AMD's RX 6950 XT would have to really excel to justify this pre-release price
The fastest RDNA2 GPU is not going to be cheap, but will it really be this expensive?
Australian retailers, Megabuy and ITnest, have the distinct honor of being in the first place with product listings and prices for AMD's upcoming flagship Radeon GPU, the RX 6950 XT. The listings (first spotted by @momomo_us) show a Gigabyte RX 6950 XT GPU selling for over AUD $3,200, which roughly converts to $2,400 USD.
The RX 6900 XT launched for $999, which would have this new refreshed version going for far in excess of the original card. If these prices are in any way reflective of the actual price come launch day, that is.
You'll note that the retailer listing initially showed a discrepancy between the product name and product code on site. Megabuy seems to have corrected the copy so that the product name says RX 6950 XT instead of RX 6900 RT for AUD $3,241.
ITNest is selling the same Gigabyte GPU for AUD $3,320 though both have little information on the cards and are clearly placeholder listings to start taking pre-orders since some don't even have product pictures yet.
Megabuy has it pretty close in price with two Gigabyte RTX 3090 Ti cards listed for close to $3,339 (USD $2,500), which is over its $2,000 MSRP, but these days, GPUs selling over MSRP is commonplace. We even reported listings for the RTX 3090 Ti for over $4,000 in Canada before its launch. Thankfully, it sold for far less than that in the end.
At this price, one would expect that the RX 6950 XT's performance would be able to compete with the massive RTX 3090 Ti. We know that AMD's fastest GPU will have 18Gbps GDDR6 memory and reportedly higher boost clocks to help it achieve something towards that goal. Though, if this price sticks, it makes the card nearly double the price of RX 6900 XT, which is a drastic difference in price considering it seems like it may just be a marginal increase in performance.
(´・ω・`) pic.twitter.com/MZ64k30p9rApril 13, 2022
AMD's Radeon RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT, and RX 6650 XT GPUs were rumored to come out later this month but may have been delayed until May 10. The big question that remains is how AMD's powerful GPU stacks up against Nvidia's big boy with just a standard dual-slot cooler. We look forward to putting the RX 6950 XT through its paces to see if this flagship GPU sinks or swims.
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Jorge is a hardware writer from the enchanted lands of New Jersey. When he's not filling the office with the smell of Pop-Tarts, he's reviewing all sorts of gaming hardware, from laptops with the latest mobile GPUs to gaming chairs with built-in back massagers. He's been covering games and tech for over ten years and has written for Dualshockers, WCCFtech, Tom's Guide, and a bunch of other places on the world wide web.