author: Bart Woldanski
AMD Promises Reduced Prices of Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT
The launch of AMD Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT turned out to be equally, if not even more theoretical than that of Nvidia GeForce RTX 3000. Stock shortages, price gouging - when can we expect a return to normal?
The Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT GPUs, released on November 18, proved to be, according to the reviews, quite decent pieces of hardware capable of competing with the latest GPU from Nvidia, the GeForce RTX 3000. Unfortunately, the availability is equally poor or even worse, especially for custom models, which also translates into significantly inflated prices, exceeding by $80-250 the suggested price (MSRP) set by AMD. The authors of YouTube channel Hardware Unboxed revealed in their video that they talked about the whole situation with AMD, thanks to which we got to know the company's (unofficial) position:
"They assured us that in 4 to 8 weeks there will be AIB cards available at MSRP."
AMD works with partners to ensure that potential customers can purchase cards at suggested price, which is $579 and $649 for Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT respectively. Currently, some custom versions of the cheaper (!) model can cost as much as the decent, also overpriced GeForce RTX 3080, so it's no wonder that interested users are irritated by the whole situation. Although it is even more problematic that we are dealing with ghost cards, because for now we can't buy them anywhere, even at a significantly inflated price. Many shops did not even offer the option of placing an order on the launch day of custom models (i.e. November 25) because they did not receive any cards.
Two months to improve the situation sound very optimistic, almost unlikely, given that even a longer period has passed since the launch of Nvidia's cards and most players still have to overpay to buy a GeForce RTX 3000 series GPU. Let's hope that AMD will do better, bearing in mind that only the weakest custom models can realistically reach the price set by the company. Better designs with proprietary Asus ROG Strix and TUF cooling, PowerColor Red Devil or Sapphire Nitro are always more expensive, although not necessarily as expensive as they are in many shops today.
Despite the hot period of hardware launches (new GPUs or PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles), relatively few users can enjoy the purchase due to supply shortages. Will AMD's promises come true? Time will tell. In the meantime, on December 8, AMD's flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT will debut on the market, while in January the cheaper Radeon RX 6700 XT and RX 6700 are expected to compete with the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3060.