Why is there a six-week delay for the Radeon 4850?

[Bad Paper]

There is a six-week delay for iMacs ordered with the top graphics card. Why? Do they not have any of the cards in stock? Are they going to assemble all the ordered systems at the same time in April? How reliable is that Apr 14 ship date? Is that date just to cover the manufacturer's timeline; will some systems come out of the queue earlier? It just doesn't make sense to me.

[nss.aries]

It needs the new OS update to work :/
Yeah, it sucks.

[sallythemac]

It needs the new OS update to work :/
Yeah, it sucks.

Beat me to it.

Needs 10.5.7, which is still at developer level at the mo.

[Bad Paper]

I thought it was the 4870, not the 4850, that needs 10.5.7.

[george1drum]

If you upgrade the memory to 8gb then it also takes 4-6 weeks so it is just because they will have to assemble customised macs separately whereas with no changes to the standard config they are already assembled and ready to ship so i would doubt its because of software tbh...

[RemarkabLee]

I thought it was the 4870, not the 4850, that needs 10.5.7.

They are probably the same family of GPU so the software requirements will be the same if not similar.

[RemarkabLee]

If you upgrade the memory to 8gb then it also takes 4-6 weeks...

It probably takes 4-6 weeks for the factory people to stop ROFL.LMAO.LOLLERSKATEZ etc.. that someone paid almost 1k for a memory upgrade.... ;)

[Bad Paper]

It probably takes 4-6 weeks for the factory people to stop ROFL.LMAO.LOLLERSKATEZ etc.. that someone paid almost 1k for a memory upgrade.... ;)The cheapest I've found for third-party 2x4GB of SODIMM DDR3 RAM is $700, so Apple charging $1000 (or $900 educational) is not out of line with their history.