AMD Radeon RX 6800 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X Comparison

The AMD Radeon RX 6800 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X represent two very different eras of GPU design, and the recorded data shows the newer card winning the overall benchmark battle while the older flagship keeps one surprising win. Across the three head-to-head tests in the database, the RX 6800 takes two victories against one for the TITAN X, despite the TITAN X sitting at the 80th percentile of all GPUs versus the 75th percentile for the RX 6800. That percentile gap reflects the composition of each card's benchmark portfolio rather than any real advantage for the Maxwell-era part: the RX 6800's wider set of recorded tests drags its average down in ways the head-to-head scores make clear.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The most striking result in the direct comparison is Geekbench Metal, where the RX 6800 posts 153,635 against the TITAN X's 18,723. That is an 87.8 percent margin in AMD's favor, the single largest gap in the entire matchup. The Vulkan test tells a similar story: 115,107 for the RX 6800 versus 49,397 for the TITAN X, a 57.1 percent advantage for the RDNA 2 card. These two results align closely with the raw architectural at play: the RX 6800 delivers 16.17 TFLOPS of FP32 compute against 6.691 TFLOPS for the TITAN X, a throughput gap the modern card's higher clocks and larger shading unit count translate directly into API-level performance.

The TITAN X's lone win is Geekbench OpenCL, where it scores 41,471 against 24,508, a 69.2 percent victory. This is an interesting outlier given the other two results, and it suggests the OpenCL path in this particular suite favors the TITAN X's configuration, likely related to its 384-bit memory bus and mature OpenCL implementation on the GM200 chip. It is notably the TITAN X's overall average benchmark score of 36,530 edges the RX 6800's 30,095, but that average is computed over each card's full set of recorded tests rather than shared head-to-head runs, so it should not be read as a direct victory for the NVIDIA card.

Context from each card's rival set reinforces how differently these averages behave. The TITAN X's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 5300M at a dead-even 0 percent delta, the NVIDIA T1000 at 0.7 percent, the AMD Radeon PRO W6400 at -1.7 percent, and the AMD Radeon Pro Duo at 1.9 percent, placing it in a cluster of lower-throughput professional and mobile parts. The RX 6800, by contrast, sits within a fraction of a percent of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (0.5 percent delta), the RTX 5070 Mobile (0.6 percent), the RTX 2080 Ti (1 percent), and the AMD Radeon RX 6700 (-1.1 percent). The company each card keeps is telling: the RX 6800 competes with genuine high-performance gaming GPUs, while the TITAN X's neighbors are far more modest.

FAQ

Q: Which card wins the most head-to-head benchmarks?

A: The RX 6800 wins two of three shared tests. It takes Geekbench Metal by 87.8 percent (153,635 vs 18,723) and Geekbench Vulkan by 57.1 percent (115,107 vs 49,397). The TITAN X wins Geekbench OpenCL by 69.2 percent (41,471 vs 24,508).

Q: How do their compute capabilities compare?

A: The RX 6800 delivers 16.17 TFLOPS FP32 and 32.33 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 rate), while the TITAN X provides 6.691 TFLOPS FP32 and no recorded FP16 figure. The RX 6800 also records 10,864 in PassMark GPU Compute.

Q: Do they have the same power requirements?

A: Both carry a 250 W TDP and both suggest a 600 W PSU. The TITAN X uses one 6-pin plus one 8-pin connector, while the RX 6800 uses two 8-pin connectors.

Q: Which card has more memory bandwidth?

A: The RX 6800, with 512.0 GB/s from 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus running at 16 Gbps effective. The TITAN X offers 336.6 GB/s from 12 GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus at 7 Gbps effective.

Q: Are both cards still in production?

A: No. Both are listed as end-of-life. The TITAN X launched in March 2015 with a launch MSRP of 999 USD, and the RX 6800 launched in October 2020 with a launch MSRP of 579 USD.

Q: Which supports ray tracing?

A: Only the RX 6800. It has 60 RT cores, while the TITAN X has none recorded. The RX 6800 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus DirectX 12 (12_1) on the TITAN X.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gulf between these two cards is generational in every sense. The TITAN X is built on the GM200 chip using NVIDIA's Maxwell 2.0 architecture on TSMC's 28 nm process, packing 8,000 million transistors onto a 601 mm² die for a density of 13.3M per mm². The RX 6800 uses the Navi 21 chip on AMD's RDNA 2.0 architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process with 26,800 million transistors on a smaller 520 mm² die at 51.5M per mm². Nearly four times the transistor count on a smaller die is the clearest single measure of how far process technology advanced between these designs.

Functional blocks differ accordingly. The TITAN X fields 3,072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 96 ROPs. The RX 6800 counters with 3,840 shading units, 240 TMUs, and the same 96 ROPs, plus 60 RT cores the Maxwell card simply lacks. Clock behavior also diverges sharply: the TITAN X runs a 1000 MHz base and 1089 MHz boost, while the RX 6800 runs 1700 MHz base, 2105 MHz boost, and an explicit 1815 MHz game clock. The resulting output rates favor the RX 6800 across the board, with 202.1 GPixel/s versus 104.5 GPixel/s for pixel fill and 505.2 GTexel/s versus 209.1 GTexel/s for texture fill.

Feature support follows the same pattern. The RX 6800 offers DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4a, and a USB Type-C output alongside PCIe 4.0 x16. The TITAN X tops out at DirectX 12 (12_1), HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.2, DVI, and PCIe 3.0 x16. Both share OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4 support in the database records.

Specification Differences

The cards match on a few basics: 250 W TDP, dual-slot width, a 600 W suggested PSU, identical 267 mm length, TSMC manufacturing, and end-of-life status. Everything else of consequence differs:

• Process node: 28 nm (TITAN X) vs 7 nm (RX 6800)
• Transistors: 8,000 million vs 26,800 million
• Die size: 601 mm² vs 520 mm²
• Shading units: 3,072 vs 3,840
• TMUs: 192 vs 240
• RT cores: none vs 60
• FP32: 6.691 TFLOPS vs 16.17 TFLOPS
• Memory: 12 GB GDDR5 on 384-bit at 336.6 GB/s vs 16 GB GDDR6 on 256-bit at 512.0 GB/s
• Bus interface: PCIe 3.0 x16 vs PCIe 4.0 x16
• Power connectors: 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin vs 2x 8-pin
• Height and width: 111 mm x 38 mm vs 120 mm x 40 mm
• Launch MSRP: 999 USD vs 579 USD
• DirectX: 12 (12_1) vs 12 Ultimate (12_2)

The Verdict

The data points one direction for anyone choosing between these two today: the RX 6800 is the stronger graphics card. It wins two of three head-to-head tests, including the two most decisive ones, and the 87.8 percent Metal margin and 57.1 percent Vulkan margin dwarf the TITAN X's 69.2 percent OpenCL win in practical significance for graphics workloads. It adds hardware ray tracing, twice the DirectX feature level, faster memory subsystem, a more modern display output set, and a stronger peer group, standing shoulder to shoulder with cards like the RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 2080 Ti.

The TITAN X case rests on two legs. First, its OpenCL result of 41,471 is genuinely superior, 69.2 percent ahead, so a workload locked to that specific compute API is the one scenario where the old flagship still leads. Second, its 80th percentile ranking against all GPUs is technically higher than the RX 6800's 75th, though the composition of its benchmark portfolio, with fewer recorded tests, makes that comparison misleading. For everything the database measures beyond OpenCL, the RX 6800 is the pick.

Where Each One Wins

RX 6800 territory: Vulkan and Metal workloads, modern gaming with ray tracing, high-throughput compute (16.17 TFLOPS FP32, 32.33 TFLOPS FP16), memory-bandwidth-sensitive tasks at 512.0 GB/s, and any build wanting PCIe 4.0, HDMI 2.1, or DisplayPort 1.4a. Its PassMark results, including 22,067 in G3D, further cement it as the gaming choice.

TITAN X territory: OpenCL compute pipelines specifically, where it holds a 69.2 percent lead, and legacy display setups needing DVI or multiple DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. Its narrower 384-bit bus and 12 GB frame buffer are respectable on paper, but the bandwidth figure of 336.6 GB/s falls well short of the RX 6800's, so its practical wins are narrow and API-specific.