If you're one of the legions of users who have tried to secure a new video card during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, you're probably still shellshocked from the frustration of attempting to buy one. Nvidia is the way to go at present, but only because it currently has the GPU game on lock at the moment, as it trumps AMD’s current lineup in a variety of significant ways.
But AMD could have one more bullet in the chamber, despite not announcing a competitive alternative to Nvidia's lineup at CES 2021 this month. But that’s expected to change at some point, and the wait for an AMD alternative could be worth it.
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According to YouTuber Moore's Law is Dead, AMD skipped out on showing off the Radeon RX 6700 XT in what was rumored to be a much larger part of its CES presentation. Moore's Law is Dead suggests that AMD simply wanted to tweak and upgrade the new card’s stats as much as possible to make it more competitive with Nvidia's RTX 3060.
The YouTuber also makes a bold statement: the RX 6700 XT easily blows away the RTX 3060, citing rumored potential specs as their source. Reportedly, the RX 6700 XT will come packing 40 compute units clocked to 2.35 - 2.5 GHz. It’s also expected to offer 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM in a bid to match the GDDR6 seen with the Radeon RX 6800 cards. AIB versions of Navi 22 will likely receive 3070-caliber cookies capable of significant overclocking numbers.
There are "no updates on power consumption," but leaks advise not to be "surprised" if the model will be over 200W. Finally, the YouTuber claims there will be particular reference models with even lower prices, more in line with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti starting price of $329.
When AMD finally does enter the arena with this particular card, it'll continue to face off against Nvidia's pricey but powerful lineup. Starting with the GeForce RTX 3060 at $329 and going up through the GeForce RTX 3090 at $1,499, there's a card for all price points, with five based on Ampere. In fact, the cheapest Ampere card is actually less than AMD's current least expensive RDNA 2 model.
But this landscape will likely end up changing. If AMD’s card is as powerful as rumors say it is and offers a viable comparison to the RTX 3060, we could see a massive shift in power over the mid-range desktop gaming market. There isn't a concrete release date or even confirmation on much of what Moore's Law is Dead revealed on YouTube. But we're currently looking at a rumored May launch date for the RX 6700 XT.
