How and where to buy an AMD RX 6800 XT or RX 6800

It feels like it was only last week that AMD released the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 graphics cards, and that's because it was. November 18, in fact. We're only nine days post-launch, and safe to say that the dreary stock situation immediately following store availability isn't looking likely to clear up anytime soon.

Stock on launch day was tough to come by, with many popular retailers simply never listing a single reference graphics card for purchase. B&H just straight-up refused to list a single RX 6800-series card until it received more stock. Wild. 

Others had a handful of cards to sell on the day, and it doesn't look like much more stock has arrived since. We hear the subsequent RX 6800 XT third-party launch earlier this week was even worse—we couldn't even get hold of any for non-reference designs in for review ahead of time, either.

• Amazon Black Friday deals 2020

The ongoing GPU drought isn't limited to AMD's graphics cards, either, with Nvidia's recent RTX 30-series graphics cards also becoming near-impossible to track down in any significant numbers. Still, it is possible to find them if you look hard enough: We've done the hard work for you in our where to buy an RTX 3080, RTX 3070, and RTX 3090 guide.

And the same goes for the red team's latest graphics card silicon. It's not impossible to find a new RX 6800-series graphics card, not if you're willing to make a larger PC purchase. If you still want to wait for discrete cards, all power to you. We're expecting greater availability through January and February of new graphics cards, judging by current predictions and comments from Nvidia execs, but full PCs are the way to go right now.

How to bag an RX 6800-series graphics card before Christmas

Alright, I'll let you in on a little secret. There is a way to get hold of an RX 6800-series graphics card, perhaps even with only a week lead time. You ready? You have to buy a pre-built gaming PC. 

If you're anything like me, you'll want to build your next gaming PC, rather than have someone build it for you. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and actually a lot of the trusted system builders we recommend below do a great job of putting your rig together for you.

After all, it might be your best bet if you want to experience Cyberpunk 2077 with the latest tech, or one of many other highly-anticipated games all launching right now. Seriously, there are so many great new videogames for you to flex your brand new gaming PC muscles on.

But if perhaps you're open to the idea of a pre-built, or just in dire need of a new graphics card and want one pronto, then we can help with the availability we've spotted at the below retailers. Some of which will aim to get that new shiny RX 6800-series graphics card over to you in under a week.

Origin

Origin offers a couple of gaming PCs to choose from—ranging from small form-factor to extra chunky—all of which will house an RX 6800-series graphics card comfortably. You're in luck, too, because both the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800 are available via the configurator on the Origin store.

You can pick up a system with a decent Ryzen CPU and either an RX 6800 XT or RX 6800 with a lead time of just 6-8 days. That includes either the Ryzen 5 5600X or Ryzen 7 5800X, too. 

The Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 9 5950X, the 12-core and 16-core models, are a little more tough to come by, and will set you back 19-21 days for delivery. Still, we're looking pre-holiday delivery times across the board, and the opportunity for a brand new gaming PC with AMD's latest silicon inside it delivered in roughly a week.

Remember, you have a pick of four desktop PC shells at Origin. The Chronos is the smallest of the lot, while the Genesis is a mighty 'super tower'. No matter which you go for, all are available with the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, so pick your favourite and go from there.

Origins is a good bet for a brand new AMD Ryzen and Radeon system this side of Christmas, which also allows you to enable Smart Access Memory for a further bump in performance. Otherwise you're looking at slightly older (but still great) Ryzen chips elsewhere.

iBuyPower

Over at iBuyPower you're able to pick up the capable RX 6800 in a range of configurations. That includes a couple with discounts off the list price for Black Friday—not bad for systems with a graphics card that AMD launched just last week.

There's a bit of a wait for both the RX 6800 XT and Ryzen 5000-series CPUs over at iBuyPower, and that might mean you're going to be waiting a little longer for your build to ship. You could grab an older 3000-series Ryzen CPU, many of which are available, or just roll the dice on a newer build arriving by the holidays. iBuyPower's pre-order system is on a first come, first serve basis, which doesn't offer an exact guarantee for delivery.

Still, there are systems available with the RX 6800 today, such as the deal listed below with $250 knocked off the list price.

iBuyPower says any PC ordered now should arrive before December 25, which is the all-important date for many.

Cyberpower

Cyberpower has plenty of options for the RX 6800 graphics card available, all of which you can find here. Unfortunately there's no word on RX 6800 XT stock at the moment, so you may have to look elsewhere for the chunkier model.

On the plus side, it's also possible to pick up a high-end Ryzen 9 5900X or Ryzen 7 5800X alongside your new RDNA 2 GPU. That's a match made in Heaven. Take a look below.

Cyberpower is offering up a shipping date estimate of December 24 or earlier. If you change your mind, I'm the first in line, honey I'm still free... take a chance on me. 

Note for UK readers: I've also perused a couple of popular UK system builders, Scan and Overclockers, yet both were unable to offer any available stock of either graphics card even with an entire system. Pre-order only, I'm afraid. 

How to buy an RX 6800 XT or RX 6800 as an upgrade

Now this is where things get a little trickier. If you can't afford to drop a wad of cash on a whole gaming PC, your options for an RX 6800-series graphics card get severely limited. Essentially, there are incredibly few out there, and we're not seeing the occasional drip feed of cards occur, well, at all really.

Perhaps that will change soon. If we had to recommend a singular place to look for a brand new RX 6800-series graphics card, it would be AMD's own webstore. This is where we saw stock stick around for the longest on launch day (we're still talking minutes here), and it's also where Frank Azor managed to grab a card before taking to Twitter to tell us all about it.

Third-party cards technically just launched, but you'd be hard-pressed to find much evidence to support that claim.

• AMD.com - Reference cards
• Amazon - Third-party and partner reference cards
• Walmart - Third-party and partner reference cards
• Best Buy - Third-party and partner reference cards
• Newegg - Third-party and partner reference cards
• B&H - Third-party and partner reference cards

The exact cause of such a slow rollout of cards is not certain, as AMD is yet to offer any formal statement, but you can be sure that, if it does, it will say something along the lines of 'extraordinary demand'. That's just the 2020 way, and it's endemic to all tech launches this year.

We're hopeful we'll see stock constraints ease off by at least March/April time, and hopefully sooner. There's still a chance of picking up a card in the meantime, too, as AMD will still be manning the silicon pumps. You'll just have to stay extra vigilant to beat the crowds and grab one yourself. God speed.