Who thought a GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3090 in the Founders Edition or one of the custom models would have been difficult to obtain, yesterday the “sales start” of the custom models of the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT not experienced. This happened a little more than 24 hours and we had the ASUS ROG Strix LC Radeon RX 6800 XT OC Edition immediately tested a model with AiO cooling.

We published a comment on the topic a few days ago , because the reference versions were and are difficult or even impossible to obtain. Nothing has changed in this situation to this day. For the custom models of the Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT it looks like yesterday Start really bad. If you could still get lucky at the starts in the past few weeks and get hold of a card, the first custom models from Big Navi were practically not available at all, and if so, only in quantities of less than a handful.

Our “AMD RDNA2 Availability and Laber” thread is bursting at the seams. Of course, heated discussions also flare up here about whether one can even speak of a start, since virtually no cards were available. Prices of over 1. 000 Euro are for a custom model of the Radeon RX 6800 XT, of course, far too high, and yet some cards were sold at these prices over the virtual counter.

AMD and NVIDIA defend themselves, of course, from to speak to a paper launch. As long as you have been able to bring a certain number of items on the market, there can be no question of a paper launch – according to AMD and NVIDIA. But we would contradict that. NVIDIA spoke of having delivered similar quantities to the market at the start of the first two models, as in previous launches. For the GeForce RTX 3070, due to a delay of two weeks, even larger quantities could be offered at the start. But even this was not enough. At least NVIDIA confirms high numbers of items, even if it was not enough.

This should not look any different with AMD – actually. Scott Herkelman, Vice President & General Manager Graphics Business Unit at AMD said in an interview:

“You don’t have to wait long for your delivery. (.. .) For a few weeks now, we have been sending our own ASICs every day so that they can be installed on the custom designs, (…) “

So you want to have your supply chain prepared, but here too the demand surprised you. Now the situation with graphics cards with Big Navi GPU is even more devastating than it is for the GeForce RTX – 3000 Cards was the case and in some cases still is. The big question is whether AMD and NVIDIA could have been better prepared. However, it is not possible to react quickly to such an onslaught.

From the actual GPUs to all other components in the supply chain, the manufacturers are limited in number and capacity. It is not possible to simply ramp up production by a factor of two. In addition, the production capacities in Asia are already being pushed to their limits – there is not much more leeway here.

But we still see the manufacturers and thus AMD and NVIDIA in their duty here better act and above all communicate. Nothing annoys a (potential) customer more than standing there without feedback and not knowing whether his order has now gone through or how long he has to wait.

Also for us as tech press and authors the article this is not a nice situation. We present you with tests on products that are hardly or not at all available. The information we provide about the prices is either no longer valid when the test is published or changes every few minutes – depending on which shop has found a box and charges almost any surcharge. An assessment based on the price is therefore currently not possible for us.

For many, it means still waiting

So if you want to get hold of one of the new cards, whether it’s Founders Edition, reference design from AMD or one of the many custom designs from the various manufacturers, at a market-driven price, you have to be patient or have a lot of luck. At the moment, it is becoming apparent that the current situation will continue into the next year. While the situation with the GeForce cards has already eased somewhat, this will take some time for the cards with AMD GPU – despite all the assurances of the companies involved, which of course try to get as many cards as possible to the man

By the way: AMD and NVIDIA probably benefit the least from the high or, better, excessive prices. The shops and middlemen adjust the prices to the demand and can apparently ask what they want at the moment.

Availability notes for graphics cards and processors

Our forum moderator @ralle_h has started a small project, which asks shops / APIs for the availability of the new graphics cards and processors. You can find the threads here:

• GeForce-RTX – 3000 – Series availability notes
• Radeon-RX- 6000 – Series Availability Notes
• AMD Ryzen – 5000 – Series availability notes

Please note that all information is provided without guarantee! The data of the respective shop API does not necessarily represent the availability in the front end of the shop! Some shops have cached the article pages, so it can happen that the shop API marks a certain article as “available”, but it is still displayed as “not available” in the shop frontend. You may have to wait until the page is recreated or the cache is deleted! At Saturn and Mediamarkt it sometimes takes 20 – 40 Minutes before the article pages update and reflect the availability of the API! It may be faster using a memo.

But it can also be that the shop is or was overrun by purchase bots immediately, and the available items were sold almost immediately.