AMD shows off Radeon RX 6000 GPU power that could rival NVIDIA's RTX 3080

AMD Radeon 6000 Series Sneak Peek
AMD Radeon 6000 Series Sneak Peek (Image credit: AMD)

What you need to know

  • AMD today showed us a glimpse of Radeon RX 6000 performance at its virtual event.
  • The unnamed Radeon RX 6000 GPU was united with the newly unveiled Ryzen 9 5900X CPU.
  • The tandem's performance suggested by AMD means that "Big Navi" should compare to NVIDIA's RTX 3080.
  • The Radeon RX 6000 series is expected to be unveiled October 28.

The big attraction to today's AMD virtual event was the launch of Ryzen 5000-series processors (CPU), but the new chips weren't the only treat. Near the end of the event, AMD CEO Lisa Su revealed some 4K gameplay of Borderlands 3 running on the new AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and an unnamed Radeon RX 6000 graphics card (GPU). This is the most we've seen of the new card since a first look a few weeks ago.

Source: AMD (Image credit: Source: AMD)

With in-game Borderlands 3 settings at "Badass Quality," the system was able to average 61 FPS at 4K. While this was the only in-game footage shown, AMD also gave us some numbers for other popular games. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare at 4K with "Ultra Quality" in-game settings averaged 88 FPS, and Gears of War with similar settings averaged 73 FPS. These numbers suggest performance that closely matches up with NVIDIA's RTX 3080, which currently sits at the top of our best graphics card roundup.

As is tradition with showcase numbers, real results will no doubt vary. And it's also unclear which hardware this unnamed card's performance matches up to. AMD will no doubt have several RX 6000 GPUs to unveil October 28, and whether or not this is the top-of-the-line card coming out remains to be seen.

Cale Hunt
Contributor

Cale Hunt brings to Windows Central more than eight years of experience writing about laptops, PCs, accessories, games, and beyond. If it runs Windows or in some way complements the hardware, there’s a good chance he knows about it, has written about it, or is already busy testing it.