AMD announces RX 6700 XT graphics card launching March 18 for $479

AMD RX 6700 XT graphics card render on black background — (Image credit: AMD)

AMD today announced the AMD RX 6700 XT graphics card will launch March 18, offering gamers another bite of the RDNA 2 cherry. With an MSRP of $479, it will be the cheapest, and no doubt most popular, RDNA 2 card to date, too, and will offer some competition to Nvidia's RTX 30-series under $500.

Beneath it all is the Navi 22 GPU, which is a little different to the Navi 21 GPU shared across the RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800. That will come with 40 CUs enabled for a total of 2,560 cores.

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AMD RX 6000-series specs
Header Cell - Column 0	RX 6700 XT	RX 6800	RX 6800 XT	RX 6900 XT
GPU	Navi 22	Navi 21	Navi 21	Navi 21
Lithography	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 7nm	TSMC 7nm
Compute Units	40	60	72	80
Ray Accelerators	40	60	72	80
Cores	2,560	3,840	4,608	5,120
Boost clock	2,424MHz	2,105MHz	2,250MHz	2,250MHz
Memory capacity	12GB GDDR6	16GB GDDR6	16GB GDDR6	16GB GDDR6
Memory bus	-	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Infinity Cache	96MB	128MB	128MB	128MB
TGP	230W	250W	300W	300W
Price	$479	$579	$649	$999

As for VRAM, the RX 6700 XT will arrive with 12GB of GDDR6, on par with the newly-minted RTX 3060 12GB but an improvement on the 8GB GDDR6 found within the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070. We're yet to see a sizeable VRAM buffer offer startling effect on gaming performance, but it's there should you need it down the line.

As for overall performance, AMD is saying the RX 6700 XT will trade blows with the RTX 3070 and above the RTX 3060 Ti, although occasionally dipping below both, as per Watch Dogs: Legion in its own testing. That makes sense in terms of pricing, those two cards start out at $399 and $499, respectively, and its $479 price tag would have it sit right between the two, but we'll have to get our hands on one to really put this theory to the test.

Availability will be the name of the game here, however. AMD will need to be able to deliver plenty of the RX 6700 XT to meet demand in the lower price bracket, and that may be tricky with ongoing shortages.

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Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.