If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you’ll notice now that the entire graphics card scene is going haywire due to GPU shortages and now much higher retail pricing for custom AIB cards. The latest victim here is the Radeon RX 6000 series which seemed to have a limited release despite AMD already saying that it would not be a ‘paper launch’.
Custom AIB graphics cards are normally a little more expensive than the reference models thanks to custom PCB and cooling designs, so customers would be paying a premium already. However, thanks to the mass shortages across the world and heavy demand for these brand new GPUs, retailers are asking for even higher prices on top of the premium in order to ash in on the craze.
Below you can find a table of custom AIB graphics cards for the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 and their respective increases in MSRP based on prices found on popular etailer Newegg:
| GPU | Suggested Retail Price | Newegg Price (in $USD) | MSRP increase |
| RX 6800 XT | $649 | - | - |
| ASROCK RX 6800 XT Phantom Gaming D | 799.99 | +151 | |
| ASROCK RX 6800 XT Taichi | 829.99 | +171 | |
| ASUS RX 6800 XT ROG STRIX LC | 899.99 | +251 | |
| ASUS RX 6800 XT TUF OC | 809.99 | +161 | |
| POWERCOLOR RX 6800 XT Red Devil LE | 799.99 | +111 | |
| SAPPHIRE RX 6800 XT NITRO+ SE | 829.99 | +181 | |
| SAPPHIRE RX 6800 XT NITRO+ | 769.99 | +121 | |
| XFX RX 6800 XT Speedster MERC319 | 799.99 | +151 | |
| RX 6800 | $579 | - | - |
| ASUS RX 6800 ROG STRIX OC | 699.99 | +121 | |
| ASUS RX 6800 TUF OC | 679.99 | +100 | |
| ASROCK RX 6800 Challenger Pro | 659.99 | +81 | |
| ASROCK RX 6800 Phantom Gaming D | 679.99 | +100 |
In a recent Q&A session with the YouTube Channel Hardware Unboxed, AMD apparently got in touch with them and had a “private conversation” regarding the custom AIB cards and the suggested retail pricing:
“We have had a private conversation with AMD. They assured us that in 4 to 8 weeks there will be AIB cards available at MSRP. They said they enabled the AIBs to achieve the 649 dollars [RX 6800 XT] MSRP and they expect that to happen within 8 weeks.”
So hopefully this means we’ll see more fair pricing across the board for the RX 6000 series in at least 2 months time, which puts it at the end of January next year.
What do you think? Have you been trying to get an RX 6000 GPU? Were you successful? And how do you feel about the RX 6000 custom AIB pricing? Let us know!
