Report: AMD RX 6700 XT to launch March 18, availability will be "very limited"

[Random_Person1234]

Summary

According to French hardware site Cowcotland, AMD's RX 6700 XT GPU will launch on March 18. This will be AMD's answer to the RTX 3060 12GB, which launches next week. This card will be the first to use the upper mid-range Navi 22 GPU. This GPU will have 12GB of GDDR6 VRAM, a 192-bit memory bus, and is expected to have 40 compute units. Cowcotland goes on to say that this card will be "very limited" in supply.

 

Quotes

From Google Translate:

Quote

We learned this morning, via our network, that the new AMD RADEON RX 6700 XT graphics cards will be launched on March 18th . The RX 6700 XTs should normally offer a NAVI 22 XL GPU with 40 CU for 2560 SP. We should therefore also have 40 Ray Accelerators and the card will also be equipped with 12 GB of video memory, in GDDR6 with a 192-bit memory bus.

Quote

Regarding availability, we have already been told that the quantities will be more than very limited ...

My thoughts

Another card we will not be able to buy. I wonder what the price will be for this card, since AMD cards have been marked up way more compared to Nvidia (ex.: the cheapest AIB RX 6800 on Newegg is $680). 

 

Sources

https://www.cowcotland.com/news/75392/les-cartes-graphiques-amd-radeon-rx-6700-xt-debarqueront-le-18-mars.html

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-radeon-rx-6700-xt-to-launch-on-march-18th

[Rym]

I mean at this point as long as crypto craze lasts everything will be "very limited" and "very above MSRP" whilst magically becoming widely available seemingly overnight as the crypto craze will come crashing down in flames.

[ki8aras]

why even release it at this point?

maybe its just a way of getting rid of 6800 dies that didn't make the cut

[Random_Person1234]

Just now, ki8aras said:

why even release it at this point?

maybe its just a way of getting rid of 6800 dies that didn't make the cut

I don't think that would be possible, since the 6800 uses Navi 21, while this uses Navi 22.

[Blademaster91]

I don't get the point of AMD releasing another RX 6000 series card, there aren't even enough 6800 and 6800XT cards being made to meet demand.

[Spotty]

1 minute ago, Random_Person1234 said:

Regarding availability, we have already been told that the quantities will be more than very limited ...

Why even bother releasing a mid-range card with extremely limited quantities? I can understand a 3090 or 6900XT being released with limited quantities since they are high end halo products but the midrange cards are typically the most popular, high volume sellers. The GTX1060 still holds the highest user share on Steam hardware survey.

[Taf the Ghost]

3 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Why even bother releasing a mid-range card with extremely limited quantities? I can understand a 3090 or 6900XT being released with limited quantities since they are high end halo products but the midrange cards are typically the most popular, high volume sellers. The GTX1060 still holds the highest user share on Steam hardware survey.

Computer parts are becoming like Award-bait Music releases, where the Single is out in the previous year and the album is out after the awards show. Somehow, a product is in the news long before it's ever available. 

 

As for the real reason, because all of the spec and designs are done, the product is ready, but production capacity, industry wide, means demand is just higher than any supply will meet. OEMs will still pay, though.

[BuckGup]

MINING TIME

[Master Disaster]

2 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Why even bother releasing a mid-range card with extremely limited quantities? I can understand a 3090 or 6900XT being released with limited quantities since they are high end halo products but the midrange cards are typically the most popular, high volume sellers. The GTX1060 still holds the highest user share on Steam hardware survey.

I guess management looked at the forecast of product manufacturing for the next 12 months, shrugged and said "Fuck it, another paper launch it is".

 

The weird thing about this entire situation is the big names are suffering just as much as the consumers, its not like AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft & Sony all decided the best thing to do is release a product knowing they couldn't hit any reasonable production numbers. AMD have it worse than most since they have contractual obligations with MS & Sony that is 100% affecting the amount of product making it into graphics cards.

[WereCat]

I think that this is just a pure marketing move to keep people talking about AMD.

Nobody expects any product, I haven't seen a single RDNA2 card in stock since release, I have seen multiple RTX cards though. If the production is so limited then this will change absolutely nothing. Even if the 6700 cards were in stock, they would be still more expensive than what is the MSRP of the high end cards so having a mid range option at this point is absolutely stupid since it makes no difference for the consumers.

 

1080 ti was definitely the best buy at the time, I will likely rock this card until it dies because it seems like nothing else is even remotely viable as an upgrade considering the prices...

[Spotty]

5 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

AMD have it worse than most since they have contractual obligations with MS & Sony that is 100% affecting the amount of product making it into graphics cards.

They're also at the mercy of TSMC which is in a lot of demand at the moment, both from AMD and car manufacturers.

 

11 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

As for the real reason, because all of the spec and designs are done, the product is ready, but production capacity, industry wide, means demand is just higher than any supply will meet. OEMs will still pay, though.

I wonder how much of it is "we're releasing what we would normally release but demand is super high right now" and how much is "we just couldn't make as much as we wanted and it's less than what we would normally launch with"

 

6 minutes ago, WereCat said:

1080 ti was definitely the best buy at the time, I will likely rock this card until it dies because it seems like nothing else is even remotely viable as an upgrade considering the prices...

I would hate to think what I would do if my 1080ti died. It would be integrated graphics for quite a while I think.

[arnavvr]

10 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

MINING TIME

I don't think will be the case -- while the new 6700XT is rumored to have 12GB of VRAM, which would be more than enough for the Ethereum DAG, it also has a 192-bit memory bus, which may make it inefficient for mining. 

 

The RX480, the previous king of Ethereum Mining, has a 256-bit memory bus. The 3060Ti, also has a 256-bit memory bus.

 

Gamers, this may be a card that you can actually buy, if the foundries get their stuff in order.

[cj09beira]

32 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

why even release it at this point?

maybe its just a way of getting rid of 6800 dies that didn't make the cut

 

28 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I don't get the point of AMD releasing another RX 6000 series card, there aren't even enough 6800 and 6800XT cards being made to meet demand.

they can make almost 2 times the amount of cards with the same wafer volume by using this smaller gpu

[TetraSky]

Ah, another paper launch. Alright.

[CTR640]

24 minutes ago, WereCat said:

I think that this is just a pure marketing move to keep people talking about AMD.

Nobody expects any product, I haven't seen a single RDNA2 card in stock since release, I have seen multiple RTX cards though. If the production is so limited then this will change absolutely nothing. Even if the 6700 cards were in stock, they would be still more expensive than what is the MSRP of the high end cards so having a mid range option at this point is absolutely stupid since it makes no difference for the consumers.

 

1080 ti was definitely the best buy at the time, I will likely rock this card until it dies because it seems like nothing else is even remotely viable as an upgrade considering the prices...

I bought my 1080Ti for €678 in 2018, brand new and from a reputable webstore. Indeed the best buy. The prices these days are simply way too much screwed up.

[porina]

32 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

AMD have it worse than most since they have contractual obligations with MS & Sony that is 100% affecting the amount of product making it into graphics cards.

AMD diverting production to consoles is likely a choice, not due to original/historic contract. Console demand was higher than expected and both sides are desperate not to fall behind the other in deployed numbers. They'll likely be offering sufficient incentive for AMD to prioritise that over other products.

 

20 minutes ago, Spotty said:

I wonder how much of it is "we're releasing what we would normally release but demand is super high right now" and how much is "we just couldn't make as much as we wanted and it's less than what we would normally launch with"

I'd guess they went with a "regular" launch quantity, with much higher demand that is impossible to meet. Decisions like this would have been make a long time ago, and not something that can be easily changed with new information. Especially if there is no real scope for extra fab capacity they can't better use in other product segments. I suppose it is possible they could even intentionally reduce the launch quantities to divert fab capacity elsewhere more profitable. Depends on how much they knew and when if they can communicate this through their manufacturing.

 

20 minutes ago, Spotty said:

I would hate to think what I would do if my 1080ti died. It would be integrated graphics for quite a while I think.

This is in part why I keep at least the previous generation or two card around so there is some redundancy. Recognise not everyone is in a position to do that, but Gear Acquisition Syndrome isn't unknown around here...

[Bombastinator]

What gaming needs is a functional GPU that won’t hash well to keep the crypto miners from wanting it, OR for etherium to crash.  I haven’t heard how well AMD’s offerings hash etherium.  If this card is a good hasher of course we’re screwed, but if it’s not, or at least if there’s something else that is available that is better it may be an actual gaming card instead of a mining card.  My understanding of etherium is it will eventually go the way of Bitcoin. The reason it is popular at the moment is it is between two points.  Once it passes the second point it will again not be of interest.  Apparently etherium created systems to resist that though they have not been tested.

[Mark Kaine]

12 hours ago, Spotty said:

Why even bother releasing a mid-range card with extremely limited quantities?

It's all marketing / mindshare, they even say it's a competitor to the 3060... from a corporate perspective that makes sense, once they're more widely available people will already know about and probably also have already long decided to get one. 

So besides 'countering' uncle nvidia it's basically free marketing... 

 

(plus, they have to do 'something', no? certainly a weird situation all in all) 

12 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

its not like AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft & Sony all decided the best thing to do is release a product knowing they couldn't hit any reasonable production numbers.

While I don't actually have the numbers, I heard ps5 is selling more than any other ps console before, and I tend to believe it. I think a lot of the stuff we're discussing is really highly subjective, sure we just see that things aren't available - but we don't actually have the production numbers. 

[AlTech]

16 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

What gaming needs is a functional GPU that won’t hash well to keep the crypto miners from wanting it, OR for etherium to crash.  I haven’t heard how well AMD’s offerings hash etherium.  If this card is a good hasher of course we’re screwed, but if it’s not, or at least if there’s something else that is available that is better it may be an actual gaming card instead of a mining card.  My understanding of etherium is it will eventually go the way of Bitcoin. The reason it is popular at the moment is it is between two points.  Once it passes the second point it will again not be of interest.  Apparently etherium created systems to resist that though they have not been tested.

MLID has been saying RDNA2 has some hardware level design choices to reduce mining performance but  there’s only so much they can do without crippling general purpose performance and gaming performance.  
 

17 hours ago, Spotty said:

They're also at the mercy of TSMC which is in a lot of demand at the moment, both from AMD and car manufacturers.

Car manufacturers not as much as you’d think, they make up around about 3% of TSMC’s revenue. The scandal with car manufacturers is they told TSMC to greatly reduce production of car chips cos nobody was buying cars in early 2020 and then now in late 2020 to early 2021 the car manufacturers regretted their decision cos people started to buy cars again so now they’re complaining that TSMC is big mean company even though they were doing what they were told to do the whole time.

 

17 hours ago, Spotty said:

I wonder how much of it is "we're releasing what we would normally release but demand is super high right now" and how much is "we just couldn't make as much as we wanted and it's less than what we would normally launch with"

AMD has already sold more units of Navi 21 in 1 quarter than they sold in 1 year of selling RX Vega 56 and 64. Source: MLID

 

It would be fair to say the former is the case, they’re making substantially more than they used to and people are buying them up in unprecedented numbers.

17 hours ago, Spotty said:

 

[RejZoR]

RX 6000 series are great. If you can even get one. That is not priced at 1200€ for a vanilla RX 6800... I was actually set to buy RX 6800 XT. I even waited out after RTX 3080 were hard to come by. Turns out Radeons were too. And well into 2021, I just said enough and grabbed RTX 3080 when there was opportunity.

 

Not really following AMD how they plan on filling in the demand for cards using limited TSMC capacity by showing another product into the manufacturing queue... they can't even fulfill demand for RX 6800 cards...

[Doobeedoo]

Filling the series eventually, also this would be more popular in it's price category too. General hardware availability is another thing though.

[Spotty]

39 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Not really following AMD how they plan on filling in the demand for cards using limited TSMC capacity by showing another product into the manufacturing queue... they can't even fulfill demand for RX 6800 cards...

Something brought up earlier is the smaller Navi 22 die means that they could make more GPUs from the same wafer.

19 hours ago, cj09beira said:

they can make almost 2 times the amount of cards with the same wafer volume by using this smaller gpu

 

Though there's still other issues that are impacting availability of graphics cards such as reports of GDDR6 memory shortages, so more GPU dies alone isn't going to fix the problem.