AMD had led us to believe that its flagship RDNA 2 graphics card might follow in the footsteps of the Radeon VII and receive a reference release only, but according to a new report from Technology Fast’s Xian Rui (via MyDrivers and VideoCardz), that won’t be the case. Rui claims that AMD has given AIBs the green light to produce custom Radeon RX 6900 XT GPUs.
Obviously, this is exciting news for Radeon fans who are already planning to invest in the very best that AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture has to offer. While the reference model of the Radeon RX 6900 XT looks delicious, custom variants are sure to best it with more efficient cooling, stronger PCBs, and higher boost clocks.
It isn’t clear why AMD hasn’t elaborated on its potential plans for enabling custom Radeon RX 6900 XT models yet, but Rui suggests that the reason is likely supply related. The Radeon RX 6800 Series has already proven that Navi 21 GPUs are in extremely short supply, which is a situation that would clearly worsen if additional SKUs were to enter the market.
AMD will launch the Radeon RX 6900 XT on December 8. The RDNA 2 flagship features 80 Compute Units (8 more than the Radeon RX 6800 XT), 16 GB of GDDR6 memory, and a boost clock of up to 2.25 GHz. Its official MSRP is $999, but we’re guessing that many early adopters will end up paying more than that.