Nvidia vs AMD — 2021 graphics card showdown
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2021 was not a good year for the graphics card market, with a global shortage and only a few new cards launched.
Nvidia and AMD released their latest flagship graphics cards in 2020, working this year to combat the global shortage by releasing more affordable cards.
Nvidia committed to reissuing some of its older units, specifically the RTX 2060 and the GTX 1050 Ti.
However, the graphics card manufacturer only managed to unveil its revamp of the RTX 2060 in December.
The new version features 6GB more video memory (VRAM) than the original RTX 2060 and 4GB more VRAM than the “Super” version of the card.
The 2021 RTX 2060 is made from the same TU106 silicon fabricated on TSMC’s 12nm FinFET manufacturing process but features more memory and CUDA cores, as well as a higher base clock speed than the original model.
Nvidia has yet to reveal recommended retail pricing for its new graphics card.
AMD released its Radeon RX 6600 graphics processing unit (GPU) in October 2021, offering 8GB of VRAM.
The card is based on AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics architecture, packing 28 compute units and ray accelerators, a game clock running at 2,044MHz and boost speed up to 2,491MHz, and 32MB of AMD Infinity Cache.
AMD says it offers up to 1.3 times better performance-per-watt than the RTX 3060 in 1080p at maximum settings and can run triple-A titles at over 100 frames per second.
The Radeon RX 6600 is now available from AMD board partners, including ASRock, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and XFX, starting at a single exit price of $329 (R5,227 excl. VAT and import costs) in the US.
In South Africa, Wootware is taking orders for three versions of the card, starting at R8,799 for the XFX Speedster Swift 210 edition.
The graphics card shortage is caused primarily by the global silicon shortage and “bots” used to automatically buy out the cards as they are released to resell them at inflated prices.
Another factor impacting the availability of graphics cards is the demand created by cryptocurrency miners, which use powerful graphics cards in their mining rigs.
The specifications of AMD and Nvidia’s flagship graphics cards, as well as their newer products, are provided in the table below. The manufacturers’ new cards are marked with an asterisk.
| Graphics card specifications | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specification | Radeon RX 6800 XT | GeForce RTX 3080 | Radeon RX 6900 XT | GeForce RTX 3090 | Radeon RX 6600* | RTX 2060 12GB* |
| Base frequency | 2,015MHz | 1,440MHz | 2,015MHz | 1,395MHz | 2092MHz | 1,470MHz |
| Boost frequency | 2,250MHz | 1,710MHz | 2,250MHz | 1,695MHz | 2,589MHz | 1,650MHz |
| RAM | 16GB GDDR6 | 10GB DDR6X | 16GB GDDR6 | 24GB GDDR6X | 8GB GDDR6 | 12GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Interface | 256-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit | 384-bit | 128-bit | 192-bit |
| TDP | 300W | 320W | 300W | 350W | 150W | 185W |
| Pricing | $649 (R10,310) | $699 (R11,105) | $999 (R15,781) | $1,499 (R23,814) | $329 (R5,227) | — |
| Recommended prices converted to rand exclude US sales taxes and differences in import costs. * New cards |
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