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It hasn't even hit beta yet (which would mean it was close to feature complete)
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Right, but I guess my immediate question in response to that statement is "Why were people promising it was going to be released in December for a shipping product if it isn't even out of beta yet a month later?"
I completely agree, it probably isn't really out of what most people would call beta yet. I think that AMD, releasing the information when they did, in the way they did (as suggestive yet technically vague as possible) was calculated to maximize the impact AMD cards would have on the holiday season, potentially disproportionately to their ability otherwise. It seems relatively obvious that there might have been hints that they would have to be playing fast and loose with boost clocks, yields, and shipping board volume to retailers based on the 2xx series of cards. The recent miningg craze has only magnified that yield/volume issue. This meant that there were definitely people that were waiting for a 290 or 290x with a custom cooler that weren't going to be able to get one pre-holidays. Thos same people might decide to get something else if they couldn't get that card. Releasing a huge amount of suggestive material about Mantle made sure people who were on the fence about buying for the end of the year would have another reason to wait to make a decision, or just flat out buy AMD in order to ensure that they had access to this next, great thing. There have been a number of posts on the board here about people that were thinking of building and asked for advice about weather to hold off or grab a 290x in order to ensure they could use Mantle.
While the mean attention span on the buying public might be really low, there does come a point where the people that are likely to be able to appreciate the value of features you (over?)promised are the same people that remember that you promised them
months ago. There's a tipping point in the swing of public opinion, even for the tech minded. At some point, they're really going to find themselves in a pickle, especially if they end up seriously revising the ballooned expectations many have for the API.
My two cents.