ASUS Radeon RX 6800 XT STRIX OC LC Review

rl66

2020-11-27 08:01

cucaulay malkin:

it's a wire not a fancy wedding cake

Yes but it look as dirty as the 1st gen of AIO... I already have seen better.

Mpampis:

So, here's the thing, we did expect the RX 6800 XT to be a bit behind the RTX 3080 in rendering performance (and a bit more in RT) but we all said "This is ok, it's also cheaper". But an AIB card is more expensive than a reference 3080, without being a better performer. I strongly believe AMD priced the GPUs too high, too soon. They should have taken lessons from the CPU department, where the new generation is expensive but has the -absolute and relative- performance to back the price.

AMD is cheaper, ASUS is not (they are over 2000 Euro for their custom 3090 !!!!!) For the price of this ASUS you have custom from other brand that are less expensive (and can work the same or even better despite not having a cooler like this one). I think that i will go, for myself, for a Sapphire, that cost really less than a 3080 (and obviously than this 6800XT one).

#5859751

cucaulay malkin

2020-11-27 08:52

DannyD:

If the 6900xt destroys 1440p like this one does 1080p i may be tempted.

I would really like to see ampere and rdna2 compared at 1080 and 1440 on a 3600 or similar performance looks very good but they're all done on a 10900K. ain't nobody got money for that. I'm all for buying high end gpus,drives,cases and stuff,I do own them now and did own them before but I will never,never,pay $400 or more for a gaming processor.I'm already uncomfortable with 350.

#5859767

thesebastian

2020-11-27 10:26

Fox2232:

23dBA is super quiet for PC. Even 33dBA is quiet. Question is, if your noise meter is really dBA and not just dB as it has different weighting, where 80dB is around 100dBA. (Can't remember exactly. But that should be around where each is considered damaging to ears.) For example, my air humidifier is louder on dBA scale than may PC. But on dB scale, PC is louder. So, different measurement methods profile different properties of sound.

Hi Fox I might be wrong here. I'm just saying "19.2 dB (A)" (i edited from 23 later on) because that's what I can see in Noctua web site when running NF-A14 PWM with low noise adaptor. https://noctua.at/en/nf-a14-pwm/specification However, I must confess, this fan at 1200 RPM in the night, still let you hear the airflow. So maybe this is much more than 19.2 dB (A)

#5859768

Fox2232

2020-11-27 10:31

thesebastian:

Hi Fox I might be wrong here. I'm just saying "19.2 dB (A)" (i edited from 23 later on) because that's what I can see in Noctua web site when running NF-A14 PWM with low noise adaptor. https://noctua.at/en/nf-a14-pwm/specification However, I must confess, this fan at 1200 RPM in the night, still let you hear the airflow. So maybe this is much more than 19.2 dB (A)

Well, it is rating of fan. But noise profile is affected by heatsink through which air flows. Each fan adds to noise profile. And anything that obstructs airflow can change, add something too.

#5859775

OnnA

2020-11-27 10:43

Valken:

But overall the price with the cooler is so scary expensive, before scalping. I wonder how a custom water cooling setup would cost and compare?

Add ~90-140USD to the MSRP and ASUS tax on top of that 😉

#5859780

fantaskarsef

2020-11-27 10:55

Is it just me, or is overclocking this card under water... barely worth the price? It runs slower than other GPUs under air? The Nitro+ generally being ahead a frame or equal to a waterclocked card?

#5859788

ScreamerRSA

2020-11-27 11:45

fantaskarsef:

Is it just me, or is overclocking this card under water... barely worth the price? It runs slower than other GPUs under air? The Nitro+ generally being ahead a frame or equal to a waterclocked card?

Apparently board partners use lower binned GPUs for these factory water cooled cards. A card originally meant for air and then put under water later will always perform better. Also $900...LOL

#5859791

Turanis

2020-11-27 11:59

OnnA:

Add ~90-140USD to the MSRP and ASUS tax on top of that 😉

Usually MSRP price is for Reference card.Ofc AIB needs to put they love & price higher than reference one.

#5859830

tunejunky

2020-11-27 15:18

Robbo9999:

Definite waste of money for $999 for this liquid-cooled version, 9% more performance (when overclocked) than a $650 reference card (not overclocked), so you overclock the $650 reference card and narrow the 9% lead of the $999 liquid-cooled card even more. Waste of money! You could buy the liquid cooled card for lower noise, but $999 vs $650....naaaa!

not only that, but who here wouldn't buy the full fat 6900xt at $999 and then put a block on it (or wait to do the same)?

#5859850

bjtag

2020-11-27 16:37

After seeing your thermal imaging results of this Asus water cooled 6800 XT I would retest with a different power supply and make sure your pcie power connector isn't overheating from loose pin contacts... I had to titan XP that I couldn't overclock... It would run stock just fine but as soon as I turned it up a little bit I would get random shutdowns after doing a thermal image of the card one of my pcie power connectors was extremely hot I switched to a different power supply the temperature of the connector went down 20° and the card never shut down

#5859851

bjtag

2020-11-27 16:42

The temperature of the PCB even went down because it was a transferring all the heat away from the connector.... I'm not saying that's your problem or is a problem is just your in the second thermal imaging the wires are extremely hot and the wires themselves shouldn't be that hot

#5859872

Robbo9999

2020-11-27 18:23

tunejunky:

not only that, but who here wouldn't buy the full fat 6900xt at $999 and then put a block on it (or wait to do the same)?

Well the 6900XT stock air cooled card would be better value than the liquid cooled 6800XT in this review, but the 6900XT only has 11% more cores than the 6800XT and the same memory bandwidth, so really the 6900XT is poor value being 53% more expensive than the air cooled 6800XT but theoretically only having 11% more performance.....so the best bet is to buy an air cooled 6800XT for $650.

#5859912

kapu

2020-11-27 21:45

cucaulay malkin:

I would really like to see ampere and rdna2 compared at 1080 and 1440 on a 3600 or similar performance looks very good but they're all done on a 10900K. ain't nobody got money for that. I'm all for buying high end gpus,drives,cases and stuff,I do own them now and did own them before but I will never,never,pay $400 or more for a gaming processor.I'm already uncomfortable with 350.

i have 3300X with 6800 (non XT). Zero bottleneck in demanding games. In olders games around 60-70% GPU usage, still usually above 200 fps at 1080p. No neeed 10900k or 5600x 😀

#5859937

TLD LARS

2020-11-28 01:05

Interested in how well this cooler holds up after 1 month. Both the Vega and 5700 Asus Rog models had bad coolers, with the 5700 literally falling off the board. My Vega 64 had bad VRM pads. Asus fan and RGB control that is not compatible with AMD wattman, so fan control is not working. GPU max clock set to 2400Mhz in bios, so fixing the VRM pads makes the card auto overclock to 1680Mhz, 90Mhz over stock boost, leading to 110c hotspot and instability. Downclocking in wattman or disabling the top speed step only seems to make the card unstable. Asus says it is working as intended, warranty repair denied. Only thing that seems to help is ripping the 3 fans off and replace them with 2x 140mm fans, held in place with cable ties and keeping the GPU load away from 100%.

#5859969

cucaulay malkin

2020-11-28 06:26

kapu:

i have 3300X with 6800 (non XT). Zero bottleneck in demanding games. In olders games around 60-70% GPU usage, still usually above 200 fps at 1080p. No neeed 10900k or 5600x 😀

there's something weird going on in dx11 games cpu intensive scenes with amd 6800 cards looks like amd driver overhead episode 374538975. I dumped my r9 290 in 2014 cause of this https://www.purepc.pl/test-ryzen-7-5800x-i-radeon-rx-6800-xt-w-miejscach-procesorowych

#5859971

Undying

2020-11-28 06:33

cucaulay malkin:

there's something weird going on in dx11 games cpu intensive scenes with amd 6800 cards looks like amd driver overhead episode 374538975. I dumped my r9 290 in 2014 cause of this https://www.purepc.pl/test-ryzen-7-5800x-i-radeon-rx-6800-xt-w-miejscach-procesorowych

Good thing we all moved on from dx11 and 2013.

#5859977

cucaulay malkin

2020-11-28 07:38

Undying:

Good thing we all moved on from dx11 and 2013.

did we ? looking at g3d's game performance reviews,games are still mostly dx11.

#5859980

Astyanax

2020-11-28 07:52

cucaulay malkin:

there's something weird going on in dx11 games cpu intensive scenes with amd 6800 cards looks like amd driver overhead episode 374538975. I dumped my r9 290 in 2014 cause of this https://www.purepc.pl/test-ryzen-7-5800x-i-radeon-rx-6800-xt-w-miejscach-procesorowych

theres nothing weird going on, this is classic Radeon driver performance for D3D11 titles [youtube=nIoZB-cnjc0] You either buy the highest IPC cpu you can to mitigate it, or use dxvk. [spoiler] [youtube=XoKu0_2ozAc] [youtube=S546TL2LWNY] [/spoiler]

#5859984

Fox2232

2020-11-28 08:34

Seems like this is not only overpriced card from ASUS. Our shops are starting to list their standard TUF cards. But the price tags are really something. TUF 6800 (non-XT) 19.4% higher price than reference XT card. STRIX 6800 (non-XT) 28% higher price than reference XT card. TUF 6800 XT 38% higher price than reference XT card. STRIX-LC 6800 XT 55% higher price than reference XT card. There was rumor that there is not going to be 2nd/3rd batch of reference cards. And I think that ASUS behaves exactly as if there was nobody who could put their price into perspective. But even if there was no more reference 6800(XT), there is going to be full chip in form of 6900 XT. And ASUS is matching its price with STRIX-LC card. Reminds me of WoW loot system. "Greed or Need", except with a twist. We need those GPUs and ASUS is bit too much greedy.

#5859986

cucaulay malkin

2020-11-28 08:45

Astyanax:

theres nothing weird going on, this is classic Radeon driver performance for D3D11 titles You either buy the highest IPC cpu you can to mitigate it, or use dxvk. [spoiler] [youtube=XoKu0_2ozAc] [youtube=S546TL2LWNY] [/spoiler]

it doesn't get better than 5800x,isn't it the fastest single core now ? I swear I thought rdna1 fixed it.

Fox2232:

Seems like this is not only overpriced card from ASUS. Our shops are starting to list their standard TUF cards. But the price tags are really something. TUF 6800 (non-XT) 19.4% higher price than reference XT card. STRIX 6800 (non-XT) 28% higher price than reference XT card. TUF 6800 XT 38% higher price than reference XT card. STRIX-LC 6800 XT 55% higher price than reference XT card. There was rumor that there is not going to be 2nd/3rd batch of reference cards. And I think that ASUS behaves exactly as if there was nobody who could put their price into perspective. But even if there was no more reference 6800(XT), there is going to be full chip in form of 6900 XT. And ASUS is matching its price with STRIX-LC card. Reminds me of WoW loot system. "Greed or Need", except with a twist. We need those GPUs and ASUS is bit too much greedy.

that's not just asus asrock,gigabyte,all cost 3500-4500 here for 6800xt. I'd understand that if there were available,but no,they're on pre-order for comparison the 3080 I ordered was 3200.of course it hasn't arrived yet.