According to our sources, the AMD HD 7970 GHz Edition launch was a press launch only, as the retail launch is still a good two weeks away.

As you could have noticed, all of the reviewed HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics cards are based on AMD's reference design and only a couple of partners will actually go for such a card, while the rest will do a custom one. The custom design makes sense as the reference one is on the noisy side, and although the reference cooler is sometimes pretty good, custom solutions from various partners are usually better.

According to our info, partners will get HD 7970 GHz Edition GPUs in a couple of weeks so reference ones should start to appear in retail/e-tail in early July while custom cards will probably ship in mid-July and show up in retail in the latter half of the month, provided all goes well.

In case you got your eyes on the new Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, bear in mind that you'll have to wait for the next month to grab one. The cards have yet to be listed, so you cannot place preorders just yet.