We did our
usual store checking and price listing routine looking for availability of the
new performance king of the hill, AMD's Radeon HD 5970, and we regret to inform
our readers that we have found no product available for sale in both EU and
American markets respectively.
If you happen to
have sighted an etailer who is not offering preorders or backlisting, please
feel free to email us. If you happen to have purchased one, please let us know
as we and many journalists have failed to prove that retail cards actually
exist, except in the world of review units and benchmarking.
Geizhals.net is the leading price search engine in the EU, and Newegg.com the
famous US etail store. Unfortunately, neither of them have a single listing of
the Radeon HD 5970. AMD partners did confirm that the supply of any 5xx0 cards
will remain stiff, so we are not surprised that buying a Radeon HD 5970 won't
be an easy task.
Update: Readers across Europe have
confirmed many listings, but at press time not a single card is available. A
few shops like Overclockers.co.uk had some cards, but sold them immediately.
Alternate.de still has Sapphire HD 5970 OC available and it can be purchased here. At least it was made
available at press time, but sells for a saucy €619.
Update
2: Newegg just
listed two Radeon HD 5970 cards from Powercolor and HIS, but they are on “Auto-Notify”
and out of stock. The cards will retail for $624.99 each and can be found here.
Update
3: Newegg just listed
the Sapphire 102280OCSR Radeon HD 5970 on its site at around 4:00pm PST. As of
now, this is the only card for sale in the US. It can be found here.