AMD Pushes Back Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT, RX 6650 XT Launch By Two Weeks, Midnight Black Variants Pictured
The AMD RDNA 2 refreshed graphics cards were previously expected to launch on the 20th of April alongside the Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU but that’s no longer the case. It is likely that AMD may still do a little tease or announcement but these cards aren’t expected to ship until 10th of May, as reported by Videocardz. In addition to the delay, it looks like Videocardz has also managed to obtain pictures of the trio that will now come in the fan-favorite ‘Midnight Black’ color scheme. The flagship AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT will utilize the same design as the existing RX 6800 XT Black Edition while the other two cards will be getting a major overhaul in design. The RX 6750 XT will come in a triple-fan and slightly bigger 2-slot design while the RX 6650 XT will go with a dual-fan cooler. While some may think that the new designs are to keep the thermals in check, the cards won’t be that much different in heat output than their existing AMD Radeon RX 6000 series variants. Only a GDDR6 clock bump and slight clock improvements won’t change the heat output of these cards that much but the updated designs is AMD showcasing their engineering expertise and how they can devise multiple solutions for various classes of graphics cards. Overall, it’s a pretty neat over haul by AMD.
AMD Radeon RX 6000 XT RDNA 2 Graphics Card Refresh
The AMD Navi 21, Navi 22, & Navi 33 GPUs are the ones that will be refreshed for the upcoming Radeon RX 6X50 XT lineup. The AMD Navi 21 GPU currently powers the Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT & RX 6800 while the Navi 22 GPU powers the RX 6700 XT and the Navi 23 GPU powers the RX 6600 XT & 6600 on the desktop platform. The graphics cards will be featuring 18 Gbps memory along with certain clock enhancements. From the previous rumor, we came to know that these cards would also feature 18 Gbps GDDR6 memory dies. Currently, all cards except the upcoming RX 6500 XT & the flagship RX 6900 XT LC, feature 16 Gbps memory dies. The bump to 18 Gbps might offer higher bandwidth and increase performance by 2-5% but that doesn’t indicate a huge difference with the refreshed series. There are obviously going to be some process enhancements incorporated in the new RDNA 2 refresh GPUs since we’ve heard rumors of the RX 6950 XT clocking over 2.5 GHz. It would’ve been worthwhile if AMD gave its existing desktop GPUs the 6nm treatment & managed to get more performance efficiency out of them but that clearly isn’t happening. It looks like this soft refresh will feature both reference ‘midnight black’ and custom model designs. There would also be a small price difference and the TGP numbers are expected to go up slightly with the addition of the faster memory chips. These GPUs will likely compete with Intel’s high-end ARC Alchemist GPUs that are launching in a few months while the Radeon RX 6950 XT flagship is clearly aimed at NVIDIA’s RTX 3090 Ti graphics card which is one power-hungry insanity. The following table shows all the RDNA 2 graphics cards that AMD is currently offering:
AMD Radeon RX 6000 ‘RDNA 2’ Desktop Graphics Card Lineup:
