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AMD's first Radeon HD 6000 series release is widely expected to be the Radeon HD 6700 series (codename Barts) in October. The next card to release will be Cayman XT, to be branded Radeon HD 6870. SemiAccurate reports that the 6870 is on track for a release in November. The Cayman cards will be shipped to OEMs at the same time as the HD 6700's release. This puts the 6870 release in the mid to late November timeframe, right on schedule for Black Friday.

While the HD 6850 is not mentioned exclusively, SemiAccurate confirms that both 6700 and 6800 series cards will be available in wide supply in November. Unlike the HD 5800 series, which only received proper wide availability in December 2009, three months following its release, the HD 6800 series should be fine supply-wise. Having learned their lesson, AMD have reportedly order much more wafers. In addition, the TSMC 40nm process is much more mature than in late-2009, where it was suffering from major issues. Thus yields are higher, and more wafers will be available. An initial shortfall is expected on release due to high demand, but supply is expected to be plentiful once the market evens out.

The dual-Cayman flagship, Antilles, to be branded HD 6970, is expected to release in December. However, if Cayman enjoys extreme demand, the 6970 may be pushed to early 2011. Either way, HD 6970 should be without competition for a while - enjoying the same exclusivity as Intel's Core i7 980X.

In short, there are no surprises. The schedule is - 6700 in October, 6800 in November and 6900 in December. Crucially, we hope that AMD will indeed have plenty supply of HD 6000 cards on release.

Source: SemiAccurate