14 DAY TRIAL // We have been extensively covering the production problems that TSMC has encountered with its 40nm manufacturing process, which have directly affected the GPU shipments of AMD's latest generation of Radeon HD 5000-series of graphics cards. As we mentioned in previous articles, the Sunnyvale, California-based chip maker is well aware of the lack, or better yet, limited supply of Radeon HD 5800 GPUs in the retail channel, a fact that has led to some small price increments for said cards. However, it finally seems that we have some assurance from the company that these issues will be better met in the near future.
Our colleagues over at HardOCP have met with Dave Baumann, AMD's product manager for the 5800 series, who was interviewed about the recent articles that surfaced in the online media. Going directly to the one responsible for the affected product series is the best choice when looking for answers that would have otherwise been speculated upon.
According to the interview, AMD admits that TSMC is still having some 40nm production issues, but “production is not close to a standstill and has ramped up greatly in the last 30 days. TSMC also has new 40nm machines as of September and that capacity is starting to now come online,” Dave Baumann pointed out, in the quoted interview. Despite said issues, there are daily production runs of the 5800 series of GPUs and AMD's AIB (add-in-board) partners are shipping thousands of 5800 series graphics cards per week, worldwide.
The good news is that AMD expects no issues with the stocks for the 5700-series of cards and that the shipments issues with the 5800 series are expected to improve by late November to early December. Basically, to those looking to get their hands on one of the high-end Radeon HD 5870 cards, AMD is telling them to be patient, as availability is improving.
Unfortunately, price drops are expected at this time, as NVIDIA's Fermi-based cards aren't going to become available anytime soon, according to reports on the Internet. Still, AMD will likely take prices to normal, once availability is improving, which will also enable the chip maker to roll out its much-anticipated Hemlock card, namely the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 that has been recently surfacing in leaked pictures.