Smart Access Memory is a pretty big deal, without it a processor can only address a tiny bit of the GPU at a time (265 megs). With SAM enabled, a processor could access gigs at a time. If you have a relatively modern card, you want this feature on.
@@FIVESTRZ It doesn’t affect stability from what I have seen, but it’s not really a huge deal, either. Some games get more gains than other, but overall, single digit percentage gains.
The most underrated part of my 6900xt is that it’s quiet and runs everything great on an ultra-wide. While initially I was disappointed at not having an equivalent of DLSS, I’m super happy with what AMD are doing with FSR now and how many generations of users are getting performance benefits. Drivers have been really stable and performance in games is only getting better. I don’t need a big, hot and insane power draw gpu and I feel like I made the right choice.
Mali: I did not have any problems, delivered by UPS on time. Buy if It says: sold and ship by Newegg. No third party vendor. The Asrock 6950 xt is a beast.
love my 6950xt. instead of getting the newer cpu/gpu combo i went ahead and upgraded to a 5900x. dont see myself needing to upgrade for 4 years at least.
this would be my exact build if i pull the trigger on a 6950Xt. Only thing is I have a corsair 850W PSU and apparently I need to upgrade to a 100watt. Think its necessary or can I save myself $200?
@@just_tom00 rocking an evga 850W gold and haven't had issues. ive only ever hit roughly 620 all power. far from maxing it out. i went with this build specially cause i didn't want to upgrade my psu. now i wan to note i dont use cinbench or any real intensive stuff other than gaming and some blender work.
@@BK-zy6lw Well, no their performance isn't even that much better than the 6950. In some games it's almost identical and in others maybe 10-20% faster, but that isn't worth $500-$700 more imo.
Grabbed the Asrock 6900XT Formula OC for less than $800 a few weeks back and this thing is a monster. SAM and FSR has been a huge improvement over the already impressive performance.
@@bloodstalkerkarth348 You might want to wait a month or two. Sounds like AMD is having some logistics and driver issues with the new card. COVID has Chinese factories shut down, there are reports of driver issues, BIOS problems, and AIB models are not releasing until January.
I just built my PC & it being my first build i went with the RX 6650XT. Coming from a launch day PS4 I'm just happy to game FINALLY above 60fps. I have finally joined PC gaming & your vids have helped a ton!
TBH I've been on the fence about what current GPU to get so I can do a build for my son whose 13yrs old. You just helped figure out which GPU to get him and I thank you so much. He's a great kid so I might just get all of the parts and build it with him. Again thanks and you were more informative than a lot of the other top youtubers about this GPU.
I opted for a 6900 XTXH for $750. First AMD card and the most powerful card I've ever purchased. I am very, very VERY happy with my purchase. I love the (non-RT) performance I'm getting out of my XFX Swift Merc 319 Limited Black (aka XTXH). Ditched Team Green. AMD has won my trust and I will be moving forward with Team Red for the forseeable future!
I love my RX 6950 XT! Thank you for sharing the info on re-sizable bar and FSR. I’m gaming on a 3440 x 1440 monitor and the 6950 runs anything I throw at it. Gonna spend a little time dialing it in to optimize performance. 😊
@@bloodstalkerkarth348 Coil whine was pretty intense on my red devil 6950 OC for the first like 2 weeks, now it's completely gone. I think a lot of the reviewers pull fresh cards out of the box and don't run them long enough for the whine to die down. It's not super uncommon on brand new cards, my 1080ti had a lot of whine when it was new too.
Interesting. I've been keeping an eye on 3080ti and 3090 prices as I'm looking to upgrade. I havent really considered AMD cards, up until now. Thanks for the info.
Just bought a rx 6950 xt for upgrade from 1080ti. It's an insane upgrade for the price. I dont know if they will coming down much more when new AMD cards are launched, but the cards have a great Power overall and if you dont care about raytracing it can make you happy. Not to forget, that they are efficient like i have 170-230 Watt on Witcher 3 with max max max settings. I dont want to know, what a 3090 usage is at that point :)
@@redknight2120 Thanks for the input. Now I'm also debating if I should wait and see what they do with rdna 3 in their next iteration of cards lol. I think they have an event in November.
@Peter im sorry to hear that. Im running the card since 2 month now and i had just to uninstall the driver and installed the recommended driver. Since than i had no bug or issue at all. Do you have a PSU that is good enough ? All these high gpu have powerspikes of 400- 500 watts. If u have low budget psu or only a 650-750 one that can make a issue.
This right here makes me feel so much better in my GPU pick I was green team even before I actually got into PC games but when I actually build my first one I went and because I was impressed with the numbers for price and this video explains why I was seeing such excellent performance from my 6600xt even in games like cyberpunk 1440 60fps high everything no ray trace off no issues
I bought a Pc around 9 months ago with the 6950 xt. I have never used FSR and never heared from SAM, but im still happy with the power. But now i will test the features😊 thanks
Smart access memory (SAM) is a real game changer in terms of squeezing out more performance from your GPU, especially if you intend to play on 1440p like I do, I've been using an Rx 6700xt gigabyte gaming OC edition for almost a year & it's been putting in the work, especially recently since I started using resizable bar, you don't get the benefits of SAM unless you're using both an AMD GPU & CPU, I'm planning on swapping out my i9-10900k for a Ryzen 7 5800x3d in the near future, but yeah if you're using an AMD GPU especially the 6000 series, resizable bar & SAM are a big win for you since it's literally a free performance booster to your setup, people need to stop sleeping on AMD & Radeon when it comes to the GPU market, you'll definitely get your bang for your buck.
I have a 5700xt, and it performs quite well at 1440p, especially so with SAM. Luckily I have both a AMD gpu and cpu. I have had it for roughly 2 years now, and it has served me quite well. Though I have been debating going all out and getting a 7900xtx when I can. Also debated 6950xt and just selling my 5700xt, but I shall wait for now.
I just picked a sapphire pure 6950xt up ladt month to upgrade from my 5700xt and its insane how it handles anything i throw at it! Getting high fps 1440p gaming at max settings, even 4k is giving me playable frame rates at high settings.
Great video. This is exactly what I was sindeymyself. Lo and behold you release a video showing all the specs I needed to know. Especially CP2077. Thanks.
I’ve finally got a Red Devil 6950XT after waiting years. I went to a Vega 64 in late ‘18, and wanted to upgrade to new NAVI. Covid hit and I refused to feed into scalpers and a trash market until recently. Finally got a 6950XT the week of release, and worked it off 😊. Been enjoying it!
Thanks for this video! I did not know how FSR or SAM functioned or that I would need to enable via the bios. I'm learning here! Always been a gamer but only now beginning to get in to computer hardware science. I am currently playing on a Lenovo y700 that is ~8 years old I think with an Nvidia 960M in it and it just can't hang anymore 😆 I am definitely in the market for my first ever desktop and I'm gonna build it myself. I've always thought Nvidia/Intel would be the decision for me but more and more it's looking like it's AMD all the way. You just can't beat the price to performance. Really appreciate the info and can't wait to build my first desktop! I've just been waiting out the market... 😓
I am glad to watch this video as I recently bought a Sapphire Nitro+ Pure Radeon 6950XT for a 830 USD. As highlighted, running on a Linux based operating system with open source driver just works out of the box. Productivity improved notably with images and video editing. As it is my first ever flagship card, I still have to figure out how to effective use that powerful graphics card.
Can you believe I have had a 6800XT for a year and only after watching this video did I enable SAM for the first time LOL. I think this was the clearest explanation of turning the feature on and confirming it is on from Windows. Thanks!
very informative, I will have to do more research on SAM and FSR, this video definitely put those technologies on my radar. I would love to hear a bit more about the sponsored aspect of this video and how it potentially influences your presentation and arguments. I'm generally always thrown off by sponsored content. Nonetheless, good stuff, keep them coming!
I've already got an AMD card (Vega 56) and I've been thinking about an upgrade soon. I was looking at nvidia for a while but their shady release and price gouging has absolutely made up my mind. I am gonna wait til Nov 3rd but I think I'll be getting a 6800XT, instead of one of the new ones but you never know.
if your main preference is just gaming then AMD should be your option. but if you have other thing to do like rendering, using applications that need GPU then nvidia is your choice.
I actually had no idea this technology existed with the AMD video cards. I think SAM would benefit my current build instead of using AMD CPU and my Nvidia card. Well done and thanks for the great content!
Great content. Thought reviewing FSR frame rates and the commentary was especially thoughtful. Would like to see 4K (thought I only saw 1440p) in the future.
First video ive seen on your channel. really enjoyed it. I have been pondering between the 6950 vs 3090, i feel like giving the 6950 a chance because of the value, I like what you said about the boosts and settings that can give it better performance. Thank you
Great video! I have to be honest… I am planning to built a new gaming pc soon and I didn’t even think about team Red for the GPU. For sure I was waiting and disappointed like many by the team green 4080/90. And was probably thinking about a 3080ti or 3090. But maybe I should really check for 6900 or 6950 too. Thanks for all the info like usual.
I have a both a 6950XT and a 3090Ti and honestly. both are overkill for my needs. I don't see much difference in real-world, noticeable performance between them. I would recommend the 6950XT to anyone that wants a high performing card at a little lower cost.
Beautiful cards. Would definitely be a nice jump up from my 6700xt. 😁 I remember trying to enable SAM on my PC but had some errors. Will definitely look into it again because it would probably help me out a bit.
I just bought a 6950 XT and only paid $650 +tx brand new from MicroCenter. My PC is pretty much future-proof with a Ryzen 5900X CPU ($320 +tx MicroCenter) and 64 GB or RAM ($125 +tx on Amazon).
Here in the UK, RX 6950 XT is selling between 800 to 850£. Which is over 300£ cheaper than RTX 3090 Ti and 150 - 200£ cheaper than RTX 3090. There is no reason NOT to buy this card compared to competition. Especially considering the disaster of a price that is RTX 4000 Series.
I finally got myself a new system - switching from i5 6600k+gtx1080 to r5 5600 + rx6950xt. Almost bought rtx3080 12gb but like an hour before actually placing the order I saw that the 6950xt is literally the same price as the 3080 12gb so it was a no brainer for me which card to choose and I am super happy with it :)
The only reason I'm waiting for a new gen card is for VR. If I was just playing flat screen I would have already bought a 6950 XT since the price has decent recently.
Im waiting to see the announcement of the 7900xt to see what i get, and since im already expecting it to be between 1000-1200usd and amd cards being cheaper to producer for AIBs, i don't expect the price to skyrocket as much as nvidia lovelace, since both brands can render in blender im good with any of them so in reality, i want to see the performance jump of rdna3 and if the jump isn't that big, i want to see how much rdna2 cards drop in price, im still likely getting the 7900xt purely for the extra raster performance, AV1 enconding and the rumours of FSR3.0 being hardware dependant, but until they are out i will decide
yup legit just ordered mine it was $660 before tax (shipping is "free" bc of amazon prime) paired that with a ryzen 5 5700x ($180 on amazon) price/performance on my system is astronomical
FSR and DLSS are great technologies but they're effectively hacks. Upscaled lower res images to provide some PFS boost. This often comes with some level of distortion in terms of image quality but it's an even compromise. The problem is that they're it's skewing the lines in terms of what we consider raw performance. Nvidia's DLSS3 is now inserting counterfeit frames into the mix, but this is being marketed to be the same as raw performance, hence the high price. As for SAM, I had no idea it was available on intel. Thank you, I will consider an AMD / Intel build down the road.
I've been saving up for the 6950xt since it dropped. what's awesome about the 6950 is price and performance when comparing to the Nvidia 3090 and 3090ti. my first gaming PC was amd and I've been hooked on amd ever since. awesome video brother as always!!!
@Peter hey Pete can it be that maybe settings your hardware or something with you OS? I do know AMD does have driver issues but I also know that there are driver and bios settings that need to be dialed in and also you really need to configure your system to get them running good. sorry your having issues I'd definitely try looking at all the issues also is your hardware compatible? ancient gameplays.on RU-vid is a AMD whisper and if you watch some of his settings videos on his channel and reach out to him in the comments he can probably help you get your card running. hope this helps you
I just got a 6950xt for $650 as an upgrade from a 12gb 3060 because I knew it would be better, i just didn't really know how much better until this. Can't wait to really flex it up
I've had 1080fe, Titan RTX 24gb, 3080fe. Now I find myself drawn to the 6950xt like a calling to my 13900k,ddr5 6600, z790 Build for DCS VR & R6 siege.
Using same Sapphire 6950XT as in video and totally viable together with 5800X3D CPU + SAM. Every game I play on 1440p average at over 100fps easily, some even in 300+.
@@TheSjuris agree. The 3090 ti was not out when I got the 6900xt. I would have loved to get a 3090 but the price difference at the time was too big. I don't know if its my card or if I hit the silicone lottery but I get constant high refresh rates on 4k with Amd Ray tracing using SAM and FSR and get around 80-100 fps on games like COD, FH5, Spider-man etc. No means the best but not bad either
@@All-kh6vi the 3090 and 3090ti are more directly aimed at content creators. 4k gaming is a niche market and that’s the only resolution that the 3090ti consistently comes beats the 6950xt.
I have the option to get one for 700 at best buy right now. I have a 4070 ti but thinking of returning it for the 6950 xt. Has 16 gb of vram cheaper and I don't think the 7900xt is worth it.
This is so true, got a 6900xt Tuff and am playing at high framerates NOW, not in some 6 months+. and the price was way down in Australia. Just amazing for driving my 144hz 1440p monitor, as it runs cool and quiet, just using auto overclock. Worse thing is having to cut the case a bit to fit it :-).
It is really amazoing how AMD can come in and provide some serious competition compared to the other tech giants, let alone in two different areas as well. Will most definitely include team red in one or both cpu and gpu in my first build..
I'm building a Blender sculpting/gaming machine for my wife and I might go with 6950XT. Been waiting all year for nextgen, but after I've seen how I'd be paying up to twice as much for mobo, RAM, Gen 5 PCIe storage and won't get any good deals on Black Friday, I might just go full flagship last-gen. I just hope I won't regret not waiting for Navi 31, those extra VRAM gigs would be really nice to have.
Great video on the 6950 XT. There’s so much here that I didn’t know about AMD’s platform, and since I’m currently building a new PC, this is definitely super useful information. I’m curious if an AMD processor is necessary to make use of SAM? Or does it work on Intel based systems as well? I’m definitely considering the switch from team green to team red and this GPU definitely seems like a top contender, especially if it can drop a little bit lower in price over the coming months.
Smart Access Memory is really a universal PCI Express feature called Resizeable Base Address Register (BAR). You can use it with an Intel CPU (as long as the motherboard supports Resizeable BAR).
That's not true. It actually is universal so it will work on AMD / Intel, Nvidia / Intel, and AMD / AMD. Though we have seen higher uplift in AMD GPU and any CPU.
Exactly! Your existing card won’t suddenly stop working or degrade on performance overnight when the new ones show up. If your card still does what you need it to do and still fulfill your needs, there’s no reason to go out and buy a new one just because they’re new
@@AngelUribe18 thats true. But i can tell you that today I tested MW2 with a 1080Ti and man... The FPS were dissapointing. So I get when people want to upgrade when their cards are 4-5 years old.
@@R4GiNGKiD and that’s totally valid, if you feel like your card is not performing as you would like it to, then there’s absolutely no shame in upgrading, if it makes you feel better, then go for it!
I got a 6950xt for $789 a couple weeks ago. My thinking was, way below MSRP, and you can actually buy it. Plus I was upgrading from a 980ti from 2015, so couldn't really lose.
Anything higher than a 6700xt should be great for 1440p gaming for the next few years. Even when dropping some settings you'll still get great visuals.
Loved the video (am now subbed), and it's nice to see Red getting some attention these days, but there's a common thing going on with all the newly cropping up "does this AMD card do X thing?!" videos in the past week. I'd like to try and clarify a little for anyone unaware of why there are 3 (yes, 3, not 2) versions of the 6900 series. There are three distinct versions of the 69xx silicon, calling it a "re-badge" is a bit dismissive as all 3 variants have a distinct performance difference. I point these out in detail because you can not just flash one to another as with previous cards. THEY ARE DIFFERENT REGARDLESS OF WHAT PEOPLE WANT TO TRY AND PUSH. ________________________________ Navi 21 XTX (215-121000167) This is the everyday 6900XT. This is the one everyone benchmarks. ________________________________ Navi 21 XTXH (215-121000247) This is the one NOBODY benchmarks. This was supposed to launch as the "unreleased" 6900 XTX, and instead AMD allowed partners to use it however they wanted. You can find this variant in the liquid cards, and "ultimate" air cooled cards such as powercolor red devil ultimate 6900XT (the cheapest air cooled entry into this silicon) Refer to Buildzoid's "ALL the 6900XT PCBs" to see which is which. There's a couple vids around of this card going blows with the 3090ti. "RTX 3090 Ti vs RX 6900 XT // Test in 9 Games | 1440p, 4K by BENCHMARKS FOR GAMERS" is the only one I can recall off the top of my head. They bench the above mentioned Powercolor card against a 3090ti. ________________________________ Navi 21 KXTX 215-121000289) This is the 6950XT. Additionally there's a 6nm refresh either in the works, or already in the wild. I've not done a lot of research on this one though.
I'll be sitting on my 6700XT likely till the 8000 series, unless the odds are in my favor winning something like this. Tho I appreciate the info about smart access memory. 😊
Seeing the focus shift of Nvidia away from budget/mid range cards this generation, compounded by the blazing progress of Adrenaline software, really makes the choice for cards a lot more clear.
I game at 1440P, and currently run a 3080. I don't need an upgrade but my son's PC does, and I will definitely be going team red and looking at pairing a 6950 with one of the new Ryzen CPUs. Even so I still want to wait and see what the next gen AMD GPUs can do and so I will wait a little longer to see all the info since it will be first time I am building an all AMD rig.
Great video though I do disagree with using ultra perfomance FSR, I think it looks too bad to be using on a $1000 GPU. I see its use for benchmark purposes though, cheers!
My 6950XT is a BEAST, it's heavily stock OCed and can play cyberpunk with all sliders maxed AND with all the ray tracing sliders on psycho settings without breaking a sweat, all games get over a 100fps on maxed settings with a 3440x1440 resolution screen, no need for me to switch to one of AMD's new ones yet.
“As little as $949.00”. LOL. I know i’m late. But Im just now ordering this card for $600 off amazon. I dunno anywhere for anything that $949.00 is little. I understand PC’s are expensive for high end gaming. But thats still a lot of damn money, and trust me, Im not broke. I make more then most, and thats still a lot. Thx for the review tho. Will have this paired wjth the “budget” CPU 5800X3D.
Nice review, I'm considering buying Radeon 6950XT at Euros $899 If I miss the chance to buy 7900XTX next month... can't deal with RTX 3090 $1,299 4080 at $1,469 euros.
