Radeon RX 6000 series

The Radeon RX 6000 series is a series of graphics processing units developed by AMD, based on their RDNA 2 architecture. It was announced on October 28, 2020 and is the successor to the Radeon RX 5000 series. The lineup consists of the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT. Further variants including a Radeon RX 6700 (XT) series based on Navi 22, later launched on March 18, 2021.
The lineup is designed to compete with Nvidia's GeForce 30 series of cards. These GPUs are also the first generation of AMD GPUs that support hardware accelerated real-time ray tracing.
History.
On September 14, 2020, AMD first teased the physical design of its RX 6000 series through a tweet shared on social messaging service Twitter. At the same time, the company launched a virtual island inside the video game Fortnite that contained a large-scale rendition of the RX 6000 hardware design, which players could freely explore using the game's "Creative" mode.
AMD officially unveiled the first three cards of the lineup, the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT, in an event titled "Where Gaming Begins: Ep. 2" on October 28. In the event, AMD announced the RX 6800 XT as its flagship graphics processor, comparing its performance to that of Nvidia's RTX 3080 graphics card in 1440p and 4K resolution gaming. The 6800 XT was announced with a price tag of $649 USD, which is $50 lower than the RTX 3080's starting price of $699. AMD then introduced the RX 6800 as a competitor to Nvidia's previous-generation RTX 2080 Ti, but with a significantly lower price tag of $579, compared to $999 for the 2080 Ti. Lastly, AMD introduced the RX 6900 XT as its top card of the lineup, claiming it produces similar performance to Nvidia's RTX 3090 but with lower power consumption, and announced a launch price of $999, $500 cheaper than the RTX 3090.
On February 3, 2021, Gigabyte registered a range of RX 6700 XT graphics cards with the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), with the filing indicating that all seven registered models will ship with 12 GB of memory. On March 3, 2021, AMD officially announced the RX 6700 XT series, set to compete with Nvidia's RTX 3060 Ti and 3070 cards, which later launched on March 18, 2021.
Release.
Much like Nvidia's competing GeForce 30 series, releases sold out almost immediately, due to a combination of low stock and scalping bots.
RX 6800 and 6800 XT.
The RX 6800 and 6800 XT were launched on November 18, 2020, but due to low stock availability, they sold out at most retailers on the same day. American retailer Micro Center restricted all sales to in-store only, claiming that stock "will be extremely limited at launch". "PCMag" reported that stock for both cards on Newegg had sold out as early as 6:05 a.m. PST, and that stock was unavailable on AMD's own store website by 6:11 a.m. Retailer B&H Photo Video outright refused to accept orders for the graphics cards, stating in part, "we do not know and are therefore unable to provide a date or time for when these items will become available to purchase."
Scalpers were reportedly re-selling the GPUs on eBay for around US$1000 - $1500, roughly double the initial launch price. Some frustrated social media users attempted to derail the listings by using bots to make fake bids on the scalped GPUs at absurd prices; in one instance, an auction for an RX 6800 XT saw bids go as high as $70,000.
RX 6900 XT.
The RX 6900 XT was launched on December 8, 2020, and similarly to the RX 6800 and 6800 XT, it sold out on the same day it was released. According to "PCMag", it was listed as out of stock on Newegg by 6:02 a.m. PST, just two minutes after it went on sale. AMD's store website, struggling to keep up with the high number of visitors, kept displaying 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable errors to customers attempting to buy the graphics card; by 6:35 a.m., it was sold out.
RX 6700 XT.
The RX 6700 XT launched on March 18, 2021.