AMD Confirms Mainstream Radeon RX 6000 Desktop & High-Performance Notebook GPUs Coming in First Half of 2021

AMD has confirmed that their Radeon RX 6000 series mainstream desktop and high-end laptop GPUs featuring the RDNA 2 architecture will be arriving in the first half of 2021. The Radeon RX 6700 series was recently reported to launch in March so we are likely to hear some more details within the coming months.

During the CES 2021 keynote, AMD's CEO, Dr.Lisa Su, confirmed that mainstream Radeon RX 6000 and high-end Radeon RX 6000 GPUs will be arriving in the first half of 2021. AMD showcased Dirt 5 running at 1440p 60 FPS on an undisclosed Radeon RX 6000M GPU. The company also showed new images of what looks like their mainstream Radeon RX 6700 and Radeon RX 6600 series desktop graphics cards.

AMD is on track to launch the first notebooks with #RDNA2 in the first half of 2021, and you'll see mainstream RDNA 2 desktop graphics card designs in the first half of the year as well. #CES2021 pic.twitter.com/EW2fBpSFDq

— AMD Radeon (@amdradeon) January 12, 2021

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 series graphics cards are going to aim at the sub $500 US retail segment. They will be priced similar to their predecessors, the Radeon RX 5700 XT & Radeon RX 5700 & offer much better performance and efficiency numbers. Previously, these cards were expected to launch sooner and in the coming month but it looks like the rumors today have something else to say. The source reports that the Radeon RX 6700 series are scheduled for the end of the first quarter of this year so we will get to see a launch by end of March or even early April.

Now that also makes us wonder if AMD will announce the Radeon RX 6700 XT & Radeon RX 6700 cards at all at their CES 2021 keynote. If they do, they will definitely reveal the launch date & which will be at least three months late based on this rumor. The Big Navi GPUs had a much closer launch date of a month but that seems unlikely here.

Finally, we have the specifications for the Radeon RX 6700 series which includes the Navi 22 XT based Radeon RX 6700 XT and the Navi 22 XL based Radeon RX 6700  graphics cards. The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT with the full Navi 22 XT GPU SKU is expected to feature 40 Compute Units or 2560 stream processors while the Radeon RX 6700 with the Navi 22 XL GPU SKU is expected to feature a cut-down configuration. The graphics card will feature a 12 GB GDDR6 memory buffer along with a 192-bit bus interface. AMD will most likely use 16 Gbps dies which would net a total bandwidth of 384 GB/s for the cards.

AMD Radeon RX 6700 Series With Dual-Slot Cooling Solution:

Moving over to the design, the dual-slot card features a design similar to the triple-slot offering but with a slightly compact form factor. This shroud is said to be designed for the AMD Radeon RX 6700 series cards. The card features a dual axial-tech fan design and has the large "R" logo in the middle and on the fans too which represents the Radeon brand.

The card also features the LED-lit Radeon logo on the sides and has a large cut out to vent out the heat from the aluminum heatsink. There are two 8-pin power connectors on the card but we may also see 8+6 or configurations for the more power optimized variants. The card also comes with a dual-slot form factor and should feature a similar I/O as the Big Navi graphics card. It is expected that this cooler should house the Navi 22 GPU which is slightly smaller but still larger compared to AMD's Navi 10 (RDNA 1) GPU for the Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards.