Back on top?! AMD Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT Review – Feel the same, but with big differences in detail

1 - Einführung und technische Details 2 - Teardown: Platine, Spannunsversorgung, Kühler 3 - Borderlands 3 4 - Control (+DXR) 5 - Far Cry New Dawn 6 - Ghost Recon Breakpoint 7 - Horizon Zero Dawn 8 - Metro Exodus (+DXR) 9 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider 10 - Watch Dog Legion (+DXR) 11 - Wolfenstein Youngblood 12 - World War Z 13 - Leistungsaufnahme und Effizienz im Gaming 14 - Leistungsaufnahme, Spannungen und Normeinhaltung 15 - Lastspitzen und Netzteil-Empfehlung 16 - Taktraten und Temperaturen 17 - Lüfter und Geräuschemission ('Lautsärke') 18 - Übersicht, Zusammenfassung und Fazit

Fan control and curves

Cooling only works with a good airflow and that’s why I took a look at the fan curves. For this purpose, I set the (lower and usual) edge temperature and the fan speeds of the Radeon RX 6800 XT against each other. We can see that in my extreme example the control system makes a jump and in return the temperatures drop. A second look into the system then showed that the hotspot temperature here hit exactly the preset tjunction value in the BIOS and the fans therefore suddenly started to run as if there was no tomorrow.

This could certainly have been solved more gently, but it is also the extreme case. In most normal games you won’t get that high at all, so that in the end it will almost always end up at 1500 rpm, which you will hardly notice as disturbing.

The Radeon RX 6800 doesn’t know this sudden surge of heat, because the temperatures are more balanced, but because of the small radiator they are already much higher. However, about 1650 rpm is still a good and acceptable value.

Noise emission “Volume”

If you now measure the whole thing in normal operation and without stress, the 36.8 dB(A) of the Radeon RX 6800XT is a real milestone, especially if you remember the hairdryer of the Radeon VII or the RX 5700XT. This one finally plays in a completely different league!

You could already guess from the fan curves and temperatures that the RX 6800 cannot quite keep up here. A feat, because the fan is significantly smaller and lighter. Nevertheless, even 38.4 dB(A) is still no acoustic leg break and the concept can show that it works as intended.

As an intermediate conclusion, we can say that AMD has done its homework and has put two potent and quite quiet radiators on their feet – chapeau, because it was not always like that!