[Hardware] PowerColor's Red Devil Radeon RX 6900 XT: 3-Wide, Three 8-Pin Connectors, USB-C

[YaKoMoS]

PowerColor has unveiled its first custom Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card. The Red Devil AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT uses a proprietary printed circuit board (PCB) design with enhanced power delivery as well as a massive cooling system to maximize overclocking potential. The Limited Edition version of the board will also come with a USB Type-C output. 

The PowerColor AMD Red Devil Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card carries AMD's Navi 21 XT graphics processor in its maximum configuration with 5120 stream processors that run at up 2340 MHz (up from 2250 MHz on reference boards), accompanied by 16GB of GDDR6 memory that delivers 512 GB/s of bandwidth.

Gamers and PC performance enthusiasts expect custom graphics cards to feature a no-compromise PCB design and a beefy cooling system that enables great overclocking potential. But bringing the additional overclocking potential to the 'Biggest Navi' RX 6900 XT is somewhat tricky because AMD's reference PCBs already feature a 14+2-phase voltage regulating module (VRM). Increasing the number of phases may not necessarily result in a tangible VRM performance improvement, but it will certainly lead to a significantly more complex PCB design and higher costs.

With its Red Devil Radeon RX 6900 XT, Power Color continued to use a VRM with a 14+2-phase VRM, but installed what it claims to be 'the industry's best DrMos as well as high polymer capacitors' to strengthen it and ensure cleaner and more stable power delivery to the GPU. The company also completely re-architected the power circuity in a bid to feed the card with up to 525 Watts of power from a combination of the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and three 8-pin auxiliary PCIe power connectors, therefore maximizing its overclocking potential.

With its Red Devil Radeon RX 6900 XT, Power Color continued to use a VRM with a 14+2-phase VRM, but installed what it claims to be 'the industry's best DrMos as well as high polymer capacitors' to strengthen it and ensure cleaner and more stable power delivery to the GPU. The company also completely re-architected the power circuity in a bid to feed the card with up to 525 Watts of power from a combination of the PCIe 4.0 x16 slot and three 8-pin auxiliary PCIe power connectors, therefore maximizing its overclocking potential.

To cool down the Radeon RX 6900 XT despite the enhanced power delivery, PowerColor uses the same monstrous triple-slot cooling system with a nickel-plated copper base and three 8-mm and four 6-mm heat pipes it uses for the Red Devil Radeon RX 6800/6800 XT products. To make the board look truly devilish, it also has controllable RGB lighting. In fact, given the similarities between the three Big Navi-based Red Devils, it seems that PowerColor uses the same PCB design and coolers for all of these cards, but obviously flashes different versions of firmware. Meanwhile, only the RX 6900 XT model has three power connectors. 

PowerColor will offer two versions of its Red Devil Radeon RX 6900 XT: the vanilla AXRX 6900XT 16GBD6-3DHE/OC and the AXRX 6900XT 16GBD6-2DHCE/OC Limited Edition. The default board will feature three DisplayPort 1.4 outputs and two HDMI connectors, whereas the LE card will have a USB-C port instead of one DP 1.4 and a bundled Red Devil keycap for mechanical keyboards. 

PowerColor said that sales of its Red Devil Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics cards would start on December 17 but failed to mention the price. Hopefully, it will not be in a devilishly red zone.