While Nvidia almost has more launched graphics card models in the latest generation than graphics cards on store shelves, the situation is different for AMD and its architecture RDNA 2. The Radeon RX 6000 series so far consists of only three cards – two variants of RX 6800 and top card RX 6900 XT, all in the high-performance segment.
That the top cards from AMD receive support from cheaper cards has long been whispered about, but the company has never come up with a sharp launch. Now, however, it is announced on the company’s campaign page “Where Gaming Begins” that at least one new card will be presented on March 3, at 17:00 Swedish time. The current graphics card is expected to be the Radeon RX 6700 XT, whether the other cards will be shown remains to be seen.
Characteristics | Navi 10 | Navi 21 | Navi 22 |
---|---|---|---|
product | Radeon RX 5700 XT | RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 (XT) | RX 6700 XT |
Circuit surface | 251 mm² | 505 mm² | 340 mm²* |
CU devices | 40 st. | 80 st. | 40 st. |
Streamprocessorer | 2 560 st. | 5 120 st. | 2 560 st. |
Memory | 8 GB GDDR6 | 16 GB GDDR6 | 12 GB GDDR6 |
Memory bus | 256 bits | 256 bits | 192 bits |
Infinity Cache | – | 128 MB | 64 MB(?) |
Architecture | RDNA | RDNA 2 | RDNA 2 |
TGP | 225 W | 300/250 W | 186–211 W* |
* Unconfirmed information
Previous information has pointed to a sharp launch of the Radeon RX 6700 XT until March 18, which may still be true. AMD may present the card during its event on March 3 to build market interest, as Nvidia did with the Geforce RTX 3060. The Radeon RX 6700 XT is intended to compete with just cards in the RTX 3060 series, where the RX 6700 XT is expected to take the RTX 3060 Ti, while the RX 6700 base board will meet the RTX 3060.
The Radeon RX 6700 XT is expected to essentially correspond to the previous generation top card, the RX 5700 XT, but with the new architecture RDNA 2 and a narrower memory bus of 192 bits. AMD is expected to compensate for the narrower bus with a large Infinity Cache, while the new card will more or less be guaranteed to be equipped with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory.
Exactly which cards AMD will show on March 3 and when they will be launched remains to be seen, but competition in the middle class is welcome – even if the problems on the supply front do not necessarily seem to ease in the near future.