Just a quick heads up on the fact that our Radeon HD 4870 review has been delayed.

Let me tell you a bit what is going on. AMD initially prevented 4850 & 4870 boards from being send out by it's board-partners to the press as AMD wanted to have full control over the launch. Last week at a press-briefing, AMD indeed handed out 4850 samples to the press, yet did not have 4870 samples available. These boards will definitely be available in very low volume at launch.

We where informed that these would be send out by AMD soon. Now originally today the 4850 should have been released and the 4870 at the 3rd of next month. Yet last week AMD's partners already had the 4850 board in store and on sale. Therefore AMD decided to lift the embargo, move forward the 4850 launch (which we reviewed for you) and then also move forward the 4870 launch, yet that one to be released today.

The board partners again where not allowed to ship out 4870 samples to the press, while they have them. Therefore last Monday AMD send out a 4870 board to Guru3D, yet .. it's missing somewhere in the mystic shipping mages. AMD can't even provide as much as a tracking number.

That's enough nonsense for a week AMD, I've arranged samples through board-partners which should arrive soon after which we'll have our review ready, yet I refuse this article to be another quickie / fast written review so with the 4870 we'll go in depth and wide.

More soon. Until then, check out our Radeon Series 4000 (4850) review.