I just called a well-regarded boutique system builder to ask about 5850 stock, which I hadn't been able to select from their website configurator for a month despite frequent checks. I've called twice before and gotten the same guy in sales, who seemed to be pretty confident/knowledgeable about his shit.
He claimed that they had been posting 5850's when they got shipments, but they kept selling out quickly. He said that they wouldn't be taking any more orders for 5850 cards. The 5950 would "be out in a few days." I tried to correct him about the 5900 series being dual-GPU, and he said he understood that about the 5970, but the 5950's would be single-GPU, and would be replacing 5850's in their systems in "a week or two". It has "a smaller die area, and has different outputs," according to him.
A little googling brings me to this rumor post from three weeks ago, which claims that 5950 is a single-GPU 6-output mini-DP card.
I wasn't sure about the business sense of releasing a DP-only card... but supposedly DP is convertible to single-link DVI(which will work up to 1920x1200x60) with a passive adapter - it was model-specific timing issues (they only installed 2 DVI-ports worth of chips) in the 5850/5870/5970 that prevented triple-monitor passive usage. The crowd who can afford 2560x1600 or 1920x1200x120 can in all likelihood afford $100 active adapters. Also, if they're sneaking the six mini-DP ports in sideways on a single slot cover, there's room on the other slot for both an exhaust grille and some extra ports on the other slot cover, as is done with the current crop of 5870's.
The "die size" is probably more likely to refer to a PCB configuration than an entirely new design from yield-challenged TSMC - we would have heard it leaked by now.
Can anyone else confirm/deny without openly breaking NDA? What are the odds this guy was pulling my chain, keeping in mind this was a sales line with the prospect of me buying his merchandise?
Edit: Denied. Product will be called the "ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 Edition"
He claimed that they had been posting 5850's when they got shipments, but they kept selling out quickly. He said that they wouldn't be taking any more orders for 5850 cards. The 5950 would "be out in a few days." I tried to correct him about the 5900 series being dual-GPU, and he said he understood that about the 5970, but the 5950's would be single-GPU, and would be replacing 5850's in their systems in "a week or two". It has "a smaller die area, and has different outputs," according to him.
A little googling brings me to this rumor post from three weeks ago, which claims that 5950 is a single-GPU 6-output mini-DP card.
I wasn't sure about the business sense of releasing a DP-only card... but supposedly DP is convertible to single-link DVI(which will work up to 1920x1200x60) with a passive adapter - it was model-specific timing issues (they only installed 2 DVI-ports worth of chips) in the 5850/5870/5970 that prevented triple-monitor passive usage. The crowd who can afford 2560x1600 or 1920x1200x120 can in all likelihood afford $100 active adapters. Also, if they're sneaking the six mini-DP ports in sideways on a single slot cover, there's room on the other slot for both an exhaust grille and some extra ports on the other slot cover, as is done with the current crop of 5870's.
The "die size" is probably more likely to refer to a PCB configuration than an entirely new design from yield-challenged TSMC - we would have heard it leaked by now.
Can anyone else confirm/deny without openly breaking NDA? What are the odds this guy was pulling my chain, keeping in mind this was a sales line with the prospect of me buying his merchandise?
Edit: Denied. Product will be called the "ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity6 Edition"
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