Acer recently filed a list of GPUs it may be preparing to sell in EEC (Eurasian Economic Commission) countries. Among the well-known and established graphics card models, it was quite surprising to see the company’s submitted document included non-XT versions of AMD’s Radeon RX 7900, 7800, and 7700 discrete GPUs. Both Acer’s value-focused Nitro and premium-level Predator Bifrost brands are slated to get these new GPUs, delivering a notch-lower performance than their XT counterparts. Please keep in mind that EEC filings do not always precipitate product releases.
Aside from the three new non-XT variants of the 7900, 7800, and 7700, the EEC lists nearly all the Radeon RX 7000-series GPUs, including the GRE versions that used to be China only. However, the 7900 XTX is notably missing from the list — even in the more expensive Predator Bifrost line. The five member states of the EEC are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. Russia is the biggest member of the commission, but it has been under sanctions by much of the Western world due to its aggression in Ukraine. That’s probably one of the reasons why the most powerful XTX variant of the 7900 isn’t included in this list.
Aside from that, the EEC could see a couple of Intel GPUs from Acer — the A750 and A770 — in both standard and overclocked versions. This pretty comprehensive list may mean that gamers and PC enthusiasts in the EEC region would have plenty of Acer brand GPUs to choose from.
AMD leaks point to a January 2025 launch for its next-gen RX 8000-series video cards, so there's still quite some time for the 7000-series cards to be the major focus of red team GPU pickers. Looking at the previous generation, AMD released 15 SKUs for the 6000-series Radeon GPUs, including non-XT versions of mid-range GPUs like the 6800 and 6700. Currently, the 7000-series only has seven official distinct SKUs, even after more than a year and a half since it launched. At the time of writing the only non-XT version Radeon 7000-series GPU that is actually available to customers is the AMD Radeon RX 7600.
As EEC product filings do not always correlate with actual product releases, Acer could likely be hedging its bets that AMD would somehow release non-XT versions of its top-tier and mid-range graphics cards in this filing. That way, if it does so, Acer could immediately release them in the EEC area without having to go through another round of regulatory red tape.
AMD hasn’t dropped any hints or leaks if it’s working on non-XT versions of the 7700, 7800, and 7900. With the massive drop in gaming revenue AMD has seen, it may feel the need to do something to take back the ground Nvidia has gained in recent years. Maybe the company is trying to create more affordable versions of its GPUs, but only time will tell if it will officially launch these non-XT products. But even if they do so, would it be enough for AMD to claw back some gaming market share from team green?
