Report: HD 6970 Release to be Delayed
Word on the street is that yield problems are to blame.
The GPU wars usually hit a crescendo as the holidays near, with AMD and NVIDIA jockeying for a spot on customers’ shopping lists. Seems some production-related delays may tip the scale in NVIDIA’s and the upcoming GTX 580’s favor.
If various sources based within Taiwan are to be believed, then AMD and its manufacturing partner TSMC has encountered some problems in generating enough volume for a planned November 22 release. The issues are bad enough that test yields amount only in the single digits.
The AMD Radeon HD 6970 “Cayman” will reportedly feature a 256-bit controller and 2GB of GDDR5 RAM, while the competing GTX 580 will “only” work with 1.5GB of memory. Both high-end video cards will be overkill for any single-display system.
Does the rumor indicate a problem with the Cayman architecture? Or are TSMC’s fabrication capabilities lacking? Most importantly, will AMD ship on time? Only time will provide definitive answers to these questions, and confirmation (or lack thereof) of the rumor’s validity. Stay tuned, dear readers!

/sarcasm
Either way i swear i've already read this story like a year ago it seems...
That's a pretty audacious statement. They're both just die shrinks. Nothing revolutionary, just evolutionary.
I can pretty guarantee that still, neither of them will be able to run Crys... er.. the unmentionable game at highest settings at 2560x1600 with a min of 30fps.
Unless you mean both cards together in some future actually working version of Lucid Hydra. That would be a mean machine.
Both Nvidia and AMD have been using his process for a year now... and only now AMD is having a yield problem...
More like Nvidia friendly parties are trying to move as much of their 465 and higher inventory as they can before the 69xx and 580 force a fire sale of the entire upper bracket of cards.
as for it beign overkill... yea i'd say in a huge resolution like your mentioned 2560x1600 for playable framerates that would tax either... but for the mainstream and even mid-high end enthusiasts we're still stuck in teh age of 1080p where monitor companies seem content on keeping the mainstream... but i shouldn't complain my 8500gt can't even do 1080p >_<
sniff... i want more displays!!
Actually, Nvidia had terrible yields on Fermi initially. I think I read sub-5% once, in fact, I think it might have been literally just 5 GPUs on a test run once (based on GPU serial numbers). They fixed their problems eventually, and probably learned a thing or two for their next-gen fabrication.
Why doesn't AMD use GlobalFoundries for Radeon-production? Does GlobalFoundries not have the necessary tech, are they busy with other business? Seems silly to own part of GlobalFoundries and yet pay someone else to make your first batch, especially if they then have problems doing so.
amd rolled out their mid range already, and those are amazing. they are not in the same boat as fermi