Don't make the mistake of even thinking about perf/dollar for top tier cards cost an additional $350-$800 for ~10% more improvement. Like the parent comment said, being the fastest is the reason these cards get bought not how good a deal they are. That being said I think the 6900 XT is far better than Nvidia were hoping it'd be. The 1st party benchmarks shown today had it on par with the 3090 (with "rage mode" and "smart access memory" in the comparison) which is certainly something unexpected from AMD.

Still it's more of a Zen 2 moment than a Zen 3 moment. From the lack of comments on RT performance compared to the competition (just that it was added to the hardware) it seems extremely unlikely the RT performance is at the same level. The cards also lack the dedicated inference hardware for features like DLSS or voice/video filtering. And the card still has less VRAM than the 3090. These are all minor but if you put them together it seems really unlikely we'll call the 6900 XT the absolute best performing GPU of the generationjJust like Zen 2 didn't topple Intel's claim of "best gaming CPU". We'll have to see 3rd party reviews and benchmarks to find out for sure though. What it does represent though is a huge upset in the 3070/3080 area where most cards are sold and a hint that there may be an Zen 3 moment coming for GPUs in the next generation where AMD really drives top tier performance to a new level after long stagnation instead of "just" coming close to taking the crown dead even.

Personally (and this part isn't going to be reflective of the average person) I was going to be a 3090 whale and I probably would still be if it weren't for Nvidia's shit stance on open drivers in Linux (one of my biggest gripes with my 2080 Ti). However with AMD being so close this round and me not having liked DLSS or RT on the 2080 Ti I'm willing to trade off for the 6900 XT. The $500 is a nice bonus but not really what's coming into play, like I said if I were trying to get perf/dollar the 6800 XT makes WAY more sense. This is similar to what happened with Zen 2, I was planning on getting the better Intel CPU for the couple extra FPS but I was fed up with meltdown type issues and Zen 2 was really damn close. Now I'm really excited for Zen 3 though :).