Where Are The Radeon HD 5800 Series Video Cards?

[Apoptosis]

Have you looked into purchasing an ATI Radeon HD 5870 or 5850 graphics card lately? If you do a search at popular online retailers like Newegg you'll quickly find that not a single Radeon HD 5870 or Radeon HD 5850 is available right now. ATI has also increased the MSRP on the video cards recently, which only makes enthusiasts more frustrated by the whole situation. We contacted Jay Marsden,a Public Relations Manager at AMD this week and asked him when we would see better availability of these killer graphics cards. We all know that TSMC is having issues when it comes to yields on any 40nm wafers, but the situation has to eventually get better right? Here is what Jay has to say on behalf of AMD.

We launched with tens of thousands of units in Q3 and into Q4. Admittedly, supply is light right now due to overwhelming demand (although at least one SKU is available as we speak on Newegg.com), but this issue is temporary and will be alleviated quickly. 5800 series volume will continue to ramp up through November, and the overwhelming majority of these parts are headed for the channel. We expect ship hundreds of thousands of 5800 series parts by the end of the quarter.

[skier]

how does a manufacturing process just stop working is my only question, the whole thing doesnt make sense to me

[eva2000]

God i hope supply picks up... Australia like the rest of the world has ran dry of 58xx series heh

[FZ1]

Cripes. I checked Newegg and they had a Sapphire 5870 available. By the time I added it to my cart and tried to check out it told me they are OOS. They have a Powercolor 5870 with a pre-installed waterblock for $499 in stock for now.

[ratNukit]

Right now I'm pretty glad I preordered mine a week before the release

[FeRaL]

All in all with the way prices are right now I'm not too sure how I feel about this card. Why even launch something if there's .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance for someone who want's to buy one to actually be able to find one. Add on top of that the price gauging that is going on because the manufacturer is having issues even producing the thing. If I didn't know better I would be inclined to think that this is a little bit of an ePeen wagging contest between that AMD/ATI marketing chick and Nvidia's supreme ruler.

Need I say more. All in all I'm pretty disappointed in AMD/ATI. My big question is, why isn't Global Foundries making these chips?

Here's a little (joking) conspiracy theory I have concocted for the reason why TSMC is having these "issues." It's simple, there really are no issues. Nvidia has paid them off to;
Not produce the ATI chips to full capacity
Cover it up by saying they are having yield problems

Nvidia can do this because:
They are and have been for some time the market leader
They have gobs of money right now and need to stall ATI's new chip since theirs isn't ready yet.

Anyhow just a little fun/stupid thinking to try and make light of the situation...

[CaptChuck]

I am STILL amazed I was able to grab that Sapphire Vapor-X. From what I've seen, you have about a 10 minute window to grab any of the 5870 cards that show up on the 'egg! AND before the price increase... I'm usually not quite that lucky.

BTW....It's an awesome card

Chuck

[FZ1]

I was able to get a Sapphire 5870