In case you missed it back when it was announced, the Radeon RX 6900 XT is the final card, and the flagship card, in the trio announced by AMD back at the Big Navi event. While the Radeon RX 6800 XT and the RX 6800 were available back on November 18th, the Radeon RX 6900 XT was pushed back to December 8th, and it was left to be seen if it can push Nvidia from the "fastest graphics card" throne, especially as with SEP $999, it is cheaper than the RTX 3090.

While it was hinted that AMD might keep it in the reference design, it has given a green light to its AIB partners, and custom RX 6900 XT cards are coming soon.

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT wins in some games but Nvidia still holds the throne

With the Radeon RX 6800 series offering exceptional value, giving a lot of bang for the buck, the $999 price of the Radeon RX 6900 XT and its position on the market shows how hard it is to get the performance throne. In general, the Radeon RX 6900 XT is not that much faster than the RX 6800 XT, just as was the case with RTX 3090 and the RTX 3080.

The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT scores some wins, especially in AMD-optimized games, just as Nvidia still holds the throne in some Nvidia-optimized games, but it will take some time before AMD can challenge Nvidia with ray tracing or take away that performance throne.

In the relative performance, neatly arranged by Wizzard over at Techpowerup.com, AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT gets the crown at 1080p but only with Smart Access Memory (SAM) on AMD's latest platforms, but at 1440p and 2160p, the RTX 3090 still holds the throne. Of course, Techpowerup.com uses a mix of games for this result, with ten DX11, ten DX12, and three Vulkan API games, and in other scenarios, the overall score might be different, as it all comes down to the games you like to play. The RX 6900 XT does not do well in DX11 games but does extremely well in DX12 and Vulkan API games, which is not a bad thing.

When it comes to ray tracing, Nvidia is still way ahead of AMD, although some tests of Dirt 5 did surprise us, showing that AMD will do better in the future, but Nvidia has heavily invested in RT and has a big headstart.

With the RX 6800 series, AMD showed us impressive performance per Watt from RDNA 2 architecture, and RX 6900 XT is not an exception. It offers great performance per Watt but still falls back compared to the RX 6800 series.

While RTX 3090 was never about performance per buck, neither is the RX 6900 XT, as at $999, it is $300 more expensive than the RTX 3080, and not that much faster. It is $500 cheaper than the RTX 3090, but the RTX 3090 still holds the throne and comes with a significantly higher amount of VRAM, 24GB of GDDR6X memory.

The actual market pricing of the RX 6900 XT and limited supply might be a problem as even the RX 6800 series was rare and nowhere to be found. Whether it is a limited supply or problem with scalpers, it does not matter, but luckily for AMD, Nvidia did not have that much luck either, but it did come to the market earlier.

In any case, AMD made a great high-end graphics card and it was about time it gets back to challenge Nvidia in that market space. Nvidia probably has room for both price and SKU adjustments and we are wondering how long will we have to wait for the RTX 3080 Ti.

Here are some reviews from around the net.

- Techpowerup.com - AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review - The Biggest Big Navi

- Hothardware.com - Radeon RX 6900 XT Review: AMD's Most Powerful Gaming GPU Ever

- Techspot.com - AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review: Can AMD Take the Performance Crown?

- Hexus.net - AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT: Putting the Big into Navi

- eTeknix.com - AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Graphics Card Review

- Tomshardware.com - AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review: Powerful and Pricey

- Tweaktown.com - AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT Review: Big Navi Battles RTX 3090 For $500 Less

- Guru3d.com - AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT review

- PCWorld.com - AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT review: Blisteringly fast, but very niche