AMD RX 7900 GPU launch reportedly facing supply & driver issues

AMD’s upcoming RX 7900 GPUs might be difficult to source, according to information from multiple sources.

Launching on December 13, AMD’s upcoming RDNA 3 graphics cards, the RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX are highly anticipated. Thanks to their sub-$1000 price point, in addition to performance that reportedly rivals the likes of the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 at a much lower price.

A report collated from Igor’s Lab claims that there will only be 10,000 reference cards made for the EMEA region, with 3,000 of those dedicated to Germany alone. However, they also report that board partner cards are also facing Driver and BIOS issues. This is also compounded by delivery issues, which could spell trouble for Team Red.

AIB RX 7900s might come later than usual

AIB cards may also come slightly later. The report states that one board partner will only start shipping a week after the GPU’s launch. Another AIB stated that they don’t see the card as being available “Until January”.

Additional sources also state that there is a memory leak issue in early drivers, which has reportedly caused issues such as freezing. This could also be another reason why some RX 7900 GPUs have been delayed by AIB partners.

Heading toward a rocky launch?

AMD really surprised gamers with the price point of their next-generation graphics cards. However, this news is incredibly troubling. With supply issues, in addition to these reported driver problems with the card, is AMD heading for a launch that risks blowing up some of the hype?

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see for launch day. Until then, we’ve already seen some presumably driver-less benchmarks of the GPU come to light. With the launch just around the corner, AMD is running out of time to course-correct this launch to ensure that it goes as smoothly as possible.