Tom’s Hardware reports that Gigabyte has stopped the production of Radeon R9 290 WindForce series.
Gigabyte’s R9 290(X) graphics cards were one of the first custom Hawaii-based models available for purchase. First samples were available yet before Christmas. Unfortunately, the first batch has a design flaw, caused by a design modification of which Gigabyte was not aware of (PCBs are not manufactured by Gigabyte).
Gigabyte:
There is a problem with a heat sink. The production sample is different from the sample provided by our vendor. The sink for early media samples are not optimized to meet the design requirement. We will improve it immediately and we stop the mass production today.
Apparently Gigabyte rushed the production without proper testing. The first review samples were in fact different than graphics cards available in retail channel. Manufacturer is working on a solution, which will be implemented with a new batch released this month.
If you were planning to buy Gigabyte R9 290(X) graphics card, I suggest you look at other models instead.
Source: Tom’s Hardware via OverClockers UK
