Where Have All the 6970s Gone?

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PC Perspective asks "Where have all the Radeon HD 6970s gone?" The fellas dug around a bit to see if they could get to the bottom of the situation, here's what they found:

I spoke with two manufacturers of video cards about this situation, both of which wish to remain anonymous. They gave the same answer. The reason for the lack of product on shelves is not one of demand. So basically bitcoin miners have not purchased every single card on the market (unlike the HD 5830, which is a favorite of the group). The problem is supply. AMD has not supplied these manufacturers with enough HD 6970 chips to address the actual demand.
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by nature, the 6990 is even harder to find. I was lucky enough to find one a few weeks ago. Someone had one reserved and canceled.
 
So either AMD is running low on chips due to fab problems OR secret uber marketing conspiracy :cool:
 
what is a bitcoin miner? trying to search around but found very little on the subject.
 
I haven't seen a 6970 in stock in my local computer store for a while now, and 6990's are pretty much all dried up, no ETA date or anything. Is the 6970 really that popular? My 6950 will do fine on my other rig.
 
i can tell you that one of them ended up in my case!! HA

the 6970's have been out for nearly a year now - im guessing a product refresh or new card is due out soon
 
Hamish Campbell said:
It's just like a regular miner. Except that instead of being covered in coal soot, they are covered in bacon grease and Doritos-cheese-dust.
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+1 well played sir, well played.

When I saw the title of this thread I wanted to queue in the sound song "where have all the cowboys gone"...
 
I was luck and got a sub $300 MSI reference 6970 a few weeks back. I guess I was lucky? Now to find a waterblock to quiet it down a little ...
 
As a retailer, it's the retail level not buying them... distribution has lots, and has had lots... every time I see a post asking about the 6970's and that no one has any I check myself at the shops quoted to confirm that yeah they list as out of stock, then I check distribution, and there are lots in stock waiting to be sold...

the problem is PRICE... the shops have priced the card low, and now distribution is asking for more, why would any one order one to sell without money to gain? It's not like the egg can just raise the price back up on the cards, since then people will look at another shop that is still cheap and ask wtf? but as it stands now, that xfx one for 349, costs 348.38 to buy... that sapphire one for 359.99, costs 351.21, The asus one is not bad, selling 369 costing 347 .. but that one is not available this morning when I checked pricing.

So why would any retail store carry one right now?
 
I don't get how some of you [H]'ers are clueless about bitcoin. There's a HARDOCP article about this that came out a month ago or so.

Use the search...
 
To me it seems like if you want just any 6970 there are plenty of them on Newegg. It doesn't look like a shortage to me.

The specialty versions do seem difficult to find, however.

I unfortunately had to change my build plans. I wanted 2x MSI Lightening 6970 and the ability to add a third if I felt the need.

Now I have 2x ASUS EAH6970 DirectCU II's instead, and I won't be able to get a third even if I want to, because I can't fit three of these three slot monsters, and now they are out of stock too...
 
It seems to me that if there is a shortage of 6970's, it would indicative of yield problems as this is the same chip as the 6950 except with two sub processors deactivated.

The way to test this theory is compared 6950's that have been modded to 6970 levels and check the failure rate. If it's high that would inidicate a definite yield problem.
 
DigitalGriffin said:
It seems to me that if there is a shortage of 6970's, it would indicative of yield problems as this is the same chip as the 6950 except with two sub processors deactivated.

The way to test this theory is compared 6950's that have been modded to 6970 levels and check the failure rate. If it's high that would inidicate a definite yield problem.
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Bought 6950>6970 O/C when it first came out, still working. They are holding their price after one year.Got the xfx with the lifetime warranty for 306 plus tax. Now to give credit where credit is due. Thanks [H] for being on top of things, your connections and research make my purchases less stressful and worry free.
 
Since 6950s basically are handicapped version of 6970s, things might have gone in tis way:

During initial launch, to produce two products, AMD laser cutted chip to fill "some" 6950 orders. Once the demand has increased, now they found that 6970 chips actually got a much higher failure rate than expected in production, resulting which almost all chips ended up become 6950s (popular, too).

Or, the original plan: 6950 WAS intended to be AMD's current "flagship card", all extra stream processors were just for quality control measurment (like CPU cutting cores). They decided to give gtx 580 a hard time and made a "paper launch" taking all those stream units in count, well it DID launched until totally dried up.

(i need a coffee now)
 
LordCalin said:
As a retailer, it's the retail level not buying them... distribution has lots, and has had lots... every time I see a post asking about the 6970's and that no one has any I check myself at the shops quoted to confirm that yeah they list as out of stock, then I check distribution, and there are lots in stock waiting to be sold...

the problem is PRICE... the shops have priced the card low, and now distribution is asking for more, why would any one order one to sell without money to gain? It's not like the egg can just raise the price back up on the cards, since then people will look at another shop that is still cheap and ask wtf? but as it stands now, that xfx one for 349, costs 348.38 to buy... that sapphire one for 359.99, costs 351.21, The asus one is not bad, selling 369 costing 347 .. but that one is not available this morning when I checked pricing.

So why would any retail store carry one right now?
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interesting if true.
 
yep people are looking specifically for certain versions like sapphire..

i walked into fry's the other day and i saw a few msi 6970's and a whole shelf filled with diamond 6970's ...

sapphire and his was sold out... no 6990's either

though i can understand the surplus with the diamond brand :p
 
It could also be that AMD is letting the pipeline dry up a little before dropping the 7 series cards. Why still fab an outdated product and have shelves full when you are trying to launch a new series. That is taking money away from yourself.
 
What? How is it not an issue of demand? The demand clearly outpaces the supply.
 
MrFace said:
What? How is it not an issue of demand? The demand clearly outpaces the supply.
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Agreed.


There can never be a shortage without both a supply shortage and too high demand.

Adjusting either would solve the problem. Lower demand, the shortage goes away. Higher supply the shortage goes away.

The very definition of a shortage is when supply does not meet demand. Both sides of the equations are equally involved, and you can't really pin it on one over the other.
 
I think this might (as someone said) have something to do with the 7000 series cards. Not selling a product (unless they are going to increase the price later) is probably not a good buisness decision for the company. If one of the factories had blown up, or there had been some disaster I could see this happening. But as there hasn't this must have been planned?

Zarathustra[H];1037675954 said:
Now I have 2x ASUS EAH6970 DirectCU II's instead, and I won't be able to get a third even if I want to, because I can't fit three of these three slot monsters, and now they are out of stock too...
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What about thinner aftermarket coolers/waterblocks? They are probably non reference boards however...
 
Well this guy jumped the gun... but hopefully it is pointing to September release of the 7xxx.
Especially if the midrange part outperforms the 6970!
 
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