Sapphire Teases Next-Gen Radeon RX 7900 GPU Family

Sapphire has shared what looks like its first Radeon RX 7900 XTX / 7900 XT teaser on social media. The AMD-exclusive partner published a brief video clip on Twitter featuring an alluring pink LED-lit silver and black graphics card. In related news, discussions on China’s Bobantang forums indicate that only AMD reference design cards will be available at launch (December 13). Gamers, PC DIYers and enthusiasts must wait another one or two weeks for custom models, like the teased Sapphire cards, to materialize.

You can see the full Sapphire video teaser embedded above; however, not a lot is revealed. All we see is a triple fan graphics card running with pink LED edging. Like most triple fan designs, this one uses an alternative spinning layout, with only the center fan rotating clockwise. The design looks very premium from what we can see, with this impression making the upcoming Sapphire graphics card look like an MSI Suprim model.

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Other recently teased RX 7000 cards

Other recently teased RX 7000 cards

AMD Reference Models First?

On the Chinese tech forum Bobantang, there are some interesting rumors regarding the launch schedule for the upcoming AMD RDNA 3 flagship pair. AMD has already officially established that the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and 7900 XT will become available on December 13. However, the China tech forum rumors suggest that customers will have their choice limited to the AMD reference designs. According to the tech forum rumor, this restriction will lift one or two weeks after the initial December 13 launch.

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Official release date - for reference designs only?

Another detail from the Bobantang post is probably more worrying. It suggests that AMD partner custom designs will be more expensive than the reference models. From the leaks we have seen, AMD reference designs look like some of the more modest upcoming RDNA 3 graphics cards. On the other hand, partner designs look almost as bulky as the latest GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 4080 graphics cards in some instances.