It's no secret at this point that no matter how excellent the AMD RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 are, it's still basically impossible to find them. And, it looks like the new AMD Big Navi graphics cards might run into the same fate.
This comes from a since-deleted post on Swedish hardware forum Sweclockers, and spotted by the folks over at Wccftech, where a supposed representative from Asus hinted that the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, "as with basically all graphics cards now" will sell out within minutes – just like the Nvidia Ampere cards before them.
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The forum post also gives a good idea when we can expect third-party versions of the new RDNA 2 graphics cards. Apparently, aftermarket boards will arrive a couple of weeks after the initial November 18 launch date, but as we've seen with every other GPU launch over the last couple of months, those will probably sell out, too.
This comes after AMD has reportedly issued guidelines to retailers specifically to avoid the same kind of hardware shortage fiasco that Nvidia went through with the RTX 3080 launch in September. However, it looks like AMD Ryzen 5000 processors have already sold out and are showing up for hugely inflated prices, according to a report from HotHardware.
It's clear that PC hardware is experiencing incredibly high demand as everyone is still trying to spend time indoors, and playing the best PC games at 4K is a pretty excellent way to do that. Either way, we won't know what the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT hardware availability is going to look like until, well, it's actually available.
We've reached out to AMD for comment, and we'll report back if we hear anything.
This is why we can't have nice deals
One of the main reasons we're not expecting a ton of Black Friday deals on the best graphics cards is that they're selling out left and right at their regular price – and sometimes even more.
Even assuming that AMD and Nvidia graphics cards are even on store shelves during the huge holiday shopping day, it's clear that no one has to slash prices to get people to buy them.
Especially because these graphics cards are launching around the same time as the PS5 and Xbox Series X are pushing gaming into the next generation, it's not exactly unexpected that both Nvidia Ampere and AMD Big Navi graphics cards are in such high demand.
After all, the most powerful next-gen console, the Xbox Series X features graphics horsepower on par with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super. Both AMD and Nvidia look to have that performance pretty much blown out of the water, on paper at least. PC gamers that want true next-generation graphics performance don't want to fall behind the consoles, so we expect the stock problems to continue well into the next year.
Hopefully, now that the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 hit the market on November 18, followed by the Radeon RX 6900 XT on December 8, they will help level out the demand, by virtue of there just being more variety on the market.
And, who knows, we've heard rumors of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti hitting the streets in December. If that's true, it might further help absorb the demand for cutting edge graphics, and everyone can get in on the next-gen ray traced goodness. No matter what, this holiday season has already been exciting in the world of PC components, and we don't expect it to slow down any time soon – and we're strapped in for the ride.
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