No retail HD 5830 at launch?

Our resident video card Guru Shane Baxtor has just posted on his blog some of the whispers that he's hearing about the upcoming HD 5830. It seems that come launch day we won't be seeing retail versions of the HD 5830.

Tracking down a second sample of the model just two days before CNY holidays was hard, from most companies I was told "We can't ship due to our factory already shutting down". Now this I can understand, and with the NDA date looking to be around the 26th, companies will be able to come back from CNY and get a sample out in time.

I'm a bit closer with some manufactures than others though, I had a few actually tell me that ATI had told them they can't ship out to reviewers and one even told me they weren't allowed to ship to their distributor.

We're not sure if this is going to affect retail supply, but head on over to Shane's blog post here to read a bit more about his thoughts on the situation.

Of course, we'll have a review of the HD 5830 the second the NDA is lifted, but it's a bit disappointing to think that a CrossFire article might not be ready at launch on this new model because ATI are holding back samples from manufacturers.