Now that AMD's Radeon RX 7000-series product lineup is complete and all RDNA 3-based graphics processors have been announced or released, it's reportedly time for the company's previous-generation graphics cards and GPUs to go. Apparently, AMD wasted no time and discontinued its Navi 23 graphics chip that powers Radeon RX 6600-series products, reports IT Home, citing a forum specializing in the video cards business.
"AMD factory has stopped production for a certain GPU," a claim at the specialized forum reads. "By present, shipments from all AIB brands have stopped with inventory being cleared. AMD has stopped production for the Radeon RX 6650 XT, and nearly all brands will have their inventory cleared by the end of September."
Keep in mind that while AMD has reasons to halt production of previous-generation GPUs now that its new Navi 33 graphics processor and Radeon RX 7600 graphics cards (which are among the best graphics cards around) are in full production, the company has never confirmed this officially, so take the information with a grain of salt.
AMD's Navi 23 GPU is comprised of 11 billion transistors, packs 2048 stream processors, 32MB of Infinity Cache, and has a 128-bit memory interface. The chip is used for AMD's Radeon RX 6600, RX 6600 XT, and RX 6650 XT graphics cards. While AMD has reportedly stopped production of only the full Radeon RX 6650 XT configuration, based on the fact that both Radeon RX 6600 and RX 6600 XT are not really widespread in the U.S. retail these days, it's reasonable to assume that production of Navi 23 GPUs and Radeon RX 6600-series graphic cards has been halted.
In fact, there is hardly any point for AMD to continue production of Navi 23. The company's RDNA 3-based Navi 33 GPU integrates 13.3 billion transistors, has 2048 SPs, and performs better than its direct predecessor. Meanwhile, it has a smaller die size (204 mm2 vs 237 mm2) and is made on TSMC's N6 process technology (as opposed to N7 in the case of Navi 23), so it may well be cheaper to produce.
