The title from the Digitimes article says it all, “AMD Barcelona launch schedule up in the air.”
From the article:
“The sources noted that AMD has informed them that the introduction of Barcelona will be delayed until August or September, instead of the originally planned June. However, the sources also noted that this schedule is still subject to change. The Barcelona CPU samples they have currently are not the final versions and bugs are still being discovered, they added.”
Given all the claims being made about availability, I think it’s safe to say that if everything goes right, we’ll see “real” K10 chips (i.e. those that can actually hit the announced program speeds) starting in August/September for Barcelona, October, maybe early November for Agenas and Kumas.
If everything doesn’t go right, move those dates back at least a quarter.
On the other hand, it looks like Intel is pushing back its release of mainstream Penryn chips back to Q1 2008.
The expected date for those has see-sawed back and forth between over time between the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, so one could argue that this really isn’t a “delay,” but I think it’s safe to say there will be no early surprise from Intel.
I suspect Blue is having a few more problems with 45nm than they’ve let on (though probably more with mass producing the things than anything else), but time will tell about that.
Realistically, outside of a relative handful of server chips or skypriced “enthusiast chips, both K10 and Penryn chips look like 2008 events.
Just as realistically, the two companies will be judged differently on the delays. For Intel, a quarter delay is an annoyance, and they might lose some Christmas sales if K10 shows up a bit earlier than Penryn.
However, K10 is the only thing standing between AMD and bankruptcy, so any delays there will be looked upon much more closely and critically than will be the case with Intel.
If AMD meets or gets close to that August-November time frame, that’s not going to be a big deal. However, if they miss it like they have with R600, this company could be in real trouble.
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