According to CNEWS.ru, AMD has informed Russian system builders that it would start shipping rebranded HD 5000 series cards in the near future.

Acer Russia told reporters that Russian PC integrators will soon start selling PCs with rebranded HD 5000 series cards in retail, but the move appears to be limited only to entry-level HD 6000 brands and only the Russian market. For now at least.

Russian PC maker K-Systems will offer three rehashed HD 5000 cards in its systems starting November. The cards are apparently branded HD 6250, HD 6390 and HD 6510. At this point we don't know which HD 5000 series cards they are based on, but we're probably looking at Cedar and Redwood cores.

Mind you, the Redwood is still a competitive entry-level part, as it is faster than Nvidia's GF108-based GT430, so the move is understandable.

However, in an interesting twist MediaMarkt announced that it would refuse to sell K-System rigs if they are found to contain HD 5000 marketed as HD 6000 series. K-System refused to disclose the specs of the HD 6000 cards, but it announced that they were 15 percent faster than current HD 5000 series.

It's worth noting that K-Systems has a long history with AMD/ATI. We can only speculate on AMD's plans, but we would not be surprised to see OEM-only Redwood and Cedar cards with a fresh BIOS and some new stickers. At this point it is unclear whether the move is limited to Russia, or whether other markets will also see some rebrands.

More here.