This explains some things

[Brian_B]

I often wondered why the 6900 suffered from less markup that other GPUs. I wouldn't call it immune, there's still nothing anywhere near MSRP but you can find the top tier AIB versions for not too much more than you would expect (that being relative to today's market).

I saw this come across my newsfeed today - maybe this helps explains why that is the case

AMD's Radeon RX 6900 XT is the Worse Mining GPU: 3 Years (38 Months) to Break Even | Hardware Times

Cryptocurrency prices have been in freefall with Ethereum shedding nearly 40% over the past month, falling to under $2,500 for the first time since late July 2021. Falling crypto prices mean lower profits for miners, and therefore more GPUs for gamers. As expected, graphics card mining...

www.hardwaretimes.com

 

[Dan_D]

Well, that would explain the availability and pricing being better. Additionally, I think there is less demand for them than there is for the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3090 cards. The reason being their relatively poor ray tracing performance compared to NVIDIA's. Whether or not that's important is certainly debatable. However, for people looking for a future proof solution and its perception of inferiority negatively impacts it. Plus, AMD's Radeon brand lacks the same recognition NVIDIA's GeForce brand has outside of enthusiast circles.

It's not any one thing but a combination of factors resulting in the pricing and availability. However, it's poor mining performance is probably the largest factor.

 

[LazyGamer]

I've considered buying one... primarily due to availability.

Held back because I have a "G-Sync Ultimate" monitor - that isn't available as FreeSync Premium monitor, though I do believe it supports FreeSync - and that I'd still need to rely on upscaling techniques for performance reasons, and DLSS is just a much better solution for that.

 

[Dan_D]

I've considered buying one... primarily due to availability.

Held back because I have a "G-Sync Ultimate" monitor - that isn't available as FreeSync Premium monitor, though I do believe it supports FreeSync - and that I'd still need to rely on upscaling techniques for performance reasons, and DLSS is just a much better solution for that.

If it supports FreeSync, you are fine. Why would you need to rely on upscaling with an AMD Radeon RX 6900XT? More specifically, why would you need upscaling to run at native resolution? And what does FreeSync or G-Sync have to do with that?

 

[LazyGamer]

If it supports FreeSync, you are fine.

It should work, I've just never gamed on a FreeSync monitor, and I'm pretty sensitive to tearing. There's no doubt that it'd be a step back with respect to VRR, my internal debate is 'how much, and will it matter to me'.

Why would you need to rely on upscaling with an AMD Radeon RX 6900XT? More specifically, why would you need upscaling to run at native resolution?

I keep GPUs too long, and I'm running at 3840x1600 up to 144Hz. AMDs solutions so far have fallen short of DLSS.

And what does FreeSync or G-Sync have to do with that?

Both things I would 'give up' if moving to an AMD GPU

 

[Dan_D]

It should work, I've just never gamed on a FreeSync monitor, and I'm pretty sensitive to tearing. There's no doubt that it'd be a step back with respect to VRR, my internal debate is 'how much, and will it matter to me'.

It's pretty close. Hardware G-Sync is certainly a bit better, but the trade off isn't substantial. I've gone back and forth between them before. I can tell, but it's not an enormous difference.

I keep GPUs too long, and I'm running at 3840x1600 up to 144Hz. AMDs solutions so far have fallen short of DLSS.

That may be, but you are a long way from having to concern yourself with needing to use DLSS outside of games that have ray tracing to get acceptable performance on max settings at that resolution.

I get it. If I had invested in a G-Sync ultimate display, I wouldn't want to give up the feature either. Plus, DLSS has far more industry support than AMD's FSR and AMD doesn't handle ray tracing as well. Hell, when I debated between a 6900XT and the RTX 3090, the latter won out despite being considerably more expensive. At the time, this was due to my G-Sync hardware monitor and the fact that AMD didn't even have DLSS and the 6900XT couldn't do ray tracing in Cyberpunk 2077, which is what I was playing the most when I did my upgrade.

 

[LazyGamer]

It's pretty close. Hardware G-Sync is certainly a bit better, but the trade off isn't substantial. I've gone back and forth between them before. I can tell, but it's not an enormous difference.

In my internal counter-argument, I basically feel that it won't matter. Any VRR is better than no VRR, etc.

That may be, but you are a long way from having to concern yourself with needing to use DLSS outside of games that have ray tracing to get acceptable performance on max settings at that resolution.

That's basically what I'm weighing. I'm thinking that I could get a 6800XT or 6900XT with extended power limits under water fairly easily, and that's something that I wanted to start working on too.

 

[David_Schroth]

From a mining perspective, the 6800, 6800 XT and 6900 XT do about the same eth hashrate, therefore, it's fairly obvious that their relative values are much closer together compared to NVIDIA's.

On the FHR NVidia side, those 3 cards hash about the same as a 3070 and the 3090 doubles all of those card's performance.

 

[SeymourGore]

There's a local guy willing to trade his recently purchased 6900 XT (still sealed, direct from AMD - or so he claims) for a RTX 3080. I'm feeling the temptation, I don't have that much of a need for raytracing, I like the idea of 16 GB, faster raster, and I've got a soft spot for Radeon.

 

[LazyGamer]

There's a local guy willing to trade his recently purchased 6900 XT (still sealed, direct from AMD - or so he claims) for a RTX 3080. I'm feeling the temptation, I don't have that much of a need for raytracing, I like the idea of 16 GB, faster raster, and I've got a soft spot for Radeon.

Looking at benchmarks... trade seems worth it, maybe? It's at least fair, depending on what you're after.

I will say that I got lucky with the Newegg Shuffle, and have an EVGA RTX 3080 12GB FTW3 Ultra (and probably other elements in the name I forgot) inbound. Paid MSRP, which is absurd for a *80 card, but was just happy to get one of anything.

Would've grabbed a 6800XT or better if one of those had popped at a reasonable price, though I'm happy to get an RTX 3k on EVGAs FTW3 card, as it has a higher power limit (450w) and there are GPU blocks available for it.