ATI persists and signs. In attempting to embrace the full force of the 40 nm nose and beard of NVIDIA, the maker of graphics cards cause the ire of its partners but also its customers. For now, the founder of Sunnyvale is indeed being unable to take orders Radeon HD 5870 and other derivatives of last generation. This is especially annoying given that these new GPUs are very convincing, as evidenced by our testing of Radeon HD 5850 and 5870.

AMD actually combines technical problems and bad forecasts. The foundry TSMC, the designer who has entrusted the production of its GPU is still encountering serious performance problems (known as 40% of waste) on the manufacturing process of 40 nm, widespread on the Radeon HD Series 5000.

Faced with the warmth of the press and public opinion, AMD has also decided to prematurely stop production of its graphics cards to the previous generation (the Radeon HD 4000 series), referring to makes a request on models that already suffered the brunt of the shortage.

AMD has merely indicated that supplies retail Radeon HD 5870 and others resume their normal pace in mid-December. It is even likely that partners hitherto neglected, crumbling under a barrage of bullets when OEMs have released the pressure after the holiday season. Meanwhile, while some retailers honor somehow their hundreds of advance orders, prices are rising for those who actually stock. Cdiscount markets and the reference model of the Radeon HD 5870 by Sapphire priced at 450 euros, as evidenced compare our prices, well below the recommended retail price of 350 euros.