Custom RX 7000 graphics card from third-party card manufacturers are set to launch later than the reference boards and can be quite expensive to launch, if the latest information from the GPU grapevine is to be believed.
VideoCardz (opens in a new tab) reports that the Board Channels forum (in China) claims that the only RX 7900 XT and 7900 XTX graphics cards that appear initially on AMD’s launch date (December 13) will be reference boards.
Those are models built to AMD’s own reference specifications, but there will also be models with more powerful configurations – higher clocks, better cooling – as usual. However, the following third-party variants won’t launch until a week or two after the reference board has hit the shelves. That means the sale date will be late December for these custom boards (and it’s possible things could even be delayed to early 2023, as very late December is a bit of a stretch). strange).
Worryingly, the Chinese source – be very cautious with all this as with any speculation – further asserts that custom panels can be “much more expensive” than reference models. initial.
Analysis: A predicament for AMD?
Naturally, such higher-end custom graphics cards will have the aforementioned boost clocks and often better quality components, cooling solutions, etc. to keep the temperatures that the coppers Lake faster can control. In short, it is not surprising to find that the more robust models of the 7900 XT and XTX would cost more, it is to be expected.
However, what is a bit unsettling here is the way things are worded as more and more expensive, and that sounds ominous. In the same way that the RTX 4080 ended up with some third-party variants that cost a lot more than MSRP, will we see the same for AMD’s new RDNA 3 GPU?
That seems to be a hint, which is going to be disappointing – as we’d highly expect AMD to keep its RX 7900 variants relatively affordable at least compared to Nvidia’s RTX 4080. (Remember, the Red Team won’t be trying to compete with the RTX 4090, but the 4080 – that’s clear from what we’ve seen of AMD’s positioning and press material).
There’s another important factor here, which is the kind of volume that AMD and their card manufacturing partners will be gathering at the initial RDNA 3 launch. That will obviously be important for pricing, because if inventory isn’t plentiful and sells out quickly, it becomes a vicious cycle as tokens will then sell even faster than early adopters. chance to wear hats and buy goods to resell.
According to Board Channels sources, the supply of 3 . DNA The graphics card was originally supposed to be “sufficient”, but it’s a tough decision to make at this stage and we’ll regret it.
AMD and its card makers can really have a hard time assessing inventory, as Nvidia has been selling off expensive Lovelace GPUs for a while – moving a lot of its units. RTX4090 especially. (And also the RTX 4080 to a lesser extent, although for the price relative to the 4090, that GPU was received much less enthusiastically, we would say).
Expensive graphics cards are a pretty good proposition – especially when the cost of living crisis is in full swing, accompanied by high electricity bills – so is there a risk for AMD when Nvidia has Eat too many pieces of this cake? Keep in mind that while the RX 7900 XT and XTX are certainly more affordable than Nvidia’s RTX 4080, they’re still expensive boards – reference or not. And perhaps this kind of thinking is fueling worries at AMD that the company doesn’t want to push too much RDNA 3 stock initially.
This is pure speculation, of course, but that might have something to do with wanting to delay third-party custom templates until a bit later and allocating the supply so it can be better suited to predictive demand out of the gate.
All in all, it’s clear that AMD can make some tough decisions to make and weigh a variety of possibilities for balance. So it’s inconceivable that there’s probably some last-minute reordering time frame going on behind the scenes as the Red Team looks at Nvidia’s sales sheet with Lovelace – it seems to be around 160,000 units. and calculate for the RTX 4090 and 4080 – and try to figure out the best approach to launching strategy and volume.
