sapphire-quietly-launches-amd-radeon-6700-cards:-so-what’s-rdna-2-without-the-rx?

Around right here, we’re well-familiar with the Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics playing cards from AMD. We’ve reviewed most of them right here at HotHardware, from the entry-level RX 6500 XT, the RX 6600 and 6600 XT, the RX 6700 XT, the not too long ago launched Radeon RX 6750 XT, and the massive boys primarily based on Navi 21: Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT.

With RDNA 3 and the subsequent era of Radeon playing cards looming on the horizon, we thought that AMD was most likely finished with releasing new desktop graphics playing cards primarily based on RDNA 2, however apparently we had been incorrect. Two uncommon video card SKUs confirmed up on Sapphire’s web site this morning, and so they each appear to be “Radeon 6700” playing cards. That’s not a typo: “Radeon 6700”, with out the “RX”. One is a PULSE mannequin, whereas the opposite card has no explicit branding past two Sapphire stickers.

It can be straightforward to chalk this as much as a typo, however these playing cards are certainly totally different when it comes to specs from the common Radeon RX 6700 XT. While they’re primarily based on the identical Navi 22 GPU core, they arrive with a small snip to simply about each specification: 18 Workgroup Processors (WGPs) as an alternative of 20, 2495 MHz enhance clock as an alternative of 2581 MHz, and the reminiscence bus takes successful down from 192-bits width to 160-bit. Accordingly, the reminiscence capability drops to 10GB, though it is nonetheless clocked at 16 Gbps. Infinity cache drops from 96 MB to 80 MB.
Sapphire Radeon 6700 10GB

Notably, this GPU configuration utterly matches that of the cell Radeon RX 6700M. It’s doable that Sapphire has began taking chips initially meant for laptops and slapping them down on desktop PCBs, however we predict it is extra possible that these are merely GPUs that could not reduce the effectivity mustard in a laptop computer type issue. The latter conclusion is bolstered by the truth that these playing cards are listed with a board energy of 220 watts, whereas the 6700M is spec’d for simply 135 W, and solely clocked barely decrease at 2300 MHz.

There’s no pricing info for both of those merchandise but, however we’re seeing road costs of $399 for the Radeon RX 6650 XT after which $499 for the Radeon RX 6700 XT. Based on the specs, these playing cards slot in neatly between these two GPUs, however $100 is not a lot wiggle room. We’d be stunned if these graphics playing cards hit the market priced any increased than $449, and so they may find yourself cheaper than that.