AMD Big Navi could beat Nvidia RTX 3080 in one key area

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AMD Big Navi could destroy Nvidia’s RTX 3080 on video memory, but that's not the whole story

AMD Radeon RX 6000
(Image credit: AMD)

AMD Big Navi could have more video memory than the mighty GeForce RTX 3080. And it’s also expected to have a smaller sibling with more VRAM than Nvidia’s wildly popular graphics card. 

At least that’s according to GPU specs laker rogame on Twitter, who posted that Navi 21 (aka Big Navi) will have 16GB of VRAM, while the smaller sibling, Navi 22, will have 12GB of VRAM. Both these cards will make up the new Radeon RX 6000 series of graphics cards. 

Comparatively, the RTX 3080 comes with 10GB of VRAM, but it’s the super speedy GDDR6X variety and uses a 320-bit memory interface. Big Navi could use more memory but it is tipped to be GDDR6 with a 256-bit memory bus, while Navi 22 is rumored to use a 192-bit bus interface, according to Wccftech. 

As such, more memory might not equate to more performance. And other leaks have Big Navi, which will likely be the flagship of the Radeon RX 6000 series, as a GPU that will chase but not quite beat the RTX 3080. 

But there's scope for AMD to use a larger memory interface bus, which when combined with the larger pool of video memory, could give it a high memory throughput and thus a lot of performance. However this is all based on rumors and speculation. 

We do know that the Radeon RX 6000 series will use AMD’s new RDNA 2 GPU architecture, which is also being used by the PS5 and Xbox Series X. It’s promising next-generation performance and hardware accelerated ray-tracing. 

So far it’s looking like Radeon RX 6000 series will offer some mid to high-end graphics cards that could beat Nvidia’s outgoing GeForce RTX 2000-series and challenge the new Ampere-based RTX 3000-series graphics cards, potentially at cheaper prices. 

Only the $1,499 GeForce RTX 3090 seems set to stand alone. It’ll come with 24GB of GDDR6X VRAM and can offer up to 8K gaming, making it a truly monstrous graphics card; we mean that literally as the card itself is huge. 

Big Navi and the rest of the Radeon RX 6000 series is expected to be revealed on October 28. So we’ve not got long to wait to see AMD’s retort to Nvidia’s new GeForce lineup. 

Roland Moore-Colyer
Roland Moore-Colyer

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face.