It looks like AMD is getting ready to launch the next part in their RDNA2/RX 6000 family of video cards
AMD is set to reveal a new Radeon RX 6000 graphics card during Episode 3 of its “Where Gaming Begins” event on March 3 on 11 AM US Eastern. Although the chipmaker didn’t specify which model, it’s likely going to be the much-awaited Radeon RX 6700 XT. Following AMD’s Big Navi release pattern,. the Radeon RX 6700 XT is the next SKU in line after all. Do note that AMD clearly mentions that this would be an unveiling and not a formal launch. As per previous rumors, the launch and availability are slated for the 18th of March.
The cornerstone of the announcement will be the introduction of a new Radeon video card. Essentially giving us half of the product announcement up-front, AMD has also posted a short, looping video of the card, highlighting the fairly sizable card and its open air cooler with dual axial fans. Given this, we’re almost certainly looking at what will be a Radeon RX 6700 card. AMD started the RDNA2 family with the top cards and GPU (Navi 21) first, so this is the next step in the expected filtering down of RDNA2 into cheaper video cards.
AMD’s render of the RDNA 2 graphics card aligns with a previous leaked design of what the Radeon RX 6700 could look like. On an aesthetic level, the Radeon RX 6700 XT shares similar traits as the reference design for other Big Navi models, such as the Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT and RX 6800. However, the Radeon RX 6700 XT features a less robust cooling system with a dual-slot design.
The Radeon RX 6700 XT emerges with a shorter cooler with only two cooling fans. A quick glimpse at the front of the graphics card reveals three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs and a single HDMI 2.1 port. It would seem that AMD has removed the USB Type-C connector on the Radeon RX 6700 XT. While the USB Type-C port has its uses, it never really took off so it will please consumers to know that it has been replaced with an extra DisplayPort 1.4a output instead.
On March 3rd, the journey continues for #RDNA2. Join us at 11AM US Eastern as we reveal the latest addition to the @AMD Radeon RX 6000 graphics family. https://t.co/5CFvT9D2SR pic.twitter.com/tUpUwRfpgk
— Radeon RX (@Radeon) February 24, 2021
The Radeon RX 6700 XT will be gunning after Nvidia’s mid-range Ampere-based graphics cards, such as the GeForce RTX 3060 that launches tomorrow. The specifications for the new Big Navi (I guess this is really Medium Navi) graphics card are still blurry, but we expect to see a full Navi 22 (codename Navy Flounder) die, which houses 40 Compute Units (CUs). As AMD has done in the past, it’s reasonable to think that the chipmaker would also put out a Radeon RX 6700, which would probably leverage a cut-down version of the Navi 22 silicon.
The rumors are painting the Radeon RX 6700 XT and RX 6700 with 2,560 and 2,304 Stream Processors (SPs), respectively. Assuming that the SP count is accurate, the XT variant will have 40 ray accelerators at its disposal, while the non-XT variant should be equipped with 36 of them.
On the memory aspect, Gigabyte has registered multiple custom Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics cards before the EEC (Eurasian Economic Commission) with 12GB of GDDR6 memory. Similary, ASRock has submitted a couple of Radeon RX 6700 SKUs with 6GB of GDDR6 memory.
Finally, I suspect we’ll hear some software-related news from AMD as well. They could also unveil the FidelityFx Super Resolution which as per many reports was slated to be unveiled in March.The company has demonstrated an aptness for bundling software news into these hardware announcements, looking to make the most of these large, highly visible product launches. So I don’t expect AMD to solely talk about the new video card for 15+ minutes.
Pricing and performance are important, but availability has ultimately taken up a bigger role nowadays given the graphics card shortages, crypto-mining boom and scalpers. AMD has made it clear that it’ll announce a Radeon RX 6000 graphics card on March 3. However, it’ll be interesting to see if it will be available for purchase sooner rather than later.
