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Is the 6800 XT overkill for 1080p?

It's cheaper now the 7900 series is here. But 1080p isn't what it was made for...
Last Updated on December 28, 2022
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Full HD or 1080p is the go-to for professional gaming rigs. But the question ‘Is the 6800 XT overkill for 1080p?’ is important, as generations are moving on and prior generation cards continue to offer tempting performance that you may not need.

As technology has advanced, 1080p resolution has started falling behind and 1440p seems the new standard in mainstream setups. Due to these generational upgrades, people are getting more recent hardware – but is it necessary? It’s easy to be confused about GPU-monitor configurations, and if you only need 1080p, why spend more?

Ultimately, the RX 6800 XT is overkill for 1080p gaming if that’s what you’re looking for. The GPU was created to perform at high FPS in 1440p resolutions and even to support 4K gaming. Thanks to the 16GB GDDR6 VRAM memory and 256-bit bus width, this GPU can see its best performance in higher resolutions.

That means using the 6800 XT for 1080p gaming might actually be counterproductive, because you may end up suffering from bottlenecking – where you’ll be capped to a certain number of FPS below what is expected.

For 1080p gaming, we would recommend the AMD RX 6600 if you want the best quality. Or you can also go one generation below with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, where you’ll save some bucks by sacrificing some quality and performance. If you want Nvidia, though, you can get the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti or the 3050, and both will suffice for the task.

Is 6800 XT worth it at 1080p?

One of the main concerns when gaming in any resolution is FPS delivery. This is tied to the GPU, but also it depends on the monitor itself and how much hertz it can provide.

However, 1080p is a really small resolution for the power the 6800 XT can offer. At this resolution, even the highest hertz won’t be enough to fully use the GPU. So you’ll be overpaying for a GPU that you won’t be being used as it’s supposed to. This upgrade may actually harm your performance because the GPU will be sending signals that won’t be completely received by the CPU and you won’t get as many FPS as expected; this is what we called a bottleneck.

If you want to upgrade to the 6800 XT, we would recommend checking the CPU you have and maybe even getting a 1440p monitor, so you can experience all the power this GPU has to offer.

Camilo is a contributor for PC Guide. He's been into tech since he was a teen, surfing through the web and local stores trying to find the cheapest way to play the latest Half-Life on his old Windows