NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 vs AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 3080 | Radeon RX 6950 XT |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 10GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 760 GB/s | 576 GB/s |
| Shaders | 8704 | 5120 |
| Boost Clock | 1710 MHz | 2310 MHz |
| TDP | 320W | 335W |
| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 2.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 4,427 | 4,221 |
| Best Price | $699 | $1,099 |
| Value Score | 35/100 | 30/100 |
Verdict
The AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT is faster but costs more. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 offers better value for money. Your choice depends on budget vs. performance priority.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 vs AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT: Which Should You Buy?
The AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT is 14% faster at 1440p ultra (110.1 fps against 96.4 fps). That is roughly one settings notch — enough to matter if you are chasing a specific refresh rate, not enough to rescue a bad price.
You pay a 57% premium for the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT ($1,099 against $699) to get 14% more frames. The extra frames do not keep up with the extra cost — the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is the better value here.
Two things beyond raw speed: AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT carries 16GB against 10GB — the deciding factor at 1440p and above with ray tracing or texture packs, and the reason 10GB cards age badly; and the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT is 2 years newer (2022 versus 2020), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.