AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT beats Nvidia's RTX 3090 Ti in new 3DMark leak

AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series refresh isn't far from release. As we get closer to the launch, it was only a matter of time before we saw some benchmark leaks, and while 3DMark score are not the final word in true real-world gaming performance, these results look good for AMD.

The results were posted over at WCCFTech. The site went ahead and published a range of 3DMark results covering the three refreshed cards, the Radeon RX 6950 XT, 6750 XT, and 6650 XT.

The 6950 XT in particular looks very strong. A Time Spy graphics score of 22209 is well ahead of a mighty RTX 3090 Ti at 20855 and a 6900 XT at 18463. That's a 20% improvement over the 6900 XT which is almost too much to believe unless WCCFTech's 6900 XT test system is bottlenecking it. The proverbial grain of salt is definitely required here.

The story is much the same for the 6750 XT and 6650 XT, both of which see impressive improvements (16% and 11% gains in Time Spy respectively). These are the kinds of gains that can't simply be attributed to faster memory, though perhaps when combined with higher clocks, board power and some driver tweaks, it's possible. It's going to be very interesting to see if these gains transfer over to percentage improvements in actual games. If they do, AMD could have a very competitive series on its hands.

The RX 6000 series refresh consists of three cards, the 6950 XT, 6750 XT and 6650 XT. They use three different GPUs, the high end Navi 21, mid-range Navi 22 and the lower mid-range Navi 23. These cards are expected to receive faster GDDR6 memory and slightly higher TDPs which allow them to maintain higher boost clocks. That's more or less what you'd expect from a mid-life refresh.

Pricing will be the key, and that is yet to be revealed. Now that the GPU crunch appears to have mostly ended, and cards are nearing their RRP ranges, it might be a good time to look out for a GPU bargain (did I really just say that?). 

The 6000 series refresh might not have a very long life though. We're still a few months away from the launch of next gen Ada Lovelace and RDNA 3 cards but enthusiasts surely have one eye on them already. Don't forget Intel's Arc series is just around the corner too.