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As with other graphics cards that we've looked at during the past year or so, pricing and availability are generally completely messed up. ASRock's official MSRP on the RX 6900 XT Formula OC is apparently 'only' $1,700, though we've seen Newegg list it for as much as $1,900 in just the past two weeks. Still, the fact that it's available at all without dealing with the Newegg Shuffle or other shenanigans is at least some consolation. But then $1,700 is basically as much as you'd pay for an RX 6900 XT card off of eBay.
Is the ASRock RX 6900 XT Formula worth $1,700? Normally, this would be a hard pass, but in the present climate there will undoubtedly be some takers. Plus you can get Far Cry 6 and Resident Evil Village for free for the time being, potentially offsetting the cost a bit (assuming you want both games). Of course, part of the reason for the inflated GPU prices is Ethereum mining, and the RX 6900 XT only manages about 65 MH/s — not enough to command the sort of prices that we still see on RTX 3090, 3080 Ti, and 3080. For pure gaming performance, the RX 6900 XT manages to trade blows with Nvidia's top GPUs and might be worth the cost… unless you care about ray tracing, in which case the RTX 3080 Ti easily comes out ahead.
Ten months after the official launch, AMD's RX 6900 XT still occupies an interesting position. Skip ray tracing and run at 1440p or 1080p and performance basically matches and sometimes exceeds the RTX 3090, at lower prices than you'll find on Nvidia's halo card. If you're after 4K and maxed out settings, and you want to be able to enable ray tracing in the games that support it, AMD's Big Navi GPUs are decidedly less enticing. Even if you want an AMD card, there's also a case to be made for skipping the RX 6900 XT and stepping down to the RX 6800 XT — or there would be if either one were regularly in stock at prices closer to AMD's MSRP.
If you have $1,700 that needs to be spent on a graphics card upgrade, the ASRock RX 6900 XT Formula might be what you're after. It's also telling that RX 6900 XT cards are at present the only GPUs currently available at Newegg without going through the Shuffaluffagus shenanigans. That suggests people aren't champing at the bit waiting to buy AMD's top cards. The unfortunate state of affairs is that waiting for prices to come down and return to normal could mean delaying a GPU upgrade for another year or more.
If you opt for the ASRock 6900 XT, you'll get AMD's top offering, boosted to even higher levels of performance, but mind the power draw and case ventilation. Those who prefer less extreme prices and performance, or anyone who wants more RGB joy or ray tracing in their next PC build, should look elsewhere.
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