14 DAY TRIAL // After AMD delayed the launch of the HD 6900 series graphics cards it seems like the company is still having some troubles with the upcoming Cayman based boards, rumors suggesting the company has just cut AIB allocations for the HD 6950, although, this time, the news aren't entirely bad as the HD 6970 allocations have gone up.
According to the SemiAccurate website, that cites an industry source, it seems like the board allocation cut will also be accompanied by a slight delay in actual shipments.
This latest development in the Cayman saga comes after AMD was forced to delay the launch of the HD 6900 series from November 22 to December 13, the delay being supposedly caused by a shortage in DrMOS chips.
However, this time, the news aren't entirely bad as the number of HD 6970 board allocated to AIB partners has just gone up by almost the same amount as the drop in HD 6950 GPU's suggesting that AMD has really high yields for the Cayman core.
If this is indeed the case, then it seems really logical for AMD to decrease the HD 6950 AIB allocations as selling the same number of HD 6950 GPUs as before would mean intentionally crippling their Cayman core to deliver a lower priced solution that comes with a lower profit margin.
As far as the slight delay expected to hit the HD 6950 is concerned, this is caused by some last minute BIOS tweaks that may be caused by AMD trying to get the performance of the HD 6950 over that of Nvidia's GTX 570 now that it's operating frequencies and specifications are out in the open.
Compared to the Barts and Evergreen graphics cards the HD 6900 series will bring some important architectural changes, as we discussed in one of our previous articles, these being expected to lead to an important increase in performance.