Where are the 7900 boards?

Written by Brett Thomas

March 20, 2006 | 17:48

Tags: #7900 #gt #gtx #hard #launch #shortage

Companies: #nvidia

OK, a show of hands here - who was incredibly impressed at the hard launch of NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 products? I know that I was, and I think you could have knocked our resident graphics guru Tim Smalley over with a feather. All brands, all speeds, all in stock on the day they promised. The GT and GTX 7800 products were available from launch and continue to be.

We then chastised ATI for their poor showing of the X800 and X1800 series. CrossFire, as far as I am concerned, is still largely vapourware, as certain 'Master' cards are difficult to obtain.

With all of the praise we as an entire industry provided for stepping up the bar to hard launches, I am still having to write this. Apparently, I'm not the only one noticing an utter lack of the 7900GT. Anywhere. In fact, we know people who have been trying to buy one or two since its release, two weeks ago.

The only board partner who seems to have reliably shipped enough initial units is BFG Technologies, but a quick scan of reviews has shown disappointing results. The largest complaint has been faulty capacitors, many even shipping with loose ones rattling in the box. Due to high demand, RMA has been difficult, to say the least.

Aside from the occasional BFG, all you'll find is "Out of Stock" labels. Everywhere. Some claim to have a shipping date, but the XFX 7900GT XXX model was supposed to be in stock on Newegg on the 17th, to no avail. Both the US and the UK are experiencing the shortage, with Newegg, Scan, ZipZoomFly, TigerDirect, and other major retailers all having the units on backorder.

We were doing so well...NVIDIA, what are you doing?!

The situation is arguably made worse by the widespread availability of the X1900 series of cards from ATI, which hard-launched 7800-style.

The only thing that seems really hard about this launch is how hard it is to find the product. Got a thought of your own on this shortage? Vent your spleen in our forums.
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