AMD is reportedly planning to release not one, but two versions of its upcoming Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards. The news comes from YouTuber Coreteks, who published a video today claiming that there will be 230-watt (overclocked) and 189-watt (stock/reference) versions. These variants will supposedly be labeled “ASIC A” and “ASIC B,” respectively, and feature 20 to 25 percent more performance than the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT with core clocks in the range of 2,500 to 2,600 MHz.
“[…] I’m guessing the difference between ASIC A and B will be somewhere between 5 to 8 percent extra performance depending on things like the cooling solution, but mostly likely just a small bump for the premium model,” Coreteks speculated. “The reference one will be about 20 to 25 percent faster than the 5700 XT, so that’s about on par with the 3060 Ti from NVIDIA, or maybe a little bit faster.”
“[…] one likely explanation for these two different ASICs for the 6700 XT is that AMD will have the cheaper models out there for brownie points, but they won’t actually be available in volume, whereas I suspect the more premium ASIC, which I imagine will come at a
significant price increase, will be the one that will be filling up the channels. AMD doesn’t want you to buy the cheaper models, but they want to be able to announce an MSRP that’s slower than what you’ll actually be paying. You know, like what NVIDIA has been
doing for a while now.”
Coreteks also theorized that AMD may be expanding its RDNA 2 family of Radeon graphics cards with Radeon RX 6950 XT and Radeon RX 6900 XTX models, which might range in cost from $1,199 to $1,499. The Radeon RX 6700 XT and Radeon RX 6700 models are expected to launch in March 2021 and April 2021, respectively.