AMD has had a good year in graphics, but during the fall it lost ground and a bit of momentum, not the least when NVIDIA finally rolled out some competitive products. The new performance series Radeon HD 6900 is around the corner, but according to sources to NordicHardware it is moving slowly.
AMD has already postponed the launch once, November 21st was ditched in favor of week 50. The reason for the clouded date is according our sources because of the top model Radeon H 6970. AMD isn’t sure the card is ready for launch and as late as yesterday – December 2nd – there was no given date for the two cards that launches in just two weeks.
The positive news we’ve heard is that little brother, Radeon HD 6950, has started to find its way outside AMD labs and fabs, which means that at least the entry model of the series is coming along.
The power supply has been problematic for AMD
Big brorther Radeon HD 6970 is more uncertain though and according to reliable sources we should actually be very happy if it does launch this year – and be prepared that it may very well be moved into 2011, which will be needed to see any kind of supply in stores. Radeon HD 6950 is said to be in better shape, but AMD will not launch the Cayman series before Radeon HD 6970 is ready and fit for fight.
NVIDIA will make things more complicated on December 7th with its launch of the GeForce GTX 570. Even if AMD has a broad and stable assortment of graphics card it looks to get a rough end to 2010, where it, worst case scenario, won’t get any new performance cards out before the end of the year.
