AMD is set to refresh RX 6000 graphics cards, so the rumor mill has been claiming for some time now, and the latest speculation has again put forward the idea that the flagship GPU will get revamped as the RX 6950 XT, but there will not be an RX 6850 XT.
That’s according to well-known YouTube leaker Moore’s Law is Dead (MLID), but the difference with this rumor is that unlike Coreteks, another leaker who recently claimed there would only be an RX 6950 XT as a new GPU from Team Red, MLID believes that there will be other models too; just not a 6850 XT.
I can now confirm that #AMD does NOT plan to release an "RX 6850 XT". Also:1) 6950 XT is on track!2) 6750 XT & 6650 XT are CURRENTLY planned for Q2I briefly talk about it on Broken Silicon tomorrow, and I actually suggested most of this last week:https://t.co/GPPkxcov8tFebruary 15, 2022
So, the theory tweeted is that there will be a 6950 XT, and that could be backed up with a 6750 XT and 6650 XT.
MLID further notes that the 6950 XT is ‘on track’ for AMD’s apparent intended release schedule, which we’ve heard might be April, so in just a couple of months, and the lesser refreshes are currently planned for some point in Q2, with the currently in caps suggesting that this is uncertain and might perhaps slide.
In fact, in the previous video (from last week) where he outlines AMD’s possible reasoning for skipping a 6850 XT – basically that it doesn’t make sense in terms of good use of Big Navi chips, and that a 6750 XT could be juiced up to get close to the 6800 performance bracket anyway – MLID doesn’t sound sure on exactly which models will be refreshed (and suggests AMD hasn’t quite decided yet, either).
In short, his speculation runs that there will be a flagship revamp, plus another one or two models further down the line which could turn up later, but still in the first half of 2022.
Analysis: Does a major refresh of RDNA 2 really make sense?
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: we’re not sure what the point of a major RX 6000 refresh would be (like the mentioned three new models), given that RDNA 3 graphics cards are confirmed as on track by AMD, arriving later in 2022, possibly early in Q4 going by the rumor mill. If that turned out to be October, and the revamped RDNA 2 cards came out in June, say (or a couple did), that wouldn’t be much more than a few months between these launches.
That seems too close together for comfort, really, although we suppose you could argue that AMD might want more volume of production overall by maintaining the new RDNA 2 models alongside RDNA 3 (as they are made on different processes – RDNA 3 drops to 5nm, of course, or possibly 5nm and 6nm).
We shall see, but all AMD would really need in theory, at least to be seen to keep pace with Nvidia’s RTX 3090 Ti – we still don’t know quite when that will appear, mind – is a new 6950 XT, of course.
Then again, another argument here could be that Team Red is looking at Intel and thinking about the Arc Alchemist launch. The Alchemist GPUs are rumored to have been delayed to Q2, which is the purported launch date for the 6750 XT, and gauging the potential (rough) power level of this AMD card, it’d probably be pitched at the RTX 3070 or Ti version – exactly where the Arc flagship supposedly sits. So, a 6750 XT GPU could make some sense as a move to head off Intel at the pass, maybe.
All of this is pretty much up-in-the-air speculation at this point, though, and we’ll just have to see how the GPU future unfolds in the first half of 2022. The good news is that the more we hear from the grapevine, the more convinced we’re becoming that Intel’s entry to the market is set to change things dramatically – and that must be a good thing given the dire state of the graphics card arena right now.
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