Introduction

In the run up to our comprehensive Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 “Big Navi” RDNA2 reviews, we have a picture unboxing article for you. It is becoming a bit of a tradition for NVIDIA and AMD to allow the press to do unboxing articles in the days leading up to the main review, not that we don’t welcome it. It’s just that unlike NVIDIA, which directly sells its Founders Edition cards on the GeForce website, AMD’s reference design cards (pictured in this article) are sold through its add-in-board partners, alongside their custom-design graphics cards. The reference design (made by AMD) package you see in this review will be extremely rare in the retail channel even though the exact same card will be sold under various labels. Since this is going to be a double launch from AMD, with the Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6800 coming out on the same day, we have unboxings of both cards in this article.

Both the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 come in premium-looking paperboard boxes that have a matte finish. The logos are finished off in chrome, and you’ll see a large glamour shot of the card on its face. Chrome is a recurring theme with not just the box but also the card underneath, as it denotes accurate reflections from the real-time raytracing technology the card ships with. Unlike the NVIDIA Founders Edition boxes, which ship in a fancy clam-shell design, the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 ship in two different box designs, as the cards are of different dimensions. The RX 6800 box is conventional thin paperboard and opens sideways, while the RX 6800 XT features a blow-out box made of thicker cardboard, essentially similar to the boxes some motherboards ship in.

Over the following pages, we will unbox each of the two cards, and also give you our first visual impressions of the cards. At this point, we cannot show you pictures of the internals, nor can we can’t share any performance numbers. You’ll have to wait for our comprehensive reviews which go live in the coming days.