14 DAY TRIAL // AMD is planning to release a revised version of the Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards in the near future, the company wanting to change the PCB in order to accommodate a lower priced yet high-performance VRM circuitry, the same that was supposed to be used for the November launch.
As you probably remember, AMD had to postpone the introduction of the HD 6900 graphics card series thanks to a short supply of PWM chips, early reports suggesting that it couldn't ship the required VRM components to the company's partners in time.
This has lead AMD to develop a new PCB that was based on the more expensive Volterra VT1636SF MOSFET solution, in an attempt to release the Radeon HD 6900 in time for the Holiday shopping season.
However, a report coming from Swiftech's CEO Gabriel Rouchon states that the 6970 and 6950 series Radeon will be available in two flavors, the VRM circuitry to be changed in a future revision of the card.
These changes have lead Swiftech to develop a new VRM plate for their upcoming Komodo HD6900 water-block as the new PCB uses slightly larger driver MOSFET circuits.
According to the plaza.fi website, the new design will make use of Texas Instruments 59901M driver-MOSFET circuits, the same VRMs that have been used in the HD 6800 series GPUs.
Furthermore, some sources say that together with the new PCB design, AMD could also patch the Radeon HD 6950 core in order to disable stream processor unlocking using the BIOS flash method, as this hack enabled consumers to transform the HD 6950 into a fully functional HD 6970.
No details are available regarding AMD's plans of releasing the new revision of the HD 6900, but I suspect these new cards will gradually make their entrance into the market as existing stocks are depleted.