AMD is said to be in talks with its AIB partners on allowing Radeon RX 6900 XT custom graphics cards. In addition to the Radeon RX 6900 XT, rumors are starting to pop up which indicate that AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 series would launch with limited stock quantities which will make it a bit hard for consumers to get one early on.
AMD & AIB Partners In Talks To Allow Radeon RX 6900 XT Custom Graphics Cards
The first report comes from HardwareLuxx who have stated that AMD is in early talks with its AIBs to allow custom Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards for the consumer segment. The RX 6900 XT is the flagship “Big Navi” GPU offering and will be the fastest of the three graphics cards based on the Navi 21 GPU. However, during the announcement, AMD only announced custom model availability for the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards.
The Radeon RX 6900 XT was excluded in terms of custom model availability by AMD during the unveil but that may change as AIBs and AMD are in talks to greenlight non-reference models for the flagship graphics card. The AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT launches on 8th of December which is a few weeks after the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards. This is mostly to allow enough quantities for the Big Navi “Navi 21 XTX” GPU to be made to supply a handful of gaming enthusiasts on launch.
It will be interesting if AIBs can succeed in making AMD allow Radeon RX 6900 XT custom models. There’s little to no effort required to produce a Radeon RX 6900 XT custom variant as it has specs and power numbers similar to the Radeon RX 6800 XT, as reports Videocardz. We have also seen some impressive custom designs so far from ASUS and MSI for the Radeon RX 6800 series and we hope that we get even better looking designs for the Radeon RX 6900 XT once AMD allows them.
With that said, water cooling enthusiasts will be offered full coverage water blocks from top tier brands such as EKWB. EKWB has already announced its next-generation cooling solutions for the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards and Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs.
In its presser, EKWB stated that they are ready for the Big Launch and will have the following products ready for the Radeon RX 6900 XT, Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 reference models:
- EK-Quantum Vector RX 6800/6900 D-RGB – AMD Radeon Edition
- EK-Quantum Power Kit RX 6800/6900 D-RGB P360 – AMD Radeon Edition
- EK-Quantum Reaction AIO RX 6800/6900 D-RGB P240 – AMD Radeon Edition
- EK-Quantum Vector RX 6800/6900 – AMD Radeon Edition
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series “RDNA 2” Graphics Card Lineup:
| Graphics Card | AMD Radeon RX 6700 | AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6800 | AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT | AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | Navi 22 (XL?) | Navi 22 (XT?) | Navi 21 XL | Navi 21 XT | Navi 21 XTX |
| Process Node | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm | 7nm |
| Transistors | TBA | TBA | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion | 26.8 Billion |
| Compute Units | TBA | 40 | 60 | 72 | 80 |
| Stream Processors | TBA | 2560 | 3840 | 4608 | 5120 |
| TMUs/ROPs | TBA | TBA | 240 / 96 | 288 / 128 | 320 / 128 |
| Game Clock | TBA | TBA | 1815 MHz | 2015 MHz | 2015 MHz |
| Boost Clock | TBA | TBA | 2105 MHz | 2250 MHz | 2250 MHz |
| FP32 TFLOPs | TBA | TBA | 16.17 TFLOPs | 20.74 TFLOPs | 23.04 TFLOPs |
| Memory Size | 12 GB GDDR6 | 12 GB GDDR6 | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache | 16 GB GDDR6 +128 MB Infinity Cache |
| Memory Bus | 192-bit | 192-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
| Memory Clock | 14 Gbps? | 16 Gbps? | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps | 16 Gbps |
| Bandwidth | 320 GB/s | 384 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s | 512 GB/s |
| TDP | TBA | TBA | 250W | 300W | 300W |
| Price | TBA | TBA | $579 US | $649 US | $999 US |
AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series Graphics Cards Rumored To Have Limited Stock at Launch?
The second report is more of a rumor at this point but comes from some credible sources. The first is based on a comment from AMD’s subreddit. The user states that Morele.net confirmed that AMD will allow pre-orders but they don’t know exactly when. The same store also stated that a low stock issue similar to NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards may happen with the RX 6000 series at launch.
“Yesterday I asked polish shop Morele.net about preorders and they confirmed that there will be option but they don’t know yet when. Also they said they expect problems with stock as it was with Nvidia gpus.”
via AMD Subreddit
“It should be quite difficult to get a new card to be cool. To be honest, it is quite unexpected that Lisa Su dares to bet on this release date. I think it should only start to increase in December.
In fact, the production capacity has always been sufficient, but how much of these production capacity of Navi may depend on Sony and Microsoft’s next-gen consoles.”
(Google Translation) PTT Forums
The second rumor comes from AquariusZi (via @davideneco25320) over at Chinese PTT Forums. The leaker states that it will be difficult to get an AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card when they are released and most users will have to wait till December which is when AMD will have a better stock of the cards at hand. It is mostly due to TSMC’s 7nm capacity being fully packed as it is being used to produce chips for next-gen GPUs and also AMD’s Ryzen CPUs and APUs. We saw the same with AMD’s Ryzen 4000 “Renoir” APU which had massive demand from OEMs but AMD could only fulfill a short supply even months after launch.
It remains to be seen how the launch goes. AMD is soon approaching the launch of its Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPUs which will happen on 5th of November, following by the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 launch on 18th of December and finally, the Radeon RX 6900 XT on 8th of December.