At AMD's latest "Where Gaming Begins" event on March 3, it revealed the AMD RX 6700 XT, the next graphics card in its RDNA 2 lineup. An alternative to compete with Nvidia's RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070, the AMD RX 6700 XT should be a solid upgrade for any midrange build.
Built with 1440p gaming in mind, the AMD RX 6700 XT is a budget friendly graphics card that should handle even the most graphically intense games. With a starting price of $479, the AMD RX 6700 XT is an excellent deal if bought at MSRP, but unfortunately, the current GPU marketplace has been driving prices up lately. Only time will tell if the RX 6700 XT will be readily available at its launch date.
RELATED: AMD RX 6700 XT Graphics Card Price, Release Date, Specs, and More
While it doesn't feature the 16GB of VRAM found in the other RX 6000 series cards, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT still includes 12GB of VRAM t0 future-proof the card. As more modern games have been utilizing around 9GB of VRAM during play, AMD decided that a 12GB memory buffer should be a solid safety net for the next three or four years in the RX 6700 XT's lifespan. Boasting a game clock at 2424 MHz and a boost clock at 2581 MHz, the RX 6700 XT appears to be clocked faster than its other RX 6000 counterparts.
With a starting price of $479, the RX 6700 XT is designed as a competitor to Nvidia's RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070. AMD released some initial benchmarks for the card and it appears to compete well with the RTX 3070. Furthermore, its retail price is $20 less than the RTX 3070 and should help secure its place as a solid budget option. The RTX 6700 XT will also include 96MB of Infinity Cache to prevent memory bandwidth bottlenecks and will also support ray tracing capabilities.
Designed to be a budget-friendly graphics card for midrange builds, enthusiasts who have high-end builds or still have a recent GPU might find little reason to upgrade their builds. However, for PC builds that have 3 or 4 year old GPUs, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT offers a cost-effective solution. Owners of a RX 5700 XT might still upgrade to the RX 6700 XT if they find themselves needing the extra VRAM or the ray-tracing acceleration that RDNA 2 offers.
While the ray tracing features on an AMD card will likely be behind Nvidia until AMD offers a solution similar to DLSS, the RX 6700 XT will probably handle ray tracing at 1080p/60 FPS fairly easily. Any build that wants to handle the larger textures in 1440p gaming should look to the RX 6700 XT as a solid baseline.
Unfortunately, the current GPU marketplace is a mess right now due to a semiconductor shortage with scalpers and bots driving up the prices of new graphic card releases. Whereas Nvidia limited the crypto mining efficiency of their RTX 3060 card, AMD has stated that they had no intention of doing so. Apart from a simultaneous release with third party partners such as MSI and XFX, AMD has offered few solutions to get the RX 6700 XT into the hands of ordinary people.
As a result, the AMD RX 6700 XT will likely end up not being worth it as its price could be driven up to over $1000. If snagged at the $479 retail price, the RX 6700 XT is definitely worth the cost in terms of its power, but it's hard to tell how scarce the availability will be until its release on March 18. Thus, the RX 6700 XT will only be worth it if it's bought at a price close to retail.
The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT will be available March 18.