Nvidia Ampere vs AMD RDNA2, Who Won The GPU Generation (So Far)?

[Cadder]

My 3080 FE has been fantastic. I can't claim to have tested it to anywhere near its limits though. I would have preferred a 6800XT but don't have any good reasons - my two were that I saw AMD as the underdog and I also thought it would be good to go with my Ryzen CPU.

I've read since that Nvidia drivers are much more solid - that means a lot to me since my work depends on my GPU working as good as it can.

Overall I'm not disappointed to be sitting with a decent PC running an RTX 3080. It would be good to jump between manufacturers every couple of years to get a first-hand feel of who is winning.

The Heaven 4 Benchmark thread has been interesting recently with some AMD GPUs hitting top/high scores

 

[Bill Turnip]

My 3080 is plenty for what I need/want, but I would also have thought that a 6800xt would do much the same job. The differences (real world, noticeably affecting performance) seem to generally be pretty minimal, and I'd be delighted with either type of GPU.

I don't really think you can claim one is a clear winner over the other this gen, it all depends on use case and availability. Vram? RDNA. Ray tracing? Ampere. But even then its not as simple as that. The vram is a moot point in the overwhelming majority of games. Ray tracing is much the same at this point in time.

Do you own one at an acceptable price? You're the winner.

 

[Hotwired]

There's nothing to celebrate.

New cards are better than old cards (so what) while value for money fell right off a cliff.

 

[Grim5]

Overall it's been a terrible generation. What started out looking like a generation of good gains and good value turned into anything but.

it's been a complete ******** from all involved and I can only hope that the worst is past us

 

[LtMatt]

LtMatt sharpening his keyboard as we speak

The only tool I’m sharpening is the knife for cutting our massive turkey. Enjoy Christmas with your family Rob, would be my advice to you and others looking for a fight.

As for the topic, my take is pretty simple and it comes down to performance. RDNA2 wins vs Ampere in rasterization, Ampere wins at RT vs RDNA2. Pick your poison and or whatever other interests you from your preferred vendor.

Merry Christmas folks.

Spoiler

 

[Nexus18]

You not going to debunk the video?

No BS to debunk there so no need for Nexus18 to come to the rescue this time.....

Accurate enough video. Glad to see them and more sites raising the longevity concerns of RDNA 2 given RT and DLSS adoption rate.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Echo what matt has said, outside of RT the 6900xt is an absolute beast, having used nvidia since my Fury Xs I was a little worried about the drivers and just overall package with AMD, but it's been a very simple transition and I'mvery impressed with how it all looks and functions, there's a lot to like with things like image sharpening etc.
And there's something very cool about seeing a gpu run at such high clocks.

 

[Grim5]

LtMatt sharpening his keyboard as we speak

Twitching at the bit

 

[K1LaW8tt5]

No BS to debunk there so no need for Nexus18 to come to the rescue this time.....

Accurate enough video. Glad to see them and more sites raising the longevity concerns of RDNA 2 given RT and DLSS adoption rate.

so you agree when they said that with the exception of the 3090 and 3060 Nvidia don't offer enough vram on their GPUs? Might want to post that in the other threads

 

[Nexus18]

so you agree when they said that with the exception of the 3090 and 3060 Nvidia don't offer enough vram on their GPUs? Might want to post that in the other threads

I only skimmed the video and mostly only paid attention to the 3080 vs 6800xt section so correct me if I am wrong but weren't their words more or less along the lines of "10gb is enough and will be for a while, however, it should have come with more"?

I have always said, nvidia cards should have come with more vram (especially the 3070) given previous nvidia cards vram amount but at the time, nvidia had to pick what would work out best for them in terms of consumer price to performance and given how in demand and popular the 3080 FE is/was, it shows that they made the right decision with vram type and amount. Do you think that a 3080 FE with 16GB would have been better/good value or rather "worth" the extra outlay at "potentially" £750/800+?

 

[Purgatory]

As for the topic, my take is pretty simple and it comes down to performance. RDNA2 wins vs Ampere in rasterization, Ampere wins at RT vs RDNA2. Pick your poison and or whatever other interests you from your preferred vendor.

Merry Christmas folks.

Basically this ...^

I think both companies have their strong points and weak points this generation, really comes down to your needs. Just happy to see both fighting it out again and the result is better gpus for customers and hopefully better prices in the future after this mess is over in the world.


Merry Christmas Matt and the gpu gang. Hope you are all having a good one.

 

[Poneros]

The real fight is in 2023. RDNA 3 vs Lovelace vs Battlemage. Plus mining will be dead so we'll get some great deals to boot. This gpu gen was irrelevant tbh, everything sold & even games-wise it's been a cross-gen sea of meh.

 

[HangTime]

I'd say the fight is mostly void except for people who were able to get cards at or close to MRSP. So 80% void 20% Nvidia or something like that.

 

[Kirby Wurm]

I'd say it was pretty even and concur with LtMatt's assessment. Longevity is harder to work out because of RT/DLSS performance on one side (with some big titles coming up like Dying Light 2 and Witcher 3 remaster using both, and God of War the latter) and stronger rasterisation on the other (possibly aided by SAM). In BF2042 for instance AMD have quite an advantage (Tom's Hardware review for example, where below 4K not even DLSS helps the 3090 come close to the 6900 XT), and in the 50 game roundup Techpowerup recently did the 6800 XT is ahead of the 3080 on average for more recent titles.

All this is why I still haven't made my mind up whether to return the 3090 FE I snagged and stick with AMD, or to make the switch.

VRAM doesn't seem a huge concern, from what I've read only FC6 and Doom Eternal with RT at Ultra Nightmare at 4K running into limits on 10GB, but moving forward that could be a slight limitation.

The best thing has been seeing true competition again after years without it. The worst being the pricing and stock issues.

 

[gpuerrilla]

You not going to debunk the video?

King of debunking and gamer extraordinaire?

so you agree when they said that with the exception of the 3090 and 3060 Nvidia don't offer enough vram on their GPUs? Might want to post that in the other threads

I only skimmed the video

Classic con artist Saul then... Merry Christmas Nexus!

 

[gpuerrilla]

The real fight is in 2023. RDNA 3 vs Lovelace vs Battlemage. Plus mining will be dead so we'll get some great deals to boot. This gpu gen was irrelevant tbh, everything sold & even games-wise it's been a cross-gen sea of meh.

Yeah I think this was the discussion to have. Surprised in the HU 'round-up' really as they recommended even the 3070Ti which was the worst value card from the nvidia stack. DLSS comes to the rescue and now RT is with every game according to them which is a contrast to what they were saying a few months back. If intel do release cards between £250-500 they could make a big splash, not too long to wait now.

 

[LeMson]

Only the miners who bought them straight from both companies can tell us :/

 

[humbug]

Nvidia has better RT performance when the use of it is overdone.
Nvidia has slightly better DLSS image quality vs FSR, i would only use either as an upscaling tool as they are not as good as native but are better than the rendered resolution.

Performance there is nothing between them.
AMD has better power efficiency.
IMO AMD's software is better.

None of that matters much, the fundamental thing that does matter is:

RTX 3070 8GB
RX 6700XT 12GB

RTX 3080 10GB
RX 6800 16G

Nvidia's poultry VRam renders them out of the equation, it is a problem now, let alone for its 3 to 5 year life span.

So for me AMD are the winner by default.

 

[gpuerrilla]

Agree with a lot of what you say there bug. The HU take on it would not read that way.

What annoyed me on their chat was the - we cant talk about msrp as... then reference the cards basing it on price. In the UK if you discount the FE cards especially as they are sold by one retailer and in small bursts, the prices make the discussion far more interesting.

 

[Grim5]

Nvidia has better RT performance when the use of it is overdone. Overdone? uh huh

Nvidia has slightly better DLSS image quality vs FSR. Nope its much better