Published in Graphics

Sapphire shows off its reference RX 6800 series cards

by on30 October 2020


Looking forward to the Nitro series

Sapphire is one of the first companies to show off its upcoming Radeon RX 6800 series graphics card, including both the RX 6800 XT and the RX 6800, but for now, we will only see reference designs.

In case you missed it earlier, the Radeon RX 6800 series is based on 7nm Navi 21 GPU, and both cards pack 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit memory interface, as well as 128MB of Infinity Cache.

The Radeon RX 6800 XT gets 72 CUs, for a total of 4608 Stream Processors, 128 ROPs and 288 TMUs, as well as 72 so-called ray accelerators. The RX 6800 XT should boost up to 2.25GHz and it is left to be seen if Sapphire will adjust base, game, and boost GPU clocks.

The Radeon RX 6800 sticks with 60 CUs, for a total of 3840 Stream Processors, has 128 ROPs and 240 TMUs, as well as 60 ray accelerators. It also features 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit memory interface and 128MB of Infinity Cache.

As expected, Sapphire is sticking to the reference design, at least for now, so you are looking at dual- or rather 2.5-slot design, since the RX 6800 XT has a bit thicker heatsink, with triple-fan cooler, which should keep the Navi 21 GPU well cooled. Both cards need two 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

The price is set at $649 for the RX 6800 XT and $579 for the RX 6800.

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Custom RX 6800 series cards come later

Several AMD AIB partners have already shown their custom RX 6800 series versions, and there are rumors that those same partners are talking with AMD about a custom RX 6900 XT card as well. Sapphire will probably have its own Nitro series lined up as well.

AMD AIB partners still have time as the RX 6800 series is launching on November 18th, and we bet that AMD AIB partners are eager to get their custom versions on retail/e-tail shelves before Christmas, but it is more likely that we will see them early next year.

 

Last modified on 02 November 2020
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