Partners are piling up the cards and it looks like ATI is after another hardware launch. Partners have had the hardware for quite some time, but it is the driver that has delayed the card's release.

The first sample driver that was sent to reviewers and customers has performance issues with some games, including Crysis; but the next driver should patch this.

ATI’s partners will have a sufficient amount of cards and it doesn’t look that they will be able to sell them by the release date. ATI is putting a lot of effort to try to re-establish itself as a capable high-end player and Radeon 3870 X2 is its chance.

Let it enjoy the moment until Geforce 9800X2 comes out. ATI hopes that Nvidia won’t be able to make enough, and to sail on that wave. G92-based cards were a success for Nvidia, but due to very weak availability, Nvidia’s G92 boosted Radeon 3870 and 3850 sales were poor. Maybe it can happen again.