AMD Lays Claim to the FPS/$ Battle Against Nvidia

News
By Francisco Pires
published

AMD claims the highest frames per dollar on GPU technology.

AMD
(Image credit: AMD)

According to AMD, its graphics cards offerings provide users with the best bang for the buck compared to its arch-rival Nvidia. The unsurprising claim was made by AMD's Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Marketing, Frank Azor, who took to Twitter to share a listing of AMD's GPUs on the RX 6000 series compared to Nvidia's RTX 3000 series cards. Of course, companies always tout their own products against the competition - it's just good business in general. And when it comes to the world's best GPUs, every bit of marketing muscle counts.

Frank Azor's chart includes all released RX 6000 series cards, including the recent series refresh in the form of the RX 6*50 cards. The same is true for the Nvidia camp, with only Nvidia's RTX 3090 Ti being missing from the charts.

(Image credit: AMD / Frank Azor)

According to AMD, its fastest RDNA2 card, the Radeon RX 6950XT, offers up around 80% better performance per dollar compared to Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3090, and superior performance per watt metrics to the tune of 22% higher frames per watt. According to the company, the most lopsided performance/dollar/watt card offerings from both camps concerns the RX 6400 from team red and the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti from team green. 

According to AMD, its RX 6400 ushers in an incredible 89% higher FPS per dollar, and 129% higher performance/watt. Do remember that AMD's RX 6400 was launched earlier this year to an overall negative reception on account of its handicapped performance, and it enjoys a manufacturing process advantage (TSMC's 6 nm) compared to the now six-year old, 14 nm GTX 1050 Ti.

The timing of this marketing from AMD is interesting, as it comes hot on the heels of rapidly depreciating GPU prices in both the primary and secondary markets, which finally - finally - brought graphics cards' average selling price (ASP) close to their mostly virtual launch MSRP. 

AMD's pricing quotes are based upon list prices on a single market and a single vendor - Newegg - as available on May 10th. This means that AMD's claims, while accurate to the reported cards, aren't easily transferable between markets or vendors, and it's likely the company cherry-picked the vendor that offered the best weighted price for both its offerings and Nvidia's. Interestingly, Newegg's best selling GPUs have recently been dominated by Nvidia - perhaps prompting this move from AMD.

Francisco Pires
Francisco Pires
Freelance News Writer

Francisco Pires is a freelance news writer for Tom's Hardware with a soft side for quantum computing.

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13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • -Fran-
    Well, I'd be desperate to sell everything that's been piling up in shelves before the next gen release, haha.

    But they're not that off the mark though. Credit given where it's due, I guess. They do have a good GPU uArch with RDNA2 and we know nVidia just had to push the power to the limit to have a substantial difference to AMD. Unfortunately for AMD, outside of the 300W+ category, most people won't buy stupid expensive cards and there's where nVidia is most competitive in all those metrics. As I've said, I still think the best GPU of this gen was the 3060ti, where everywhere else is AMD (kind of) in my view.

    They've delivered on their promises as well, which is nice to see: FSR 1.0 and 2.0 being the biggest deliveries.

    I'm looking forward to RNDA3 and Ada Lovelace's fight.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • KyaraM
    These bs "I'm the best!" "No, I am!" sandbox quarrels are frankly getting tiresome... do we really need reports on every single claim they make? What do they even try to achieve, and I'm talking about everyone here not just AMD, by making them? Getting more customers? Well, tough luck, for me at least it's turning me off even considering them and every sensible person should be, too. Seriously...
    Reply
  • LastStanding
    Yeah, but for that "extra ~6%" perf gain (6900xt vs 6800xt) for an extra cool 350 bucks, minimum, though, AMD looks kind of stupid for poking-the-bear here.

    We all know that the 6800xt MSRP should've been ~499 up to 579, at launch, and the 6900xt should've been ~599 up to 729-ish at launch as well, not these INTENTIONALLY inflated prices.

    All AMD did here likely was they had looked at NVIDIA's Ampere prices, FIRST, and said: "Hey, we weren't going to price our GPUs this high but since NVIDIA overpriced its 3090 so ridiculous high, we have a window of opportunity here and we could still look like we are the better bargain compared to NVIDIA 🤑"

    AMD needs to be concerned about how are they going to gain more market share, WITH TALENT, for its RDNA3 architecture, and beyond, in advancement in RT over rasterization, AI/ML, etc. rather than these silly playground tactics taunting.
    Reply
  • renz496
    LastStanding said:
    AMD needs to be concerned about how to gain more market share, WITH TALENT, for its RDNA3 architecture, and beyond, in advancement in RT over rasterization, AI/ML, etc. rather than these silly playground tactics taunting.

    looking what AMD did for this whole generation i don't think AMD really care about gaining significant market share when it comes to GPU. not selling as many is fine as long as the profit margin are big. no need to engage nvidia heavily on price war where it can impact company's revenue.
    Reply
  • Soaptrail
    KyaraM said:
    These bs "I'm the best!" "No, I am!" sandbox quarrels are frankly getting tiresome... do we really need reports on every single claim they make? What do they even try to achieve, and I'm talking about everyone here not just AMD, by making them? Getting more customers? Well, tough luck, for me at least it's turning me off even considering them and every sensible person should be, too. Seriously...

    AMD just needed to get one last title in before Intel steals the crown from both AMD and Nvidia. /sarcasm
    Reply
  • KyaraM
    Soaptrail said:
    AMD just needed to get one last title in before Intel steals the crown from both AMD and Nvidia. /sarcasm
    I don't really care how Intel's cards measure up against either. They are first gen products anyways, anyone who expects great performance off the bat is delusional. The second or third gens are the interesting ones, this right now is simply a tech demo releaed to the general public and nothing more. But I don't care about playground behavior, either. And that's what this here is about.

    Edited for error correction.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    AMD has almost always had better performance per dollar. This is nothing new. So it makes little sense for AMD to put this out there with so many peculiarities and questionable accuracy. Frank Azor is a clown that AMD would be better without.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    spongiemaster said:
    AMD has almost always had better performance per dollar. This is nothing new. So it makes little sense for AMD to put this out there with so many peculiarities and questionable accuracy. Frank Azor is a clown that AMD would be better without.
    Everyone that follows tech news and reviews. The general populate (hence why it was spewed in Twatter) does not have this insight, even if from the Corporations themselves. That being said, I wonder if the AMD/Radeon Twitters have re-twitted and such. Well, the point is, like it or not, some people just follows mouth-to-mouth recommendations and nVidia has the bigger mind-share.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • ddcservices
    LastStanding said:
    Yeah, but for that "extra ~6%" perf gain (6900xt vs 6800xt) for an extra cool 350 bucks, minimum, though, AMD looks kind of stupid for poking-the-bear here.

    We all know that the 6800xt MSRP should've been ~499 up to 579, at launch, and the 6900xt should've been ~599 up to 729-ish at launch as well, not these INTENTIONALLY inflated prices.

    All AMD did here likely was they had looked at NVIDIA's Ampere prices, FIRST, and said: "Hey, we weren't going to price our GPUs this high but since NVIDIA overpriced its 3090 so ridiculous high, we have a window of opportunity here and we could still look like we are the better bargain compared to NVIDIA 🤑"

    AMD needs to be concerned about how are they going to gain more market share, WITH TALENT, for its RDNA3 architecture, and beyond, in advancement in RT over rasterization, AI/ML, etc. rather than these silly playground tactics taunting.
    What you don't understand is that the price structure is based on yields and how difficult it is to make a given product. The Radeon 6800, 6800XT, and 6900XT are all made from the same fab process and design, with the only difference being how many GOOD CUs there are. At launch, the 6900XT may have only been 10 percent from any wafer, so, 6800XT and 6800 are made from those that don't have enough working CUs to qualify to be a 6900XT.

    Now, there is an additional problem, what is the cost difference when it comes to cooling and VRMs? Same PCB, but bigger cooler and more VRMs shouldn't cost that much more, until you deal with transportation and if they charge based on size/weight, where larger card will cost more money for transportation.

    That $1000 MSRP for the 6900XT as a complete video card also came before the Trump tariffs and the spike in oil/transportation prices that made it MUCH more expensive to get goods from China to the USA. Even with the GPUs being made in Taiwan, the actual video cards are being mass produced in China, so is subject to any expenses. If Intel ever starts to sell discrete video cards, it will also have the same problem, because no matter where the chips are made, the video cards will be made and will ship from China.
    Reply
  • digitalgriffin
    renz496 said:
    looking what AMD did for this whole generation i don't think AMD really care about gaining significant market share when it comes to GPU. not selling as many is fine as long as the profit margin are big. no need to engage nvidia heavily on price war where it can impact company's revenue.

    I think AMD misfired on two accounts:

    1. Their super high end cards which should be targeted at 4K lost out to NVIDIA. You don't buy a 6800 and 6900 for 1440p. Now it's closer to a tie based on pricing

    2. Ray Tracing just is AWFUL on a the 6000 series. If you played RT at all, then minor price bump was well worth the price.
    Reply