AMD is reportedly on the path of launching a version of its Radeon RX 6900XT graphics card that is liquid cooled, with rendered images of the finished products already making their rounds on the internet. Additionally and unsurprisingly, the card is also expected to ship out with some tweaks to its performance.
In terms of its physical design, the liquid cooled 6900XT is expected to a reference shroud, similar to that of AMD’s other triple and dual-fan RX 6000 series graphics cards. What sets the card apart from its siblings is that the PCB portion of the card has no fans attached and just a large aluminium plate with an emblazoned “R” attached to it.
Cooling is instead handled by a single-fan 120mm radiator, which is attached directly to the card’s GPU via two flexible tubes that help circulate the water needed to keep temperatures at bay. Along the spine, the card appears to have what we can only assume to an RGB tube that is clearly sporting AMD’s favourite shade of red.
Underneath the hood, the 6900XT Liquid Edition is virtually the same as its non-liquid cooled sibling; it still features 16GB of GDDR6 memory, 80 Compute Units (CU), and has access to 128MB of AMD’s Infinity Cache. Of course, the GPU itself is still based on AMD’s 7nm TSMC process node and RDNA2 architecture.
Where the card sets itself apart, though, is through its performance tweaks. Out of the box, its game clock is set at 2250MHz, up from the original 6900XT’s 2015MHz. On top of that, its memory is also faster at 18Gbps, up from 16Gbps. Of course increasing the frequency and speeds means that the card will require more power; the 6900XT Liquid Edition has TGP of 330W, which is a 30W increase.
This isn’t AMD first foray in making a graphics card that is liquid-cooled straight out of the factory. Back in 2014, AMD produced the R9 295X2, a dual-GPU card that was based on what then the brand’s top-of-the-line 28nm Hawaii XT GPU and Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. The card’s cooler shroud had a one fan affixed to the middle of it, while the GPUs themselves were cooled via a specially designed Asetek AiO 120mm cooler.
At the time of writing, there is still no official pricing or availability date for the AMD Radeon RX 6900XT Liquid Edition. That said, the US DIY-brand Maingear already has the card listed down for US$825 (~RM3527), but given the chip shortage, it definitely will not surprise us if the card ends up costing far more than that when it officially arrives on our shore.
(Source: Videocardz, The Verge, Maingear)
