This is a bit of a weird situation and because of Chinese New Year it’s really hard to find out what is actually going on. The other day I wrote about the NDA papers coming through and the week of date being set for the HD 5830. That’s all good and well; we’ve been told our ATI sample of the HD 5830 was shipping Friday or Monday so I’ll have one with plenty of time to spare.

I always have at least another model at launch from one of ATIs partners, it seems that AIBs have been told not to ship retail samples out though. I was also told that they were told not to ship to their distributors yet.

Tracking down a second sample of the model just 2 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 then 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.

I’m either thinking that ATI don’t want the cards to arrive over CNY and have companies just start selling them since they will have no contact with the Asian companies that shipped them, or there’s not enough product to get around to everyone at the moment which would also come as no surprise with the way HD 5800 series supply has been like since launch.

While you’ll no doubt see a review of the HD 5830 in the final week of February who knows when retail supply will come. It’s possible that reviews of the product are being pushed forward before mass stock is ready just to make sure people see the model before NVIDIA release its 400 series which still doesn’t have a date. NVIDIA aren’t stupid though, they could come back after the CNY holidays and say we’re shipping samples today NDA is March 1st; while doubtful it wouldn’t come as a surprise to some.