AMD reveals Radeon RX 6700 XT at Where Gaming Begins event

It’s that time again where AMD graces us with their presence to announce yet more hardware to add to their ever-growing lineup. This time around, it’s another iteration of their ‘Where Gaming Begins’ show in which previous episodes focused on new Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, and the launch of their impressive 6000 series Radeon RX graphics cards.

Speculation before the event was that it was going to focus on a brand new graphics card entry into the 6000 series – the Radeon RX 6700 XT, and the event did not disappoint. We got to see what this new GPU has to offer for gamers both in terms of specs and benchmarks of some of the current titles on the market. Additionally, in true AMD fashion, we saw the unit itself, giving us a clear view of what to expect when you unbox this next-gen GPU for yourself.

We’re going to run through what the 6700 XT brings to the table and other new info Scott Herkelman gave us today.

So, what can we expect from the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT? Well, coming in as a budget-friendly option for gamers, it focuses more on the 1440p player rather than those who want the absolute highest in-game fidelity.

In terms of raw specs, this is what the 6700 XT offers:

• 40 Compute Units
• 2424MHz Game Clock
• 96MB Infinity Cache
• 12GB GDDR6 RAM
• 230W Board Power

As you can see, it’s no slouch even if it does come in at a lower cost. This means it could be a real contender when gaming PC builders are wanting a more budget system that still details solid performance.

It, of course, includes that Smart Access Memory that AMD has enabled with these 6000 series GPUs which only amplifies performance when paired with a 5000, and now 3000 series CPU.

As previously stated, the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT focuses on 1440p resolutions so you’re not going to see any crazy performance when in 4K but as shown in AMD’s presentation, you can expect to see 82 FPS when playing Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on max settings at 1440p and even almost reaching 100 FPS when getting into Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War at the same settings levels.

Moreover, as Herkelman mentioned, today’s games are only increasing the strain put onto GPUs, so with the included 12GB GDDR6 RAM, it should be able to hold up these FPS levels for a reasonable amount of time.

As confirmed by Scott Herkelman the release date for the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT will be March 18th and will cost $479. At the time of writing this, that is just two weeks away so if you’re in the market for a more cost-effective AMD GPU, you better get that wallet at the ready.

Both first and third-party variants will be available on March 18th, different from other AMD launches, so maybe you’ll have more of a chance of securing one this time around.

With Herkelman’s signing-off statement, it seems that AMD still has a lot up its sleeve when it comes to GPUs and we may yet see more graphics card announcements in the coming months.

Overall, based on what we saw today, the intense rivalry between AMD and Nvidia seems to have been taken up a notch. Therefore, it can only be good for consumers looking for not only competitively priced components, but also trying to maximize the specs that are going into their new rigs.

All we can hope that since it’s been a few months since the launch of other AMD GPUs, stock levels will be heading in the right direction. It did seem promising that not only first-party units but also third-party options will be available March 18th. Alas, that could only mean more scalping opportunities for those bots but at this point, we’ll take any improvement than previous releases.