AMD Radeon RX 6800 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Comparison

# AMD Radeon RX 6800 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060: Benchmark Analysis

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 represent two distinct architectural approaches to high-performance desktop graphics. The RX 6800, built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 21 chip, is a late-generation enthusiast-class card from AMD's Radeon RX 6000 family. The RTX 5060, built on NVIDIA's Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB206 chip, is a current-generation mainstream offering from the GeForce 50-series. Data from the database shows both cards are highly competitive in synthetic workloads, with the AMD card winning 6 of 10 head-to-head comparisons and the NVIDIA card winning 4. This analysis examines their architectural differences, benchmark performance, and specification splits to identify where each card holds an advantage.

FAQ

Q: What are the core architectural differences between the RX 6800 and RTX 5060?

A: The RX 6800 uses AMD's RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 21 chip, built on a 7 nm TSMC process with 26,800 million transistors on a 520 mm² die. The RTX 5060 uses Blackwell 2.0 with the GB206 chip, built on a 5 nm TSMC node, packing 21,900 million transistors on a 181 mm² die. This gives the RX 6800 a transistor density of 51.5 million per mm², while the RTX 5060 reaches 121.0 million per mm².

Q: Which card has a higher transistor count?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6800 has more total transistors at 26,800 million versus 21,900 million on the RTX 5060. However, the RTX 5060 has the higher transistor density at 121 million per mm² due to the smaller 5 nm die size.

Q: What are the memory specifications for these cards?

A: The RX 6800 comes with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 512.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 5060 has 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s.

Q: How do the clock speeds compare?

A: The RX 6800 has a base clock of 1700 MHz and a boost of 2105 MHz, with a game clock of 1815 MHz. The RTX 5060 has a base clock of 2280 MHz and a boost of 2490 MHz. For memory, the RX 6800 runs at 2000 MHz effective, while the RTX 5060 runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective.

Q: What is the performance class of each card in the database?

A: The RX 6800 sits at the 75th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX 5060 sits at the 72nd percentile. The RX 6800 records an average benchmark score of 30095 across all tests, compared to 26331 for the RTX 5060.

Architecture Differences

The architectural split between these two cards explains most of their different benchmark personalities. The RX 6800 is a large die, 520 mm², built on TSMC's 7 nm process. The RTX 5060 uses a smaller 181 mm² die on TSMC's 5 nm node. This makes the RTX much denser: 121.0 million transistors per mm² versus 51.5 million per mm² for the AMD.

The RX 6800 has a 256-bit memory bus, the RTX 5060 a 128-bit bus. Both use modern memory types (GDDR6 for AMD, GDDR7 for NVIDIA). The AMD card includes 3840 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. It also has 60 ray tracing cores. The NVIDIA card carries 3840 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, plus 30 RT cores and 120 tensor cores.

The API support differs slightly. AMD lists DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. NVIDIA lists DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The RX 6800 supports a pixel rate of 202.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 505.2 GTexel/s. The RTX 5060 delivers 119.9 GPixel/s and 299.6 GTexel/s.

FP32 compute on the AMD card is 16.17 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 32.33 TFLOPS (2:1 ratio). The RTX 5060 also computes 19.18 TFLOPS FP32 and 19.18 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1 ratio).

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database's head-to-head results show a mix of wins across the two cards. The largest NVIDIA wins were in DirectX 12 Steel Nomad, where the RTX 5060 scored 3628 vs 3188 for the RX 6800, a 12.1% lead. In Geekbench OpenCL, the NVIDIA card won decisively, 112787 vs 24508, a 78.3% advantage. NVIDIA also won the Passmark G2D test, 1154 vs 990, a 14.2% lead.

The AMD RX 6800 took the Geekbench Vulkan test with 115107 vs 113321, a 1.6% win. In the Passmark DirectX 10, DirectX 11, and DirectX 12 tests, AMD won 127 vs 128 (0.8% higher), 214 vs 200 (7% higher), and 89 vs 77 (15.6% higher), respectively. AMD also won the Passmark DirectX 9 test, scoring 257 vs 225, a 14.2% lead. In Passmark G3D, the RX 6800 won again, 22067 vs 20891, a 5.6% advantage. The NVIDIA card took the GPU compute test by a narrow margin, 10899 vs 10864, a 0.3% difference.

Specification Differences

The power connectors reflect the different targets. The RX 6800 uses two 8-pin connectors while the RTX 5060 uses a single 8-pin connector. The AMD card has a dual-slot width, as does the NVIDIA card. Both use PCIe 4.0 x16 and PCIe 5.0 x8 respectively. The RX 6800 has a TDP of 250 W, the RTX 5060 has a TDP of 145 W. Suggested power supplies are 600 W for the AMD and 300 W for the NVIDIA.

The RX 6800 offers two HDMI 2.1 ports and two DisplayPort 1.4a outputs plus one USB Type-C. The RTX 5060 has one HDMI 2.1b port and three DisplayPort 2.1b outputs.

The RX 6800 measures 267 mm in length, 120 mm in height, and 40 mm in width. The RTX 5060 measures 241 mm, 111 mm, and 40 mm respectively.

The RX 6800 was released on October 27, 2020 with a launch MSRP of 579 USD, and its production status is End-of-life. The RTX 5060 was released May 18, 2025 with a launch MSRP of 299 USD, and is in Active production. The AMD card's predecessor is Navi, its successor Navi III. The NVIDIA card's predecessor is GeForce 40, its successor GeForce 60.

Where Each One Wins

Compute and Data Center Workloads: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 has the clear advantage in OpenCL compute workloads. Its 78.3% lead over the RX 6800 in Geekbench OpenCL is the largest margin in the head-to-head set. In the GPU compute test, it stays ahead by 0.3%, making it a better choice for general compute.

Legacy API Performance: The AMD Radeon RX 6800 performs better in older DirectX APIs. It wins the Passmark DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 tests by 14.2% and 0.8% respectively. The gap grows in DirectX 11 (7%) and DirectX 12 (15.6%). This is a good upgrade path for legacy workloads.

Rasterization: The AMD card shows a 5.6% lead in the Passmark G3D test. This includes a GPU compute win of 5.6%.

General Compute: The Geekbench Vulkan test puts AMD ahead by 1.6%, and the NVIDIA card takes the Geekbench OpenCL by a huge 78.3% margin, showing a strong split in compute API preference.

Modern titles: The NVIDIA RTX 5060 takes the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 (12.1% lead) and the G2D test (14.2% lead), making it the better card for modern DirectX 12 and 2D interface workloads.

The benchmark results show a clean split in performance. The AMD Radeon RX 6800 has an average score of 30095 and sits at the 75th percentile, historically a high midrange performer. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 is close behind with an average 26331, and at the 72nd percentile. The AMD wins the older API and raster workloads, the NVIDIA wins the modern compute and DirectX 12 workloads. For users of legacy DirectX applications, the RX 6800 is the strongest option. For new compute-oriented workloads and mainstream modern titles, the RTX 5060 is the better choice.