About pushing back the HD8000 series, does that mean they are paying full price for the HD8000 GPU's now, stockpiling them, and hoping the process cost isn't reduced anytime soon? I don't believe that. I would say consoles would have a bit of an influence on this. First of all, the console GPU's etc are made at the same place as the general GPU line, I would say manufacturing favour is in place for the console GPU's rather than the desktop GPU's. AMD don't mind since it is their chips. On the plus side, it gives them time to fine tune the HD8000 series GPU's, meaning that when they are released they won't be exactly the same as what they would be if released in a month or two. It also gives more time for driver optimisation (hopefully). Things like this 'Malta' dual-chip card don't impede on the above because it is a niche product, with only a small market. This means they can charge more for it. AMD would make more money selling a dual-chip GPU card than selling two single chip cards, due to all the other costs involved with the whole card, sales, distribution of the cards etc. You are only making and selling one card, not two. The money saved goes largely towards extra profit for the niche product, meaning that the niche product could still be cheaper than two single cards, yet be more profitable for AMD.
Probably just pushed back as they are already faster and cheaper than Nvidia's, so no need to release anything yet.