At this point, there have been plenty of rumours floating around about AMD's upcoming Radeon 6000-series GPUs. Until now, though, the consensus seemed to be that the first cards would arrive sometime in October.
However, the latest rumour from DigiTimes suggests that the first GPUs - suspected to be the high-to-mid range HD 6770 and HD 6750 - won't be available to buy until November. It's not clear at this point, but this may also have an impact on the launch of the high-end 6800-series cards.
The HD 6870 was expected to launch in November, but could now be pushed back to give the lower-end cards some breathing room. At the same time, the manufacturer will surely want to avoid launching products after November 26 - the unofficial start of the American holiday shopping season.
No reason was given for the potential delays. However, AMD may just be waiting for the best possible time to come to market. The company's current generation graphics-cards are still very competitive in both price and performance, meaning that there's no pressure to rush products to market.
The rumour continues by suggesting that NVIDIA might seize the opportunity to regain some market share by reducing the cost of its current GPUs. Only recently - following the launch of the GTX 460 and GTS 450 - has the company been able to turn up the heat on AMD's pricing. A quick price-drop could make the company's cards very compelling and build some much-needed momentum ahead of the upcoming Radeon-onslaught.
With November just a few weeks away, we'll soon know if there is any truth to these rumours. In the meantime, anyone planning to invest in an NVIDIA video-card may want to hold on just a little while longer.
