Bloated budgets
Realising the pot has boiled over, AMD has rushed to turn the down the gas with a dismissive "okay so it'll take a supply couple of weeks to fulfil [demand]" but we wonder what this situation will do for the confidence of those hungry customers left to bang their cutlery impatiently on the table.
Our intel (no pun intended, this time) is that EMEA demand alone for the Radeon HD 5800 series could be in the region of 40,000+ units. With AMD now having to service a larger number of AIBs than it used to, thanks in no small part of the popularity of the HD 4800 series and NVIDIA's attention being focused elsewhere, their appetites are unlikely to be sated by the nouvelle cuisine AMD puts before them.
Left picking at his limited allocation, one famished patron seemed resigned to their fate. "Well, with any big launch there's never going to be enough, but..." the emaciated AIB managed to croak.
If cash-flow has been a factor in AMD not being able to meet initial demand for 5800 series, maybe AMD will want to review the budget it allocated to the launch of these products. While Europe hosted an understated and, initially at least, sober affair at wine mecca Vinopolis, AMD in the US saw fit to charter an entire aircraft carrier. The fact that EMEA returns some 60 percent of AMD's graphics revenue, but only got a tenth of the launch budget of the US, requires some further investigation in our opinion.
So this could end up being a Pyrrhic victory for AMD, as it risks alienating its channel once more by starving it of product just when it needs it the most. At time of writing, more factors explaining the short-fall of supply to the channel are becoming apparent - some of them creating a distinct sense of déjà vu - so watch this space for an update.
In the meantime, if you have your eye on one of these shiny new graphics cards you might want to get one while the going's good, as the law of supply and demand implies these cards are unlikely to go down in price anytime soon.
