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

[mattkosem]

You didn't see xdan's post ?

Without the modification, the fan wouldn't turn because it would be in contact with the plug.

You see ?

Did you, or any user that purchased one of these cards, have a problem with the fan or cooling? Seems like they took the bullet on that one for the customers.

--Matt

[sam3]

Is there the same problem with the 6950 ?

Which brand have this crude modification : only sapphire or not ?

Doesn't the 6950 have two 6-pin connectors (instead of a 6 and 8 pin) - so is naturally shorter and shouldn't interfere with the fan

[crazydiamond]

it would be fail if they didnt fix the connector so the fan didnt spin. considering the card works 100% like its supposed to i dont see why everyone is crying fail

[Sparky]

You didn't see xdan's post ?

Without the modification, the fan wouldn't turn because it would be in contact with the plug.

You see ?

Yeah, true. BUT they found this at the factory, and fixed it there, so it works fine. It isn't like they waited until it was in the retail channel and went "oops" then. They took care of the problem before it hit retail.

While it is a measurement fail on their part, and a bit amusing, I do think some people are getting overly worked up over nothing.

[Hannibal Lecter]

I just don't understand people saying that this is not a big deal. It reflects very poorly on AMD. In fact I am astonished that such a large company does something like that. But since many people don't seem to understand why, let me explain.

AMD don't manufacture the cards themselves they subcontract production. Before any subcontractor start full production of a product they require the signed approval of pre-production samples. Pre-production samples are always made and are a mean to catch any late defect in a product.

In other word AMD would have approved the samples before mass production starts. The only way that this would not have happened is if AMD had agreed to start manufacturing without approving samples, which frankly is unthinkable.

Now, as always, crap happens. And it is possible that for whatever reason the subcontractor screwed up after samples were approved. It is rare but it can happen. 99.99% of the times when this happens, the whole batch is rejected for not conforming to the agreed specifications.

The subcontractor is then responsible at his cost to correct the problem and very often they have to write off the whole batch. And a customer of the size of AMD would most certainly had strong-armed the subcontrator to prioritize its production and/or face monetary penalties.

But what happened here is quite extraordinary. The whole batch was manually "modded" so that the cards could be assembled and sold! This can only mean that either:

AMD was extremely late and had no time to wait for replacement cards (a little doubtful when you see that this was certainly a very good hard launch).

The cards could be made on time but it was too late for sea shipment, and AMD would not pay for air shipping (which is usually what most manufacturers would have chosen in this case)

AMD decided that most people wouldn't notice anyway and the risk of not having a card to compete head on with the GTX570 for the holiday season was just too high

What this shows as well is a lack of respect for the AIBs. And I would be very interested in knowing if the largest such as Asus or Gigabyte have accepted to take delivery of this batch. I wouldn't be surprised if they rejected the cards and decided to wait.

As far as the end user is concerned, although the risk of this mod making the card defective is low, the risk is definitely there. In addition, this could potentially create an absolute mess if one or two years from now the card become defective. And the user will have to trust that the retailer and the AIB will have notified their tech support that this card was moded by AMD, and not modified by the user.

I have nothing against AMD, but this is very poor. If anyone want to purchase that otherwise very nice card, I would recommend to wait for the revised card that will certainly arrive shortly.

[jeanjean15]

Doesn't the 6950 have two 6-pin connectors (instead of a 6 and 8 pin) - so is naturally shorter and shouldn't interfere with the fan

Sadly not .

It is exactly the same problem . looks at this :

http://hfr-rehost.net/fullsize/http:...3/frontiwb.jpg

[Manicdan]

+1 for being blown out of proportion

the only thing to be angry about is delays.

[cegras]

tl;dr

Isn't Sapphire ATI's biggest partner? Same with EVGA, nvidia shafted the rest of them all the time.

In fact, they shafted BFG into bankruptcy, XFX went ATI and got cut out, etc, etc.

A SNAFU that probably required cooperation from everyone to fix is not the same as strongarming.

[Hannibal Lecter]

They may be their biggest partners but Gigabyte and Asus are larger companies and I would be surprised if they accepted to take delivery of these cards. It is pretty easy to check if retailers have Gigabyte or Asus cards in stock.

I don't know what nvidia has done or not done and this is not the subject, what AMD did, reflects very badly on them. I don't think they expected that people would find out about it.

And for the record I would have said exactly the same thing for any other manufacturer.

[HelixPC]

Its not about the product working fine, or getting worked up over nothing, when a company as big as AMD lets this slip by, one has to think how it even was possible to let this happen, and the fact they shaved it down, mickey mouse style, and still sold it to the customers is bad business in my book, if you have no problem with it, then thats you. AMD should have fixed this, taken the loss and re print new cards. You just dont do something like this when you are a billion dollar company such as AMD.

[hurrdurr]

AMD made an official announcement saying only a very small portion of the cards were affected.

[RSC]

AMD made an official announcement saying only a very small portion of the cards were affected.

So far, modded cards have been sold in France, Germany and Portugal, cause users have reported it.

[thematrixhazune]

It does reflect somewhat bad on AMD, But it would be even worse for AMD to send back the boards and cause a 1+ month delay and miss the xmax buys. MOST people that buy these cards are never going to take off the heat sink cover. As long as it works no worries. But I am sure after this AMD will be triple checking their future designs.

[HelixPC]

AMD made an official announcement saying only a very small portion of the cards were affected.

If it was a small portion of cards, they should have had no problem taking the loss. Instead they decided to grab some nail files and got to work Shame on AMD

[jeanjean15]

AMD made an official announcement saying only a very small portion of the cards were affected.

We are a lot in France having this defect so i think that AMD do not tell the truth .

[Easybeat]

+1 for being blown out of proportion

the only thing to be angry about is delays.

+2, I don't think its a big deal either, amusing but not a big deal.

As for the issue itself I would hazard a guess that AMD reworked every card in the batch even though only a small amount were probably affected. With various tolerance build ups, product aging and slight movements over time they probably played it safe.

[Manicdan]

+2, I don't think its a big deal either, amusing but not a big deal.

As for the issue itself I would hazard a guess that AMD reworked every card in the batch even though only a small amount were probably affected. With various tolerance build ups, product aging and slight movements over time they probably played it safe.

if it was a small batch, im actually surprised they even delayed it at all, they should have just launched it a few weeks ago, with 10% less stock on the market, and let the second wave of shipments include the problem ones after being fixed.

in the end either option would have had the exact same number released as of today, just in different quantities.

[Hannibal Lecter]

Maybe AMD was surprised by the GTX570 and they had to do some last minute changes to the card. But even that makes little sense, because the heatsink would need to be installed so they would have caught the defect.

So it's probably a subcontractor screw up, and they decided to still ship, and they also probably got a sweet deal on these cards.

But seriously, this batch of cards could become a big guaranty headache. I personally would wait before buying this card. Why take the risk?

[~CS~]

This sort of thing happens and I don't think it's big deal,it doesn't affect functions of the card.My theory of how it happened:when you get a lot of parts from a lot of different manufacturers,miscalculations happen,for all we know the team that designed the card didn't account for fan vibration during operation,simply because of miscommunication with the manufacturer of said fan. As simple as fan is,that detail is easy to overlook even for an engineer ,when it's not the your area of expertise.


Also AMD doesn't exactly make these cards,a third party manufactures them,I am not certain about the details but they could be designing the cards(or parts of) as well.


And these things happen a lot and I mean that,any manufacturer is prone.Car makers,electronics makers,in construction when faulty designs get overlooked/approved and noticed/fixed/rigged at the last moment or not at all... but in this case it is moot,it doesn't affect function.



Wood screws is a whole different situation and shouldn't be compared,but when nvidia made thousands of faulty chipsets,that keep dying to this day,that's a situation where design flaw actually matters because it impacts performance,that's why they are getting sued.



Whether or not this was the cause of the delay remains a mystery to me,it could be either way.

[Hannibal Lecter]

You are absolutely right this can happen, and a badly designed product could deteriorate faster than expected. But this is not what happened here. They had to know very early, since the heatsink cannot be assembled.

AMD say that only a small number of cards are affected, but if it is true, this is even worse: why not scrap these cards? It doesn't make sense at all.

We all know that all manufacturers at one stage or an other will face this. What is wrong and surprising is how AMD chose to handle it: surprisingly poorly.

[~CS~]

No,there is in fact more then one way to make something,this is an acceptable way,there is no reason to scrap the cards.

[Manicdan]

how exactly can this cause a product to be more degraded? its metal prongs are already exposed anyway

[Hannibal Lecter]

There is a reason for the plastic around a connector. But you're right, the risk is very low, I would be more worried about the potential RMA problem in case of an unrelated later break down. The card should be fine. Just like a TV sold with scratches on the back will most certainly work fine, but not what you would expect, even less if it wasn't an accident but with the knowledge of the manufacturer.

[[XC] gomeler]

So far, modded cards have been sold in France, Germany and Portugal, cause users have reported it.

If it was a small portion of cards, they should have had no problem taking the loss. Instead they decided to grab some nail files and got to work Shame on AMD

Remember a "small portion" of cards could still be 5k or 10k cards scattered across the globe. Of course you are going to hear people reporting "hey, this is filed down" way more often then "hey, my card is 100% normal".

Maybe AMD was surprised by the GTX570 and they had to do some last minute changes to the card. But even that makes little sense, because the heatsink would need to be installed so they would have caught the defect.

So it's probably a subcontractor screw up, and they decided to still ship, and they also probably got a sweet deal on these cards.

But seriously, this batch of cards could become a big guaranty headache. I personally would wait before buying this card. Why take the risk?

Because of ? Oh yes, I forgot, the pesky "PCIe power connector implodes due to a lack of a supporting corner" syndrome that we've been suffering from since never. Electrically and functionally these cards 100% fine. Aesthetically there is a slight nick in each one. I'd have rather they used these cards as RMA warranty cards than original retail cards but the filed plastic won't impact the lifetime of the card for the normal user.

[thematrixhazune]

Just hypethetical, If lets say for what ever reason that connecter was designed to have an area shaved off(done in the mold) Would it still be an issue to everyone....Probably not.