AMD is reportedly preparing to mass ship their next generation high-end GPU codenamed Hawaii in October according to sources in the upstream supply chain as reported by DigiTimes. When you consider AMD is flying a number of journalists to Hawaii (no coincidence there) late next month for a "technical showcase," this rumor quickly becomes much more credible.
A hard launch coming a couple of weeks after this technical showcases makes sense as it would give journalists and reviewers plenty of time to thoroughly test hardware. That's been the pattern for both AMD and Nvidia in the past but then again, the source doesn't mention when specifically in October cards would ship. It could be October 1 or October 31 and if it's the latter, that means availability could be scarce through November. Either way, however, parts should be available in time for the holiday buying season.
Specifically, DigiTimes believes Asus, MSI and PowerColor will be among the first to ship Hawaii-based products. The company is already cutting prices for its Radeon HD 7000 series cards including the HD 7990.
Word dropped earlier this month that AMD would unveil Hawaii-based GPUs in the Aloha State on September 25. Not much else is known about the event or what the Hawaii GPU has in store other than it is expected to compete against Nvidia's top-end offering in the $600 price range. A leaked benchmark showed the card could be faster than Nvidia's GTX Titan, at least in 3DMark 11.