NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 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 3090 | Radeon RX 6950 XT |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 24GB GDDR6X | 16GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 936.2 GB/s | 576 GB/s |
| Shaders | 10496 | 5120 |
| Boost Clock | 1695 MHz | 2310 MHz |
| TDP | 350W | 335W |
| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 2.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 5,117 | 4,221 |
| Best Price | $1,499 | $1,099 |
| Value Score | 18/100 | 30/100 |
Verdict
The AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 vs AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT: Which Should You Buy?
These two land on top of each other: 110.1 fps versus 106 fps at 1440p ultra, a 4% difference you will not notice in a game. The decision comes down to price, VRAM and power draw rather than speed.
Pricing settles it: the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT is both faster and 36% cheaper at $1,099 versus $1,499. There is no scenario in this pairing where the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 is the better buy at these prices.
Two things beyond raw speed: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 carries 24GB against 16GB — the deciding factor at 1440p and above with ray tracing or texture packs, and the reason 16GB 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.