AMD has officially changed its mind and is promising to keep selling its reference design RX 6000 series cards indefinitely, according to a new tweet from AMD graphics business unit Vice President Scott Herkelman.
We've just officially extended the reference design builds indefinitely due to popular demand. Thanks for the feedback.December 9, 2020
On November 19th, Herkelman tweeted that AMD’s reference design cards for Big Navi, which is what Team Red calls its in-house Founders Edition equivalents, would only be sold through early 2021. This was in line with the company’s past GPU releases, where AMD de-emphasized its reference design cards once enough custom cards were on the market. But in a December 9th tweet, Herkelman said the company had reversed this decision.
Responding to a fan who cited waterblocks built for the RX 6000 series reference designs and asked why they wouldn’t be sold longer, Herkelman said the reference design cards would now be sold “indefinitely due to popular demand.”
Whether this is due to positive reception for the RX 6800, 6800 XT, and 6900 XT, or due to the current low availability of the reference card designs for these GPUs, we’re not sure. But AMD fans - especially those eyeing parts built specifically for the reference card designs - can rest easy knowing that there’s no longer any rush to get their hands on AMD’s in-house GPUs.
