ultra was only $50 US more than the ROG Strix 3080 OC. 

 

 

 

[Jeppes]

34 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

the 6800xt is way more than 10% slower than a 3090, its slower than a 3080....

The 6900xt is solat at about 1200$ (us) on the amd website I though, which that card is 10% slower than a 3090

13% way more. Its about on par with 3080 and the price gap is close to 100%. Its a no-brainer if you can get one for msrp.

[Bobbysixjp]

This is coming from a 6800 XT owner - if I were you I’d go for the 3080 or 3080 Ti. Don’t get me wrong I am perfectly happy with my 6800 XT as I don’t play many games that have ray tracing (with the exception of Metro Exodus). 
But the RT performance of Nvidia is better and the fact that they have DLSS makes the 3080 or 3080 Ti the better choice especially if there are similar-ish prices. 

[Shlouski]

7 hours ago, Euphoria said:

Types of games: I really want to play through some older games again

This for me would be good reason to go for nvidia over amd. I had a 6900xt in my living room gaming pc so my wife and I could play some story rich game together. I started out playing titles from the late 2000's like bioshock and I ran into issues in many games. I swapped the card out for a 6800xt, same problems, ddu and reinstall drivers and try other driver versions, same problems, reinstalled windows, same problems, swap to a 3080, problems solved.

 

Wether or not dlss or rt matters to you depends on personal preference and your situation. I have played many games this year, not one has supported rt and only one has supported dlss, and I didn't need it. Presumably more games will support these technologies in the future, and it would be great to have the option of take advantage of them when possible. RT I can't comment on because I have never experienced it, but I have survived without dlss for 30 years, changing settings so I can play the resolutions I want, and these days I notice less and less between different settings, a few times now I have accidently realised I'm playing a game on lower setting than I usually would and I didn't noticed. I'm also sure that dlss is a very useful technology for many people, especially those on weaker hardware.

 

@Jeppes @HelpfulTechWizard

 

I'm not going to argue about performance, there is plethora of evidence from reliable sources showing the performance differences between pretty much every relevant card around today. The OP just needs to spend a few minutes doing a little research, comparing card performance to there prices, as it's his money he can decide what is and isn't worth it. 

 

@Euphoria

 

Both hardware unboxed and gamers nexus have videos with easy to understand performance charts for many gpu's at different resolutions on YouTube, you should take a look at a few.

[Euphoria]

Just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone that replied with insightful info and tips, I really do appreciate it, thank you.

 

I'm 99% sold on the 3080 (non-Ti), the 3080Ti seems to be produce around 4-5% more frames but at 300 euros more, that's a steep price for 4-5 extra frames.
And I would love to go AMD as the 6900XT has 60% more VRAM and it does appear to have up to 10-12% more frames in some games, average being around 6-7% which is decent enough and more importantly it's the same price as the 3080.

 

But... I have a nervous feeling from the last time I ran AMD, I know things have improved over the past 6-years but the differences and improves I'm reading are nowhere near the improvements of AMD's CPUs with Ryzen, those CPUs are such a huge leap and improvement I didn't even consider Intel for my new build but on the AMD Graphics side... I'm not seeing the same improvements.
I still see some games being poorly optimised whereby a 3070 equals the fps of a 6900XT, the more inconsistent drivers and support, plus I don't know anything about Sapphire cards which is the only option now for a 6900XT, all of them except this one are 400-600 more expensive.

 

So, I'm thinking the White ASUS Rog Strix V2 OC 3080, I would much prefer the EVGA FTW3 Ultra especially as it's 300 cheaper but they haven't been in stock for months, the ASUS I can get right now.

Ahh man, these insane prices make the decision and choice 10x harder!

[Shlouski]

11 minutes ago, Euphoria said:

So, I'm thinking the White ASUS Rog Strix V2 OC 3080, I would much prefer the EVGA FTW3 Ultra especially as it's 300 cheaper but they haven't been in stock for months, the ASUS I can get right now.

Ahh man, these insane prices make the decision and choice 10x harder!

 

Yeah, I would want the 300 dollar cheaper EVGA card too, even though IMO the EVGA cards are ugly AF.

 

The MSI Suprim is a really nice card with a stupid name, it looks even better in real-life IMO, also it feels like a step up in quality compared to most the card, makes my EVGA FTW3 look and feel like cheap flimsy crap.

[Euphoria]

6 hours ago, Shlouski said:

 

Yeah, I would want the 300 dollar cheaper EVGA card too, even though IMO the EVGA cards are ugly AF.

 

The MSI Suprim is a really nice card with a stupid name, it looks even better in real-life IMO, also it feels like a step up in quality compared to most the card, makes my EVGA FTW3 look and feel like cheap flimsy crap.

Lol, wow! Did you set this up... the ASUS Rog card has been in stock for ages, the minute I actually go to order it... Gone! And the only other 3080 that isn't another 400 extra is, you guessed it, the MSI Suprim X for the same price.

I have to admit, I completely dismissed it as I've heard more negatives than positives over the years; cheaping out on SMDs and components, bad RMA experiences... etc.
I know all brands have bad stuff but I've heard more about MSI and Gigabyte than most.