It seems to be getting more and more impossible for etailers and similar partners to hold their fire: After some Radeon HD 4850 cards, which are officially launching later this month, had appeared on Amazon.com, AMD has decided to drop the embargo on benchmark numbers and product photos of the mainstream card.

Techpowerup posted news from AMD’s Jon Carvill, clearly saying that AMD decided to lift the embargo on the new cards. However, the change of course does not affect Radeon HD4870, which is expected to come with GDDR5 memory, and it also does not include publication of technical details.

Sometimes a hard launch can have its disadvantages if cards become available too early.