In a statement given to Hardware Unboxed, AMD has clarified that their Radeon RX 6800 XT & RX 6800 custom partner models will be available at MSRPs in 4 to 8 weeks. This statement comes at a time when not only the partner models but also the reference models are out of stock globally and there’s no word on when we can expect supply to get normal.
AMD Claims Radeon RX 6800 XT & RX 6800 Custom AIB Models To Hit MSRPs Within 4-8 Weeks
HardwareUnboxed’s Steve & Tim managed to get some word out of AMD in a private conversation regarding the whole situation surrounding the inflated prices of custom Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 graphics cards. Earlier, Videocardz had also managed to get stock information from various retailers who are facing limited supply and thus limited availability of the said graphics cards within the consumer segment. The statement is as follows:
“We have had a private conversation with AMD. They assured us that in 4 to 8 weeks there will be AIB cards available at MSRP. They said they enabled the AIBs to achieve the 649 dollars [RX 6800 XT] MSRP and they expect that to happen within 8 weeks.”
Steve Walton, Hardware Unboxed (via Videocardz)
The full video can be seen below:
While the stock issue isn’t getting any better any time soon, what’s making it worse is that the few cards that go on sale are listed for inflated prices which are way above the MSRPs. In a chart listed over at Videocardz, you can see several graphics cards along with their respective premium over the reference models. You can expect premium prices of up to +$250 US for the Radeon RX 6800 XT and up to +$120 US for the Radeon RX 6800.
AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT & RX 6800 Custom Model Prices at Newegg (via Videocardz):
Now it’s a given that these custom cards featuring better cooling and PCB designs should retail at a premium price which is true for all GeForce RTX cards too but retailers are specifically asking for higher prices over the already premium price tags that these graphics cards come with. As per the red team (AMD), the custom Radeon RX 6800 XT & RX 6800 graphics cards are expected to return to normal MSRPs within 4-8 weeks which is early 2021.
The main reason is that retailers are trying to cash-in the entire situation since this is a premium segment with users willing to pay the extra bucks and retailers now that these cards are very limited in supply so they get to raise the prices as much as they want knowing that consumers are going to pay the full amount, regardless. It was recently reported that AIBs have bare minimum margins on their custom designs and retailers inflating the prices makes it even worse for them.
NVIDIA is also facing similar issues with its AIB partners where several models are listed for inflated prices due to the unavailability of stock and retailers taking advantage of the whole scenario. With that said, if reports are true, then NVIDIA is to be partially blamed for the whole mess with their own lineup since they have allegedly sold $175 million worth of GeForce RTX 30 graphics cards directly to the crypto mining segment.
Several shops and retailers had boycotted the launch sales since they couldn’t get their supply on time & are now suggesting supply to resume to normal by 2021. Retailer ProShop’s statistics show that only 125 RX 6800 series graphics cards have been sold to date and all of them are reference models. The retailer has made a huge order of several 100 custom variants from each AIB but only a handful of cards are being supplied to them at the moment.
Retailers held off from taking pre-orders to avoid unnecessary traffic like the witnessed with the GeForce RTX 30 series launch which crashed almost every big retailer within minutes. During the launch day, Newegg and Amazon had reported limited units of the Radeon RX 6800 XT & 6800 being available through them.
AMD did make several promises of this not being as much of a botched launch as NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 series but it turned out to be even worse. We are not saying that NVIDIA’s situation here is any better but NVIDIA’s cards were shipped and sold to several customers while AMD’s cards were prioritized to Red Team Plus members who had links to purchase the cards prior to regular buyers.
All in all, it really sucks to be a gamer right now as both NVIDIA and AMD underestimated the huge demand for next-generation GPUs. Gamers who have ordered have been shown shipment dates as far as February 2021.
NVIDIA and AMD could’ve taken their time to establish a bigger stock but they have been running behind ‘Unprecedented Demand’ as a means to tackle the backlash of one of the worst graphics card launches in terms of availability. With that said, we hope that 2021 can start off better for gamers all around the globe who just want a new graphics card to enjoy the latest gaming titles.