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AMD is rumored to be preparing to update the RX 6000 series graphics cards
Multiple leakers claim that AMD may be gearing up to release a Radeon RX 6000 series update later this year. Not much is known about this update, nor what it means for the current lineup, although it may act as a stopgap until cards based on the RDNA 3 architecture roll out.
Two reports cite the update: one from Twitter leaker Greymon55 and another from Chiphell leaker wjm47196.
AMD seems to be preparing a new version of the RX 6000 series. I don’t know the specific situation. Maybe it will be upgraded to 18Gbps?January 17, 2022
Chiphell reviews suggest a release between April and June 2022, and these new cards will likely replace existing RX 6000-series graphics cards, such as the RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT.
It’s unclear what, if any, might be upgraded on these refresh cards. The current theory is that the faster GDDR6 memory chips will replace the existing 16Gbps memory chips on most of the existing RX 6000 series – the faster modules are likely to be rated at 18Gbps.
That’s certainly a possibility, as AMD’s recently announced RX 6500 XT uses 18Gbps memory chips.
Bettors also believe that AMD may use TSMC’s 6nm process to refresh the RX 6000 series, although no leaks have so far backed up these claims.
However, there is no guarantee that AMD will update the RX 6000 series. A lot of things can happen at short notice, especially with continued shortages of semiconductors, and such plans can and often are done at short notice.
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But what does AMD have to gain from the RX 6000 series update? Well, it does have an incentive to do so. Nvidia recently released the RTX 3080 12GB, a modestly improved version of its RTX 3080 10GB, and these new and improved models are already selling for a premium over matching RTX 3080 10GB cards. Now, if the market were to be grounded in any way, these cards wouldn’t be worth their new list price, but that’s not the case. Due to the shortage of semiconductors, the prices are sky high, and third-party GPUs are sold at high prices. These new and improved RTX 3080 models from Nvidia are likely to sell, despite their high price tags and relatively small performance gains over existing models, which is a boon for Nvidia and its partners as a whole .
AMD will also gain by releasing modestly improved models of its existing GPUs at higher prices. Let’s hope it brings something to our PC gamers too.
After all, we’ll be focusing on RDNA 3 soon. AMD’s next-gen GPU architecture has long been touted for a 2022 release, and with these cards out there, I wonder how many people will be tempted by the refreshed RX 6800 XT?