In an effort to avoid the trouble and confusion of launching another highly anticipated GPU on paper and then deciding not to release it until several weeks later, AMD is pulling its head together and is officially delaying the launch of the Radeon HD 7950 until the first week of February 2012.

A few days ago, we wrote that there was no way AMD would be able to launch the Radeon HD 7950 on January 9th in time for CES and massive public media attention. According to major add-in board partners, the cards will not be ready for at least another three weeks, and at time of writing there are no exact details regarding the production delays.

Recently, Guru3D received word that AMD has decided to move the launch to the first week of February, which coincides with our expectations that the card would be launched sometime around Chinese New Year. We expect consumers will be more satisfied to see that the Radeon HD 7950 is physically available on store shelves and online in retail inventory channels at time of launch, rather than experiencing another three-week delay between a paper launch and actual availability as noted with the Radeon HD 7950.