Rumor: AMD operates a two-tier system for RDNA 4 GPU allocation to graphics card makers

AMD supposedly operates a two-tier system for supplying chips to its graphics card making partners, or that's the belief of the rumor mill.

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Sapphire appears to be one of the biggest players for AMD right now (Image Credit: Sapphire)

As VideoCardz reports, this comes from the Board Channels forum over in China, which is always a source we regard with some caution, but admittedly has proved correct with speculation in the past.

The assertion here is that AMD's top-tier board makers - known as 'core' brands - are ASUS, PowerColor and Sapphire, as well as Vastarmor and XFX.

The second tier of card manufacturers consists of Acer, ASRock, GIGABYTE and Yeston, we're told.

The surprise here is that ASRock and GIGABYTE are apparently in the lower tier of partners for AMD, but as already noted, take this with a large helping of skepticism.

That said, as VideoCardz points out, RX 9070 graphics cards from those two manufacturers do seem to be thinner on the ground. And Sapphire in particular seemed to have a lot of stock deployed for the initial RDNA 4 launch, so in some ways, this speculation lines up with how the story of the RX 9070 release played out on the shelves.

It's also true that the apparent 'core' partners here have a fair few more RDNA 4 models rolling off the production lines, which makes sense if they are indeed favored with chip allocation.

As you've doubtless noticed, though, RX 9070 stock remains tricky to get hold of - and by tricky, we mean damn near impossible for the most part, from what we can tell.

This situation should change very soon, or at least we've been assured of that by two big cheese executives at AMD now (Frank Azor and David McAfee), so let's keep our fingers crossed. Not just for more RDNA 4 graphics cards to arrive sharpish, but for some entry-level models to maintain MSRP pricing, too.