The graphics card availability situation may look a pretty bleak right now, but that’s not stopping AMD from forging ahead with its plans. The company announced on Twitter today that it’s launching a new graphics card in its Radeon RX 6000-series line next week.
AMD has released three GPUs in its RX 6000-series so far: the RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6800. The three are the first AMD graphics cards to have ray tracing and a new feature that AMD calls Smart Access Memory, which allows the GPU and CPU to talk directly to one another. This bypasses some of the needed memory needed to load game frames, and can result in a higher frame rate.
The RX 6900 XT is the top-of-the-line card in the RX 6000 family, so it likely means AMD is bringing a new mid-tier option to market, possibly the RX 6700 or something with a similar naming scheme.
The timing will be good, too. Nvidia is launching its new mid-range RTX 3060 tomorrow for $329—stay tuned for more on that!—so AMD’s new GPU will likely be in the same performance bracket as the RTX 3060, or maybe fall somewhere between the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3060. The price of AMD’s next GPU should be competitive, too.
In any case, AMD usually announces a few other things at its main event, so perhaps we’ll get more information about when exactly its RDNA2 mobile GPUs are coming to gaming laptops. Right now, launch is set for the second half of 2021, and it’s possible that won’t change at all given the current chip shortage.
AMD will be streaming the announcement on Wednesday, March 3 at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT. The company hasn’t said where exactly, but most likely you’ll be able to watch the event on YouTube, Twitch, or Twitter. And, of course, we’ll be bringing you all the coverage here, so stay tuned.