When AMD first announced the Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card earlier this week, it only announced a reference version and not any custom partner cards. We could see some custom-cooled solutions soon though, as AMD is reportedly in talks with partners to allow custom versions of its latest flagship GPU.
Some AIB partners have already started to share their custom cooling designs of the Radeon RX 6000 cards, and none included a Radeon RX 6900 XT. Given this, it's somewhat safe to assume that AMD hasn't allowed its partners to work with the Radeon RX 6900 XT. It's not clear if this also means that partners can't resell the reference cards.
Fortunately, as per Andreas Schilling, “AMD is in talks with partners about custom models of the Radeon RX 6900 XT”. While the reference and custom Radeon RX 6800 and RX 6800 XT are scheduled to release on November 18th, the Radeon RX 6900 XT has been pushed for December 8th. This could be so AIB's have the time to prepare their custom solutions.
AMD is in talks with partners about custom models of the Radeon RX 6900 XT. So far, there is just a MBA (made by AMD) planed, but obviously partners are interested in offering own designs with custom coolers. pic.twitter.com/LTrWySzua4
— Andreas Schilling (@aschilling) October 30, 2020
If AIB partners are allowed to design custom solutions for the Radeon RX 6900 XT, then the turnaround could end up being fairly quick. The Radeon RX 6800 XT shares plenty of similarities to the 6900 XT, with both featuring the same 16GB GDDR6 across a 256-bit bus memory configuration, 2015MHz game frequency and 2250MHz boost frequency, and 300W TDP. The only noticeable difference is the amount of CUs enabled in the GPU (72 vs 80).
KitGuru says: Are you interested in buying the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT? Would you rather buy a custom cooled RX 6900 XT instead of the reference model?