Custom-design cards: AMD partners have not received any Radeon RX Vega GPUs

A couple of days ago I wrote volume shipments of custom-design Radeon RX Vega video cards isn't likely to happen until sometime in November. German tech site HardwareLuxx dug a little deeper and heard AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners are all still waiting for supply of AMD Radeon RX Vega chips.

The problem is the GPUs were supposed to be delivered last week but the shipment didn't arrive. VideoCardz confirmed the story with its own sources and heard there is not even a date for the new shipment. We do not know the exact issue but it's clear AMD is unable to produce enough Vega chips to meet demand. Also a mystery is where the issue lies. Is demand a lot higher than expected, or is the supply extremely low due to manufacturing issues?

Here's what four of AMD's AIB partners told HardwareLuxx:

Manufacturer A: Custom RX Vega models are already developed and ready to be launched, company is waiting for GPUs from AMD. They can’t estimate when more variants of RX Vega 56 will be available.

Manufacturer B: AMD is always focusing on reference models first, however the availability is a major issue and causes delays of custom models. They have no date for custom designs to be available.

Manufacturer C: Manufacturer has no final specs nor launch date for their custom design. They waiting for GPUs to be delivered, they assume no cards will be ready by mid-October.

Manufacturer D: They are waiting for GPUs, no comment on their custom designs.

At the moment, AIB card makers are keeping mum about the custom-design Radeon RX Vega 56 and 64 cards because they're all still waiting on AMD. Without volume supply of Vega chips they can't determine how far they can push their custom-design cards so they can't even determine the final specifications yet.

This is definitely one of the messiest GPU launches we've seen in a long time.