AMD-exclusive partner XFX announced its competition to ASUS' still might-be-out-some-day-maybe Vega 64 Strix video card. At this point in time, partner cards still feel something like super cars: Nice to look at, probably won't own it.
But they're coming, so we're told, and the new target time seems to be "sometime in November." AMD partners have largely indicated supply issues of the Vega GPUs as the limiting factor of card presence on the market. The supply should build-up at some point, it's just a matter of if partners can secure a restock date to build confidence with retailers and distributors.
In the meantime, the XFX RX Vega cards look to be more of the "Vega Mini" variant, using cut-down PCBs with an over-sized cooler/backplate entourage. At this PCB size, the backplate helps secure the cooler to the rest of the card, and should help prevent droop issues. The card is configured in an 8+6-pin setup, uses dual-axial fans of ~100mm sizes, and places its connectors between those two fans (a side-effect of the PCB size).
That's about all we know at this time. We'll try to follow-up more on these cards when/if they become available to consumers.
- Steve Burke
