Taipei (Taiwan) - In the latest round of rumors from Computex 2008, we learned that AMD managed to upset the majority of its partners by delaying the Radeon 4850 512MB GDDR3, code-named Makedon.
AMD has decided not to launch its new graphics cards on June 18 as originally planned. Instead, ATI will be briefing members of the press around this date and launch the product in the following week. Since Nvidia is going to launch non-competing parts on June 17, it sounds like a reasonable decision not t o launch its new GPUs just one day later.
However, add-in-board companies have the cards available right now or can receive them within 24 hours of time. Given the current market climate, some companies believe AMD should have launched the cards at Computex.
We were told that there are "tens of thousands of boards just sitting there" and AMD’s partners are not too thrilled.
However, it looks like that AMD is using the delay to change its launch strategy. The GDDR5 equipped 4870 will now launch at the same time as the 4850 512MB GDDR3, but it is unclear whether there are enough GDDR5 chips to enable AMD to ship the 4870 in volume right off the bat.
Two updated dates for your calendar are: June 17: Nvidia launches GeForce GTX 200 series. June 23: AMD launches Radeon 4800 series.