AMD promises additional RX 6900/6800 reference cards to be available in the first quarter

AMD promises more Navi 21 reference cards in Q1 2021

AMD has an infinite supply of promises. 

In an interview with BabelTechReviews, AMD’s Riche Corpus, who is Senior Director at Radeon Technologies Group, has confirmed that AMD is now expecting additional reference RX 6000 cards to be available in the first quarter. The director also confirmed AMD will continue to support its board partners in the development of their custom designs.

Based on the response to our AMD Radeon RX 6800 Series and Radeon RX 6900 XT reference design graphics cards, we are extending production to make them available to as many gamers as possible on AMD.com at SEP. Additional reference cards are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2021. We will also continue supporting our partners in the development of their custom AMD Radeon™ RX 6000 Series graphics card designs.

— AMD’s Ritche Corpus – Sr. Director, ISV SW Alliances, Radeon Technologies Group

Last year Scott Herkelman (Radeon GM and CVP) confirmed that AMD will be manufacturing reference RX6000 cards through early 2021. So at that point, it was quite clear that reference cards will become nonexistent on the market very soon. Meanwhile, board partners have reached out to the press, confirming that AMD has ceased to ship additional MBA (reference) cards to them.

After the first reports of AMD abandoning its reference design, AMD made a U-Turn and decided to manufacture reference cards indefinitely. Originally the reference cards were supposed to be a one-off release, which is a typical way of how AMD releases their graphics cards. The company then usually focuses on delivering GPUs directly to board partners. This time around though, the situation is different, mostly due to increased pricing on the custom designs. AMD reference design sold through the official webstore is practically the only way to buy these cards at the announced MSRP. However, right now chances of seeing those cards in stock in the said store are almost nil.

Source: BabelTechReviews