AMD inexplicably threw scalpers a bone with the limited-edition ‘Midnight Black’ GPU

Because the world desperately needed another GPU that people could not actually buy, AMD decided to release a limited edition “Midnight Black” version of its Radeon RX 6800 XT early Wednesday morning, where it sold out before most at all so the map was there.

You might be thinking, “Why are you releasing a limited edition version of something that is practically a collector’s item, even without a new coat of paint?” (AMD’s recent GPUs are even rarer than Nvidia’s, although both currently have two to three times their retail price on eBay.)

Or you may be thinking: “When, exactly, did AMD announce a new GPU? I can not remember it. “This is because the company did not formally announce it: according to VideoCardz, AMD quietly announced its “AMD Red Team community” tab base per. Email around midnight that they should look for the card at 06:00 PT, a message that, to put it mildly, was not kept under cover.

Personally, I just wonder: If AMD would actually put video cards in the hands of its fans, why not verify their emails or emails unique, non-transferable passwords or lottery of them or do pretty much anything but put them on it same site where bots, scalpers and everyone else are already looking – a site that some people have their browser set to update all day?

There seems to have been a special “Red Team link”, but a bunch of prospective buyers reported that it didn’t work – while a few others claimed they were able to buy one on the main store page by hammering update button or by using a Javascript shortcut to trick the website.

There are possible solutions to these problems, but the gaming industry does not seem to be very interested in finding them. Still, you need to give credit to AMD for selling it at the original retail price of $ 649 instead of charging more.

It is not clear how many Midnight Black cards were produced; at press time, two buyers tried to hack their confirmed orders on eBay, while a third had withdrawn their listing due to an unspecified error.

AMD tells The edge it “continues to focus on delivering the latest Radeon graphics cards to as many gamers as possible on SEP,” and counts the short appearance of the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT Midnight Black as part of it.

“We continue to make reference cards available on AMD.com and will continue to rebuild the supply in the foreseeable future,” says the company, something it had not been able to do the last time I wrote about a similar claim. Since then, however, AMD has (very briefly) provided supplies of GPUs at least three times, which I am aware of.