AMD Radeon RX 6000 series refresh likely won’t include RX 6850 XT

We've been hearing a lot about a Radeon RX 6000 series refresh recently. Initially, it was thought that there would be four SKUs, with the Radeon RX 6950 XT coming first. However, it looks like that number has been reduced, with a potential RX 6850 XT getting cut. 

Many leakers are now claiming that we won't get a Radeon RX 6850 XT, with the latest one being Moore's Law Is Dead. In addition, he also stated that the Radeon RX 6950 XT is on track to launch relatively soon, with the other two, the RX 6750 XT and RX 6650 XT, planned for a Q2 release.

I can now confirm that #AMD does NOT plan to release an "RX 6850 XT". Also:

1) 6950 XT is on track!

2) 6750 XT & 6650 XT are CURRENTLY planned for Q2

I briefly talk about it on Broken Silicon tomorrow, and I actually suggested most of this last week:https://t.co/GPPkxcov8t

— Moore's Law Is Dead (@mooreslawisdead) February 15, 2022

If the Radeon RX 6×50 XT line-up ends with just these SKUs, we would have a Navi 21-based card, one using the Navi 22 GPU and the last one using the Navi 23 die. The Navi 24-based card would be the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which already features 18Gbps memory and is based on TSMC's 6nm process node.

For now, we're still not sure if AMD will be using the same 7nm node or the newer 6nm node from TSMC to build the allegedly upcoming graphics cards. Not using the latter would make this refresh underwhelming, but we're also due to see RDNA 3 graphics before the end of this year, so perhaps an older node would make sense.

KitGuru says: Would it be worth it for AMD to refresh the RX 6000 series even if it just upgraded to faster memory? If AMD indeed launches the refreshed series with 18Gbps memory modules, how much extra performance will these cards offer over the original models?

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