With ATI set to launch the new Radeon HD 5500 and 5600 series at CES which starts on the 7th of January and the HD 5400 series later that month, the company is about to flood the market with a huge amount of low-end cards.

Word has come through that in the HD 5600 series alone ATIs partners will have the option to use as many of the six variances they want. Why we don't know 100% what the different variances include we've been told it's a combination of connectivity and memory. It's probably fairly safe to assume that we'll end up with an Eyefinity version along with 512MB and 1GB versions. Within the series we'll no doubt see two model names which should consist of the HD 5650 and HD 5670 simply by going off past trends.

As for the HD 5500 and HD 5400, we have been told that ATI will offer between two and three variances which means a total of six variances in those bottom two series and another six variances in the HD 5600 series bringing us to a grant total of 12 new video cards.

While I had planned to get stuck back into reviewing early January it is becoming extremely clear that the option to be a bit slack is quickly fading away.