AMD Aims to Protect its RX 6000 Launch Against Scalpers

Source: Tom's Hardware added 21st Oct 2020



(Image credit: AMD)

In an attempt to avoid suffering the same fate as Nvidia, it looks like AMD is prepping its partners for how to handle RX 6000 series orders to ensure as little scalping as possible.

This is clear from a leaked letter shown by YouTube channel RedGamingTech and Moore’s Law is Dead. The letter addresses AMD partners, issuing guidelines (no strict rules) about how to handle the RX 6000 sales.

(Image credit: Moore’s Law is Dead)

The guidelines are all rather self-explanatory, with methods such as captcha controls, purchase limits, bot-detection techniques, and more. The Queuing system looks like a particularly good move, as EVGA implemented this in its own RTX 30-Series ordering system, which the community responded well to.

Of course, the real question is to what extent these measures will help — they’re not mandatory, and this leak could, for all intents and purposes, be nothing more than a PR move to set expectations among the customer base. At best, we imagine that they’ll mitigate the situation, but there will still be individuals that find ways to abuse the lack of supply, finding loopholes or other techniques to get their hands on cards for reselling at higher prices anyway.

At the end of the day, there’s only so much AMD can do anyway. With the coronavirus keeping many people locked in their homes, demand for gaming hardware and especially the latest and greatest graphics cards is through the roof, and it’s no secret that TSMC has no capacity left to increase chip production. 

Meanwhile, if you want to learn more about the AMD Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, check out our all-we-know summary and sit tight for next week’s announcement on October 28th.