People speculate. They always have and always will. It wasn't so out of the question to think that Big Navi was around 2080ti levels considering AMD's rather inconsistent GPU history at that point.
Actually, it was. If you honestly thought that a GPU with twice the CUs of the 5700XT would only be able to be 30% faster, you simply weren't thinking straight. I made a whole thread about how we should not underestimate Big Navi. Guess what happened. I got mocked and ridiculed, and I wasn't far off either.
Other than unreliable leaks, people can only go on the best information they have based on the histories of whatever they are speculating on. But to create this narrative that NV fans just shit on all the good works of AMD is just plain false.
I didn't hear anyone talk in here about how amazing their advancements are in comparison to RDNA1, even if according to them, nVidia's card is better.
I didn't hear anyone talk about how their cooler is not shit this time.
Smart Access Memory is swept under the rug.
16GB is swept under the rug.
You are the only one that mentioned a few of these. You are projecting yourself to everyone else in here. Not everyone is like you. Some of them pretend to be neutral yet stealthily post propaganda against these AMD cards. Many of them, before the cards were even released, would keep repeating the 2080Ti level as if it was already a fact. Bad drivers kept coming up, power consumption kept coming up, bad reference cards kept coming up. Basically all the faults of AMD were ballooned, before the cards were even announced.
When the 3080 was released, did you know how many times it was said that nVidia is too far ahead and that AMD will never catch up? I disagreed. You can already guess what happened.
Maybe hearing things that you don't like might be considered "shitting on" but if they are truthful it's not the same as people just unduly shitting on something just to do that.
Claiming that the 6800XT is slower than the RTX 3080 at every resolution I consider shitting on the AMD cards. Not only is it not true, that is exactly the narrative you say that never happens, yet it happened in this very thread. And it's now more remarkable, especially when in certain scenarios the sub $600 6800 beats even the $1500 RTX 3090. Do you see me going to the RTX or 3000 series thread and spamming that all over their thread? No. But it happens here. Considering the amount of times DLSS alone was mentioned here, you'd think it was an nVidia thread.
By that mantra, I've shit on NV a ton with their bunk ass 20xx series and this awful paper launch of the 30xx series. Am I just shitting on them too? Or telling the truth?
There is a difference between criticizing a card and shitting on it. One entails constructive criticism, and one is bravado which generally entails constant mentioning of all the stuff it is not good enough at, ignoring all the stuff the competitor lacks, and praising every little advantage the competitor has.
The 6800 cards are not perfect. Their RT as of right now seems to be inferior. And as of right now, there is no DLSS alternative. That does not mean that if I prefer to have 16GB with slower RT over 10GB with faster RT, that I have to be bullied for it or called an AMD fanboy. Because yes, I am going to push back.
The same thing happened on the CPU side. Even after the Ryzen 3000 series, there were still some people that say Intel is still superior. Even with the 5000 series, weird outliers are universalized to show how Intel is still better. Thankfully, the sales do not reflect these people, but, unfortunately, on the GPU side they do.
nVidia played with their customers multiple times. The last one was the RTX2000 series. Suddenly with the 3000 series, everyone forgets and starts praising nVidia to the moon. 3.5GB of usable memory instead of 4GB on the GTX 970? Card still is one of the best cards sold. 3GB 1060 not being an actual 1060 but sold under the same name? People still buy nVidia. The RTX2000 series is the first time where some people actually woke up, but one gen later, and it's all forgotten.
RX 570 beating out the 1050 Ti while being cheaper and having more VRAM? Sorry, too high a power consumption. No one bought it. RX480 having an insignificant amount of additional power drawn through the PCIe slot? Better not buy AMD.
It has come to the point where AMD needs to be a little scummy to gain back market share, and that is really fucking sad. Because the user base is like Dory. They forget too quickly and keep making the company that shoves a large log in their ass richer, so that the size of the log keeps growing every time. Hopefully, AMD gets more sales than previously, because honestly, they deserve it.