Update: Alongside learning about Radeon VII’s stock situation, there have been conflicting reports surrounding custom versions of the card. AMD has now released its own statement, which still leaves things a little open-ended.

Original Story: The clock is ticking towards the launch of Radeon VII and important details are now starting to come to light. Yesterday we learned what the stock situation was here in the UK and today, we are hearing from board partner sources that there are no plans for custom versions of the card.

Usually when a new GPU launches, board partners have the opportunity to tweak the PCB, add extra features to boost overclocking and stick on their own custom coolers to improve performance. We spoke with two AMD board partner sources this morning who told us that there won't be any custom Radeon VII's, instead all of the cards being shipped will be reference boards straight from AMD.

This information has also been confirmed to us by a third industry source. Right now, the situation is that board partners will only be selling the reference triple-fan design, we are told that there won't be any out-of-the-box overclocked editions either.

Plans could change in the future, after all, GPU partners heavily rely on being able to sell custom versions. For the time being though, we'll be bound to reference cards. We've asked AMD about all of this and are currently waiting to hear back.

We have more information to share on Radeon VII later today, including details on pricing, availability and of course, our full review.

KitGuru Says: Being bound to reference designs is always a little bit disappointing, especially when a lot of board partners can offer improvements. We can't talk about reference performance just yet but stay tuned for more Radeon VII details over the course of today. 

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