Very Basic 6800XT vs 3080 Question

[jasonbirder]

Pretty straightforward - collecting parts for a new build PC (availability allowing LOL)  and wanted some Guidance on the GPU choice...

Obviously if you look at  "generalist" Benchmarks Reviews...Team Greens 3080 would be the way to go BUT thats primarily on the back of Ray Tracing/DLSS technology and driver optimisation for popular games.

Now EITHER of those 2 Graphics cards will smash FPS out of the park for everything else I play (which is predominantly Turn based Sims, IL2 and Elite Dangerous) as I'm a Flat Screen 1440p kinda guy!

So really the deciding factor is which will give me better DCS performance? The better benchmarked 3080 or the slightly more grunt/more VRAM 6800XT

Its a pretty big decision and will likely have to last me for a few more years...so I need to canvass opinion before deciding!

Many Thanks!

[Lurker]

Since you've already mentioned that you game at 1440p then the 3080 is definitely the way to go. The extra ram of the 6800XT would probably only make a difference at higher resolutions OR VR. Then again the 6800XT is definitely a cheaper alternative, if you don't care about DLSS and Ray Tracing and cost is an issue, then the 6800XT is the better choice. 

 

Good luck, they are both excellent cards and you can't really go wrong with either. 

[Qiou87]

Funny enough, even if the 3080 has less VRAM, it seems to perform better than 6800XT at 4K in many benchmarks. Same for VR, the 3080 is superior to the 6800XT for this application. The 6800XT seems to perform better at lower resolutions against the 3080 in many comparisons, although in both cases they provide insane performance at 1080p and 1440p (probably more than what people actually need).

 

For 1440p flatscreen DCS gaming, I am wondering if you really need so much horsepower though. A cheaper 3070 or 6800 would already be able to provide excellent performance, and you would most likely be CPU limited in many instances with either of those cards. The added benefit is that both require much less power, so they can be quieter and less annoying in the summer months (depending where you live of course).

 

I'd say though, the best card is the one you can actually buy. At this game, at least here in the EU, nVidia seems to have slightly better availability than AMD.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Qiou87

[Dudikoff]

Hmm, I would say the opposite to what Lurker said.

 

IIRC, 6800XT should be generally slightly better in 1440p, but because of a 256-bit memory controller, gets hit at 4K and above.

Edited February 4, 2021 by Dudikoff

[jasonbirder]

Thanks for the ffeedback everyone

Not that i'm any the wiser LOL

Conscious that in some ways either of those cards might prove overpowered for DCS at the moment...BUT new Clouds/New Developments/Bigger/More Detailed Maps etc over the next few years (plus the fact I support a couple of external screens for MFCDs) means I might as well go as high as is sensible

(Though the Jump up to 3090/6900XT seems a step too far in terms of price/performance)

[Lurker]

1 hour ago, Dudikoff said:

Hmm, I would say the opposite to what Lurker said.

 

IIRC, 6800XT should be generally slightly better in 1440p, but because of a 256-bit memory controller, gets hit at 4K and above.

 

 

Yep, so far the benchmarks seem to favor the 3080 at 4K, which seems to confirm that bus speed is actually more important than total memory size at these resolutions. Which would mean that these huge memory pools are not really that important at all.

I'd say that at 1440p these cards are neck and neck in DCS, and seem to be overkill in any case. So like I said, you can't really go wrong with either. If you want to future proof for raytracing though, then Nvidia has the edge.

[Davee]

You will have to have an 800w plus power supply for the 3080.

750w for the 6800xt

So amend your shopping list accordingly pending your choice.

 

 

[jasonbirder]

Quote

You will have to have an 800w plus power supply for the 3080.

Sticking an 850W + in any flight sim set up is a bit of a no brainer when you think how many USB ports are occupied with hubs and peripherals and is a relatively insignificant cost increase in the build price

[Buzzles]

The benchmarks aren't worth worrying about imo, the sky high performance of both is really within a few % of each other in the real world anyway, so it's a toss up.

 

The slightly higher power usage and lower ram in the 3080 isn't a negative practically speaking, especially not in DCS. Until DCS goes properly multithread you'll prolly run into CPU bottlenecks first.

The only caveat specifically for DCS is the fact ED are going to Vulkan in the near future for DCS, and AMD cards *are* better at running it. For now.

AMD are also working on big driver update for mem managment that "may" boost perf. Those two could arguably swing it for 6800XT.

THAT SAID:

Whichever you can get your hands on and not get scalped on is the real answer, as performance is so close between the two.

 

 

Edited February 5, 2021 by Buzzles
misplaced return

[Ватрушка]

For DCS equally important CPU performance per core.

 

Edited February 5, 2021 by Ватрушка

[Lurker]

15 hours ago, Catseye said:

You will have to have an 800w plus power supply for the 3080.

750w for the 6800xt

So amend your shopping list accordingly pending your choice.

 

 

 

I have a 750W power supply and run a 3090RTX. No problems on my end. It is a pretty high end powersupply though.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Lurker

[Davee]

7 hours ago, Lurker said:

 

I have a 750W power supply and run a 3090RTX. No problems on my end. It is a pretty high end powersupply though.

 

That is very good to know. I also have a 750W power supply Gold Standard new. With my Asus Z490 board combined with an RTX3080, a site that evaluates this combination advised over 850W power supply is needed. There are so many variables to figure out - particularly OC requirements. Thanks for the feedback.

[Lurker]

13 hours ago, Catseye said:

That is very good to know. I also have a 750W power supply Gold Standard new. With my Asus Z490 board combined with an RTX3080, a site that evaluates this combination advised over 850W power supply is needed. There are so many variables to figure out - particularly OC requirements. Thanks for the feedback.

 

Yep Antec 750W Gold standard, modular power supply. Very quiet and very efficient. And I have quite a few peripherals including a VR headset, It's more than enough unless you've got a very expensive and power-hungry cooling solution or 6 raid drives or I don't know what.

[Thinder]

On 2/4/2021 at 2:32 PM, Qiou87 said:

Funny enough, even if the 3080 has less VRAM, it seems to perform better than 6800XT at 4K in many benchmarks.

 

I thought bemchmarks didn't transtale to DCS?

 

  

On 2/4/2021 at 10:15 AM, jasonbirder said:

Pretty straightforward - collecting parts for a new build PC (availability allowing LOL)  and wanted some Guidance on the GPU choice...

Obviously if you look at  "generalist" Benchmarks Reviews...Team Greens 3080 would be the way to go BUT thats primarily on the back of Ray Tracing/DLSS technology and driver optimisation for popular games.

Now EITHER of those 2 Graphics cards will smash FPS out of the park for everything else I play (which is predominantly Turn based Sims, IL2 and Elite Dangerous) as I'm a Flat Screen 1440p kinda guy!

So really the deciding factor is which will give me better DCS performance? The better benchmarked 3080 or the slightly more grunt/more VRAM 6800XT

Its a pretty big decision and will likely have to last me for a few more years...so I need to canvass opinion before deciding!

Many Thanks!

 

I'd say it's nowhere near as simple as that.

 

What people doesn't realize is that the benchmark they refer too most of the time are only 100% valid if you have the exact clone of the system which ran them.

 

I keep saying it but O.S optimization for gaming including page files size and location, storage speed, processor and its bound to the RAM matters a lot, when the CPU is well bounded to the RAM, your GPU performances will increse anyway, the reason seems to be controller and CPU access to GPU VRAM even without thinking about smart access memory.

 

So you can go for any of those GPUs, if you have a bottleneck somewhere, your CPU controller will throtthle down both itself and the RAM and allocate less bandwidth to the VRAM access, so your GPU will suffer more load for the same FPS, what matter is a good ballance between the whole system, on one side you have faster bus, on the other more VRAM, but it won't matter if your CPU to CPU bus is not used 100%.

 

Then for future applications using an all AMD or Intel NVIDIA system would make more sense, it would have been useful to know your system specs...

 

I refer you to one topic where I listed results of tests and what I did for optimizing my system, for your info, I gained 6.04% in CPU performances at 4K but also 1.33% in graphic score and 1.35% in combined score, all of this using 3D Mark Pro at 4K and 2 X MSAA, only by fitting the best RAM to my system.

 

Those results are for Physics test, CPU bench of 3D Marks.

 

Quote

Performances gain and settings.

System Optimization.

 

If you intend to play DCS at 4K in complex scenarios, it might be wise to get your CPU to work at its best without any bottleneck, since I intend to get another VR set, 6.04% CPU improvement is not a small gain, as I pointed out, the average headroom for O.C a 6000 series AMD GPU is 5%, and my results were obtained without O.C, only Ryzen Master and Afterburner both in Game mode (without touching voltage)...

 

According to this video the NVIDIA GPU is about 6% average faster at 4K, that would be on his bench with basically the same system to run both GPUs, Ryzen 9 5950X and DDR4 3200 MHz CL 14 which is a configuration I would chose myself for a Ryzen CPU only if it is 4 X single rank, now I think everyone can rely on the info given by multiplayer server users who seems to indicate that the CPU is important (RAM bound then) in these scenarios.

 

In short there is no ideal solution, it is up to you to figure on the basis of what you have, what you can or can't upgrade, which combination might work best at the resolution you intend to play your games and if the game of choice is heavier on CPU or GPU load at this resolution.

 

 

Edited February 6, 2021 by Thinder

[Davee]

11 hours ago, Lurker said:

 

Yep Antec 750W Gold standard, modular power supply. Very quiet and very efficient. And I have quite a few peripherals including a VR headset, It's more than enough unless you've got a very expensive and power-hungry cooling solution or 6 raid drives or I don't know what.

My CPU is water cooled. I can't see it drawing that much power. A few fans managed by temps so not always on full. Considering the performace of either card, I doubt I will have to OC as I do now with my 1080 so power draw will probably be factory stable.

[Voyager]

From what I've seen in benchmarks, the 6800 XT runs better in DCS, is comparable in MSFS2020, but has a major incompatibility in Il-2. By major, I mean the 6800 XT is currently behind the 5700 non-XT in those tests. 

 

So, if you are looking at just DCS, a 6800 XT should be good, but if you're a broad spectrum flight simmer the 3080 will be more consistent across the board. 

 

This may change as AMD and the various flight sim games release patches and updates. 

 

Also, we are expecting the 40 series and 7000 series cards to launch some time next year, so depending on how long the shortages last, it may make more sense to get one of those instead. 

[Strong05]

3080 cleans house over the 6800xt in MSFS.  Just got a 6800xt and it leaves a lot to be desired in DCS.   Not sure where the "6800" is best for DCS thing started but my experience is very counter to that thus far.

[Qiou87]

9 hours ago, Strong05 said:

3080 cleans house over the 6800xt in MSFS.  Just got a 6800xt and it leaves a lot to be desired in DCS.   Not sure where the "6800" is best for DCS thing started but my experience is very counter to that thus far.

I would be very thankful if you can elaborate on this, I was considering the 6800/XT for my G2 as an upgrade to the 2070S I currently have. I think many people consider those over the 3080 for DCS due to the VRAM, and so few of those Radeon 6000 cards are around that it is difficult to get accurate feedbacks about them in DCS.

[Strong05]

2 hours ago, Qiou87 said:

I would be very thankful if you can elaborate on this, I was considering the 6800/XT for my G2 as an upgrade to the 2070S I currently have. I think many people consider those over the 3080 for DCS due to the VRAM, and so few of those Radeon 6000 cards are around that it is difficult to get accurate feedbacks about them in DCS.

Every benchmark I've seen of MSFS puts the 3080 ahead of the 6800XT.  In 4k benchmarks there is some back and forth but overall the 3080 comes out with a higher average FPS of 4 according to gamers nexus benchmarks.   Of course these numbers change as games and drivers improve.  

 

I've also discovered that setting DX11 to forced on improves performance significantly for my 6800XT.  Still not sure how or if that changes anything when compared to performance of a 3080.  

 

People get really fixated on VRAM numbers, and I think that's because it's an easy to understand metric.  Unfortunately there's a lot more to GPU performance then the size of the VRAM.  Ram bandwidth for one, which the 3080 has a lot more of then the 6800XT. Secondly VRAM allocated is the not the same as used, and there is no good way that I know of to determine VRAM usage unless you have developer tools (gamers nexus also talks about this) to determine how much of that VRAM you are actually using (which is not he same as allocated, which is what we see with are tools).

[Qiou87]

 

5 minutes ago, Strong05 said:

Every benchmark I've seen of MSFS puts the 3080 ahead of the 6800XT.  In 4k benchmarks there is some back and forth but overall the 3080 comes out with a higher average FPS of 4 according to gamers nexus benchmarks.   Of course these numbers change as games and drivers improve.  

 

I've also discovered that setting DX11 to forced on improves performance significantly for my 6800XT.  Still not sure how or if that changes anything when compared to performance of a 3080.  

 

People get really fixated on VRAM numbers, and I think that's because it's an easy to understand metric.  Unfortunately there's a lot more to GPU performance then the size of the VRAM.  Ram bandwidth for one, which the 3080 has a lot more of then the 6800XT. Secondly VRAM allocated is the not the same as used, and there is no good way that I know of to determine VRAM usage unless you have developer tools (gamers nexus also talks about this) to determine how much of that VRAM you are actually using (which is not he same as allocated, which is what we see with are tools).

Yes, i agree, I have seen the same benchmarks. Ampere seem to perform better than RDNA2 at higher resolutions, and in the end that is mostly what we want in VR for example. I have also seen specific VR benchmarks on a number of games that showed the same (Ampere > RDNA2). My only concern with VRAM is to not be limited, like I am now, to low terrain textures in Syria or to have stutter in the Channel map when close to buildings.

 

I am personnally not sure about what is the best choice for DCS, I am not coming here with any preconceived idea, I am genuinely trying to gather information and help me decide if I should grab the 3080 or 6800XT when one of them becomes available. One day I read something pushing me towards the AMD card, the next is pushing for nVidia... that's the problem when cards are unavailable in large numbers, you start to think about it too much because you have too much time on your hands.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Qiou87

[Strong05]

1 minute ago, Qiou87 said:

 

Yes, i agree, I have seen the same benchmarks. Ampere seem to perform better than RDNA2 at higher resolutions, and in the end that is mostly what we want in VR for example. My only concern with VRAM is to not be limited, like I am now, to low terrain textures in Syria or to have stutter in the Channel map when close to buildings.

 

I am personnally not sure about what is the best choice for DCS, I am not coming here with any preconceived idea, I am genuinely trying to gather information and help me decide if I should grab the 3080 or 6800XT when one of them becomes available. One day I read something pushing me towards the AMD card, the next is pushing for nVidia... that's the problem when cards are unavailable in large numbers, you start to think about it too much.

Yup, I went through the same thing, and ended up with the 6800XT because it was what was available and in stock.

[Bossco82]

I bought a MSI 6800xt recently but sent it back due to a vbios problem causing severe crashes at the desktop and web browsing. I could sometimes get into a game to see how it performed. In DCS I use a 4k screen with 60hz vsync. I didn't like how the 6800xt performed at all, however it could have been down to the vbios or even a driver problem. In open areas, on the Supercarrier and up high it was fine, DCS used 12gb of vram maximum. However down low or trying to land at Dubai, different story it could not maintain 60 fps. I use the F-18 mission "Valley Run" as a benchmark and never saw over about 46-52fps with the 6800xt. I am now happily back on my 2080ti which never drops 60fps vsync. I am now waiting until the stocks of 3080's normalises. Like I said it could have been the vbios problem but it also used more electric at the wall than my 2080ti does when playing DCS or IL-2.

The 6800xt was ok in IL-2, however same problem, on such as a railyard strike diving into the town fps drops were common. Quite simply my 2080ti out performed it.

On the flipside games such as Battlefield 5, Call of Duty WW2 and Sniper Elite 4. Just like my 2080ti it maintained 60fps on ultra setting at 4k. However it did it using about 80 watts less electricity and lower clock speeds.

I was very exited to try RDNA2 and setup my system with a 5600x and X570 mobo to take advantage of 6gb vram with SAM. I dont have enough info to make a solid judgement but I think Nvidia might be the best for flight sims.

An additional note as there is a lot of discussion about vram. My 2080ti never runs into a problem with 11gb. I use MSI Afterburner beta to measure actual usage. Again I am using a 4k screen on high/ultra settings with trees and clutter set to 100%. Nevada 6800mb, Caucuses 7500mb down low over trees, Persian Gulf 8000mb over Dubai, Syria 9600mb again down low. You have to take the 2080ti's bandwidth into account though. I cant see the 3080 having a problem with 10gb. I think Nvidias memory management might be superior to AMD's.

Edited February 14, 2021 by Bossco82

[Qiou87]

Thank you for your feedback. Did you do a proper driver cleaning when switching from nVidia to AMD? It could also be one of the reasons for poor performance.

 

Regarding power consumption, the new high-end cards consume a lot more power. RTX3080 will easily exceed 300W under load, RTX3090 even worse (350W), with spikes over 450W for both. A friend of mine with a quality 650W PSU had shutdowns under load with a 3080 due to those... So yeah, the new cards are hungry. 

[Bossco82]

On 2/15/2021 at 9:41 AM, Qiou87 said:

Thank you for your feedback. Did you do a proper driver cleaning when switching from nVidia to AMD? It could also be one of the reasons for poor performance.

 

Regarding power consumption, the new high-end cards consume a lot more power. RTX3080 will easily exceed 300W under load, RTX3090 even worse (350W), with spikes over 450W for both. A friend of mine with a quality 650W PSU had shutdowns under load with a 3080 due to those... So yeah, the new cards are hungry. 

As for the drivers in practise no. Windows 10 "should" work the same with both drivers installed.

However whenever I swap from AMD to Nvidia and vice versa. I usually remove the driver and relevant software in Windows. Boot into safe mode, run DDU to clean out the old stuff. Then reboot and install my new drivers. Better safe than sorry.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Bossco82