AMD launches $479 Radeon RX 6700 XT, claims to rival the RTX 3070 with 50% more VRAM

AMD today has launched its newest member in the Radeon RX 6000 series gaming GPU family, the RX 6700 XT which is also based on the RDNA 2 architecture. The new GPU makes an entry at a reference MSRP of $479, and will be available from the 18th of this month as was rumored previously. Curiously, AMD had launched its predecessor, the RX 5700 XT for $399 so the MSRP has increased by 20% gen-on-gen. However, for the extra price, you do get more performance and 50% more VRAM than the last-gen card.

Most of the specifications of the 6700 XT were known from previous leaks, and the announcement also confirms that it features 96MB of Infinity Cache..

For $479, AMD claims the Radeon RX 6700 XT rivals the $499 RTX 3070 in some games, and it comes with 50% more VRAM. The RX 6700 XT is being targeted for 1440p AAA gaming with over 60fps and AMD thinks it will be a great upgrade for owners of previous-gen cards, like the GTX 1070 Ti. The 12GB VRAM also makes it more future-proof as a lot of the newer AAA titles consume north of 8GB with ultra textures enabled.

Aside from AAA gaming, AMD also believes the RX 6700 XT will be an excellent graphics card for 1440p competitive e-sports and claims to offer well over 165 fps in most of the tested titles like CS: GO, Valorant, Overwatch, Rainbow Six Siege, Hyper Scape, and more.

As mentioned above, the RX 6700 XT will be available from March 18 from AMD itself as well as partners like Sapphire, XFX, and ASUS.

Pre-built systems combining AMD Ryzen and RX 6000 GPUs will also be available from OEMs and system integrators.

AMD has also said that RX 6000 series mobile GPUs will be coming to laptops sometime later this year, although no dates have been specified.