AMD expects AIBs to sell Radeon RX 6800 series at MSRP in 4 to 8 weeks

Interesting information was shared during the Hardware Unboxed November Q&A session.

It may take a few weeks for RX 6800 AIB cards to reach MSRP

Steve and Tim from the YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed finally sat down together after a long pandemic social distancing to talk about the situation on Radeon RX 6800 series and many other topics.

The video covers the topic of non-existent Radeon RX 6800 stock and inflated pricing on custom models. Cards that were immediately sold out at MSRP, were all reference models. Many retailers have not even bothered to sell these cards online as the availability was severely limited. Unfortunately, this situation has not changed with the custom cards launching a week later.

Retailers would not even take preorders on these cards, and even if they did, the pricing was simply put horrendous and extremely over the official suggested retail pricing from AMD. This pricing situation has been discussed in the Q&A session by HardwareUnboxed.

It has been revealed that AMD acknowledged that the problem of inflated pricing and the manufacturer is already working on ‘enabling’ AIBs to achieve the MSRP target within two months. The short and unofficially statement from AMD, which was paraphrased by HardwareUnboxed, does not explain why there is a shortage of AMD GPUs and why where the prices of custom cards so much higher, especially compared to NVIDIA cards at launch.

“We have had a private conversation with AMD. They assured us that in 4 to 8 weeks there will be AIB cards available at MSRP. They said they enabled the AIBs to achieve the 649 dollars [RX 6800 XT] MSRP and they expect that to happen within 8 weeks.”
– Steve Walton, Hardware Unboxed

The fake MSRP that would only be available to early adopters of the reference models, obviously puts reviewers in a tough spot, as their performance to dollar charts are simply misleading to customers who are unable to find these cards at such prices. As noted, this has been an issue with AMD launches for years now, but the manufacturer has not been able to fix this problem yet.

The reason for the high price of Big Navi cards could be a result of limited GPU stock at launch, very low margins for AIBs, and retailers taking the advantage of this situation.

We recently posted this chart with inflated Radeon RX 6800 custom cards pricing at Newegg. Barely any of these cards were available for preorder, and if they were, the prices were 81 to 251 USD higher than MSRP:

Source:

RX 6800 XT Stock Issues? Fake MSRPs? Real Cost Per Frame? November Q&A [Part 1]

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Source: HardwareUnboxed, HU’s Red Devil RX 6800 XT Review

Many thanks to Awssy for the tip!