For the last few weeks we have been fielding our readers concerns about a shortage of HD5000 series cards, particularly the 5850, 5870 and the new 5970 - all of which have won top awards at DriverHeaven.

We managed to have a chat with one of the top men in AMD, John Byrne - Vice President of Worldwide GPU and CPU sales. We brought up the point that many enthusiasts can still not get a hold of one of their new mid to high end 5000 series cards.

"In a span of two months we have launched 5 different products, an entirely new Graphics architecture (DX11), an innovative feature such as Eyefinity and on a new 40nm process. In summary, our 5XXX is the most powerful and exciting graphics family that we have ever produced where today we are seeing an unbelievably huge demand for the products.

We launched both ASICs and unusually high volume of MBA boards to accelerate adoption and market satisfaction..." said John.

He then continued "Yes, we are impacted by TSMC's continued problems with production at the 40 nm process, however we feel we are tracking reasonably well to where we expected to be at this point, thanks in large part to our early start with 40 nm process technology with the ATI Radeon HD 4770.  Yields for the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series, our most complex ASIC to date, are only slightly off from the aggressive targets we set.  At the same time, we are actually tracking above target for the production of the ATI Radeon HD 5700 series.

In the very near future, as we overcome supply constraints, we will be increasing shipments of 5800 series graphics processors by roughly an order of magnitude, moving from thousands of units shipped per week to tens of thousands.  This should alleviate some of the pent-up demand.

We deliberately timed the introduction of the dual-GPU ATI Radeon HD 5970 to coincide with the increase in supply of ATI Radeon HD 5800 series processors in order to ensure sufficient supply for both ATI Radeon 5800 and 5900 series products.

To our knowledge, supply of 5700 series products continues to meet demand."

So there you have it, it is not often John has time to speak to the media, so we hope this helps you guys to get up to the minute,  factual information.

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Comments

#1

RE: AMD speak to Heaven Media about HD5000 shortages

Posted by comp_ali | 19th Nov 2009 9:47pm

Thanks guys for this conversation
I hope he is right , I just wished they mentioned specific time when they expect to overcome the shortage .

#2

RE: AMD speak to Heaven Media about HD5000 shortages

Posted by mkk | 19th Nov 2009 11:23pm

I'm waiting for some 5850 custom cooler card anyway so the chip shortage isn't really a bother yet for me. Also waiting for some 55x0/56x0 card to appear hopefully not too far into Q1'2010 for a low power HTPC. Locally the 5750's are steadily coming in and going out the store.

#3

RE: AMD speak to Heaven Media about HD5000 shortages

Posted by Trusteft | 20th Nov 2009 12:02am

Thanks for this.

BTW, a message to him, almost 600 euros for a graphics card is a bad joke.

#4

RE: AMD speak to Heaven Media about HD5000 shortages

Posted by SeraphicSorcerer | 20th Nov 2009 12:17am

600 euros for a dual gpu is not a bad joke. I remember nvidia single core gpus costing 599 Until AMD served them.

#5

RE: AMD speak to Heaven Media about HD5000 shortages

Posted by clanman | 20th Nov 2009 12:20am

Its expensive yes, but look at the benchmark results DriverHeaven got in their 5970 review- its stunningly powerful.

I can't afford one, even if I could get it, but if you work out the price against the single cards its based on, its not bad value at all. Competition from nVidia would be great, but that won't be happening until the new year.

Pretty decent of John to take the time to speak to readers on DH.

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