Has ATI stopped manufacturing 5970s?

[Apocalypse23]

I've been looking around and was wondering if the 5970s are to end production soon? IT seems as though they are being shipped in extremely limited quantities, the question is whether ATI plans to sell these in mass numbers or just stop selling them all together like Nvidia did with the GTX 295. I understand there is a TSMC issue but the rest of the cards are shipping out great, but no 5970s...

Thoughts and suggestions are welcome, I'm just wondering whether I should blow $860 CAD on one as it is available in my location...or should I wait it out till they release more? Or are they done with the shipments?

 

[NoQuarter]

They don't make as much money off them as they do from the 5870 so they are probably just letting them trickle until Nvidia releases the GTX480 and then they'll need more 5970's on the market to keep the top end. Just speculation though I've not read anything about 5970 supply..

 

[Udgnim]

I think they're just released in small waves and get bought very quickly, so have to buy them fast when they're available.

 

[cbn]

Does Anyone think ATI will release a HD5950 or HD5930?

 

[veri745]

Does Anyone think ATI will release a HD5950 or HD5930?

I doubt it, but there's at least a slim chance of a 5950.

 

[veri745]

They don't make as much money off them as they do from the 5870 so they are probably just letting them trickle until Nvidia releases the GTX480 and then they'll need more 5970's on the market to keep the top end. Just speculation though I've not read anything about 5970 supply..

I would like to challenge this statement. It seems to me that an extra Cypress chip and twice the RAM is all that is needed for the dual GPU board, and for the price premium they get, I think it would be well worth it to use Cypress chips for these instead of regular 5870's if they could sell all of them. Of course I may be wrong about a minimal extra PCB cost.

I believe the GPUs used for the 5970 are binned with a lower voltage to reduce power, so maybe not as many of the Cypress chips can cut it at the lowered voltage.

 

[*kjm]

Or maybe they will have a respin from 5870 to 5890 and don't want a bunch of P'ed off people??? Maybe?

Ow..... just looked at the price of the 5970's

 

[Phil1977]

I think demand for these cards are quite low...

I know that mnay users choose 5850 CF instead.

 

[smackababy]

Being like $650, it would be cheaper to CF 5850s instead. I would say the demand for these cards will be outstandinly low. I am sure ATI makes most of its money off of mainstream cards, not these, so spending resources to exceed demand is not cost efficient. Besides, those who would buy this card will wait a month or two for supply, unlike the cheaper cards where people buy whatever is cheapest / most readily available.

 

[x3sphere]

The cards are costly to produce so AMD has to keep a fine line between supply and demand. Not to mention, a $600+ video card appeals to only a niche group of consumers. It would not be smart for them to flood the market with 5970s and then not be able to sell off all the cards. Give it another month or two and they will probably be easy to find, once all the hardcore enthusiasts have theirs.

 

[dguy6789]

Being like $650, it would be cheaper to CF 5850s instead.

Of course, Crossfire 5850s are slower than a 5970 so they better be cheaper. A 5970 has the same clocks as a 5850, but it has 1600 stream processors per GPU while the 5850 Crossfire only has 1440.

 

[cbn]

Being like $650, it would be cheaper to CF 5850s instead. I would say the demand for these cards will be outstandinly low. I am sure ATI makes most of its money off of mainstream cards, not these, so spending resources to exceed demand is not cost efficient. Besides, those who would buy this card will wait a month or two for supply, unlike the cheaper cards where people buy whatever is cheapest / most readily available.

I think ATI wanted to take the PCI-E 2.0 performance crown this generation.

Using "highest bin" Cypress cores with 1600 SP's probably helps them maintain enough efficiency to get good FPS out of a 296 watt TDP.

Sure, using two "harvested" Cypress cores from the HD5850 would have been cheaper but the power efficiency likely would have been worse.

That being said I am actually interesting in seeing watercooling results with ATI Hemlock. I have seen tests where the reviewers were able to get 380 watt power draw through the 6pin and 8pin power connectors provided the proper power supply was used.

This makes me wonder if watercooling could improve the efficiency of those 380 watts (ie, less leakage through the xtors due to better thermals)

 

[WicKeD]

I've been looking around and was wondering if the 5970s are to end production soon? IT seems as though they are being shipped in extremely limited quantities, the question is whether ATI plans to sell these in mass numbers or just stop selling them all together like Nvidia did with the GTX 295. I understand there is a TSMC issue but the rest of the cards are shipping out great, but no 5970s...

Thoughts and suggestions are welcome, I'm just wondering whether I should blow $860 CAD on one as it is available in my location...or should I wait it out till they release more? Or are they done with the shipments?

It will just be like Fermi... slow out the gate then as prodcution becomes more efficient the availibility will increase.

 

[lifeblood]

Does Anyone think ATI will release a HD5950 or HD5930?

I doubt their will be a 5830 or a 5930, per se. Remember, the 4830 (one of which I use) was a 4850/4870 with some bad shaders. Once the number of chips with bad shaders dropped, the 4830's began disappearing off the market.

We are now 6 months into Evergreen and if they were going to create a lower end card such as the 4830 to sell bad chips, they would have done so by now as it's in the early days of a new process (40nm) that you have such a high failure rate.

 

[DarkZeratul]

Indeed, it looks like just this week ATI has begun to sell those "bad" chips in China, as you can see in the following link: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2053231

Does Anyone think ATI will release a HD5950 or HD5930?

Yeah, i've heard they had planning to release those cards next february 29 or september 31. Just in time for the next Black Friday

 

[lifeblood]

Indeed, it looks like just this week ATI has begun to sell those "bad" chips in China, as you can see in the following link: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2053231

Excellent. I read through the translated version and it looks like ATI is doing a repeat of the 4830, using "bad" chips. It does make sense, with all the problems they were having with 40nm yields. Now if NV can release Fermi and bring the prices down to reasonable levels I can jump on one of these things.