High End Graphics Card Stock 6900 XT vs 3090

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,601
(This is a duplicate of a thread I posted in our Video Cards forum. I thought it might be considered news worthy. If not, feel free to send me hatemail.)

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:

Untitled.png


Live sheet from Google Docs with clickable MicroCenter links:

 
The problem is cards used to sell at MSRP, if retailers or etailers are selling them at above MSRP prices then you may as well list BUY IT NOW's on eBay along side them because that's kinda all the same pool of potential buyers, then. "Willing to over-pay? Step right up and take your pick!". 3090's should start being offered at $3000 each, so there can at least be a small supply of them available, that's probably a pain threshold few but those with the deepest pockets would wish to cross. (HOWEVER, nice job on the aggregation list and publishing above. Well done, Sir or Madam).
 
I saw a few 3090's at my local Microcenter in Wesbury. If they had any 3080s at MSRP in stock I might be inclined to buy...but we're a year past release date and I'm almost wondering if it's even worth it at MSRP when the 4000 series will be released in about a year.
 
In my opinion, this discussion cannot be had without talking about the market price. I believe the reason there is plenty of stock available for the 6900XT because of how grossly overpriced they are compared to their NVIDIA counterpart. Micro Center seems to always have stock now due to high much they're overpricing everything they can carry now.
 
Wow! Great usable info. Too bad the prices are a shock in general from the past pricing but yep, it is what it is. I paid $1395 for the XFX Speedster MERC 319 6900XT, which I do believe was MSRP at the time, so for $1699 and available now can be a consideration for the high end gamer. The card is super quiet and for the bedroom I cannot hear it at night nor the computer while it mines - anyways compared to the 5700XT -> God Send.

As for the comparison between the 3090 and 6900xt (I have both), if the few games that are worthy to play, maybe 50 hours worth, if RT actually makes a noteworthy benefit, then the 3090 is better. Plus as newer games take advantage of RNDA2 unique setup for RT it's performance is not so far apart from Nvidia as before, still behind. Anyways grab what one can at the best price you can get. I don't think either AMD or Nvidia are the winners this round for most folks.
 
Armenius said:
In my opinion, this discussion cannot be had without talking about the market price. I believe the reason there is plenty of stock available for the 6900XT because of how grossly overpriced they are compared to their NVIDIA counterpart. Micro Center seems to always have stock now due to high much they're overpricing everything they can carry now.
Click to expand...
Maybe. But does it really matter if the Nvidia is cheaper if you can't find any? Bird in the hand and all that.
 
it’s not just the 6900XT available at my local microcenter. They have had 6800XTs and 6700XTs basically in stock continuously for about 2 months now. 6600s come and goz

On the NVidia side at the same microcenter, the only thing regularly in stock is the $299 1050ti.
 
Armenius said:
In my opinion, this discussion cannot be had without talking about the market price. I believe the reason there is plenty of stock available for the 6900XT because of how grossly overpriced they are compared to their NVIDIA counterpart. Micro Center seems to always have stock now due to high much they're overpricing everything they can carry now.
Click to expand...
Is it microcenter selling above MSRP, or is it the AIB partner that is the result of the high price?

For example, the powercolor liquid devil 6900 xt ultimate MSRP is 2299. Microcenter is selling them for… 2299
 
Can someone that know about that kind of stuff calculate if it is just not pratical mining wise at that point price to get a 6900xt ?

FrgMstr said:
AMD is making a lot of graphics cards, and it looks like high end is its game right now.
Click to expand...
Are they ? 6900xt is such a niche products that you cannot make many millions of it over it's life time and could very well never reach 1% of GPU used, over every indication out there, AMD is making not that many video card since Q2 2020:

High end availability would be the last thing to look at to have a perception on volume of cards being made, AMD making a lot of card would be making over 1.5 millions card a month like at the end of 2017 early 2018.

SgBDcLJqrxFHtunfGikHxf-970-80.png


ztJhPWe4HboBprgo9xTijg-970-80.png



FrgMstr said:
and it looks like high end is its game right now.
Click to expand...
One other indication of this:

High end config like this
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/des...2-desktop/daar12_cec_s36e?view=configurations
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/des...a-r10-desktop/daar10_h83e?view=configurations
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/des...a-r10-desktop/daar10_h95e?view=configurations

All offer the 6900xt, just one offer the 6800xt
 
LukeTbk said:
Can someone that know about that kind of stuff calculate if it is just not pratical mining wise at that point price to get a 6900xt ?


Are they ? 6900xt is such a niche products that you cannot make many millions of it over it's life time and could very well never reach 1% of GPU used, over every indication out there, AMD is making not that many video card since Q2 2020:

High end availability would be the last thing to look at to have a perception on volume of cards being made, AMD making a lot of card would be making over 1.5 millions card a month like at the end of 2017 early 2018.

SgBDcLJqrxFHtunfGikHxf-970-80.png


ztJhPWe4HboBprgo9xTijg-970-80.png




One other indication of this:

High end config like this
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/des...2-desktop/daar12_cec_s36e?view=configurations
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/des...a-r10-desktop/daar10_h83e?view=configurations
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/des...a-r10-desktop/daar10_h95e?view=configurations

All offer the 6900xt, just one offer the 6800xt
Click to expand...
Sources tell me that Q3 will far outstrip Q2 shipments, but not given a number. I was told that Q3 to Q1 will be over 2X. So let's see what happens.

Don't get me wrong, I am not telling you there is enough being produced to meet demand across the board. I am just pointing out there is stock of 6900 XT in USA and EU that is on the shelves, no Shuffling or Combo/Bundling required, while NVIDIA has none on the super high end. So whether or not that is your cup of tea, so be it, but at this point, given the prices of 3080, 6800, and 3080 Ti, the 6900 XT starts looking at the one to get IMO.
 
Last edited:
LukeTbk said:
Can someone that know about that kind of stuff calculate if it is just not pratical mining wise at that point price to get a 6900xt ?
Click to expand...
My 6900xt is making ~$4 a day right now. If you get a 6900xt for around $1600 it will take 400 days for ROI, not including electricity costs. If electric is around 10c/kwh in your area lets assume ~200 watts for system power and your cost is around .48 cents a day, so ROI is 457 days including electric cost. I would not buy it unless you need a graphics card/game on it, mining can help recoup some of the cost if that's the case. In terms of profitability, it's pretty meh right now.
 
So, AMD is able to produce more cards than Nvidia, at least on the high end, in this case. And no, it is not the pricing, at least based upon what we are seeing in this thread, in my opinion. Also, I would not be surprised to see most of the 3090's being sold direct to scalpers and miners but, that is just my opinion.
 
3090's are pretty much sold out across Canada too. Canada Computers has NONE at any of their 39 locations.
Memory Express has 1 available at their Ottawa store.

6900XT's are available at CC, 5 of the 8 SKU's they list on their website, albeit not in all stores in all the provinces they have a presence in.
Same with MemoryExpress.... however they've limited purchase to In-Store Only...no online orders, holds, or phone-in orders for store pickup.
 
So is there more stock of high end because of limited silicon? If they're going to use precious silicon they want the most bang for the buck?

That said, I was never in the market to pay a price for a video card that is usually more than I would pay for a whole system.
 
sabrewolf732 said:
My 6900xt is making ~$4 a day right now. If you get a 6900xt for around $1600 it will take 400 days for ROI, not including electricity costs. If electric is around 10c/kwh in your area lets assume ~200 watts for system power and your cost is around .48 cents a day, so ROI is 457 days including electric cost. I would not buy it unless you need a graphics card/game on it, mining can help recoup some of the cost if that's the case. In terms of profitability, it's pretty meh right now.
Click to expand...
Bad mining ROI + No RTX for $1800 = In Stock
Launch Price = Out of Stock
 
WorldExclusive said:
Bad mining ROI + No RTX for $1800 = In Stock
Launch Price = Out of Stock
Click to expand...
Does not have to be either or. One buys for a gaming card, main purpose and offsets the cost with mining if profitable. Start virtually now, also funny that for many it was great for Nvidia to have LHR cards, limiting ETH hash rate to less than a 6900XT/6800XT/6800 but for AMD to actually design a gaming card not good at mining is somehow bad. They are outstanding gaming cards that can mine profitably but nothing to write home about. As for no RTX??? Who cares, does RT just fine, games that are RNDA2 RT aware are doing good.
 
I see the trap for someone that does not have the extra coin for such a purchase and which drives demand for credit cards .
 
noko said:
Does not have to be either or. One buys for a gaming card, main purpose and offsets the cost with mining if profitable. Start virtually now, also funny that for many it was great for Nvidia to have LHR cards, limiting ETH hash rate to less than a 6900XT/6800XT/6800 but for AMD to actually design a gaming card not good at mining is somehow bad. They are outstanding gaming cards that can mine profitably but nothing to write home about. As for no RTX??? Who cares, does RT just fine, games that are RNDA2 RT aware are doing good.
Click to expand...
My post had everything to do with value. It's not a good buy at $1800. That's it.
Just like a 3090 isn't a good buy above $2000.
 
sabrewolf732 said:
The 6900xt actually is not bad at mining, the 3090 gets a bit higher MHs but it also uses a bit more power so it's sort of a wash IMO. I'm at ~150 watts for ~64mhs. The 3090 is ~200 watts for ~100mhs.
Click to expand...
3090 is more than just a bit higher. How dare you? It's 2x 6900XT in hashrate and wattage (125MHs @ 300W).

Unless you live somewhere with insane $1/kWH, the extra 25MHs you get for an extra 100 watt still more profitable than cost of electricity. There's no reason not to max out a 3090 in most cases.

Just ask pclausen who built an entire solar farm just to blast more ETH into his veins.

Capture.jpg
 
Last edited:
Mindfactory.de has had pretty good stock of cards for the last month or two, to include 3080ti's. But I have not seen a 3090 in stock there for months.

Caseking.de and Alternate.de however have had 3090s available on and off, but at ridiculous prices (€2,500/$2,900 and up). Keeping in mind that all of the German sites will have 19% VAT baked in.

Both have them in stock as of right now.
 



I haven't been following AMD cards but this is great news. This is the first time I saw any cards in stock in the past year. except for 1-2 seconds on Discord notifications or Now in Stock messages.
 
Last edited:
DPI said:
3090 is more than just a bit higher. How dare you? It's 2x 6900XT in hashrate and wattage (125MHs @ 300W).

Unless you live somewhere with insane $1/kWH, the extra 25MHs you get for an extra 100 watt still more profitable than cost of electricity. There's no reason not to max out a 3090 in most cases.

Just ask pclausen who built an entire solar farm just to blast more ETH into his veins.

View attachment 397244
Click to expand...
Ahhh, I thought they were closer to 100mhs for some reason.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DPI
like this
That 6900xt Red Devil I ordered (and cancelled) early this year for 1300 looks like a bargain now :(
 
Nope... value and price sanity doesn't enter (much) into the discussion :/
/won't buy any card not at (or below) MSRP
//happy with my Sapphire Nitro+ 6600 XT for now (bought at MSRP)
 
sabrewolf732 said:
My 6900xt is making ~$4 a day right now. If you get a 6900xt for around $1600 it will take 400 days for ROI, not including electricity costs. If electric is around 10c/kwh in your area lets assume ~200 watts for system power and your cost is around .48 cents a day, so ROI is 457 days including electric cost. I would not buy it unless you need a graphics card/game on it, mining can help recoup some of the cost if that's the case. In terms of profitability, it's pretty meh right now.
Click to expand...

When Nvidia cards offer similar hashrate for half the price, it's no wonder these overpriced cards are sitting on shelves: Miners simply wait for the Nvidia Bestbuy drop, use their bot to get it reserved first, and have buyers in the store to pick it up/ship it (still cheaper than re-markers online, and the buyer still gets his cut)

You're assuming that all things will be smooth sailing for the next 400 days (over a year! ), but when Etherium goes Proof of Stake in December,it's going to be a lot harder t pay-off that GPU.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/05/eth...ved-up-from-summer-2022-to-december-2021.html

We are about to see the biggest shift in mining purchases since the first long-term Etherium crash - do you shift over to a new and hot PittanceCoin (TM) to make a meager living on (until one eventually takes the lead?), or do you sell your GPUs NOW and buy more Stake?

IF it's going to be option 2, then we are about to see a massive onrush of used mining GPUs hit the market simultaneously! But even option 1 will still be worthwhile (you have a year before PittanceCoin becomes massively profitable, so more than enough time for cards to drop down to MSRP, thanks to no more coordinated group buying).
 
Last edited:
There are a ton of AMD cards in stock at 3 of my local Microcenters. I live near 3 lol.

They are however, marked way over MSRP which is why I imagine they are just sitting.

The closest Microcenter to me is in Rockville MD, and they have 12 x 6900 XT listed and other models says "limited availability" which means a shelf full I kid you not.
 
defaultluser said:
When Nvidia cards offer similar hashrate for half the price, it's no wonder these overpriced cards are sitting on shelves: Miners simply wait for the Nvidia Bestbuy drop, use their bot to get it reserved first, and have buyers in the store to pick it up/ship it (still cheaper than re-markers online, and the buyer still gets his cut)

You're assuming that all things will be smooth sailing for the next 400 days (over a year! ), but when Etherium goes Proof of Stake in December,it's going to be a lot harder t pay-off that GPU.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/05/eth...ved-up-from-summer-2022-to-december-2021.html

We are about to see the biggest shift in mining purchases since the first long-term Etherium crash - do you shift over to a new and hot PittanceCoin (TM) to make a meager living on (until one eventually takes the lead?), or do you sell your GPUs NOW and buy more Stake?

IF it's going to be option 2, then we are about to see a massive onrush of used mining GPUs hit the market simultaneously! But even option 1 will still be worthwhile (you have a year before PittanceCoin becomes massively profitable, so more than enough time for cards to drop down to MSRP, thanks to no more coordinated group buying).
Click to expand...

My gpu and CPU (5900x) has been paid off with mining for a bit. Also I bought it primarily for gaming, having made money with it is just a bonus.
 
TrevorR said:
There are a ton of AMD cards in stock at 3 of my local Microcenters. I live near 3 lol.

They are however, marked way over MSRP which is why I imagine they are just sitting.

The closest Microcenter to me is in Rockville MD, and they have 12 x 6900 XT listed and other models says "limited availability" which means a shelf full I kid you not.
Click to expand...
It’s not specially over MSRP - it’s listed at AIB MSRP. I haven’t seen microcenter adding extra above and beyond that, but maybe I haven’t looked hard enough.

In any case, it seems that the prices are what they need to be listed at to guarantee gamers have a chance of getting them. Anything less and poof, whole stock bought by miners.
 
I had a 6800 XT for a while after having two launch-day 3080s - good card. I swapped back to a 3080 a few months back as I was playing a lot of Control and CP2077 at the time and RT really shines in those titles (IMO). Luckily, I had gotten one of the last non-LHR 3080s on the market. I sold the non-LHR 3080 last week for $1500 and picked up a 3080 Ti: I haven't mined since 2015 and don't care to restart. I may at some point swap to a 6900 XT since they're more readily available (and a bit cheaper than the 3080 Ti) for shits and giggles.

Street price is absolutely toilet, and supply/demand is not going to improve anytime soon. But if you were able to get one (or two) 3080 last year at MSRP, you're sitting pretty. I upgraded my GPU tier and STILL am net-net well ahead in recouped cost. It's been a wild ride this gen.

I can back up that AMD stock is much better than nV in the UK. I spent the past two weeks mulling over either a 3080 Ti or 6900 XT (or 6800 XT). The 6900 XT and 6800 XTs remained constantly in stock places, nearer to MSRP, while finding a 3080 Ti was like a game of whack-a-mole.
 
TrevorR said:
The closest Microcenter to me is in Rockville MD, and they have 12 x 6900 XT listed and other models says "limited availability" which means a shelf full I kid you not.
Click to expand...
Some of those $2500 liquid-cooled ones? Yeah, hard pass. Houston's had one for months, no takers.
 
1_rick said:
Some of those $2500 liquid-cooled ones? Yeah, hard pass. Houston's had one for months, no takers.
Click to expand...
They have liquid cooled but when I went there a few days ago, they literally had a full shelf of air cooled 6900xt and 6800 xt.
 
TrevorR said:
They have liquid cooled but when I went there a few days ago, they literally had a full shelf of air cooled 6900xt and 6800 xt.
Click to expand...
I'd consider a 6800xt, but I haven't seen any in Houston.
 
Comixbooks said:
Click to expand...


Decent video, but really I think there's one big thing: Price. At, or near, MSRP I feel like the cards would sell pretty well. When you're talking near (and over) 2 grand, people are going to walk away as fast as they possibly can. They're good cards, offer great performance, but the price is bananas.
 
Comixbooks said:
Click to expand...

8 minutes of jibber-jabber when a single paragraph of text would suffice.

Here in the UK, we're seeing a more appropriate/logical market price segmentation, IMO, for the entry-level AIB cards (albeit prices are still massively inflated).
  • 6800 for £900
  • 6800 XT goes for £1000
  • 3080 is selling for around £1100
  • 6900 XT around $1200 ...same general performance and hash rate as 3080 ti, but disadvantaged in RT and DLSS
  • 3080 TI around £1400 ...same general performance and hash rate as 6900XT, but RT and DLSS advantages
  • 3090 £2000 ...top-tier, better hash rate/non-LHR
Strangely, the 6800 XT seems to be the "sweet spot" card for AMD and you can't find them anywhere (even less so than 3080s and 3080 Tis)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top