The true reason behind the delay of AMD Cayman 6970/6950? - you'd never wanna know

[sniper_sung]

Source: http://www.chiphell.com/thread-148220-1-1.html

If you unmount the cooler of a reference card, you could notice an obvious abrasion over the corner of the inner 6/8-pin power
connector socket. No, it ain't by chance you've got a bad pick. It's common among all the popular review sites.

Yes, it's because if you don't polish that corner, you wouldn't be able to mount and install that cooler! Thus AMD spent a delay
to fix that - they polish every card by hand, therefore each card is guaranteed to be a hand-crafted unique version!



For comparison, here are pictures from TechPowerUp:

[Florinmocanu]

Lab 501:
Anandtech


Could have been just a dumb mistake for some component measurement, probably in the next months will be fixed, but for release they had no choice?

[zalbard]

Bet it increased the price, too. Epic fail...
And imagine these cards coming before GTX570... They'd look much better.
Well, at least they didn't have to scrap them all!

[StimulatedBoy]

God I'm lucky! I'm now the happy owner of two genuine handcrafted 6970's...

[Sn0wm@n]

God I'm lucky! I'm now the happy owner of two genuine handcrafted 6970's...

gotta love the positiveness in that remark

[Mats]

It interferes with the fan blades, right? Otherwise they would have cut some corner on the cooler.

[bill_d]

It interferes with the fan blades, right? Otherwise they would have cut some corner on the cooler.

what the sh*t hit the fan

[~CS~]

I can imagine the panic when guys at AMD found out.

[bamtan2]

its possible that this is why. it is also possible that not all boards needed modification, so some may not have it.

[Loque]

lol.. didn't they made a few samples first before hitting the print 2423593 cards button ? :p

[Lokinhow]

hand-crafted Radeons?
Sounds cool, I want two please.

[Tomasis]

i cannot believe it haha-- it is rolls royce man!

[zalbard]

lol.. didn't they made a few samples first before hitting the print 2423593 cards button ? :p

This is how I print books...
I should work at AMD!

[Micutzu]

A whole new approach to high-end products, I wonder how soon it will turn into a marketing feature.

[Toolius]

Sh*t definately hit the fan LOL
i think it would be safe to assume some people are no longer employed with AMD :

[~CS~]

It not very clear if this "feature" is found on review sample cards as well as retail cards.

Anyone with a retail card care to confirm ?

[hurrdurr]

Dear AMD,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Yours truly,

Jensen

[K404]

I can just imagine how THAT convo went..

"Hey guys! I need a word. You'll never believe this! It's a hoot, trust me. Now... nothings wrong... BUT...."

[Olivon]

Is it true

[clonez]

wah total fail.. can construct a ~3bill transistor chip but no cooler which actually fits on the card
someone really f*d up on measurements
heise, hardwareluxx, pcgames cards look the same..

[Particle]

You guys are also jumping to conclusions. Isn't it just as likely that they at some point decided to change which heatsink the reference model is going to come with and had to modify the power connector slightly so it would fit? My bet is that the original design fit together just fine but they made a HDF change late in the game, perhaps to enable higher clocks.

[Solus Corvus]

Lol. ATI your next task is to make me a hand assembled 6990 using only wire wraps.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ormat_1977.jpg

[safan80]

A whole new approach to high-end products, I wonder how soon it will turn into a marketing feature.

Too late it just was.

[sin0822]

Why can't they just move the plug?

[Monstru]

Epic!!!