On March 3, 2021, AMD announced a mid-range graphics card of the RDNA 2 generation - RX 6700 XT, which the manufacturer positions as a development of the RX 5700XT model of the RDNA generation. A distinctive feature of the RX 6700XT from the RX5700 XT, in addition to the improved RDNA technology, will be the use of a fast Infinity Cash cache, the use of Smart Access Memory technology and more advanced GPU and GDDR6 memory production processes. If in gaming applications the new video card has added significantly and can now compete with RTX 3060Ti and RTX 3070. Recall that the RX 5700 XT video card in games was at the level of RTX 2060 Super - RTX 2070. Either in Ethereum mining RX 6700 XT due to 192-bit bus memory, instead of 256-bit in RX 5700XT, the same performance increase as in games is no longer to be expected.
Comparison of technical characteristics of AMD graphics cards of different generations
| Specifications | RX5700 | RX 5700XT | RX 6700 XT | RX 6800 | RX 6800XT |
RX 6900XT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Release date | 11.06.2019 | 11.06.2019 | 03.03.2021 | 28.10.2020 | 28.10.2020 | 28.10.2020 |
| Frequency GPU (BOOST) MHz | 1465(1725) | 1605(1905) | 2321(2581) | 1815 (2105) | 2015(2250) | 2015(2250) |
| ALU Cores | 2304 | 2560 | 2560 | 3840 | 4608 | 5120 |
| GFLOPS FP32 | 7950 | 9750 | 13210 +35% | 16170 | 20740 | 23040 |
| Memory | 8Gb GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 | 12Gb HBM2 | 16Gb GDDR6 | 16Gb GDDR6 | 16Gb GDDR6 |
| Memory bus width | 256bit | 256bit | 192bit -33% | 256bit | 256bit | 256bit |
| Total memory bandwidth | 448Gbit/s | 448Gbit/s | 384Gbit/s -17% | 512Gbit/s | 512Gbit/s | 512Gbit/s |
| Infinity Cash | - | - | 96Mb | 128Mb | 128Mb | 128Mb |
| Power usage | 180W | 225W | 230W | 250W | 300W | 300W |
| Announced price, USD | 379USD | 449USD | 479USD | 579USD | 649USD | 999USD |
The first thing that catches your eye is the high frequency of the GPU at 2581MHz, which is currently a record for a GPU. This is why the RX 6700 XT shows good results in gaming tests. The net GPU performance in GFLOPS32 has increased by a significant 35% compared to the RX 5700XT, which will give about the same hashrate growth on mining algorithms MTP, Zhash and other GPU dependent algorithms. But on the ETHash algorithm popular now among miners, it is a frank disappointment. Because due to a cut memory bus by 33% (192bit instead of 256bit) and faster GDDR6 memory bandwidth, the video card loses 17% (384Gbit instead of 448Gbit).
| Algorithm | RX 5700XT |
RX 6700XT (Forecast) |
RX 6800 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethash | 55-62Mh/s | 47-54Mh/S | 63MH/s |
| KawPow | 28Mh/s | 24Mh/s | 32Mh/s |
| BeamHash3 | 24H/s | 32H/s | 36H/s |
| MTP | 2,8MH/s | 3,8MH/s | 4,6MH/S |
| GRIN32 | 0,4H/s | 0,6H/s | 0,9H/s |
Conclusion: The video card for the current mining realities comes out quite controversial due to the truncated memory bus, but if you do not take into account the Ethash algorithm, KawPow and other memory-dependent algorithms, then the video card will be at the level of the competing Nvidia RTX 3060Ti, but with a large amount of memory and a higher price, if at all now we can talk about the prices of video cards.
