Wednesday, December 9th 2020
AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800 Reference Designs to be Discontinued Soon
Yesterday, Cowocotland, a technology website, has published information that AMD's reference design cards like the latest Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800 GPUs are getting discontinued. That means that AMD will stop the production of the reference designs and rely completely on the supply of GPUs coming from add-in board partners to satisfy the market needs. This does not mean that the availability of these GPUs is not going to exist. Rather, there will not be AMD reference designs available for purchase from the company. Only cards that are custom made by AIBs, that AMD provides GPU+VRAM for, will offer customers cards with these GPUs.
VideoCardz claims that they have been able to confirm some pieces of the information, so it is a done deal. From now on, it seems that only graphics cards with Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800 GPUs inside them will be the ones offered by AIBs. The reference design cards will only be produced until early 2021, giving it a month or two for consumers to purchase cards from AMD. After that period the market will rely completely on AMD's partners.
Update 4:30 pm UTC: Scott Herkelman, CVP & GM of AMD Radeon Tweeted that they have "extended the reference design builds indefinitely due to popular demand." Meaning that the reference cards will remain in production. Mr. Herkelman also thanked for feedback, where community was loud and clear that they want to see reference boards for a while longer.
Here is an interesting quote from Cowcotland:
Sources:
Cowcotland, via VideoCardz
VideoCardz claims that they have been able to confirm some pieces of the information, so it is a done deal. From now on, it seems that only graphics cards with Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800 GPUs inside them will be the ones offered by AIBs. The reference design cards will only be produced until early 2021, giving it a month or two for consumers to purchase cards from AMD. After that period the market will rely completely on AMD's partners.
Update 4:30 pm UTC: Scott Herkelman, CVP & GM of AMD Radeon Tweeted that they have "extended the reference design builds indefinitely due to popular demand." Meaning that the reference cards will remain in production. Mr. Herkelman also thanked for feedback, where community was loud and clear that they want to see reference boards for a while longer.
[…] RX 6900 XT MBA is already at the end of its life even though it has not yet been launched. Just like the RX 6800 MBA and the RX 6800 XT MBA, production has been one shot for this card. A brand told us that they only have about forty cards for France, not one more […] those who manage to have an RX 6900 XT MBA will have a real collector [item] in their hands.—Aurélien LAGNY, Cowcotland
100 Comments on AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800 Reference Designs to be Discontinued Soon
Better still try a new hobby ~ like hiking?
Not that I mind waiting anyway. Gives time for the drivers to mature, for the kinks to be ironed out, and whenever I actually decide to go and buy, the market will have calmed down from this hype.
EDIT: Besides, I'm interested in hearing how it performs in Folding@Home
I like mine also very much.
I run original cooler at higher fan profile as I have mine set to 2550MHz@115mV undervolt and overclock so fan is loader.
I will receive my EK waterblock until Friday. :D
With my current setting the junction temperature hits often 95°C.
This will not be case with watercooler.
Let see if I can improve performance with water cooler.
I wanted reference card as I usually watercool my GPUs and not many non reference cards support that.
Many people like me will be disappointed to see reference card being discontinued so soon. :(
My local MicroCenter doesn't have squat for GPUs. Except for the fact they're sitting on 25+ RTX 3070 cards.....in PowerSpec pre-built systems (according to their website). If you're really hard up for a RTX 3070 and are okay with spending $1800 on one, you can get your fill at my MicroCenter.
Who actually makes these cards for AMD?
So why does AMD even bother making a small batch at all?
Rebadge an OEM card (HW & firmware ID) and send to reviewers. Or why not just have the OEM's send out their cards for reviews.
EDIT: Good god these threads are a trollfest as of late.
Well, the article had an update the same day...