Reading the GPU section is also fun, but for a different reason. The GPU comments are so similar that I'll just do the 3080 vs 6800XT comparison here, the others are pretty much the same text with the models changed:
Nvidia’s 3080 GPU offers once in a decade price/performance improvements: a 3080 offers 55% more performance than a 2080 at the same MSRP. Given the widespread issues AMD users are facing with 5000 series GPUs (blue/black screens etc.), it is unlikely that AMD would have posed any direct threat to Nvidia’s market share this year. Nvidia’s price cuts are more likely related to upcoming console updates. The seven year old hardware in both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 is due an update later this year. Whatever the motivation behind Nvidia’s price cuts, Christmas has come early for PC gamers who can look forward to an unparalleled gaming experience in class leading titles such as Cyberpunk 2077. At ultra settings, with ray tracing enabled, Cyberpunk 2077 redefines the boundaries of immersive gaming. It makes GTA5 look like Tetris in comparison. The combination of RTX+DLSS delivers stunning graphics that are several tiers higher than both AMD's best discrete GPUs and the upcoming consoles. Nvidia’s 3000 series has more or less put AMD’s Radeon group in checkmate. Nonetheless, users should watch out for AMD’s marketers who often deliver elaborate BS whilst struggling to keep a straight face.
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AMD’s RX 6800-XT delivers a huge generational jump in performance. AMD have upgraded the single fan cooler to a more efficient triple fan solution, perhaps indicating a shift in focus from benchmark busting headlines to user experience. Following the widespread issues that users faced with the 5000 and Vega series, we are cautiously optimistic that AMD have taken steps to ensure driver and hardware stability, this will need to be proven over time. The release of the 6000 series explains why Nvidia doubled performance per dollar when they released their 3070 just a few weeks ago. A comparison between Nvidia’s previous generation flagship, the 2080 Ti, and the 6800-XT shows that AMD now offer comparable raw performance at half the price. 16GB of VRAM is a key feature of the 6800 cards. At higher resolutions and detail settings, performance can bottleneck without sufficient GPU memory. AMD's marketers often cherry pick obscure games with high res/settings, the details of which are rarely disclosed, then compare the results with cards that have less memory. In that scenario, the cards with less memory look weaker than they would at 1080p. The 1080p results are sometimes omitted altogether. Most users will see little benefit in gaming at high resolutions. We will post a more conclusive summary when we have sufficient driver and hardware stability data, but either way, without drastic price cuts (MSRP $650 USD) and miraculous marketing, the 6800 XT will struggle to compete, especially given the absence of RTX+DLSS which is required for the best gaming experience in class leading titles such as Cyberpunk 2077.
In the GPU comments the vitriol is really real. It overhypes Cyberpunk 2077 to hell and says that RT and DLSS are mandatory for the "best gaming experience" in a game that at the time of writing these comments hadn't even been released. And testing has shown that RT in most cases does fuck all in visual fidelity for a massive hit in performance. So, how about last gen in graphics?
The RTX 2070 Super replaces the RTX 2070 in Nvidia’s line-up of ray-tracing high performance GPUs, yielding around a 10% performance improvement at the same $500 USD price point. The 2070 Super has been upgraded to use the same GPU die as in the RTX 2080, and now has 2560 CUDA cores, up from 2304 in the 2070. It has a base and boost clock speed of 1605 and 1770 MHz respectively and a 215 W power draw compared to the 185 W per the original 2070. The RTX 2070S also features Turing NVENC which is far more efficient than CPU encoding and alleviates the need for casual streamers to use a dedicated stream PC. The launch of the RTX 2070 Super comes at an exciting time for those in the market for a new graphics card, who can also choose from AMD’s latest first generation RDNA RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT. Some swift maneuvering on price by AMD prior to launch date means that the RX 5700 XT is currently $100 USD cheaper than the 2070 Super. An RTX 2060 Super has also been launched. Also, an RTX 2080 Super is set for launch in the near future which will replace the 2080 offering at the $700 price point.
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Out of the box the reference 5700 XT has high burst speeds but under load it overheats and therefore drops frames to the extent that it is more or less unusable for demanding games like PUBG. In order to settle the card it was under volted by 120 mV and the maximum clock was lowered to 1,980 MHz (the stock BIOS and 19.9.1 driver defaulted the card to 2,030 MHz). The fan curve also had to be turned up to around 50% power at 75 degrees (which is a lot noisier than stock). After making these changes the card delivered far more consistent performance albeit with a reduced top speed and unacceptable (hair dryer) levels of noise. There were also incompatibilities with GTAV: enabling reflection MSAA resulted in very poor, almost matt, reflection fidelity (the same bug appeared on several Navi and Vega cards). The reference 5700 XT is great for beating benchmarks, but it is not so great for playing games. Thousands of people purchased the reference card expecting flagship performance, instead they got a shopping trolley with a V6 engine. It appears that the same marketing tactics were employed for the reference Vega 56 and 64 series of graphics cards which we will purchase for our gaming lab and generate effective Fps gaming metrics as soon as possible (results here). AMD appear to have very short term marketing strategists at the helm, they seem more concerned with this years bonuses than the longevity of the brand.
Not as vitriolic, but slamming the AMD marketing again. The interesting thing is that before the RX5000 series the AMD reviews weren't so vitriolic. The most disappointing GPU of 2019 (Radeon VII) did not get much negativity, except for the noise which was pretty much universal. Even the RX590 (which by most reviewers were deemed not worth it over the 580) got praised for its good value:
AMD’s mid-range RX 590 is the latest refresh of their Polaris-based RX 580, which in turn was a refresh of the RX 480. This iteration yields 10% higher clock speeds compared to the RX 580 which is fuelled by an increased power draw from 185W to 225W. The 590 does not have a 4GB variant which is good for longevity. At launch the 590 was priced at $280, which was 20% more expensive and 7% faster than Nvidia’s then popular 6GB 1060. In today’s market the 590 can be found for little as $170. For more than 90% of gamers (≤1080p) the RX 590 (at $170) represents the best value for money available. Since the GPU is by far the most important component in a gaming PC, it is usually worth spending more on it. The next step up from a 590 would be to Nvidia’s comparable $230 1660S. The 1660S is a more refined card, less heat results in less fan noise, but both are capable of delivering silky smooth 60+ EFps in almost all of today’s popular games at 1080p with maximum details.
So, it seems something happened with the release of Zen 2 and RX5000 that caused the shift in language. The 1700X got praised for being a promising CPU that could do much needed shake up of the market and the 2700X was mentioned as being good in multi-core workloads for those who valued that. But with the 3700X the language shifted to the current strong anti-AMD one, where they said the i3-9100F was a better gaming CPU (and recommended the 9600K ofc). Which happens to be the time where AMD showed that they could actually be a proper threat vs Intel and Nvidia again, where Zen 2 almost reached Intel, but not quite, and Navi showed promised for the future even if AMD still only could compete in the midrange.
An interesting thing is also how the site does an almost singluar focus on what has traditionally been the strong points of AMD and Nvidia, with 1080p gaming and high FPS. And now AMD is completely dominating the 1080p/1440p bracket there is absolutely no mention of it. Instead of AMD being praised for being the best for FPS-hungry gamers at 1080p, the narrative has changed to be all about RT and DLSS, both who can only be found in a minority of games and is of little value to the masses. Which makes me wonder how long until they change their resolution recommendation page to be all about 4K, where Nvidia are winning (for now, we'll see how that 10GB VRAM works out at the end of this generation of GPUs).
