As ASUS employee warns gamers that AMD 6800XT will be in very limited supply at launch, expected to sell out within minutes.

[Master Disaster]

A brand rep for ASUS Nordic has posted a warning on Sweclockers that 6000 series is going to go the same way as Nvidias recent 3000 series launch. In contrast to what an AIB rep might usually say this seems less like speculation and more like a statement of fact to me.

Quote

ASUS's Nordic representative has warned of low AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card stock at launch. The statement comes through Sweclockers Forums where ASUS's Nordic brand rep, David Hammer, has revealed that AMD's Radeon RX 6800 XT is expected to sell out within minutes after launch.

 

Previously, retailers had reported that the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards would have limited stock at launch. The stock issues were reportedly more specific to the Radeon RX 6900 XT which is going to be an AMD exclusive variant for the time being. However, newer reports suggest that even the Radeon RX 6800 XT supply would be very limited and AIB partners are expecting the stock to be sold out within minutes of the launch

Here's the full statement.

Quote

It will be quite limited: more RX6800, fewer 6800XT ... as with basically all graphics cards now, we expect that everything will be gone in a few minutes so you need to hang on the lock.

 

Then it is 1-2 weeks later until we start delivering our Partners cards, too early to say what the supply looks like there, but the demand will probably continue to be great.

As you can see, he also confirms it will be a few weeks before we see AIB partner boards up for sale. That's not exactly unexpected though and is usually the case. Stock of the RX6800 is expected to exceed that of 6800XT & 6900XT however 6800 cards might still sell out in minutes to due to the limited stock of the higher tier SKUs.

Quote

David also confirmed that the AMD Radeon RX 6800 series partners cards will be available around a week or two after the launch. He doesn't have high hopes for them to be in greater quantities either so we might be looking at a repeat of what we saw during the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series launch day. The Radeon RX 6800 on the other hand is expected to have a higher stock than the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT but due to higher demand, the card may also be sold out fast despite the bigger stock.

https://wccftech.com/asus-warns-low-amd-radeon-rx-6800-xt-stock-aib-custom-cards-to-launch-1-2-weeks-later/

 

Can someone please explain what is so difficult about fabbing GPUs compared to CPUs. AMD did a pretty good job at keeping Zen 3 in stock, here in the UK at least only the 5950X has been difficult to get hold of. Why is it seemingly so difficult to get GPUs on shelves?

[TOMPPIX]

I bet it's the damn nand flash makers being asshats again.

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Can someone please explain what is so difficult about fabbing GPUs compared to CPUs. AMD did a pretty good job at keeping Zen 3 in stock, here in the UK at least only the 5950X has been difficult to get hold of. Why is it seemingly so difficult to get GPUs on shelves?

Die sizes are a lot bigger so product per wafer is a lot lower, fab capacity cost is the same for both technically and if I were AMD I'd be wanting to make sure CPU stocks are as best as possible as that really is a more important market for them right now. Choice between 200,000 CPUs or 50,000 GPUs I'd go with 200,000 CPUs.

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Die sizes are a lot bigger so product per wafer is a lot lower, fab capacity cost is the same for both technically and if I were AMD I'd be wanting to make sure CPU stocks are as best as possible as that really is a more important market for them right now. Choice between 200,000 CPUs or 50,000 GPUs I'd go with 200,000 CPUs.

Then isn't it sensible to postpone for a few weeks, maybe a month and let some stock build up?

 

The bad press from postponing won't be as bad as the bad press from selling out in minutes then having cards on eBay for 2x the price.

 

Heck they could have simply announced a date 2 weeks later to begin with then nobody would have been any wiser.

[JediFragger]

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Die sizes are a lot bigger so product per wafer is a lot lower, fab capacity cost is the same for both technically and if I were AMD I'd be wanting to make sure CPU stocks are as best as possible as that really is a more important market for them right now. Choice between 200,000 CPUs or 50,000 GPUs I'd go with 200,000 CPUs.

I kinda think that's why they didn't announce a 6800 8GB in order to completely smash the 3070 at $499, capacity just isn't there (plus probably cost too).

[The_Murdoch]

10 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Then isn't it sensible to postpone for a few weeks, maybe a month and let some stock build up?

 

The bad press from postponing won't be as bad as the bad press from selling out in minutes then having cards on eBay for 2x the price.

 

Heck they could have simply announced a date 2 weeks later to begin with then nobody would have been any wiser.

You can't really ever have enough for a launch now adays... say you postponed for like 5 months and made more then you could ever need on release, one that's 5 months of delays that would be a huge advantage to competitors, also having too many they may not sell them all right away, also requires a larger initial investment before returns.
But really, that argument is reductio ad absurdum.
 

Really, Nvidia dropped the ball really really hard, even if they drop it a bit, it'll be still be better off than Nvidia, also, each day they aren't at market, there are more and more purchases of Nvidia products that will reduce their market size. So you can wait and build up what you can, but at some point, you just gotta shit or get off the pot. They must have decided that that was the date that would balance things out to a state that was acceptable to them.

[LAwLz]

Like I said in the CPU thread when almost all AMD CPUs were sold out in minutes, if this forum isn't full of inane and completely unfounded conspiracy theories about AMD like they have been about Nvidia then I'll be very disappointed. 

But my guess is that it won't. 

[Devilish]

Wow. I can not believe it, this is shocking and devastating I cannot beeelieve it. 

[GDRRiley]

or this is a push by the rep to have everyone rush buy them

ether way I've never been a day 1 let alone month 1 buyer

I know they've got lots of zen 3 that needs to go towards EPYC despicably given they got at least 10k top chips going to 1 super computer being delivered now and Q1 2021

 

[TrigrH]

Fail.

[GDRRiley]

2 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

 

Fail.

idk lasting more than a second now is kinda an achievement given how many cards and CPUs are trying to be bought

[Master Disaster]

35 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

or this is a push by the rep to have everyone rush buy them

ether way I've never been a day 1 let alone month 1 buyer

I know they've got lots of zen 3 that needs to go towards EPYC despicably given they got at least 10k top chips going to 1 super computer being delivered now and Q1 2021

 

Why would as ASUS employee care how many cards AMD sell?

[porina]

In discussion with a reviewer on another site, it did echo OP. Initial supply will be limited, AIB cards will come later.

 

We have the leaked AMD guidance to sellers to avoid an nvidia situation, so they are expecting something like it. On the "paper launch" angle, they could be using the same track as nvidia. Even it demand vastly outstrips supply, it there was some supply, it wasn't a paper launch.

[RejZoR]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Why would as ASUS employee care how many cards AMD sell?

Because they also make them and more cards AMD sells, the more cards ASUS sells. Especially with recent TUF success with RTX 3080 series.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

Then isn't it sensible to postpone for a few weeks, maybe a month and let some stock build up?

Don't know, I actually have no idea how many GPUs could be produced and be ready to be sold per month.

[GDRRiley]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Don't know, I actually have no idea how many GPUs could be produced and be ready to be sold per month.

a 250K+ can be made a month given even smaller AIBs can make 2-3k GPUs a day

the big hold up could be how many dies

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

a 250K+ can be made a month given even smaller AIBs can make 2-3k GPUs a day

Then I have a feeling parts supply might be an/the issue, most likely GDDR6.

[GDRRiley]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Then I have a feeling parts supply might be an/the issue, most likely GDDR6.

it is 2x the GDRR6 as the RX5700 but given we are early in ramp that shouldn't be it

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

it is 2x the GDRR6 as the RX5700 but given we are early in ramp that shouldn't be it

Well I say that because Nvidia is also having stock issues with the 3070 which is also GDDR6 and I honestly don't think Samsung 8nm output is the problem.

 

Edit:

Plus I'm also willing to bet both Sony and Microsoft have large GDDR6 commitment orders which are already in effect now, even if not in production but in supply management and stocking to fulfil those orders.

 

Edit 2:

PS4 sold 2.1 million units in first 2 weeks, PS5 pre-orders already exceed that. So it's likely somewhere out there there is up to 5 million consoles being produced or going to be produced very soon, maybe more than 5 million.

[Shimejii]

46 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well I say that because Nvidia is also having stock issues with the 3070 which is also GDDR6 and I honestly don't think Samsung 8nm output is the problem.

 

Edit:

Plus I'm also willing to bet both Sony and Microsoft have large GDDR6 commitment orders which are already in effect now, even if not in production but in supply management and stocking to fulfil those orders.

It has been pretty inferred that Samsung 8nm output IS the problem since they may be going to TSMC. GDDR6 Is in huge demand for sure due to Xbox, ps5 and the new gpus, but its been around for a few years so it should be more readily available and able to be retrofitted for Faster speeds. 

 

Could be the multitude of factors that we will pretty much never fully know

[RejZoR]

But thing is, GDDR6 is not some crazy exotic like GDDR6X. Whoever is making them has the manufacturing mature and they can confidently bump up production with no fear they'd be stuck with inventory or whatever. If they can make more in advance they can know for a fact they'll get rid of all of them easily. GDDR6X is specific to RTX 3000 series and all depends on how well NVIDIA will do with these. So far it's big interest in them, but still, it's just them. It's similar issue as with HBM. Which is why I think AMD said, fuck it, we're not doing exotic stuff, we'll rather think of a more clever design that doesn't require new memory. And went with Infinity Cache. And I think that was an excellent decision. AMD used brute force approach in the past and constantly failed. NVIDIA constantly had clever solutions that made them avoid all the problems brute force approach has. RX 6800XT has "older" GDDR memory, narrower memory interface, yet it manages to post perfectly comparable numbers as RTX 3080 while at the same time have more VRAM and consume slightly less power. The turn around with Radeon Navi series has been nothing short of "ryzen from the dead" yet again. Clever bastards at AMD did it with CPU's and it seems they are ramping up on GPU front as well. I mean, AMD has been struggling for years now with GPU's and they dropped RDNA based Navi literally out of the blue. It wasn't exactly there, but it was very competitive. With RDNA2 Navi, they are pulling Ryzen 3000 series thing. I can only imagine what Radeon RX 7000 will look like. I can confidently say I'm expecting a Zen 3 thing with GPU's. They've been so good at it.

[leadeater]

23 minutes ago, Shimejii said:

It has been pretty inferred that Samsung 8nm output IS the problem since they may be going to TSMC

That thus far is only rumors and switching to TSMC wouldn't be for capacity reasons, TSMC 7nm is just a better node and would allow higher performance and/or lower power. Samsung has huge fab capacities, they are by no means small.

 

Samsung 8LPP is just a variation on 10LPP which is a proven high yield node and thus 8LPP will not be any different there. If Nvidia isn't getting enough GPU dies from Samsung it's because they haven't paid for enough.

 

GDDR6 supply seems like the more likely reason to me.

[leadeater]

46 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

But thing is, GDDR6 is not some crazy exotic like GDDR6X. Whoever is making them has the manufacturing mature and they can confidently bump up production with no fear they'd be stuck with inventory or whatever.

You can only make as much as you can make, you've got Nvidia asking for supply, AMD asking for supply and Microsoft + Sony via AMD all asking for supply and we're on track for the largest console release by far. Like by a lot, way more than last generation.

 

Looking at the PCB of the PS5 there are spots for 8 GDDR6 chips, lets just have a guess and say there will be a supply of 3 million at launch which to be honest is low ball. That's 24 million GDDR6 chips just for the PS5, add another 24 million for the Xbox, then you have the existing Geforce 20 series cards that use GDDR6 as well as the 3070 (AMD RX 5700 too but I don't think those matter).

 

There is a lot of demand for GDDR6 and most of that comes from Samsung on their 10LPP node.

[RejZoR]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

You can only make as much as you can make, you've got Nvidia asking for supply, AMD asking for supply and Microsoft + Sony via AMD all asking for supply and we're on track for the largest console release by far. Like by a lot, way more than last generation.

 

Looking at the PCB of the PS5 there are spots for 8 GDDR6 chips, lets just have a guess and say there will be a supply of 3 million at launch which to be honest is low ball. That's 24 million GDDR5 chips just for the PS5, add another 24 million for the Xbox, then you have the existing Geforce 20 series cards that use GDDR6 as well as the 3070 (AMD RX 5700 too but I don't think those matter).

 

There is a lot of demand for GDDR6 and most of that comes from Samsung on their 10LPP node.

Crucial and Hynix don't make any GDDR6 ?

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Crucial and Hynix don't make any GDDR6 ?

They do but many get supply from Samsung, Nvidia being one of them.