UK gets just 100 Radeon VII cards at launch, claims OCUK

The purchasing manager for Overclockers UK has suggested that launch stock for the AMD Radeon VII graphics card family, due to go on sale tomorrow afternoon, will be in extremely short supply with as few as 100 cards allocated for the whole of the UK.

Unveiled earlier this week following the partial expiration of AMD's non-disclosure agreement, the Radeon VII is the company's latest gaming-centric graphics card design. Believed to be based on the company's earlier Radeon Instinct MI50 accelerator card designs, repurposed for gaming use, the cards are designed to offer competition to Nvidia's rival GeForce RTX family - cards which Nvidia has admitted are not selling as well as expected due to higher average selling prices (ASPs) compared to previous-generation launch pricing.

Those looking to pick up something from the red team may, however, be disappointed - at least when the cards go on sale at 2PM this Thursday February 7th (UK time). In a comment to the site forum, Overclockers UK purchasing manager Andrew Gibson claims that the UK has been allocated fewer than 100 Radeon VII graphics cards for launch - and that his company accounts for around half that stock alone.

'UK has less than 100 cards for launch,' Gibson writes under his forum username 'Gibbo'. 'So far we have 44 cards, more are due any day, so we essentially have just over half UK launch allocation. Next wave shipments are not yet confirmed.'

Gibson's claim ties in with earlier rumours that Radeon VII stock would be sorely limited at launch, with some outlets pegging the total worldwide stock at around the 5,000 unit level. If true, it will mean that only a tiny fraction of potential purchasers will be able to pick up a Radeon VII at launch - though AMD can be expected to follow the launch up with additional stock in the days and weeks following.

AMD has been contacted for clarification on UK and global launch stock allocation but had not responded at the time of writing.

UPDATE 1430:

In a follow-up post, Gibson has revised his estimates upwards - roughly doubling the quantity he expects Overclockers UK to have by launch tomorrow afternoon. ''If all goes well tomorrow,' he writes, 'we have: 30+ Sapphire; 20+ MSI; 10+ Gigabyte; 10+ Powercolor; 6 Asus,' for a total of at least 76 cards - still, it has to be said, a pitiable quantity for a high-profile product launch.