Nvidia RTX 4090 vs AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT: Which should you buy? These two flagship GPUs are among the best desktop graphics cards to buy. When they go head-to-head, the Nvidia RTX 4090 is a leap ahead. But overall, which one out of these two GPUs is superior?
In this comparison post of the Nvidia RTX 4090 vs AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, we’re going to compare their prices, power management, performances, and everything there’s to know about these two desktop graphics cards.
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Nvidia RTX 4090 vs AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT: Specs Comparison
| Specs | GeForce RTX 4090 | Radeon RX 6950 XT |
| Core Clock Speed | 2.23 MHz | 2.10 MHz |
| Boost Clock Speed | 2.52 MHz | 2.31 MHz |
| Tensor Cores | 4th Gen | N/A |
| RT Cores | 3rd Gen | N/A |
| Memory | 24 GB GDDR6X | 16 GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Speed | 21 Gbps | 18 Gbps |
| TDP | 450W | 335W |
Price
The Nvidia RTX 4090 is more expensive. At launch, it arrived at $1,599 (MSRP). And the Custom Editions by MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, etc are more expensive than the MSRP of $1,599. While the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT has a launched price of $1,099 (MSRP). Its Custom Editions are priced between $1,299 – $1,3999 making it the most affordable in this comparison.
Release Date and Availability
AMD announced the Radeon RX 6950 XT in May 2022, and it became available a month later. While the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 was announced on September 20, 2022, and the sale commences on October 12th, 2022. You can use the box at the bottom of this post to purchase either of them.
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Performance
Since both graphics cards are from different manufacturers, their specs and features are different. So it’s quite ineffective to base their comparison on specs alone. However, in certain key areas, the RTX 4090 aces the Radeon RX 6950 XT.
The RTX 4090 clock speed is 9% higher and has higher core counts, bus width, bandwidth, and memory than the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT. Another advantage of the RTX 4090 is that it is one generation ahead of the AMD RX 6950 XT. Which explains some of the advanced techs and features the RTX 4090 enjoys.
The Nvidia RTX 4090 is the fastest desktop graphics card ever tested yet on 3DMark Time Spy Extreme. The Nvidia RTX 4090 scored 19,000 points, while AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT had 9,850 points. This makes the RTX 4090 almost 2x faster than the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT, marking a massive leap in performance.
More so, the Nvidia RTX 4090 delivers excellent Ray Tracing performance alongside its support for the DLSS 3 upscaling technology. And for game streaming, NVIDIA RTX 40 GPUs have dual AV1 encoders supporting up to 8K 60 FPS recordings.
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Nvidia RTX 4090 vs AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT: Verdict
The Nvidia RTX 4090 is faster than the AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT. There’s a big generational gap between these two. And that’s because the Ada/Lovelace architecture used by the RTX 4090 is newer than the AMD RDNA 2 GPU. The winner of this comparison is more expensive so have that in the back of your mind too.
| Radeon RX 6950 XT | Price |
| Buy on Amazon | $1,299.99 |
| Buy on Amazon UK | £1,291.96 |
| Nvidia RTX 4090 | Price |
| Buy on Amazon | $2,149.95 |
