Thursday, November 19th 2020

AMD to Produce Reference Design RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 Only Until "Early 2021"

AMD is expected to manufacture its reference-design Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 graphics cards only "through early 2021," according to a tweet by Scott Herkelman, Corporate VP and GM for the AMD Radeon brand, in response to a question by Daniel Rohrpasser. The "MBA" (made by AMD) reference-design cards will undergo production runs only until early 2021, beyond which the company will rely entirely on sales of custom-design boards by its add-in-board (AIB) partners to sell the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT.

Launch of custom-design RX 6800 series cards are closely following that of the MBA cards, which opened to sales on November 18. Most AMD AIB partners have already announced their custom-design RX 6800 series products. This isn't particularly unusual, as AMD tends to produce MBA cards only for the initial few months following a new GPU launch, beyond which custom-design cards are expected to take over sales. The MBA cards are sold through AIB partners, with negligible modifications such as brand stickers.
Source: Scott Herkelman (Twitter)
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29 Comments on AMD to Produce Reference Design RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 Only Until "Early 2021"

#26
watzupken
I am usually no fan of reference design graphic cards, but this time round, I feel AMD nailed the cooler. Not just is it a premium cooler using vapour chamber, it is also reasonable in size for a high end card. AIB's high end cooler design tends to be better because they are huge in terms of height, length and thickness.

In terms of reference board design, its usually better than similarly priced AIB cards. Only those premium models from AIB comes with better board design.
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#27
olstyle
bugAre reference cards actually a thing?

Nvidia, with their FE, insists they are and that various users (like those water cooling) absolutely need them
Nvidia even did two own designs for Ampere. There are the FE PCBs which is are bit special with the 12Pin connector, sharp angles etc. but there is also a normal reference PCB design with two 8-Pin connectors which can be and is used by the Boardpartners to base their simpler designs on. Zotac Trinity series for example uses Nvidias reference design.
For Watercooling, as mentioned before, reference designs are normally the first one you get coolers for and since the PCB itself often is quite good in the end such a combination can reach the same speeds as the high end, air cooled, custom variants at nearly the same price point.

So yes, here's hoping Boardpartners will pick up this PCB and also don't start cheaping out on the components the solder on it.
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#28
basco
amd´s reference design especially Vrm design was superior and not cheap (ok not msi´lightning ,asus rog++) since 3000 series i think.
don´t know if there where many 18\900 xt aib designs superior to ref.
always a good choice taking reference amd design and put some heavy coolers on it be it water or air or what ya like
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#29
thesmokingman
bascoamd´s reference design especially Vrm design was superior and not cheap (ok not msi´lightning ,asus rog++) since 3000 series i think.
don´t know if there where many 18\900 xt aib designs superior to ref.
always a good choice taking reference amd design and put some heavy coolers on it be it water or air or what ya like
This. The ref design going way back was on red side was the baseline, as good as it gets. Most AIB designs were actually a downgrade, especially during the 7970 era. Sapphire and the other AIBs put crap neutered ref designs on after the other, there was so much bait and switch it was tiresome keeping up with the lame variations they came up with to cut costs from the reference pcb. It was only the high end designs like say the msi lightning that really pushed the enevlope but technically speaking it didn't actually improve overclocking on average. I've had 7970 ref cards that clocked higher than lightnings, and on 290x as well. And then you hade the numerous design flawed AIB cards like the Asus DCII or whatever it was called, lmao. Or even msi making a middle plate which only cooled half the memory chips.. so much stupid.

That said, the new line looks pretty darn good and continues that tradition with the best cooler design they've ever made.
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