AMD Radeon RX 6800 Overclocking

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Conclusion

Overclocking the AMD Radeon RX 6800 was actually a bit easier than the Radeon RX 6800 XT.  Instead of needing to mess with the Minimum Frequency, we actually could simply leave that alone and leave it at default.  Instead, we only needed to increase the Maximum Frequency.  Of course, it is also important to increase the Power Limit up 15%.  We also enabled a faster fan speed just to ensure thermals were not holding it back.  The only real limits were that we could not increase Voltage, and the memory was severely limited in its potential due to a software lock.

By raising the Maximum Frequency and Power Limit we managed to get at times an overclock that was 230MHz faster.  The “average” overclock was 2372MHz versus the default of 2218MHz, which is just 7%.  However, this is because the frequency is still very dynamic, and there are low peaks that upset that average.  AS we said, in the times where the frequency was more consistent, we saw upwards of 200MHz changes, which actually make a big difference in performance.  We achieved this by pushing the Maximum Frequency up to 2500MHz on the slider. 

We also tried the highest setting on the slider which is 2600MHz.  We found that we could game for a few minutes, but then the game would crash.  During that time though the frequency hit numbers as high as 2560MHz.  We think that with some extra voltage we might be able to sustain this frequency, maybe even a peak of 2600MHz, if only we could raise the Voltage.  Unfortunately, the software is limited to 2600MHz on the maximum frequency also, so that is going to be the limit regardless. 

In terms of the memory, it is also a shame we are limited on overclocking.  We can simply overclock from 16GHz to 17.2GHz, which is not a lot.  We feel that the GDDR6 memory might be capable of higher frequencies, at least up to 18GHz.  Unfortunately, we are being restricted from that with these video cards at the moment. 

Performance

In terms of performance, the results are mixed based on the games.  At the worse, we saw improvements of around 4% in performance, in games like Watch Dogs which is driven more by the CPU.  Then there were some games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Control which yielded an 8% performance advantage.  It got even better in some games like Wolfenstein Youngblood and Ghost Recon Breakpoint which yielded a 9% and 10% performance increase respectively.  Therefore, the benefit is between 4-10% depending on the game, which can make a difference.

With Ray Tracing turned on we also saw a performance benefit.  The advantage was between 4-8% performance.  However, with Ray Tracing the performance was so miserable to begin with that overclocking did not improve the gameplay experience or make Ray Tracing playable a 1440p.  Only in Shadow of the Tomb Raider was Ray Tracing acceptable, while overclocked, at 1440p.  Otherwise, the GeForce RTX 3070 FE and GeForce RTX 3080 FE dominated Ray Tracing performance over the overclocked Radeon RX 6800.

Final Points

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 sits in an interesting place right now.  It doesn’t really have a price comparable video card to compete with from NVIDIA.  It’s more expensive than the GeForce RTX 3070 FE, and less than the GeForce RTX 3080 FE and Radeon RX 6800 XT.  On the plus side, it is slightly faster than the GeForce RTX 3070 FE, but in some games they are close.  Thankfully by overclocking the Radeon RX 6800 it is able to push beyond that and offer up better performance and gameplay experience compared to the GeForce RTX 3070 FE. 

In our original launch review conclusion, we concluded that we think the Radeon RX 6800 is priced a bit too high for the performance it generates.  If you take the overclock into consideration, this level of performance is where we think the Radeon RX 6800 should be for the price of $579.  It’s just a shame you have to overclock it to get it to the performance it should be for that price point so that it can compete better. 

Otherwise, the less expensive GeForce RTX 3070 FE is really a competitive video card, that can also overclock.  When it comes to Ray Tracing, there is no competition really, GeForce RTX is faster today, and no amount of overclocking can amend that. 

At the end of the day, the AMD Radeon RX 6800 can be taken farther by overclocking, and overclocking helps ease the cost factor for us.

Discussion

Brent Justicehttps://www.thefpsreview.com
Former managing editor of GPUs at HardOCP for 18 years, Brent Justice has been reviewing computer components since the late 90s, educated in the art and method of the computer hardware review, he brings experience, knowledge, and hands-on testing with a gamer-oriented and hardware enthusiast perspective. You can follow him on Twitter - @Brent_Justice You can sub to his YouTube channel - Justice Gaming https://www.youtube.com/c/JusticeGamingChannel You can check out his computer builds on KIT - @BrentJustice https://kit.co/BrentJustice

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