SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT Review

1. Introduction
2. Everything You Need to Know About RDNA 2
3. SAPPHIRE marketing
4. Detailed Look
5. Test System Specs
6. Benchmarks - Synthetic
7. Benchmarks - 1080p
8. Benchmarks - 1440p
9. Benchmarks - 4K
10. Overclocking
11. Power Consumption & Temps
12. What's Hot, What's Not
13. Final Thoughts

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

SAPPHIRE's custom NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT ticks all the right boxes, offering up custom Big Navi performance for 1440p and 4K gamers.

Buy at Amazon

Introduction

SAPPHIRE's flagship Radeon RX 6800 XT is the card we have in the TweakTown GPU review lab today, with the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT rocking a mean look and some great custom Big Navi performance. Let's check it out.

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AMD launched its RDNA 2 architecture last year with 3 cards: the Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6900 XT -- today, we have the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT which comes with a triple-fan, triple-slot cooler and factory overclock.

If you are wanting to upgrade and can find the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT at the time of purchase, you're going to get some great performance -- it'll beat NVIDIA's previous-gen flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and even keeps up with the new GeForce RTX 3080.

SAPPHIRE clocks the boost GPU clocks up to 2360MHz on the NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT which is 110MHz over the reference Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card at 2250MHz. There will be some manual OC headroom you can play with, something I'll be doing later on in the review.

As for the price, it's hard to even mention it as the card should be priced at $770 or so ($120 premium over the RX 6800 XT launch price) but it's currently listed on Amazon at $2000 at the time of writing.

Everything You Need to Know About RDNA 2

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AMD's new RDNA 2 architecture has more changes than any previous-gen GPU architecture I can remember from AMD (and even ATi) in the last 10+ years.

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There's a lot to go over here, but we're looking at an enhanced compute unit, new visual pipeline featuring Ray Accelerators, and the all-new (and very exciting) Infinity Cache (which I'll go into on the next page. We're looking at a huge 1.54x higher performance-per-watt and 1.3x higher frequency at the same per-CU power -- impressive stuff, AMD.

Ray Accelerators

One of the largest new introductions in the new RDNA 2 architecture is the high-performance ray tracing acceleration architecture known as the Ray Accelerator. AMD doesn't have NVIDIA-beating ray tracing performance, but it's here in RDNA 2.

Each Ray Accelerator is capable of calculating up to 4 ray / box intersections, and 1 ray / triangle intersection every clock. This means the RDNA 2-based Ray Accelerators can efficiently calculate the intersections of the rays with the scene geometry as represented in a Bounding Volume Hierarchy, sorts them, and returns the information to the shaders for further scene traversal or result shading.

HDMI 2.1

This is another big deal -- HDMI 2.1 connectivity.

HDMI 2.1 ushers in the worlds of 4K 120Hz and 8K 60Hz through a single HDMI 2.1 cable to your flashy new TV or gaming monitor. Personally I own a new CX series LG OLED TV with HDMI 2.1 that drives its 4K 120Hz, so plugging my gaming PC into my TV can only be done a single way if I want 4K 120Hz -- which I kinda do.

The introduction of HDMI 2.1 on graphics cards began with NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 series, and continues with AMD's new Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards. All 3 of the new Radeon RX 6000 series cards -- the Radeon RX 6900 XT (coming soon), the Radeon RX 6800 XT (review here) and Radeon RX 6800 (this review) all have HDMI 2.1 output.

Now this is where things get really interesting -- Infinity Cache, which provides some kick ass memory bandwidth even with it smaller 256-bit memory bus and slower GDDR6 memory.

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NVIDIA might have a superior 320-bit memory bus, faster GDDR6X -- but it has less VRAM (10GB versus 16GB) and the Radeon RX 6800 XT still kicks ass against the GeForce RTX 3080 in all resolutions and situations. But in the right situation -- like when paired with a Zen 3 processor, like I've done preliminary with the Ryzen 9 5900X -- you can get in excess of 10% more performance when you add SAM (Smart Access Memory) into the equation.

The SAM results are as good as you see in these charts, and in some cases better -- it's an impressive thing to see, and I truly can't wait to see more from Smart Access Memory technology.

SAPPHIRE marketing

You can read all about the card on the official SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT website.

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Detailed Look

SAPPHIRE keeps the retail packaging on the NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT clean, with some great artwork on the front and the usual: 4K gaming, 16GB GDDR6 memory, and PCIe 4.0 connectivity listed on the left and highlighting the AMD RDNA 2 architecture on the right.

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I love the design of the card, with the triple-fan cooler looking nice and mean and keeping the NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT nice and cool through your gaming binges or benchmarking runs.

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I'm an even bigger fan of the backplate design that SAPPHIRE has gone with here, I think it looks magnificent -- even better when it has RGB lighting reflecting from your system (RAM, case fans, etc).

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SAPPHIRE goes with a triple-slot design with the NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT.

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You'll need 2 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors on the card.

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SAPPHIRE provides a dual BIOS with the NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT.

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Display I/O includes the usual 3 x DP 1.4 and 1 x HDMI 2.1 connectors.

Test System Specs

Latest upgrade:

Sabrent sent over their huge Rocket Q 8TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD, which will be my new Games install SSD inside of my main test bed.

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I've got a new upgrade inside of my GPU test bed before my change to a next-gen test bed, where I will be preparing for NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere graphics cards and AMD's next-gen RDNA 2 graphics cards.

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Sabrent helped out with some new storage for my GPU test beds, sending over a slew of crazy-fast Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs. I've got this installed into my GPU test bed as the new Games Storage drive, since games are so damn big now. Thanks to Sabrent, I've got 2TB of super-fast M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD storage now.

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Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

I've recently upgraded my GPU test bed -- at least for now, until AMD's new Ryzen 9 5950X processor is unleashed then the final update for 2020 will happen and we'll be all good for RDNA 2 and future Ampere GPU releases. You can read my article here: TweakTown GPU Test Bed Upgrade for 2021, But Then Zen 3 Was Announced.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII HERO (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R RGB (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z NEO RGB 32GB (4x8GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional x64 (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike

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3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

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3DMark TimeSpy

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

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Benchmarks - 1080p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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1080p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

Right out of the gate SAPPHIRE is kicking ass and taking names with the NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT dominating the Assassin's Creed: Valhalla benchmark charts at 1080p, with the overclocked NITRO+ RX 6800 XT beating out the faster, flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card.

The same goes for Shadow of War, but the NITRO+ RX 6800 XT is beaten -- just -- in Metro Exodus at 1080p (96FPS versus 100FPS on the RTX 3090). Shadow of the Tomb Raider is absolutely pumping along with 278FPS average, beating out everything else in the benchmark charts.

Benchmarks - 1440p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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1440p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

The domination by the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT only continues at 1440p starting with Assassin's Creed: Valhalla where it annihilates the benchmark charts when overclocked. Even at stock it's beating out the RTX 3090.

Shadow of War has the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT winning once again when overclocked, beating out the Radeon RX 6900 XT and GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards. At stock, it fends off the reference Radeon RX 6800 XT and GeForce RTX 3080 easily.

The GeForce RTX 3090 is the only card on the charts able to topple the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 6800 XT when it was overclocked, while in Shadow of the Tomb Raider it roars along with 203FPS average at 1440p, a huge feat.

Benchmarks - 4K

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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4K Benchmark Performance Thoughts

SAPPHIRE takes the cake at 4K gaming with Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, with the custom NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT pushing out a huge 72FPS average -- beating out the 64FPS average from the flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT and the 59FPS from both the Radeon RX 6800 XT and GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards.

Shadow of War has the GeForce RTX 3090 back on top -- just -- but the overclocked SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT holds its ground here in 4K on Shadow of War. Things are still close in Metro Exodus between the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ RX 6800 XT and the GeForce RTX 3090 -- both at around 60FPS average.

117FPS average at 4K with the NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT... I don't need to say anymore there.

Overclocking

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Out of the box my sample of the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT was running at 2360MHz boost, while GPU temperatures sat at around 72C with the fans at 37% (1300RPM or so).

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The most that I could squeeze out of the card saw it topping out at 2520MHz -- anything more than this and the card wasn't stable. With the fans cranked up to 100% I was seeing GPU temps of 58C.

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Power Consumption & Temps

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Out of the box the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT was running at around 72C under benchmark and gaming loads, while it ran at just 58C when fully overclocked and the fans cranked up to 100%.

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When it comes to power consumption, the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT falls in line with other custom Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards with around 440W full system power consumption (Ryzen 7 3800X test bed) and up to 480W when overclocked.

What's Hot, What's Not

What's Hot

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• SAPPHIRE NITRO+ style: I'm a fan of the NITRO+ style and love the backplate design, I wish I could have it sitting right in the middle of my case facing the window on an angle -- just like in the shot above. I do wish there was a choice of RGB lighting underneath the backplate, but maybe next time.
• Kick ass gaming performance: The usual Big Navi performance out of the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT as the reference card plus a more FPS, and it battles it out with the GeForce RTX 3080 and beats the previous-gen RTX 2080 Ti flagship GPU.
• Dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors: There are custom Radeon RX 6800 XT solutions with triple 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and I'm not a fan of those unless you're pulling 400W+ from it and have LN2 cooling keeping it cool. For the most part, you should only need 2 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors for your Radeon RX 6800 XT.

What's Not

• Not the very fastest or coolest custom Radeon RX 6800 XT card: Not that a few FPS matters, but if you wanted the very best or the very best-cooled Radeon RX 6800 XT then you wouldn't get this card. But we're talking a few FPS and a few degrees... in blind tests 90% of people wouldn't tell the difference.

It's hard to knock these cards at this level, so I'm nit picking here.

I guess I might as well mention the fact (again) that you can't buy these cards anywhere in the world (and this sentence might be wrong depending on when you see this, but at the time of writing it was nigh impossible).

Final Thoughts

SAPPHIRE impresses as always with its flagship NITRO+ graphics card, with the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT kicking ass in all the right areas.

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We have performance that equals NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card, and performance that beats the previous-gen GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card. The card is kept cool with its NITRO cooling, consisting of a triple-fan, triple-slot cooler and an awesomely-styled backplate.

If you've got a gaming monitor with a native resolution of 1440p and want to game at high refresh rate (120, 144, 165FPS) then the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT is going to be perfect. But if you wanted to drop down to 60FPS and enjoy that higher-res 4K goodness, then 4K 60FPS gaming is ready on the NITRO+ RX 6800 XT.

Once the SAPPHIRE NITRO+ Radeon RX 6800 XT is available, or if you've found luck and find one somewhere, don't hesitate to pull the trigger -- or is that the lever, and feel that NITRO, baby.