ATI Radeon HD 6970

[NCIceman]

Suddenly these cards are all discontinued at newegg and other vendors, especially the MSI model that Tom's recommends in the custom build section.

Anyone know why? Are they due to be replaced?

 

[NCIceman]

Well, I noticed in today's new article on micro-stuttering that Tom's has also noticed that newegg has deactivated many of their Radeon SKUs. But no info yet on why...

 

[photonboy]

Assuming your buying a new card, you should be aware that AMD has new cards coming out in Q4 2011 which will be 2.5x to 3x the performance for the same power.

I highly recommend anyone looking for a new gaming card to wait. I'm personally getting one of the new NVidia's which won't be out until roughly Q2 2012.

 

[NCIceman]

Yeah, I found an article mentioning that, so patience is probably the best practice.

However, I've not seen SKUs pulled like this before; am still curious why. After all, the 68xx series is still around, it seems just the 6970 and 6990s got decommisioned.
Curious...

 

[megamanx00]

Those are some lofty claims photon considering we don't have any solid info yet. AMD isn't going for a huge die like nVidia, at least not on their GPUs. I'm guessing that AMD will want to make a GPU that's 1.5x or so faster overall than the 6970 while having a smaller die and using a reasonable enough amount of power to have two of them on one board without having to down-clock them. Of course, we don't know for sure yet.

AMD wants to get rid of their 6970 inventory now to make way for their new products. Retailers don't want to be stuck with cards they suddenly have to reduce in price like what happened with the 5870s once the 6xxx series came out.

 

[JRfromWBC]

Damn, I was looking to buy a pair of 6970's for a new build before the weekend.
Now what to do?

 

[megamanx00]

Well, you can get a pair of 6950 2GBs and try to unlock them (get the dual BIOS versions for that of course) or go with two GTX 570s. You could also just wait for the new cards to come out late next month (I'm assuming to match up with Bulldozer) but prices are always high and availability is always low at launch with high end cards especially on a new process ^_^

 

[JRfromWBC]

Saved by the egg!
Multiple brands appeared this evening.
Now, which to get?

 

[NCIceman]

Yep, checked newegg, and new units are re-appearing, though not for the particular lesser-expensive MSI model I wanted.

Now, as there is intel indicating new cards in Q4 2011, we are back to waiting or going and and pulling the trigger? I think I am going to be patient for now.

Thanks for the input!

 

[NCIceman]

New article saying it will be Q1 2012 before the new ATI cards come out:

http://lenzfire.com/2011/08/powercolor-finalizes-amd-radeon-hd-7000-series-release-date-92246/

So will probably buy a placeholder videocard until then.

 

[NCIceman]

Best answer selected by NCIceman.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey