AMD rumored to release a Radeon RX 6000-series refresh featuring 18 Gbps memory

[midian182]

Rumor mill: While there were rumors that AMD could reveal some refreshed versions of its Radeon RX 6000 series during CES, the only desktop graphics card we saw was the underwhelming Radeon RX 6500 XT. However, rumors suggest that an RDNA 2 refresh is still on the cards.

Rumors of the Radeon RX 6000 desktop refresh come from prolific leaker Greymon55. They don’t have any details beyond speculation that the cards will feature 18 Gbps memory dies, as opposed to the 16 Gbps GDDR6 chips used in all but the upcoming RX 6500 XT and RX 6900 XT LC—a theory that sounds possible.

The less likely claim made by some is that AMD will utilize the same 6nm process used in the Radeon RX 6500 XT for the refreshed RX 6000 line. What we can expect, however, is the cards’ TGPs to increase due to the faster memory.

AMD seems to be preparing a new version of the RX 6000 series, I don't know the details, maybe an upgrade to 18Gbps?

— Greymon55 (@greymon55) January 17, 2022

Chiphell leaker wjm47196 also believes an RDNA 2 refresh is on the way. They suspect the new cards will replace the existing Radeon RX 6000 series and arrive between April and June this year.

Assuming the rumors are true, the refreshed cards could potentially act as a stop-gap before AMD’s next-gen RDNA 3-powered GPUs arrive, which many expect will happen late this year. That’s similar to what Nvidia has done by releasing the RTX 3080 12GB, which is selling well (unsurprisingly) despite not offering a huge performance bump over the 10GB original, arriving with no pre-release reviews, and costing a fortune.

In addition to whether this refresh proves genuine or not, you have to wonder how badly the current chip shortage/scalping/mining issues will impact their prices and availability. There has been cautious talk of the first signs of a recovery recently, with card shipments predicted to increase, easing shortages, and promises of improving supply.

There’s also the question of how many people will buy these cards instead of opting to wait for RDNA 3 or Nvidia’s Lovelace, but given the huge levels of demand, AMD's unlikely to be worried.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93028-amd-rumored-release-radeon-rx-6000-series-refresh.html

 

[Sausagemeat]

From what I’ve been able to learn, memory speed is more important than total capacity as long as you have enough VRAM, so this could give AMD more of a boost than Nvidia gave Geforce when they increased the memory capacity on their cards. Maybe this will help Radeon catch up to Geforce at 4K.

 

[takaozo]

They can release all they want, I'm sick of their weird software/drivers. Got some ATI/AMD cards from Ati 7500 until 570/5700XT. Always the same, good hardware and not so good software.
Last issue I had with AMD drivers is when exiting RDR2 Vulkan, the GPU and VRAM remain at max speed until reboot. So no thank you.
Waiting for Intel to see another disaster driver release .

 

[Puiu]

They can release all they want, I'm sick of their weird software/drivers. Got some ATI/AMD cards from Ati 7500 until 570/5700XT. Always the same, good hardware and not so good software.
Last issue I had with AMD drivers is when exiting RDR2 Vulkan, the GPU and VRAM remain at max speed until reboot. So no thank you.
Waiting for Intel to see another disaster driver release .

Meh, Nvidia isn't any better at the moment. I've been having issues with my laptop drivers. Waking from sleep doesn't work all the time and some games have visual glitches after alt-tabbing. I would be more forgiving if not their BS software that is telling me to login every time there is an update or I want to use it. At least AMD had a much sleeker and faster control panel when I last used it.

I've downgraded the driver to a previous version that doesn't have these issues.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

The current price of AMD cards (and the scarcity of the 6800XT and especially the 6800) doesn't bring any kind of useful resolution to lack of GPUs and pricing.

If the 6800, when you do find them, are $1100+ and the 6800XT are $1300+ (this is retail), where will this land the revised versions? 6800revised at $1300+ and the 6800XTrevised at $1500+?

Look at what the slight bump to the 3080 with it's now 12GB - roughly 4-5% improvement for an extra $400+. What a joke.


The only way this would be beneficial is if pricing was reduced significantly and availability was improved drastically. Neither will happen, so it's kind of a moot point for Nvidia or AMD to push out revised GPUs of this current gen.

I was all for finding a 6800 when they launched or a 3070, both had similar performance and similarly priced. That didn't pan out. You won't see me dropping the $1100+ on a 6800 now. At least the 3070 can be had for cheaper, $800 or so, if you're lucky.

 

[Dimitriid]

At this point I'm concerned they'll cut down the pci-e lanes even more: Let's just give em x8 on the 6700xt and x4 on the 6600 and just down to x1 on the 6500 they fools will just buy whatever lol

 

[Kosmoz]

If the refresh is true, it will be on 6nm so theoretically it should help with availability more... but that's not important if all the cards are in stock and at 2x MSRP or more...

Also, I see AMD take a note from what nvidia's playbook, so the refresh will have what 5%-10% more performance / tier?

Unless I can get one at MSRP (same goes for intel Arc), I won't be interested at all. I'll wait for next gen RDNA3.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I don't see the point of this. It's as useless as nVidia's 12GB RTX 3080 (that is just an RTX 3080 Ti in disguise). When it comes to VRAM sizes, numbers like 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. make sense. Having 18GB of VRAM makes about as much sense as 3 or 6.

Maybe AMD has this idea that if nVidia has zombies that will spend an extra $500 for 2 extra GB of GDDR6X, maybe they think that they can get an extra $400 for 2 extra GB of GDDR6.

 

[takaozo]

Meh, Nvidia isn't any better at the moment. I've been having issues with my laptop drivers. Waking from sleep doesn't work all the time and some games have visual glitches after alt-tabbing. I would be more forgiving if not their BS software that is telling me to login every time there is an update or I want to use it. At least AMD had a much sleeker and faster control panel when I last used it.

I've downgraded the driver to a previous version that doesn't have these issues.

I know Nvidia is not any better, but if you install only the Video driver and Physx + Vulkan, should be good to go. Also for me the 5xx drivers have some issues and I still go with 497 for RTX2060.

 

[theruck]

The consumers want the current and even old cards which are not available and they do new card nobody is asking for.

 

[bviktor]

Meh, Nvidia isn't any better at the moment. I've been having issues with my laptop drivers. Waking from sleep doesn't work all the time and some games have visual glitches after alt-tabbing. I would be more forgiving if not their BS software that is telling me to login every time there is an update or I want to use it. At least AMD had a much sleeker and faster control panel when I last used it.

I've downgraded the driver to a previous version that doesn't have these issues.

Oh yes, NV is way better at this moment. Or... any moment in time. With AMD it's always "we'll fix it in vNext!". Literally.

 

[Lionvibez]

They can release all they want, I'm sick of their weird software/drivers. Got some ATI/AMD cards from Ati 7500 until 570/5700XT. Always the same, good hardware and not so good software.
Last issue I had with AMD drivers is when exiting RDR2 Vulkan, the GPU and VRAM remain at max speed until reboot. So no thank you.
Waiting for Intel to see another disaster driver release .

Ati 7500 which is a very old card not really comparable to the newer stuff that is technically not even a radeon. I was using Ati cards back then and moved to the first radeon 64DDR. I've can't say I've had a ton of driver problems over the last 20 years. I have however skipped a few models as I never owned the 5700XT. There are reports on both sides of driver issues through the years just need to go into any forum and look.

 

[Thunder6230]

They don't do 18gb ram. They do faster 18gbps memory insted of the current ones. It can achieve gddr6x speeds with less consumption. Not that I could buy any cuz I don't have PC but the motive is nice

I don't see the point of this. It's as useless as nVidia's 12GB RTX 3080 (that is just an RTX 3080 Ti in disguise). When it comes to VRAM sizes, numbers like 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. make sense. Having 18GB of VRAM makes about as much sense as 3 or 6.

Maybe AMD has this idea that if nVidia has zombies that will spend an extra $500 for 2 extra GB of GDDR6X, maybe they think that they can get an extra $400 for 2 extra GB of GDDR6.

 

[Puiu]

I know Nvidia is not any better, but if you install only the Video driver and Physx + Vulkan, should be good to go. Also for me the 5xx drivers have some issues and I still go with 497 for RTX2060.

Not taking advantage of the more advanced features is not really what I'm looking for in a driver suite. Its value is included in the price I paid for

 

[fadingfool]

A boost to memory speed should help the 4k performance (really see a drop off against nVidia at 4K) but without better availability the price/performance metric is still going to suck.

 

[takaozo]

Not taking advantage of the more advanced features is not really what I'm looking for in a driver suite. Its value is included in the price I paid for

Salut Puiu,

I can't see any value in a software that performs automatic adjustments to my settings for each game like Nvidia Experience and Radeon.... something I cant remember now. No manual control = no control = no fun.
Maybe I don't care about shadows quality or other settings and usually turn them off or at the lowest setting.

 

[Puiu]

Salut Puiu,

I can't see any value in a software that performs automatic adjustments to my settings for each game like Nvidia Experience and Radeon.... something I cant remember now. No manual control = no control = no fun.
Maybe I don't care about shadows quality or other settings and usually turn them off or at the lowest setting.

Salut.
It's the manual control that I'm talking about. I don't use the game "optimisations".

 

[Avro Arrow]

They don't do 18gb ram. They do faster 18gbps memory insted of the current ones. It can achieve gddr6x speeds with less consumption. Not that I could buy any cuz I don't have PC but the motive is nice

The thing is, with prices what they already are, this isn't a good time to come up with something even more expensive. They're already ahead with the 16GB of GDDR6 that the RX 6800 XT has compared to the 10GB (or now also 12GB) of GDDR6X on the RTX 3080.

Take it from someone who has two R9 Furies, it's a far better thing to have more VRAM than faster VRAM. HBM is insanely fast (possibly the fastest VRAM ever put on a consumer-grade video card with a bus that's 4096 bits wide) but when a game wants more than 4GB, it doesn't matter.

I'd have taken 8GB of GDDR5 over 4GM of HBM any day because the R9 Fury's performance is still pretty usable in Far Cry 6. Unfortunately, the 4GB of VRAM limits the card to 720p and low settings. There isn't enough room in the frame buffer for better textures even though the card can easily run the game from a performance standpoint. I'm just glad that I had an RX 5700 XT to play the game on or it would've looked awful the first time around.

The RX 580 was available with 8GB of VRAM. Since Fiji is faster than Polaris, the Fury is even more hamstrung by the 4GB of VRAM than the RX 580 4GB version is and it doesn't matter that it's HBM instead of GDDR5 when there just isn't enough of it.