You're Not Ready For Gigabyte's First Custom RX 6900 XT

It's been quite a while since AMD revealed its RDNA 2 based Radeon 6000 graphics cards, and while the RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT, which are among the best graphics cards, have seen plenty of custom versions already, the RX 6900 XT has, so far, only been dished in its reference version with AMD's cooler. 

But that all changes today, as Gigabyte just revealed its first custom RX 6900 XT graphics card, and trust me when I say: you're not ready for it.

The card in question is the RX 6900 XT Gaming OC, which is Gigabyte speak for being the 'mainstream' 6900 XT option. Of course, calling this card mainstream is a huge stretch, but this isn't the Aorus Master option yet with its LCD panel or anything. 

This card comes with a massive triple-slot cooler, stretching its dimensions to a whopping 286 mm long, 118 mm wide, and 58 mm thick, so make sure you have the space in your case before smashing the order button. 

You'll also need a hefty power supply, as powering the card requires not two 8-pin PCIe power connectors like on the reference card, but three, and Gigabyte recommends an 850 W PSU at the very least. Thankfully, you do get a factory overclock in return for this, bumping the boost clock up to 2,285 MHz -- a mighty 35 MHz over reference.

The Radeon RX 6900 XT is AMD's top-of-the-line GPU at this time, packing a staggering 5,120 RDNA 2 cores spanned across 80 CUs, and it is manufactured on TSMC's 7nm node. It comes wired to 16GB of GDDR6 memory that operates at 16,000 MHz over a 256-bit memory interface for a total bandwidth of 512 GB/s.

The card comes with addressable RGB, a backplate, dual-BIOS (including a silent mode), and two HDMI 2.1 outputs and two DisplayPort 1.4a ports.

No word on pricing or availability, but given the GPU scarcity at this time, it's safe to assume 'expensive' and 'difficult, if not impossible' to come by.