Author: Trafficblast

Navi 2.0 has landed, and that means it’s time to break down exactly how these exciting new graphics cards perform. We’ve already looked at the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, and now it’s time to take a close look at its younger sibling, the Radon RX 6800. Coming to market at $499, it’s competing directly with the Nvidia RTX 3070. Does it have what it takes to earn a place on your holiday wishlist?

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AMD Radeon RX 6800 – Design and Features

Like the RX 6800 XT, the Radeon RX 6800 has undergone a radical redesign this generation. The loud blower-style coolers of yesteryear have been left in the dust of the much more stylish and effective triple-fan cooler found here. Visually, the design is extremely similar to the RX 6800 XT, and there’s a real sense of style that stands apart from even many third-party cards. The mix of silver, black, and mirror finishes really makes the card stand out while also avoiding the garrishness of overdone RGB. I said the XT-version reminded me of a cross between a muscle car and spaceship and I stand by that here. Where the RTX 3000-series looks minimalist and utilitarian, the RX 6000 series goes for flash.

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The biggest difference between the two cards is their thickness. As the lower powered of the two cards, the thermal load is naturally going to be less, so AMD was able to equip it with a standard two-slot heat sink. This is good news if your gaming PC also has internal sound or capture card because it will allow for more room to draw cool air through its fin stack.

Otherwise the two cards are nearly identical on the outside. The RX 6800 is still powered by dual eight-pin PSU connectors (no proprietary headers here!), as well as the same array of video outputs: 2x DisplayPort 1.4 outputs, each offering Display Stream Compression for those 4K HDR gaming monitors, one HDMI 2.1 output, and a USB Type-C output for easily connecting a virtual reality headset. Who said USB-C out on graphics cards was dead?

It’s only once you look under the hood that the differences begin to stand out. Like the RX 6800 XT, this card is built on AMD’s 7nm process and features the same 26.8 billion transistor count, but it features a trimmed back processor and clock speed. In total, it packs 3840 stream processors and 60 compute units, each with its own Ray Tracing Accelerator for hardware-based ray tracing. This is roughly 17% less each, while also being 50% more than last generation’s AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT. Given the relative performance of each card, that actually lines up quite well.

When it comes to clock speeds, the RX 6800 features a “Game Clock” of 1815MHz and a Boost Clock of 2105MHz. Again, this is a more modest promise than the 2015 MHz and 2205MHz of the RX 6800 XT, but a noteworthy improvement over the RX 5700 XT’s 1755MHz and 1905MHz. As has been the case for years, these figures should be taken with a grain of salt as each card will intelligently ramp itself up beyond these limits so long as it stays within acceptable power and thermal limits. For example, when gaming, my sample would routinely clock itself up to 2275 MHz and hover there. It’s not quite the 150MHz boost I found on the RX 6800 XT, but the top speed remains impressive compared to Nvidia’s current RTX 3000 line-up, which often hover between 1900 – 2000MHz.

Another highlight the RX 6800 shares with the RX 6800 XT is its large store of video memory. Each card features 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit bus. With a bandwidth of 512 GB/s, it’s a far cry from the ridiculous 760 GB/s speeds offered by the Nvidia RTX 3080’s GDDR6X, but is perfectly sufficient for 4K gaming. Since this card is squarely targeting 1440p, standard GDDR6 is a good choice, as is the generous capacity featured on both cards. Compared to the 10GB on the RTX 3080 and 8GB on the RTX 3070, 16 gigabytes feels downright exorbitant and offers the kind of headroom that will give both RX 6000-series cards ample headroom for the advanced textures and graphical effects always around the next bend in PC gaming.

Of course, the Radeon RX 6800 also brings with it all of the improvements of AMD’s new RDNA 2 architecture. I give a thorough breakdown of the improvements in my review of the RX 6800 XT, so you can read the full breakdown there, but there are a few important high points that allow this card to be more than meets the eye.

First, instead of using a dedicated core just for ray tracing, each compute unit has its own ray tracing accelerator. Every clock cycle, each CU is able to process four ray intersections. This allows the system to be scalable while also offering a massive improvement over software level ray tracing. Additionally, you should be aware that RDNA leverages Microsoft’s DirectX ray tracing solution, DXR, and not RTX. That’s important, because certain games that are designed explicitly for RTX will not work on the RX 6800 or 6800 XT.

Second, each announced RX 6000-series card features a brand new store of GPU-level memory called Infinity Cache. This cache allows the GPU to store important data rather than pull on the VRAM, which reduces latency and increases effective bandwidth. This memory store is also a key reason for the impressive clock speeds the GPU is able to deliver, and aids in the increased performance per watt. This card, despite being far more advanced than the RX 5700 XT, has a TDP of only 250 watts, 25 watts higher than the 5700 XT.

Third, the RX 6000-series is synergistic with the Ryzen 5000 CPU platform through a new system called Smart Access Memory. If you’re running one of AMD’s latest Ryzen CPUs on a 500-series motherboard, your CPU will be able to access all 16GB of the RX 6800’s VRAM for a boost in performance. AMD claims this averages to about 6% but can be more depending on the game in question (their documents show Forza Horizon 4 receiving a 15% improvement at 1440p, for example). Since our test bench is built on the Intel platform, I wasn’t able to test this for myself, but it’s reasonable to expect a modest performance bump by the function of this new system.

There is lots more to RDNA 2, including game- and performance-enhancing features like Radeon Boost and Radeon Anti-Lag, as well as boons to content creators like HEVC encoding/decoding and AV1 decoding, so be sure to head over to the RX 6800 XT review and take a look.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 – Performance

With all of that preliminary information out of the way, it’s time to take a look at how the card actually performs. All of our cards are put through a series of synthetic tests and real world gaming benchmarks. Since AMD seemed to be taking aim at the RTX 3070, I’ll be focusing mainly on 4K and 1440p gameplay, but also note 1080p results in our initial game tests.

As I mentioned above, our system is unable to take advantage of Smart Access Memory, so if you’re running a system composed of a Ryzen 5000 processor, AMD 500 motherboard, and RX 6000 GPU, you can expect a roughly 6% increase in performance.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 – Synthetic Benchmarks

Looking at synthetic benchmarks, the RX 6800 performs very well. It outperforms the RTX 3070 handily and comes in just below the RTX 3080.

Turning to ray tracing, I ran each card through Surgical Scalpels’ Boundary Benchmark as well as 3DMark’s Port Royal and Ray Tracing Tests. Here, the RX 6800 performs significantly below the RTX line-up and RX 6800 XT. This is to be expected because of its position on the product stack and, in the Boundary benchmark in particular, demonstrates the importance of a scaling solution like DLSS. Without that, the RX 6800 offered only 36% of the performance of the RTX 3070. In 3DMark’s ray tracing test, where neither card was able to benefit from DLSS, the results were closer, but the RTX 3070 still led the RX 6800 by 48%.

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When it comes to normal rasterization, the RX 6800 does very well, going head to head and even beating the RTX 3070 in several cases. At 1440p, it’s able to maintain 60 FPS in three of the five games above, with the exceptions being Metro Exodus, which was 55 FPS with also had RTX on high, and Red Dead Redemption 2 which was 58 FPS. Compared to the RX 5700 XT, the gains are very large, with an average improvement of 52% at 4K, 58% at 1440p, and 49% at 1080p.

Since the card is positioned so directly against the RTX 3070, which was itself compared directly to the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti, I opted to do some expanded testing, beginning with 4K. As you can see, in non-ray traced games, the card does a good job of keeping pace with the RTX 3070. In fact, removing Wolfenstein: Youngblood from all calculations (ray tracing is exclusive to Nvidia, so AMD’s figures are not comparable), it averages 10% faster than the RTX 3070 and only 15% slower than the RX 6800 XT. Once ray tracing is factored in and Nvidia’s cards are able to take advantage of DLSS, that lead evaporates. The average performance across all games (except Wolfenstein) puts it 12% slower than the RTX 3070.

Is it fair to compare ray tracing performance between AMD and Nvidia when RTX cards have DLSS and AMD cards do not? I would argue that it is as that is exactly what many gamers will do when considering between the two. AMD seems to know as much, because it’s developing its own answer to Nvidia’s AI upscaling system: FidelityFX Super Resolution, but little is known about this technology other than that it is in development. When it will arrive and how it will work is anyone’s guess. The reality of Nvidia’s lead is hard to ignore here because most games supporting ray tracing also support DLSS. Even though the RX 6800 offers good performance at 4K and below as we’ll see in a second, the absence of such a system is a significant drawback at launch.

Comparisons and resolution scaling aside, I was impressed at how well the RX 6800 was able to handle non-ray traced games at 4K resolution. In my testing, leaving ray tracing turned off increases FPS by 40-50%, allowing many games to perform near or even above 60 FPS.

Looking at 1440p, which I would argue is the target resolution for this card, we see a similar story in comparative performance, but here it’s even more valuable to look at the actual FPS in each game. Even with ray tracing turned on, most games I tested performed well above 60 FPS. Of those that fell below, two were very close (Metro Exodus averaged 55 FPS, Battlefield V was 57) and only two were unplayably low: Control and Minecraft RTX.

It’s also worth calling out just how well Dirt 5 performed even without DLSS. Dirt 5 appears to be optimized for AMD, and the RX 6800 cleans the RTX 3070’s clock as a result. Given that current-gen consoles are also being built on the RDNA 2 architecture and will utilize ray tracing, I’m optimistic at what this means for the future of ray tracing on AMD cards.

Of course, if you’re not interested in ray tracing, these results are also very good news. If you’re gaming at 1440p with DXR disabled, the RX 6800 is able to run many games at or above 100 FPS.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 – Thermals and Acoustics

The new triple fan design is an improvement versus the blower style cooler of the previous generation. In my testing, the RX 6800 reached a peak temperature of 80C. This is definitely warmer than Nvidia’s RTX 3000-series GPUs, but since AMD determines throttling based on a junction temperature (hottest spot on the die) of 110C, it didn’t actually result in any throttling that I observed. The card is also noticeably louder than Nvidia’s most recent cards, rising above my PC fans for a clear rise and fall as the card would spin up and down. In short, the thermal solution works, but still lags behind the competition in temperatures and acoustic performance.

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Purchasing Guide

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 is available for $499 at Amazon, Newegg, and direct from AMD however, expect stocks to be limited.

The wait is finally over: Navi 2.0 is here. I’ve spent the last week putting the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 through their paces to see how they stack up against our stable of last generation graphics cards and Nvidia’s RTX-3000 Series. In this article, I’ll be focusing on the RX 6800 XT but be sure to check out our separate RX 6800 review as well. Coming to market at $649, the RX 6800 XT undercuts the price of the Nvidia RTX 3080 – but does it have the performance to stack up?

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AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Design and Features

If it weren’t for the branding, I would think the Radeon RX 6800 XT was a third-party card. Compared to last generation’s AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, it’s bigger and looks better, throwing out the blower-style cooler for a triple fan design and a 2.5-slot heatsink. At 267x120mm, is a far cry from the case-challenging Nvidia RTX 3090 and should fit in most mid-tower PC cases with ease. Visually, it’s a major upgrade from the minimalist 5700 XT and looks equal parts spaceship and muscle car. I like it.

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Of course, looks only go so far. What really matters is what that heatsink is keeping cool. The RX 6800 XT is built on AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture. Like the RX 5700 XT, it uses AMD’s 7nm process, but the transistor count has more than doubled, going from 10.3 billion to 26.8 billion. With that, the GPU has received a massive expansion in Stream Processors, which are responsible for game rendering.

Last generation’s 5700 XT featured 2560 SPs, while the 6800 XT bumps that all the way to 4608. Likewise, it features 72 Compute Units, up from 40 last-gen, and each has its hardware level ray tracing unit (which we’ll get to shortly). It marries that with 16GB of GDDR6 memory (topping all but the RTX 3090 from Team Green) on a 256-bit bus bearing a total bandwidth of 512 GB/s.

If you recall from my review of the RTX 3080 Founders Edition, the RX 6800 XT’s main competitor, this memory configuration isn’t as fast. The RTX 3080 uses the cutting edge GDDR6X and offers a maximum memory bandwidth of 760 GB/s. If we go down a step to the RTX 3070, we find a much more “apples to apples” comparison since it is also running GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus. There, the 6800 XT is substantially faster than the RTX 3070’s 448 GB/s. In other words, this Navi GPU has faster memory than you might expect from GDDR6, but it still doesn’t compare well to the G6X in the RTX 3080. In real world terms, I wasn’t able to notice any difference while gaming, but it’s worth being aware as game engine development continues to advance.

The guaranteed clock speeds are impressive, though as we’ve seen with cards for a number of years, they really only hint at what the cards may achieve. The Radeon 6800 XT offers a “Game Clock” of 2015 MHz and a Boost Clock of up to 2250 MHz. AMD’s Radeon Software comes also with several presets, including the much anticipated Rage Mode (which raises the power limits on the card), and an automatic overclocking option that removes the legwork from figuring out a stable, notched up frequency. Even without those, I was surprised to see what the card was capable of. Loading up a game with complete stock speeds, the RX 6800 XT immediately ramped up to 2400 MHz and pushed just shy of 2500 MHz with Rage Mode engaged. Compared to the RTX 3070 or RTX 3080, which would maybe hit 2 GHz without a manual overclock, you can see how impressive that speed boost is.

Before moving into the architecture, you should also know that the card features one HDMI 2.1 output and two DisplayPort 1.4 with integrated Display Stream Compression (DSC) for running high performance gaming monitors. It also includes a USB Type-C output for easily connecting virtual reality headsets.

RDNA 2: The New Architecture

To really understand the RX 6000 series and how the specs above come into play, we have to dig a little deeper into what’s going on within the chip itself. RDNA 2 is a big leap forward for AMD and offers real world benefits for gamers. AMD quotes 1.54x performance per watt compared to last-gen and up to 1.3x higher frequency. What that means, in essence, is that watt for watt the RX 6000 series is going to kick out more frames at a higher frequency than the original RDNA architecture was capable of.

One of the ways it accomplishes this is through its brand new store of Infinity Cache. Both the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT feature 128 MB of rapid access, on-die storage that increases the bandwidth of the built-in video memory. Rather than have to draw on the VRAM, RDNA2 maintains a pool of important data on the GPU itself for near-immediate access, and actively maintains it to reduce latency. This accounts for a share of the gains I introduced previously, but is also more energy efficient, reducing the overall power demands of the card as a whole. Likewise, it’s a primary reason for the incredible clock speeds the card is able to offer.

If that name sounds familiar, it should. Infinity Cache is directly related to the Infinity Fabric found on AMD’s Ryzen CPUs. More than any generation before it, the RX 6000 series draws on the connection between CPU and GPU for elevated performance. As a result, there’s a real benefit to running a new AMD CPU along with your RX 6000-series GPU.

AMD leverages this synergy with a technology it calls Smart Access Memory. By running both AMD components on the AMD 500-series platform, your Ryzen CPU is able to directly access all 16GB of the 6800 XT’s memory. AMD claims an average FPS improvement of 6% with results that can go as high as 15% in Forza Horizon 4 at 1440p. Since our test platform is based on the Intel i9-9900K, I wasn’t able to test these for myself, but based on the performance results I saw, even a 6% improvement does well to close the gap between or even beat the RTX 3080 in some titles.

Enabling Ray Tracing

One of the biggest curiosities leading up to this launch was how the RX 6000 series would handle ray tracing. While Nvidia features a whole separate “RT Core” in its RTX architecture, RDNA 2 instead bakes ray tracing into its existing Compute Units with new Ray Tracing Accelerators. Each CU features a single Accelerator, so every clock cycle – up to 70 of them – can be leveraged for four ray tracing intersections each. This performance is also enhanced by the Infinity Cache and is further enhanced you have the CPU, GPU, and motherboard synergy above with Smart Access Memory.

Even with those enhancements, trying to run ray traced games at 4K is a tall order, even for the best gaming GPUs. Nvidia accomplishes this with the help of its AI-powered Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology to intelligently upscale games to higher resolutions without the same performance penalty. At launch, AMD has no answer for this technology, which means ray tracing at a particular resolution is much more taxing than those that support DLSS with Nvidia (which, to be fair, is still a fairly small, yet growing, number). AMD did share that gamers can expect a solution to come – a technology they call FidelityFX Super Resolution, but there is very little known about it or when it may actually release.

In the gaming landscape today, it’s still a minority of games that support ray tracing, but since Nvidia was first out of the gate, many of those that do also support DLSS. Apples to apples, AMD’s RX-6000 series is at a significant disadvantage in these cases as DLSS will allow Nvidia’s RTX cards to run at much higher frame rates, even at 4K. As you’ll see, enabling ray tracing at this resolution often drops frame rates well below 60 FPS. In many cases, games are still playable but aren’t nearly as smooth. This isn’t the case at 1440p, and the RX 6800 XT does an admirable job of enabling no-sacrifices gameplay at that resolution. Given that, it’s worth taking a close look at how you want to play, and how long you may need to wait for FidelityFX Super Resolution if 4K with ray tracing is on your list of must-haves.

That said, I remain impressed at the impact of Radeon Image Sharpening, which algorithmically applies a sharpening filter but only to the areas of the screen that need it. This technology was highlighted as part of the RX 5700 XT launch and has since gone mostly under the radar. Gaming at 1440p with ray tracing on and Radeon Image Sharpening enabled isn’t quite 4K, but it is an improvement over normal 1440p without a major FPS loss.

The other thing to know is that the Radeon RX 6000 series uses Microsoft’s DXR platform, not RTX. That means, games designed specifically for RTX ray tracing will not automatically work with DXR cards like the RX 6800 XT. While that might seem obvious, that does mean that some games that can do ray tracing won’t do ray tracing with these cards, such as Wolfenstein: Youngblood. That said, in the roster of games I had available to test, Wolfenstein was the only one that had this issue.

Radeon Anti-Lag, Radeon Boost, Content Creation

This launch isn’t all about hardware, though, as AMD has a couple of neat software tricks up its sleeve and some real highlights for streamers and content creation. The first is a technology called Radeon Anti-Lag and can work in conjunction with its second, Radeon Boost. Together, they aim to reduce input latency, improve performance and make games feel more responsive.

Radeon Anti-Lag works by controlling the pace of CPU tasks to better sync with GPUs in graphics-card-limited scenarios. By its design, this can have a minor impact on frame rate (several frames a second) but in my testing does make games feel more responsive. I’m far from a competitive gamer, so the fact that it’s perceptible even to me bodes well for competitive gamers in hardware-limited scenarios.

Radeon Boost, on the other hand, dynamically adjusts your resolution to increase performance. Unlike the resolution scaling you might be familiar with from console implementations, Boost only kicks in during bursts of motion when you’re unlikely to perceive any difference in visual quality. This improves overall performance, and when used in conjunction with Radeon Anti-Lag, makes competitive gaming feel more fluid and responsive. With little to no visual difference, there’s little reason not to use these features if you enjoy twitch shooters and need the lowest input possible.

Finally, the RX 6000 Series also brings with it the most recent codecs for streamers and content creators. In addition to traditional H.264, it also features H.265/HEVC and AV1 decoding for reduced bandwidth, higher quality game streaming.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Performance

Now that we have a better understanding of the card itself, let’s take a closer look at how it performs. All tests were performed at ultra settings to determine how the RX 6800 XT performs under pressure. In contrast to our prior GPU reviews, I have expanded ray tracing testing to include 1440p in a wide variety of tests to better demonstrate the different levels of expected performance. Since Rage Mode was highlighted as a gateway to improved performance, I included tests with Rage Mode enabled as a separate entry. I tested this preset at 4K only due to time and to examine the impact it would have in the most challenging scenarios.

As I mentioned previously, our test system is built on the Intel Z390 platform, so we were unable to take advantage of Smart Access Memory. If you’re gaming on a system that does have that hardware, your results will likely be slightly higher than what I was able to document.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Synthetic Benchmarks

Starting with our synthetics tests, the Radeon RX 6800 XT performed very well, topping the charts in Fire Strike and coming in second to the much more expensive Nvidia RTX 3090 Founders Edition in Heaven. These are rasterization tests, however, and don’t engage each card’s ray tracing capabilities so I turned to a series of additional benchmarks to see how it would stack up there.

The Ray Tracing tests begin to tell a different tale. 3DMark’s Port Royal tests find the RX 6800 XT falling short of the RTX 3090 and 3080 while still maintaining a lead over the RTX 3070. In Surgical Scalpels’ Boundary benchmark, the lack of DLSS support puts the RX 6800 XT at less than half the FPS of even the RTX 3070. It fares a little better in 3DMark’s Ray Tracing Test, but still falls short of any of the RTX cards.

Synthetics are good for comparing GPUs, but don’t necessarily say much about actual gameplay performance. Let’s see how it did in gaming benchmarks.

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Here’s where things get interesting. To say that it leapfrogs last generation’s RX 5700 XT is an understatement. In the games above, the RX 6800 XT explodes the frame rate at every resolution. FPS is 66% higher at 1080p, 77% higher at 1440p, and 81% higher at 4K. Generation over generation, that’s simply phenomenal; however, given that this is a 6800 XT and last generation topped out at 5700 XT, it’s possible we might see a more apt comparison in the future. For now, this is what we have and the results are extraordinary.

Compared to the RTX 3080, the RX 6800 XT is surprisingly competitive. It trades blows across games and resolutions. The RTX 3080 maintains the overall lead, but often by such a margin that it’s unlikely to be perceived during actual gameplay.

That said, without an equivalent to DLSS, ray tracing performance is much lower, as evidenced in Metro: Exodus. There, the RX 6800 XT delivered 65 FPS at 1440p but dropped to 35 at 4K. By contrast, the RTX 3080 offered 89 FPS at 1440p and 64 at 4K. Even without upscaling, the RX 6800 XT still surpassed the RTX 3070 at both 1440p and 4K resolutions.

Let’s take a look at 4K in particular with a wider variety of games.

For these tests, I narrowed down the focus to the current generation of 4K cards, excluding the RTX 3090 which is in an entirely different tier of price and performance. With this expanded selection of games, some ray traced and some not, several things become clear. First, when we look at pure rasterization, the RX 6800 XT is a beast. In default mode, it averages only 4% slower than the RTX 3080 (3% with Rage Mode enabled).

Try to play something with ray tracing enabled without DLSS and the gap becomes a chasm. Remember, most games supporting RTX today also support DLSS. Without that feature, the RX 6800 XT is 40% slower on those games and 18% behind the RTX 3070. The exception to this is the recently-released Dirt 5 which does not have DLSS and performed much better on the RX 6800 XT. Those numbers are both surprising and promising, so if this is an example of things to come, then maybe this won’t be an issue at all. Without a crystal ball there is no way to tell for certain. Looking at the entirety of our test roster, however, the RX 6800 XT was 23% slower than the RTX 3080 but 3% faster than the RTX 3070.

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The other thing to note here is that Rage Mode does offer a performance improvement, but it’s small at only 1% on average. At the same time, since the cooler is able to keep the card well within safe limits and it doesn’t result in much if any additional noise, there’s not a lot of reason not to have it on unless you plan to overclock.

So what can we take from this? First off, if you don’t care about ray tracing, the RX 6800 XT is an excellent way to game at 4K while also saving money. I would also consider this card if you’re currently at 1440p and looking to upgrade in the future. At that resolution, it can deliver 60+ FPS at ultra settings even with DXR enabled. While you’re waiting to make the resolution jump, AMD should be well on the path to delivering its own scaling solution.

If you’re already gaming at 4K and do care about ray tracing, this probably isn’t the card for you. At least not yet.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Thermals and Acoustics

When it comes to temperature, AMD bases its throttling on a relatively high junction temperature (the hottest spot on the die) of 110C. The GPU temperature, on the other hand, is the figure we typically look at, which often lags behind the junction temperature. This is important because even though the RX 6800 XT runs fairly hot at 89C peak in our testing, the junction temperature never reached its 110C throttle point while gaming. Even after hours of benchmark testing, it was able to maintain a clock rate in the 2400 MHz range, which is impressive. Still, 89C is hot for a high airflow case like my Lian Li LanCool II and this is dramatically higher than the 69C average I observed on the RTX 3080.

With its triple fan solution, the Radeon RX 6800 XT generates more noise than Nvidia’s current RTX line-up. It’s not loud, but did overtake my case fans slightly, clearly allowing me to hear when the GPU would spin up. Given the revised temperature load, it’s clear to see that AMD has carefully balanced acoustics with thermal performance and has done well walking the line.

Purchasing Guide

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT is available now with an MSRP of $649. It’s available at Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, direct from AMD, and other retailers, though like Nvidia’s latest cards, expect stock to be scarce for the time being.

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Pokemon Go has received a steady stream of tweaks and updates since its explosive debut back in Summer 2016, but the game will get its first major branded update next month. Dubbed Go Beyond, the massive update will be rolled out over the week of November 30, and it introduces some significant changes to the mobile game, including the first Gen 6 Pokemon, a higher level cap, seasons, and much more.

Kalos Pokemon

Niantic had previously teased that Kalos Pokemon were on the way to Pokemon Go, and the first Gen 6 monsters will arrive as part of the Go Beyond update. Starting December 2, players will be able to encounter a handful of Gen 6 Pokemon (and their evolutions) in the game, including X and Y starters Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie, as well as Bunnelby, Fletchling, and Litleo.

To coincide with the arrival of Gen 6 Pokemon, Niantic is holding a special event in the game in early December. Throughout the event, Gen 6 Pokemon will appear in the wild more frequently, effectively ensuring everyone gets a chance to catch them. The event kicks off at 10 AM local time on December 2 and runs until 10 PM local time on December 8.

Increased Level Cap And Leveling Changes

As part of the Go Beyond update, Niantic is implementing some major changes to the game’s leveling system. Starting November 30, the studio is making the process of leveling up to 40 easier by doling out more XP for capturing and evolving Pokemon, registering new Pokedex entries, hatching eggs, and other tasks. Niantic says the extra XP “will be as much as double what it was before” in some instances, which should make it much easier for lower-level players to catch up.

Everyone who reaches level 40 by the end of the year will earn the distinction of being a Legacy 40 Trainer. Along with this accolade, they’ll receive a few rewards, including a Legacy 40 medal and access to exclusive Timed Research that will offer its own rewards, including a Gyarados trainer cap for their avatar. You have until 11:59 PM local time on December 31 to earn the Legacy 40 rewards. To make it easier to hit that milestone, Niantic will offer a double catch XP bonus from today, November 18, through the remainder of the year.

On top of that, Niantic is bumping Pokemon Go’s player level cap up from 40 to 50. However, the leveling process will work a little differently for these high-level players. In addition to earning enough XP, players will need to complete new Level-Up Research challenges to raise their level beyond 40; for instance, to level up to 41, players will need to catch a high number of Pokemon in one day and complete other tasks. There will be similar challenge requirements for each successive level as well.

Players aren’t the only ones getting a level cap increase; Niantic is also making it possible to power up Pokemon even further than before. The studio is introducing a new type of Candy called Candy XL, which will let you increase a Pokemon’s CP further than originally possible. Niantic says you’ll be able to acquire Candy XL either by catching Pokemon or converting regular Candy.

Seasons

Another new feature coming as part of the Go Beyond update is Seasons. A new Season will begin in the game every three months, and each one will usher in some big changes. For instance, the kinds of Pokemon that spawn in the wild will vary by Season. Different Pokemon will also appear during a Season depending on your hemisphere; for example, players in the Northern Hemisphere will encounter wintry Pokemon during the game’s first Season, while those in the Southern Hemisphere will find summer-themed Pokemon like Burmy and Darumaka.

Naturally, the Season Pokemon Deerling will also tie into this new feature. You’ll be able to find a different Deerling form in the game each Season. Niantic also says that events will be themed around the Season they occur in, and different Mega-Evolved Pokemon will appear in Mega Raids depending on the Season.

12 Days Of Friendship Event

Ahead of the Go Beyond update, Niantic is holding a 12 Days of Friendship event in Pokemon Go beginning today, November 18. Throughout the event, your friendship level with another player will increase much more quickly than normal when you open gifts, trade Pokemon, or battle together in Raids and Gyms. Additionally, you’ll receive an attack boost when you battle in a Raid alongside a friend as well as increased XP for successfully completing the battle, and the number of gifts you can open each day has been increased. The 12 Days of Friendship event runs until 1 PM PT on November 30.

Have confirmed this report. The Xbox Series X|S sold through approx 155,000 units in its first week. 2/3 were Series X consoles
Some comps:
250k – PS4
185k – PSP
165k – PS3
150k – XB1
113k – 3DS
105k – Wii
85k – NDS
80k – Switch
70k – 360
40k – Wii Uhttps://t.co/W1VujkjNjZ

— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) November 18, 2020

A week after release in some parts of the world, new PS5 owners are doing some beautiful things with their new consoles and controllers, with custom paint jobs appearing online.

The PS5’s removable white plates lend themselves nicely to customisation, with one of the most popular recent posts on r/PS5 coming from Hawkijustin, who used Plastidip (a rubberized coating often used for car paint jobs) to turn the PS5’s bright white sails into a stately matte black:

On the more flamboyant end of things, Craayons custom painted an orange and white design, topped with a skull-and-PlayStation-logo motif (and you can see a video of the full design on Reddit):

Inspired by YouTuber Dave2D, Reddit user akarshbansal11 went for something more on-brand, creating the kind of striking Spider-Man shell theme that I’m sure many are hoping will become an official design one day soon:

Perhaps more impressive are the custom DualSense designs we’re seeing emerge. While we know that parts of the controller are removable, it’s a fairly strudy single unit, meaning full body customisation for the PS5’s controller is potentially a tricky business.

That’s why Yakuza83’s all-black DualSense is remarkable, not only turning the entire controller into a classic PlayStation hue, but replacing its face buttons with DualShock 4 designs, while apparently remaining fully functional:

KrysSpace went in another direction, spraypainting three separate sections of the DualSense to turn it into a galaxy purple design:

And if you’re wondering whether the Xbox Series consoles are getting the same treatment, we’re seeing fewer custom designs so far (presumably because of how the console itself is less modular than PS5) – but it’s absolutely worth pointing out TheBardAbaddon, who appears to have turned their Series X into Kingpin from Into the Spider-Verse. I want this sticker immediately:

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Embracer Group–a company that serves as the parent for THQ Nordic, Saber Interactive, and Deep Silver–has just acquired 13 different game studios, continuing its meteoric growth over the last few years.

Announced during a quarterly report on November 18, Embracer Group has purchased the following studios:

• A Thinking Ape Entertainment
• Zen Studios
• Snapshot Games
• Nimble Giant Entertainment
• 34BigThings
• Mad Head Games
• Sandbox Strategies
• Purple Lamp Studios
• IUGO Mobile Entertainment
• Quantic Lab
• Coffee Stain North
• Silent Games
• Flying Wild Hog

Not all of these companies are necessarily household names, but Flying Wild Hog created the recent well-received Shadow Warrior games, and it’s currently working on Shadow Warrior 3. That game is set to be published by Devolver Digital, and it has other projects in the works for Jagex and Focus Home Interactive. These will still be published by these companies despite the sale.

Zen Studios, meanwhile, is best known for its digital pinball games, and it recently partnered with Arcade1Up to produce at-home physical pinball tables. It will operate under Saber Interactive and will continue expanding into RPGs after the sale.

Snapshot Games, which has offices in the United States and Bulgaria, created the strategy game Phoenix Point. It is a spiritual successor to the original XCOM games and was designed by XCOM creator Julian Gollop.

These aren’t the only recent acquisitions Embracer has made, either. Metro developer 4A games was purchased earlier this year and announced it would be developing multiplayer experiences in the series, and Embracer also bought Little Nightmares developer Tarsier Studios and Darksiders 3 developer Gunfire Games in 2019.