High End Graphics Card Stock 6900 XT vs 3090

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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While I have been away from HardOCP for a couple of years now, as you might guess I have a lot of friends in the industry that I still talk to after developing relationships after over 20 years. I was talking to a buddy a couple days ago and he was going on about AMD having great stock on cards. I called BS because I see no 6700/6800 cards available right now. I look at Newegg Shuffle everyday and see about nothing for AMD. He told me I was not looking at the right product. He said 6900 XT cards were in stock in both the US and EU. Anyway, we got off the phone and I went to bed. I looked at Newegg last night and it seems he was right. I decided to spend an hour digging around this morning and getting more data than just Newegg, and well, he is about as correct as he could be. (Insert public apology for him here since I called BS on him. And yes I will send him a link and kiss some butt. :p )

The spread sheet link is a public Google doc here.

Some insight to what is here.

I am not going to discuss MSRP, because we all know that is a lie anyway. Market prices are what they are, we can whine about that all day long, but that will change nothing.

In a nutshell, Newegg has plenty of stock on 6900XT cards (as of typing this) and has ZERO 3090 cards in stock (except for Shuffle). Microcenter has tons of 6900XT stock around the nation, while having just a few 3090 cards at very few locations.

MindFactory seems to be the go-to nowadays for EU stock and pricing data on GPUs from what I read in the press, so I defaulted to that company for a quick look at the EU. MindFactory is more like MicroCenter here in the USA, but also has a huge online presence like Newegg. MindFactory has multiple 6900XT cards in stock and ZERO 3090 from what I can figure out on the German language site.

I put links in the spreadsheet for the MicroCenter store stock on AMD and NVIDIA as I thought that might help some [H]F'ers out if you are looking for one locally.

AMD is making a lot of graphics cards, and it looks like high end is its game right now. Like it or not. And that is a whole other discussion we can have.

Keep in mind YMMV when checking stock as we know these things change very quickly, but it seems that AMD has a huge amount of 6900 XT stock in US and EU right now.

Full disclosure, I have owned three 6900 XT cards since right after launch. An AMD ref card, a Sapphire Nitro+, and a PowerColor Red Devil. All have served my gaming household very well. So feel free to call me biased.

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Live sheet from Google Docs with clickable MicroCenter links:

 

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While I have been away from HardOCP for a couple of years now, as you might guess I have a lot of friends in the industry that I still talk to after developing relationships after over 20 years. I was talking to a buddy yesterday and he was going on about AMD having great stock on cards. I called BS because I see no 6700/6800 cards available right now. I look at Newegg Shuffle everyday and see about nothing for AMD. He told me I was not looking at the right product. He said 6900 XT cards were in stock in both the US and EU. Anyway, we got off the phone and I went to bed. I looked at Newegg last night and it seems he was right. I decided to spend an hour digging around this morning and getting more data than just Newegg, and well, he is about as correct as he could be. (Insert public apology for him here since I called BS on him. And yes I will send him a link and kiss some butt. :p )

The spread sheet link is a public Google doc here.

Some insight to what is here.

I am not going to discuss MSRP, because we all know that is a lie anyway. Market prices are what they are, we can whine about that all day long, but that will change nothing.

In a nutshell, Newegg has plenty of stock on 6900XT cards (as of typing this) and has ZERO 3090 cards in stock (except for Shuffle). Microcenter has tons of 6900XT stock around the nation, while having just a few 3090 cards at very few locations.

MindFactory seems to be the go-to nowadays for EU stock and pricing data on GPUs from what I read in the press, so I defaulted to that company for a quick look at the EU. MindFactory is more like MicroCenter here in the USA, but also has a huge online presence like Newegg. MindFactory has multiple 6900XT cards in stock and ZERO 3090 from what I can figure out on the German language site.

I put links in the spreadsheet for the MicroCenter store stock on AMD and NVIDIA as I thought that might help some [H]F'ers out if you are looking for one locally.

AMD is making a lot of graphics cards, and it looks like high end is its game right now. Like it or not. And that is a whole other discussion we can have.

Keep in mind YMMV when checking stock as we know these things change very quickly, but it seems that AMD has a huge amount of 6900 XT stock in US and EU right now.

Full disclosure, I have owned three 6900 XT cards since right after launch. An AMD ref card, a Sapphire Nitro+, and a PowerColor Red Devil. All have served my gaming household very well. So feel free to call me biased.

Static Image:

View attachment 397064

Live sheet from Google Docs with clickable MicroCenter links:


Interesting observations and 6900xt/6700xt are definitely attainable at many places. What are your thoughts on both NV/AMD keeping MSRPs as is (which as you noted is a lie), the MSRP for all current gen cards (besides the 3090/6900xt) is likely below cost given the component price increases in the past 12 months, do you think it'd be better if they just allowed MSRPs to rise in relation to cost?
 
Now, the real question is do I sell my 6800 Sapphire Nitro+ and "upgrade" to a 6900XT?

Thanks for the research FrgMstr!
 
Interesting observations and 6900xt/6700xt are definitely attainable at many places. What are your thoughts on both NV/AMD keeping MSRPs as is (which as you noted is a lie), the MSRP for all current gen cards (besides the 3090/6900xt) is likely below cost given the component price increases in the past 12 months, do you think it'd be better if they just allowed MSRPs to rise in relation to cost?
I think at this point, I am not even sure why MSRP is given by AMD or NVIDIA, it means absolutely NOTHING. I think it would be best to do away with MSRP's being quoted my manufacturers. They have not control over retail pricing in US or EU as we can obviously see with our own eyes. The MSRP is a lie.

cakeisalie.jpg
 
For those who didn't notice

rtx 3090's are available, about every 2-4 days from newegg. Usually bundled with a mobo.

Yesterday was the 3090 gigabyte extreme, today is aio and full cover waterblock

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails?ItemList=Combo.4350144

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails?ItemList=Combo.4334281

stock usually lasts only a few hours to half a day

I almost bit yesterday, but then I was like... why... As for 6900xt's, I agree with kyle, they have been available for awhile now.

************

It's alot easier to get a 3080ti for the nvidia side. Not easy, but still much easier.
 
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Now, the real question is do I sell my 6800 Sapphire Nitro+ and "upgrade" to a 6900XT?

Thanks for the research FrgMstr!
Guess it all depends on the ebay going rate of the 6800. This is from HUB's price analysis yesterday.

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The reason 6800xt/6900/6900xts are more readily available is because they don't serve a dual purpose for gaming/mining like 3090s do. The high end radeons have a poor RoI for mining and that is why you see more stock since only gamers want them. If you are a gamer, then it will work for your needs and should be able to easily get one.
 
The reason 6800xt/6900/6900xts are more readily available is because they don't serve a dual purpose for gaming/mining like 3090s do. The high end radeons have a poor RoI for mining and that is why you see more stock since only gamers want them. If you are a gamer, then it will work for your needs and should be able to easily get one.

That is simply not true at all.

I have mined with 2 different RX 6800 cards (MSI Trio X and XFX Speedster Merc 319) and also RTX 3070 EVGA XC3.
AMD cards did constantly 62MH/s but RTX3070 did 60.5MH/s at best. All cards consumed 120W. So yes, they are also dual purpose cards... the reason that RX6800 and 6800XT cards have no stock and if they are at stock- then with ridiculous prices (1100+ eur). Its because they are alternatives to non-lhr RTX3070! I have checked AMD and Nvidia prices daily. Since LHR cards came out the RX6800/XT prices have steadily climbed. Because their price was same or even lower than RTX3070's but are as good as RTX3070's for mining. Now that most RTX cards are LHR, its only logical that miners flock to AMD- who does not limit the mining.
But I also agree with OP, that TSMC yelds for AMD cards are so good that there are no faulty 6900XT's coming of the line.
 
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That is simply not true at all.

I have mined with 2 different RX 6800 cards (MSI Trio X and XFX Speedster Merc 319) and also RTX 3070 EVGA XC3.
AMD cards did constantly 62MH/s but RTX3070 did 60.5MH/s at best. All cards consumed 120W. So yes, they are also dual purpose cards... the reason that RX6800 and 6800XT cards have no stock and if they are at stock- then with ridiculous prices (1100+ eur). Its because they are alternatives to non-lhr RTX3070! I have checked AMD and Nvidia prices daily. Since LHR cards came out the RX6800/XT prices have steadily climbed. Because their price was same or even lower than RTX3070's but are as good as RTX3070's for mining. Now that most RTX cards are LHR, its only logical that miners flock to AMD- who does not limit the mining.
But I also agree with OP, that TSMC yelds for AMD cards are so good that there are no faulty 6900XT's coming of the line.
Notice that I did not mention rx6800.. I only said 6800 XT and above. Also I did not mention or compare 3070s. Have to compare apples to apples. 6900xt vs 3090. 6900xt is just way worse at mining than 3090. What I said above holds true for high end cards. Mid-range cards like rx6800/3070s are a different story.
 
Fucking current GPU prices make me vomit. A good friend of mine lucked out and a mutual friend got the newegg shuffle for an EVGA 3070 FTW & the 850w GA psu. I'm grabbing the psu because of the super deal. I doubt very much I'll snag a 3070/3080 in this fucking lifetime. My days of gaming are coming to a close sooner than expected. My 1070 is already showing it's age in certain titles. I'm surprised it even lasted this long.
 
I agree that AMD cards seem easier to get, but this could just be that Nvidia is way more popular and also the 6900XT is out of most people's budget.
 
The reason 6800xt/6900/6900xts are more readily available is because they don't serve a dual purpose for gaming/mining like 3090s do. The high end radeons have a poor RoI for mining and that is why you see more stock since only gamers want them. If you are a gamer, then it will work for your needs and should be able to easily get one.
What's funny is that 6800 GPU prices have risen so much that they're almost as expensive as a 6800 XT now. Back earlier in the spring no one wanted them really. I wish I had bought more 6800s while everyone was still scrounging for the last of the non-LHR nvidias. On the nvidia side it's similar, people want 3060tis and 3070s so much that thier prices are nearly at 3070ti levels. From my experience with stalking local microcenters the stock of 6900xt's is better than 3090s but you still have a decent shot at a 3090 and are pretty much guaranteed to get a 3080ti if you walk in any day of the week. I've never seen large quantities of anything except the 6700xt from the AMD side though. The 6900xt's seem to be in stock just because no one wants to spend that much on one, similar to the $900 6700XTs. Sometimes there'll be a $1600 version that goes fast but a lot of them were selling for $2500 or so and at that point you might as well buy a 3090 and use it for mining as well as gaming. nvidia seems to regularly deliver 30-50 cards that get cleaned out quickly though.
 
What's funny is that 6800 GPU prices have risen so much that they're almost as expensive as a 6800 XT now. Back earlier in the spring no one wanted them really. I wish I had bought more 6800s while everyone was still scrounging for the last of the non-LHR nvidias. On the nvidia side it's similar, people want 3060tis and 3070s so much that thier prices are nearly at 3070ti levels. From my experience with stalking local microcenters the stock of 6900xt's is better than 3090s but you still have a decent shot at a 3090 and are pretty much guaranteed to get a 3080ti if you walk in any day of the week. I've never seen large quantities of anything except the 6700xt from the AMD side though. The 6900xt's seem to be in stock just because no one wants to spend that much on one, similar to the $900 6700XTs. Sometimes there'll be a $1600 version that goes fast but a lot of them were selling for $2500 or so and at that point you might as well buy a 3090 and use it for mining as well as gaming. nvidia seems to regularly deliver 30-50 cards that get cleaned out quickly though.
Kicking myself daily for selling my 6800 and non LHR 3070s in late June for a grand each locally...majestic cards.
 
The NJ Microcenter gets nVidia cards pretty regularly, but they only last on the site for 5 minutes after the store opens and out the door they go. I was originally annoyed at getting a 3090 at MSRP in January, but seeing the prices today, i her the damned lottery.
 
Full disclosure, I have owned three 6900 XT cards since right after launch. An AMD ref card, a Sapphire Nitro+, and a PowerColor Red Devil. All have served my gaming household very well. So feel free to call me biased.


I've had my XFX Speedster MERC319 AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT ULTRA for awhile now, since February. The card is a beast, its a lot of metal and is heavy as hell, I picked up a support brace just to take up any pressure on the PCI-e slot. This card will clock up to 2500ghz and beyond, I've had it at 2650ghz and Im sure it can go further. Paired with a 5900X I can put out a lot of horsepower, I look forward to the upcoming crop of new games.
 
For those in the market, Newegg has the Asus TUF 6900XT for $1599 today. That's $50 lower than the lowest price I've seen on a 6900XT previously that I could easily just order and receive without the need to camp outside of Micro Center like some sort of dystopian cyberpunk hobo.

So, at least for the cards that the miners don't seem to desperately want, prices actually do seem to be slowly coming down. If you don't happen to like the TUF, other brands also appear to be available for another $50 to $100.\

Edit: Wait, I clicked on it and it says it's an "open box" in the page title, but doesn't mention this anywhere else. I guess never mind, maybe?
 
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For those in the market, Newegg has the Asus TUF 6900XT for $1599 today. That's $50 lower than the lowest price I've seen on a 6900XT previously that I could easily just order and receive without the need to camp outside of Micro Center like some sort of dystopian cyberpunk hobo.

So, at least for the cards that the miners don't seem to desperately want, prices actually do seem to be slowly coming down. If you don't happen to like the TUF, other brands also appear to be available for another $50 to $100.\

Edit: Wait, I clicked on it and it says it's an "open box" in the page title, but doesn't mention this anywhere else. I guess never mind, maybe?
Amazon had a bunch yesterday for presale (coming in like a week or so) coming in but I see they now no longer have it - guess a bunch of people pre-ordered it and they sold out.
 
Approximately two weeks later and from the last post and there are still a bunch of 6900XT's to be found.

From a Broken Silicon / Moore's Law is Dead podcast that had a local computer shop owner on, it's not just the manufacturer's charging so much more for their "custom" cards, but the distributors are tacking on large markups in addition to making shops buy large amounts of shelf-space eating reject products like those Gigabyte PSUs.

At this point 6900XT's are readily in stock, but all of them have at least a $500 markup over and above the overpriced $999 baseline MSRP of the 6900XT (at least as compared to the MSRP of the 6800XT). To that $500 price increase over the inflated MSRP a further $100-$350 is often added, though whether the primary source of that is the AiB, the distributor, or the retail vendor is an open question. Neither AMD or the AiB's have much incentive to release many 6800XT's since the difference between the cards is little more than binning to ensure those extra functional CU's on the 6900 series. I'd expect this is why Best Buy Nvidia drops, for the few moments the cards are in stock, seem to have so many more 3080ti's over 3080's.

The problem is at the $1,500 to $1,8850 price point the consumer can choose from the ready 6900XT with poor ray tracing or the semi-available from a Best Buy drop 3080ti and possibly an occasional 3090 for near MSRP. The 6900XT has less to differentiate it from the 6800XT as compared to the 3080 vs. 3080ti vs the 24 gigs of VRAM in the 3090. Moreover, Nvidia has mindshare + ray tracing + DLSS and for 3090's no hash rate limits so Team Green cards fly off the shelves while 6900XT's sit.

A separate question for the people who have bought 6900 series cards, have you been seeing VRAM heatsink or shoddy installation issues similar to what have been periodically afflicting 3080, 380ti, and 3090 owners?
 
I have a 6900xt, a 6800xt, and about 8 x 6800s. Only one of them has abnormally high memory temperatures so I underclock the memory slightly below what is optimal for mining to keep it below 90C, but I could run it higher if I wanted to. I have a second of the exact same AIB/model and it runs about 20C cooler. I could swap the pads but that costs money and might complicate potential RMAs in the future. So yeah, I can say from my experience I don't have issues with memory temps. But the radeons all use GDDR6 while the nvidia 3070TI and up use GDDR6X which runs hotter. I don't think that excuses the shoddy cooling on the nvidia cards, but it is a different scenario. It's much easier to keep rtx 3070's and below from thermal throttling, but it seems like with most of the higher end nvidia GPUs you need to repad them.
 
Well AMD cards work better on Linux, so that's nice, but it's a minuscule market on top of AMD's already small market share.

And ray tracing doesn't work completely under Linux yet (well the API is there, but the driver situation is catching up). But I tried on Windows and the performance was really bad, so I'm not missing much.

In any case, I paid $1,500 for my 6800 XT and I'm still happy with it. Wanted to get a good AMD card for a while and I finally got it (could have maybe splurged for the 6900 XT but it's whatever at this point).
 
Well AMD cards work better on Linux, so that's nice, but it's a minuscule market on top of AMD's already small market share.

And ray tracing doesn't work completely under Linux yet (well the API is there, but the driver situation is catching up). But I tried on Windows and the performance was really bad, so I'm not missing much.

In any case, I paid $1,500 for my 6800 XT and I'm still happy with it. Wanted to get a good AMD card for a while and I finally got it (could have maybe splurged for the 6900 XT but it's whatever at this point).

I have the reference 6900 xt. My previous rtx 2080ti/rtx 3070 had better or about the same rtx performance. It's obvious why all of the amd sponsored rtx titles generally use low hanging rtx fruit.

My previous rtx 3080 absolutely destroyed the 6900xt in most rtx titles. In cases where it did not, rtx didn't make a huge noticeable difference in visuals.

cards that I have used in the last year,

rtx 3080 strix oc
rtx 3070 zotac amp holo
rtx 3070 ti evga ftw3
rtx 2080ti strix
rx 6800 (non xt) reference <<< would not use rtx at 1440p, it's just not enough performance for the games I played
rx 6900xt reference <<< the 20-30 percent uptick vs the rx 6800 is big enough, that I enjoy 1440p rtx performance (sometimes settings have to turn down, but that's the same as the 3070/2080ti without dlss).

So I know some people might want to roast me, but here is what I'm going to say

If it's 1500-1800 dollar price bracket rtx 3080ti vs rx 6900xt I'd get an rtx 3080ti. Yes, good price rtx 3080ti's are hard to get, but they are easier to get than the nigh impossible to find in stock 3080 (unless you want to spend 1350 on an lhr model)

https://www.zotacstore.com/us/zotac-gaming-geforce-rtx-3080-amp-holo-lhr
 
The NJ Microcenter gets nVidia cards pretty regularly, but they only last on the site for 5 minutes after the store opens and out the door they go. I was originally annoyed at getting a 3090 at MSRP in January, but seeing the prices today, i her the damned lottery.
Same boat. The goal was a Best Buy 3080 for $700 back in January but after trying after a few drops and failing, I tried to add the 3090 FE just to see what happened.. well I got it in my cart and made a mad decision to just buy it.. 10 months later i'm glad I did.
 
I have the reference 6900 xt. My previous rtx 2080ti/rtx 3070 had better or about the same rtx performance. It's obvious why all of the amd sponsored rtx titles generally use low hanging rtx fruit.
So my old card was a 2080 Ti, which I was happy with in terms of performance, but I had some bugs on Linux.

In terms of ray tracing *without* DLSS, I think the 6800 XT and the 2080 Ti are not that far off. And in terms of rasterization they are very similar.

But, the problem is that RTX without DLSS is not viable. Almost all the big RTX games need DLSS to be playable (Cyberpunk, Metro, Control, etc.).

So on AMD you are at a disadvantage cause you can't use DLSS and those games haven't added FSR (which works great, but is of no use if the games don't support it).

And the AMD sponsored titles like Dirt 5 and Godfall do work well, but the ray tracing is minimal compared to flagship titles like Cyberpunk, Metro, Control, etc.
 
So my old card was a 2080 Ti, which I was happy with in terms of performance, but I had some bugs on Linux.

In terms of ray tracing *without* DLSS, I think the 6800 XT and the 2080 Ti are not that far off. And in terms of rasterization they are very similar.

But, the problem is that RTX without DLSS is not viable. Almost all the big RTX games need DLSS to be playable (Cyberpunk, Metro, Control, etc.).

So on AMD you are at a disadvantage cause you can't use DLSS and those games haven't added FSR (which works great, but is of no use if the games don't support it).

And the AMD sponsored titles like Dirt 5 and Godfall do work well, but the ray tracing is minimal compared to flagship titles like Cyberpunk, Metro, Control, etc.

@1440p, you can play metro exodus enhanced edition and control without dlss with a 3080. With metro you can use a 3070/2080ti at 1440p. Is it twitch speed friendly, no, but it's still easily playable for a single player game (a few spots are rough, in metro one particular spot is when your getting the carriage).

I found dropping from extreme to ultra settings and then ultra to high on rtx 2080ti easily playable.

You can also play rtx minecraft on a 3080 @ max distance without dlss on some maps (some of the maps are rough, but some of the maps even with dlss (you gain nothing because of cpu usage).

Once again, this is without DLSS.

(with cyberpunk, I'm just going to believe that you need dlss, based on reviewers, it's not a game I own)
 
I guess it depends on the setup. I'm running 3440x1440, so more pixels than 1440p, and also high refresh so I try to tweak settings to get 90 fps at the minimum.
 
Nvidia cards are selling better then AMD at high markup due to the fact they can mine more efficiently and thus miners are willing to pay more. You can pick up a 6900xt at 1,200 to 1,300 all day on stockx if you want one. That is where I got my card from, because you cant touch a 6800xt anywhere near msrp and for a 100 bucks more I would just rather have the bigger card.
 
Nvidia cards are selling better then AMD at high markup due to the fact they can mine more efficiently and thus miners are willing to pay more. You can pick up a 6900xt at 1,200 to 1,300 all day on stockx if you want one. That is where I got my card from, because you cant touch a 6800xt anywhere near msrp and for a 100 bucks more I would just rather have the bigger card.

3080 lhr models are selling for the same price or a bit more than reference 6900xt's. Those mine at high power and do not even mine faster than 6900xt's.

As for the 6800xt/6900xt, yea, just spend the extra 100 if you are not buying at amd msrp (which is only sold at amd nowadays).
 
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3080 lhr models are selling for the same price or a bit more than reference 6900xt's. Those mine at high power and do not even mine faster than 6900xt's.

As for the 6800xt/6900xt, yea, just spend the extra 100 if you are not buying at amd msrp (which is only sold at amd nowadays).

Yeah, mining is only partly contributing to the demand for some cards. The other part for the higher demand from gamers since Nvidia is still the more appealing card for most gamers with their higher performance in general, esp. when factoring in RT and DLSS performance in games. FSR helps AMD for sure, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as effective as DLSS in preserving (or even improving) image quality of native resolution output at the moment.

Personally, I'm only interested in buying a 3080 or 3090 within a few hundred dollars of their MSRP (under 2k for a 3090 or 1k for a 3080 or 1.5k for a 3080ti), but I have yet to catch anything available for anything near reasonable prices yet. But I'm not that desperate for a card right now either since I still have a 2080 that still works great for me so far esp. in games that support DLSS. I have also mined about $1,800 in ETH on it and my son's RX570 since January to offset the cost a bit for when I do eventually replace it, but realistically I'm not going to cash that in anytime soon and hope ETH value will keep going up after it switches to Proof of Stake and then I guess I'll just mine something else at that point. I have free utilities at my current house so might as well make the most of it and wish I could fund my own mining farm to capitalize on it as much as possible, hah.
 
Yeah, I had a small mining operation back in 2017. One 6-GPU rig, and then 4 gaming PCs running Nicehash. Think I was pulling in about $60/day at the peak, but the electricity costs were high. Also, is was the summer in California and my apartment turned into a sauna. So I cashed out.
 
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