AMD’s Big Navi graphics cards could be in short supply when they first launch, which is doubtless not the rumor gamers on the hunt for a cutting-edge GPU want to hear following the debacle of Nvidia’s RTX 3000 launches.
Bear in mind that this is just speculation, and it’s not from what we’d describe as a concrete source either – although there’s not just one, but a couple of rumor mongers claiming that AMD’s RX 6000 GPUs will be thin on the ground at least initially.
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Firstly, a Reddit post highlighted that Polish retailer Morele.net commented that it doesn’t yet know when pre-orders for Big Navi graphics cards will go live, and added to “expect problems with stock as it was with Nvidia GPUs”.
In a similar vein, the second rumor (spotted on Twitter) comes from a denizen of the PTT forums in China, who claims that (via a Google translation): “To be honest, it is quite unexpected that Lisa Su [AMD’s CEO] 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.”
So in other words, while the Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT are coming out on November 18, the numbers of GPUs available won’t really get going until December (at least if this speculation is right, of course).
That would be pretty disappointing for those excited about the power of AMD’s graphics cards following the Big Navi reveal, as hopes are certainly up that these GPUs will be a great alternative for those who can’t find an Nvidia RTX 3000 model (pretty much everyone). And also, remember that AMD did already suggest that stock levels would be better than what Nvidia managed (although if these rumor peddlers are right, it might not be much better).
As mentioned by the second source, AMD’s other production demands could be interfering with the amount of Big Navi GPUs that can be produced, including making chips for the PS5 and Xbox Series X, as well as Ryzen CPUs (including new Ryzen 5000 models) and Renoir APUs.
Keep big old handfuls of salt handy, of course, and let’s hope that these speculative nuggets turn out to be well off the mark.
Custom capers
Another interesting – and more positive – rumor floating around courtesy of HardwareLuxx’s editor Andreas Schilling is that AMD is in talks to allow third-party graphics card manufacturers to produce custom RX 6900 XT boards.
Currently, the top-end GPU is only being made by AMD itself, so there are no third-party alternatives (which there are with the 6800 models).
AMD is in talks with partners about custom models of the Radeon RX 6900 XT. So far, there is just a MBA (made by AMD) planed, but obviously partners are interested in offering own designs with custom coolers. pic.twitter.com/LTrWySzua4October 30, 2020
Third-party board makers could potentially produce some pretty juiced-up versions of the RX 6900 XT if allowed, and that might cause Nvidia more trouble. Judging from AMD’s reveal benchmarks, this GPU is seriously powerful already in its reference form, aiming to compete with Nvidia’s flagship RTX 3090.
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Via Wccftech
