Just a few days ago AMD has announced its Radeon RX 6000 series of graphics cards based on the new RDNA 2 architecture. While AMD has given out the "Big Navi" chips to its partners to design custom boards and give users designs with better cooling and possibly higher overclocking capabilities, that doesn't seem to extend to the highest-end parts. So far, we have seen custom designs from companies like ASUS, MSI, etc., and all of them have one thing in common - they only do designs for Radeon RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT. So one would wonder where are the highest-end custom Radeon RX 6900 XT designs.

The first wave of the "custom" cards will be on November 18th, when manufacturers will release designs that are MBA (Made-by-AMD), meaning that the PCB is a reference design, just with a custom cooler installed. When it comes to the custom RX 6900 XT cards, AMD is now in talks with its partners whether to keep the biggest "Big Navi" design available for custom designs, or to keep it as AMD exclusive, with the most likely scenario being the AMD exclusivity. AMD partners could carry the models in their stores and offerings, however, the PCB and cooler design would be AMD's. The situation is yet unresolved so we have to wait and see what comes out of it and if we are getting any custom designs of the Radeon RX 6900 XT model.

Unlike NVIDIA, AMD still relies on its add-in board (AIB) partners to sell reference design (made by AMD) graphics cards, and Sapphire just announced its lineup. The company unveiled its reference-design Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 cards. The RX 6800 XT is characterized by its triple-slot cooling solution, while the RX 6800 makes do with a slimmer dual-slot one. Both cards are based on the 7 nm "Navi 21" silicon and feature 16 GB of 16 Gbps GDDR6 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface, cushioned by 128 MB of on-die Infinity Cache.

The RX 6800 XT is configured with 72 out of 80 RDNA2 compute units on the "Navi 21" silicon, working out to 4,608 stream processors, 72 ray accelerators, 288 TMUs, and 128 ROPs. The engine clock of the RX 6800 XT boosts up to 2.25 GHz. The RX 6800, on the other hand, features 60 out of 80 RDNA2 compute units, which make up 3,840 stream processors, 60 ray accelerators, 240 TMUs, the same 128 ROPs, and the same memory subsystem as the RX 6800 XT. Given that these are reference cards, Sapphire could price them at AMD's baseline, with the RX 6800 XT going for $649, and the RX 6800 at $579.

MSI in its regular MSI Insider stream unveiled its premium custom-design graphics card based on the Radeon RX 6800 XT, the RX 6800 XT Gaming X Trio. This card features the latest generation Tri Frozr 2 board design that the company introduced with its NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series custom-design graphics cards. The Radeon logo sits next to an illuminated MSI Gaming logo along the top of the card. Next to them are two 8-pin PCIe power inputs. The cooling solution appears to be of the same size as the one found on the GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio. We expect this card to MSI's most premium RX 6800 XT offering. AMD in its launch event for the RX 6000 series claimed that the RX 6800 XT offers performance competitive with the RTX 3080.

ASUS today announced a new lineup of ROG Strix and TUF Gaming AMD Radeon 6000 Series graphics cards. The new AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series and the underlying RDNA 2 GPU gaming architecture herald a new era of Radeon graphics power. To get the most out of these exciting new GPUs, ASUS engineers have been hard at work developing ROG Strix and TUF Gaming graphics cards that deliver the high performance, low temperatures and quiet operation that enthusiasts expect.

The Radeon RX 6800 XT is one of the most powerful GPUs that AMD has ever built. As ASUS engineers began to sketch out the ROG Strix card, the raw power of the Radeon RX 6800 XT spurred design of a cooling system that could unleash its full potential. During this process, the ASUS team naturally turned to liquid cooling. PC enthusiasts the world over are already familiar with the benefits of all-in-one liquid cooling systems for their CPUs, and many of them have even added similar systems to their graphics cards using aftermarket kits to pursue the outer limits of GPU performance.

As if on cue, AMD add-in board partners have started teasing their upcoming custom-design Radeon RX 6000 series graphics cards, which AMD claims are competitive with NVIDIA's fastest. Here's the first picture of the ROG Strix LC Radeon RX 6800 XT by ASUS, featuring a refreshing new board design that uses an AIO liquid cooler too cool the GPU, while other hot components such as the memory and VRM are cooled by heatsinks that are ventilated by a lateral blower. The GPU AIO cooler uses what looks like a 240 mm x 120 mm radiator. Both the cooler shroud and the radiator fans come with RGB embellishments.

Update 14:38 UTC: We also have pictures, courtesy of DonanimHaber, of the TUF Gaming RX 6800 XT OC, and air-cooled ROG Strix RX 6800 XT, which looks a lot like the ROG Strix series cards based on the NVIDIA RTX 30-series.

The paint still hasn't dried on AMD's announcement of the RX 6000 series, which is the first time in years the company is aiming squarely at enthusiast performance levels against NVIDIA. Looking at our TechPowerUp's live blog and announcement threads, everyone not living under a rock is über excited for AMD's take on high performance gaming - and part of this may well stem form NVIDIA's difficulties in sating demand with what availability they can muster on their RTX 30-series. PowerColor, as one of AMD's oldest and most successful board partners, has already started teasing their custom version of the card, under their famed Red Devil product lineup.

The teaser doesn't show much in the way of details; we can see, however, some concept sketches for the graphics cards' visuals, alongside the fact that it is - expectedly - a triple-fan configuration. PowerColor is also running a giveaway for their Red Devil rendition of the RX 6800 XT; users need only retweet the company's post and follow their Twitter handle to take part in the giveaway. Details will obviously be fleshed out closer to the cards' official release set for November 18th; and as always, we can expect the Red Devil to launch with increased clocks and performance - and inevitably, higher power draw - than AMD's reference design.

With AMD's Radeon RX 6000 and Ryzen 5000 promising to be a formidable high-end CPU+GPU combination, EK Water Blocks is anticipating many "pure AMD" DIY builds, and is giving final touches to a new line of full-coverage VGA water blocks, Socket AM4 CPU water blocks, and monoblocks for certain premium AMD 500-series chipset motherboards. The company teased renders of some of these products in the development pipeline. The VGA full-coverage block in particular borrows many design cues from the recently announced RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT reference-design cards. An illuminated Radeon logo sits on what seems like an acrylic top that has PV covering. The CPU block and motherboard monoblock feature large AMD logos. There are also radiators and Vardar fan variants in AMD's favorite shade of red, with branding on the impeller hubs. There's no word on availability, but at least those of you planning AMD-purist builds know where to look for liquid cooling gear.

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today unveiled the AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards, delivering powerhouse performance, incredibly life-like visuals, and must-have features that set a new standard for enthusiast-class PC gaming experiences. Representing the forefront of extreme engineering and design, the highly anticipated AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series includes the AMD Radeon RX 6800 and Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics cards, as well as the new flagship Radeon RX 6900 XT - the fastest AMD gaming graphics card ever developed.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards are built upon groundbreaking AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture, a new foundation for next-generation consoles, PCs, laptops and mobile devices, designed to deliver the optimal combination of performance and power efficiency. AMD RDNA 2 gaming architecture provides up to 2X higher performance in select titles with the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card compared to the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card built on AMD RDNA architecture, and up to 54 percent more performance-per-watt when comparing the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card to the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics card using the same 7 nm process technology.