AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT(X): Custom designs will follow later and will be more expensive

0
129

While Sapphire is giving a first teaser for a custom design of the Radeon RX 7900 XT(X), there is no good news from elsewhere: partner cards with the new RDNA 3 architecture should accommodate AMD's official announcement was initially delayed, came onto the market in small quantities and was comparatively more expensive.

Sapphire gave a first glimpse of the new Nitro

h2>

While various board partners quickly came up with numerous custom designs after the presentation of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 (test) and GeForce RTX 4080 (test) at the end of September, corresponding ideas for the two Radeon RX 7000 graphics cards unveiled at the beginning of November have so far been more likely the rarity. Only Asus and PowerColor dared to come out with the TUF Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT(X) and the Radeon RX 7900 XT(X) Red Devil.

Now the second AMD exclusive partner Sapphire completes the trio: On Twitter, the manufacturer shows part of the front of a Radeon RX 7900 XT(X) Nitro. In the past, graphics cards from the Nitro series were often able to assert themselves as one of the best AMD partner cards of a generation, for example the Sapphire Radeon RX 6800 XT Nitro (test), the Sapphire Radeon RX 6700 XT Nitro (test), the Sapphire Radeon RX 5700 XT Nitro (test) or previously the Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury Nitro (test).

Not too much information can be elicited from the teaser, however. The only thing that is certain is that the new Nitro graphics card will use a gray, visually simple, but still illuminated cooler with three axial fans – a different number would have been a surprise in view of the past Nitro cards. Only the curved shape of the rotor blades stands out.

RX-7000 custom designs will probably come later and more expensive

The Radeon RX 7900 XT(X) is scheduled to go on sale on December 13, 2022. According to current rumors, however, the date should only apply to the corresponding reference designs from AMD, while the custom designs will be delayed by a few weeks, as Wccftech reports with a view to MyDrivers. Accordingly, tests of the custom designs can only be expected after the start of sales of the new AMD graphics cards, with a delay of one to two weeks. AMD itself, on the other hand, indicated when presenting the RDNA 3 generation that both the reference cards and custom designs should be available on December 13th.

According to the rumours, however, interested parties should be prepared for scarce availability and significantly higher prices than AMD is estimating for the reference cards. The Radeon RX 7900 XTX and Radeon RX 7900 XT are expected to start at $999 and $899, respectively, in the US, according to the recommended retail price. Compared to Nvidia's GeForce RTX 4080, which costs at least 1,470 euros according to the RRP – which AMD has chosen as the primary competition for the two new graphics cards – the price is significantly lower when European prices take into account the current euro-dollar exchange rate and domestic sales tax be approximated.

The lower price was the savior for many

If the custom designs are now accompanied by a noticeable surcharge, the price difference could be sensitive and a decisive argument for the Radeon RX 7900 XT(X) could be lost. In particular, the actual group of buyers of an “80s graphics card” from Nvidia is currently mostly sitting out the high prices of the second Ada Lovelace model: around 90 percent of ComputerBase readers are not at all interested in the GeForce RTX 4080 and 70 percent are high costs. The result is a significantly better availability in sluggish sales, especially compared to the previous RTX 3000 generation.

On the other hand, it should be noted that the custom designs of the Nvidia graphics cards were already significantly more expensive than the Founders Editions for the last generation; With the RTX 4000, things are no different: An Asus GeForce RTX 4080 ROG Strix or an MSI GeForce RTX 4080 Gaming X Trio, for example, currently cost just under 1,700 euros. If the custom designs of the RX 7000 GPUs are now accompanied by a comparable surcharge, AMD would only follow suit at this point. Nonetheless, the new information should be taken with a pinch of salt: so far it's just rumours.