Granite Bay delays?

[Ross]

As per the overclockers.com front page and the included Inquirer link, GBs will be delayed til Decemeber, or more likely, 2003. Obviously, only Intel knows what their actual plans are, but what is the likeliness that the info is close to being accurate?

For some odd reason, my BIOS absolutely took a poop tonight and I am now seriously torn whether or not to bother replacing it. It's sole purpose was to hold me over from Oct. til GB, which I thought would be in a week or two at the most. I could hold off without that rig for a few weeks, but definitely not until Jan. or later.

Granted it's all heresay, but what are the chances that it is a big ploy on Intel's part just to get people looking to upgrade and are holding off for GBs to just buy PEs that are available now? I know it's a long shot, but you never know. I don't want to go drop good money on another board now just to have GB released in 4 weeks instead of 2 either because the info is bogus or Intel can't stand that the 655 comes out without competition.

Grrr. Just bad timing for a mobo to die for someone as indecisive as me

 

[SBeaver]

As per the overclockers.com front page and the included Inquirer link, GBs will be delayed til Decemeber, or more likely, 2003. Obviously, only Intel knows what their actual plans are, but what is the likeliness that the info is close to being accurate?

For some odd reason, my BIOS absolutely took a poop tonight and I am now seriously torn whether or not to bother replacing it. It's sole purpose was to hold me over from Oct. til GB, which I thought would be in a week or two at the most. I could hold off without that rig for a few weeks, but definitely not until Jan. or later.

Granted it's all heresay, but what are the chances that it is a big ploy on Intel's part just to get people looking to upgrade and are holding off for GBs to just buy PEs that are available now? I know it's a long shot, but you never know. I don't want to go drop good money on another board now just to have GB released in 4 weeks instead of 2 either because the info is bogus or Intel can't stand that the 655 comes out without competition.

Grrr. Just bad timing for a mobo to die for someone as indecisive as me

Your complainin' eh?
My board died almost 4 weeks ago and took the cpu with it to the grave.
I'm also waiting for GB and I'm sitting here holding my two identical sticks (ehehe )
I have to use a p2 350MHz until I can get a new comp, and I'm strugling to get enough money to buy it and now they're saying GB-boards will cost double of what todays boards do.
I was without a comp last winter too for about 2 months waiting for the Radeon 8500 which never came and then when I bought the new comp then, I had to return the mobo because it was busted and that was another two weeks.

 

[BaldHeadedDork]

I've been suspicious about the reported November/December release of GB boards from the beginning. Releasing it now would destroy demand for the 845PE chipset just a month after it was released.

Here's some more damning news, from another thread on this topic:

Originally posted by Coz:

I've just spoken to Ingram Micro UK and they haven't got any E7205 boards in their lists yet. That's strange because they usually have a board listed on their system quite a long time before they actually sell them. I mentioned the Epox 4GBA, Asus P4G8X and the Gigabyte GA-8iNXP but none were listed. This makes me think we may be in for a longer delay than I thought.

I also spoke to a guy who works in distribution at Intel UK and he doesn't have any info on Granite Bay (E7205) either. He says that he'd know about it if the product was shipping anytime soon. He also said that if he didn't have any info on it then it wouldn't be shipping this year. Now, this guy is in Intel motherboard distribution so it may just mean that the Intel GB board is not due for launch anytime soon. But then, why would Intel launch the chipset without an Intel motherboard sporting it as well? Maybe he just can't say anything about it yet?

Add to this the conversation I had with the head tech guy at Epox UK - Andy Cotrill. He said there would be no Granite Bay boards this year but I assumed he was talking about their EP-4GBA.

I do believe the reports that SiS will launch a D-DDR board before 1/1/03, but I don't look for an Intel D-DDR chipset until the end of Q1-03 at the earliest.


BHD

 

[Ross]

SB--
Yeah, that definitely blows. I dunno what I would do about a proc, but I definitely would buy a mobo to hold me over if I knew it was going to be 4 weeks or more. I heard that a 2.0 C1 hit 3.2-3.3GHz somewhere in the forums. Might be a real nice chip if they all do that!

BHD--
I know you have I'd like to go back to thinking that the GB pricing wouldn't put them in the same "market" so-to-speak. I seriously doubt they will be coming in at server mobo prices, but I can easily see $200-$300. At 2-3x the price of PE mobos, that's like a Honda competing with Mercedes

I know the 655s should still come out earlier, but I am a little skeptical of them. It seems any and every mobo with the 648 chipset is a can of worms and I am a little concerned the 655 will follow suit. I would definitely have to wait until reviews are out on them before considering a purchase if they come out and GBs are no where in sight.

If it is seriously going to be anytime around the end of Q1-03, they might as well just wait until Springdale...unless they plan on postponing that for months as well.

Bah. I guess I'll get another PE mobo and just see what happens...

 

[BaldHeadedDork]

I understand what you're saying about the pricing if the reports of $200 (or higher!?!) boards are correct. That would in theory give some room to both, but there are problems with that business strategy.

Would the market, even the enthusiast market, accept motherboard chipsets being priced like high-end video cards? I don't know. There is historical evidence that the answer is no. When Intel married itself to Rambus a few years ago it pushed a huge number of enthusiast users to AMD even though the Athlon with SDRAM was technically inferior to the P3/RDRAM combo.

This argument also ignores how ATI and nVidia actually make money. They couldn't make money on the 9700 Pro and 4600 alone. The profit comes from high volume/lower performance models like the 9000 and 4200. That won't be an option with GB motherboards, so the board makers (and Intel) will have to recover the development cost just on the sale of ultra high end boards.

We also shouldn't forget that we enthusiasts are a gnat riding on the *** of an elephant in the computer business. Is there enough sizzle in D-DDR for Compaq/HP, Dell and Gateway to convince their customers its worth another $150 when you add in the second stick of memory? That's the big question.

And finally, as long as the 845E chipset is still available, I see it taking the role of the Honda in your analogy. I would predict that the majors would continue to buy the 845E and the 845 SDRAM for their P4 systems, hardcore power users would pony up for the GB, and the rest would sit on their wallets for GB prices to fall. The PE, like Jan Brady and other middle children everywhere, would be lost in the shuffle.


BHD

 

[Coz]

I understand the new launch date for GB is the last week in November. Placer (dual-Xeon Granite Bay) is being launched on the 18th and the 3.06 HT is being launched on the 14th.

GB motherboard's should be available in December at the earliest but most likely early 2003 for decent quantities.

Anandtech should have their GB motherboard 'shootout' review up before Comdex (18th November).

Asus should be the first out with their GB board but I suspect that Abit are dragging their heels with their GB7-Ultra and that it may take some time to appear (if it does at all).

Sweet Jebus, every day is like a freakin' YEAR right now. It isn't so much that I like the idea of GB (which I do), it's that I hate my BD7II so much I'm dying for an upgrade!!

 

[Ross]

BHD--
I agree 100% with you. We enthusiasts don't hold a candle to majors in terms of purchasing power, which is what will ultimately sway manufacturers if they are on the fence. If there will be enough of an advantage or buzz generated for them to charge an extra $150 on a system, I don't know. I do know that their higher end systems are not particularly cheap now and $150 extra on a $1000-2000 price tag might not look like much for the extra performance. I am sure they all have cost/benefit teams asking themselves the very same question.

If Intel really does think of GB as a server/workstation mobo, which is a totally different market segment, $300+ would be *cheap* for just a single-CPU server/workstation mobo. If you asked me, they can be sold for home PC AND server/workstations. Intel could have it's cake and eat it too.

As for recovering development costs...that money is already spent. What could they possibly gain by not even selling a few of the ultra high-end boards? Nothing. They wouldn't recoup a dime...unless they plan to totally make up for it in Springdale, which the technology will be forwarded to, but I doubt they seriously want the price of an average home-user targeted mobo @ $250.

I am not saying that you are wrong for sure. Intel has pretty much sat on new things and released them only when competition got a little "too close". I'll keep my fingers crossed that the 655 will do just that...

Guess I'll just buy a mid-line PE mobo and cut my losses if GB does actually come out in 3-6 weeks.

It's only a matter of time before the PEs are the "Hondas" and the 845E/G will become ancient history like the 810E/815Es.

Coz--
The 3.06 is out...er, I think. Intel's site doesn't say a damn thing about it, but googlegear.com is selling them...or something that passes as them, for $690

I know Asus has a 655-based mobo already, but I haven't seen or heard anything about an Asus GB-based mobo. Got any links on that? Yeah, Abit did the same thing on the PEs....their PE mobos came out like 2 weeks after the P4PE.

 

[SBeaver]

I think that if there is a strategy it is there just for the fact that PE has just been released.
They don't want to use up all their bullets early now that they have AMD exactly where they want them.
First releasing PE, then a short brake, then HT P4, then a short brake again, then Granite Bay.
It creates the illusion that they are making really fast prgress when in fact they allready have all three ready but they want to squeese evey dime out of all three.
The idea is not that bad, the only ones who will suffer is those who actually know that it is happening, like us for example.
If we didn't know or suspect this, we would be happy that Intel is giving us new fresh candy every month or so and we would walk further away from old boring AMD who couldn't even get their TBreads out on time and who knows what will happen with Hammer.
As I said I think the idea is excellent.

 

[Coz]

Coz--
The 3.06 is out...er, I think. Intel's site doesn't say a damn thing about it, but googlegear.com is selling them...or something that passes as them, for $690

I know Asus has a 655-based mobo already, but I haven't seen or heard anything about an Asus GB-based mobo. Got any links on that? Yeah, Abit did the same thing on the PEs....their PE mobos came out like 2 weeks after the P4PE.

Yeah, I know the 3.06 is out - I was talking about the official launch. Yesterday I was checking out a page at www.intel.com/hyperthreading that doesn't seem to be there now!! Should I put down the crack pipe or did they put the page up early and then remove it?

If you want some 3.06 benchies (ze international language of Geekz) then have a looksie here....

http://www.x86-secret.com/popups/articleswindow.php?id=57

The Asus GB board is called the P4G8X and it's the one that Kyle at HardOCP had running at 188MHz FSB with Sandra memory bandwidth scores of 4600MB/s. Pretty standard features - 5 PCI, 1 x AGP Pro, 4 x DIMM slots, SATA, LAN etc. It's probably the one I'll go for because every Asus board I've owned has been fantastic, every Abit board I've owned (since BX6) has been craptacular.

 

[Rainman]

every Abit board I've owned (since BX6) has been craptacular.

Maybe you should give up?


R. [FT]

 

[Ross]

SBeaver--
Well, their strategy must be working. I know either the GB or an RMA on my current Albatron is going to be a few weeks at least, so I ordered (probably mistakenly) an Albatron PE mobo this morning. Figure I'll give them two chances before I no longer recommend them and for the $90 I'll give it away when I replace it and not care too much Before the BIOS problem, the Albatron did OC higher than any other board I've used, including 3 from Asus.

I thought about adding Abit to the list now, but figured I'd spend the cheese on an Abit for GB.

Coz--
Abit did the exact same thing with the IT7 Max2 Rev2. It was up, then it was down, now it's up again. Supposedly they took it down because they changed their mind and were going to include some "new technologies" and then release it. My guess is they were either going to make it a DCDDR version or were afraid of DCDDR mobos seriously interferring with it's sales @ ~$180 and yoked it. When GB was delayed again (we think?), they released it.

I can't imagine Intel jumped the gun on the 3.06 since they are the manufacturer and HT in particular would not be something they'd just remove Being one of those webmaster-type people, I'd say they are just updating/rearranging the site/database.

I refuse to buy an Asus unless the new GB boards have substantially better Vreg. The worst culprit was the most expensive one I bought (P4PE). It was absolutely ridiculous....Vc idled .10V over the BIOS setting and STILL managed to drop .06V under the setting on load. My cheap POS Albatron only moves .03-.04V max between idle and load, the Asus was as much as .16V. I just don't understand why Asus can't correct that problem, particularly since their boards are more expensive than anybody else...

 

[ARGON]

A guy in my gaming clan has a neighbor that works for Intel. This neighbor told my firend something about a 5Ghz chip being released in mid-December. I guess this is what you are talking about?

 

[Ross]

Nah, we're talking about the P4 3.06GHz. Are you sure that guy isn't messing with ya? Even the .09 die Prescotts will only start @ like 3.3GHz and they won't be out for 6-8 months at the earliest.

Now whether or not Intel has the ability to produce a 5GHz proc and chipset/mobo to run it is another matter entirely, but as far as the general public is concerned, I seriously doubt we'd see anything close to 5GHz until 2004 or later.

 

[Johan]

Slightly OT but isn't there talk of another chipset called Springdale (I think)? Can't remember anything about it but I remember reading something about in a thread somewhere. 'Course, I could be talking out of my arrsss again.

 

[Ross]

Hey Johan. Yeah, the Springdale chipset will be out towards the end of the Summer or later. It will basically be Intel's official "DDR333" support for dual channel DDR and will have a new South Bridge (ICH5) with incorporated SATA, AGP 8x, etc.

I imagine they will put it out around the same time as the Prescott procs to make full use of them. The Prescotts will have a 166FSB stock, hence the required "official" DCDDR333 support...

 

[edgemaster]

hmm.....should be no problem to put fast corsair rams in the gb system (333 or higher...)
i hope its possible to have them running at their rated speed, even when its officialy not supported?!? or do you think the manufacturers will use clock generators that dont let us push too high fsbs?

 

[Ross]

Well, the boards should run DDR400 sticks no problem. The problem is, there won't be any of the memory ratios associated with the current mobos to get them up to their full potential at lower FSBs. ie. 150FSB with a 3:4 ratio = DDR400. Without the ratio, it would only be DDR300. So, if you could run a 200FSB overclock, you'll have the full DDR400 you are looking for

It quite literally doesn't need and can't use the extra bandwidth afforded by overclocking the memory like the current DDR boards because it will match what the proc can handle byte-for-byte at every FSB. Read here for more info: http://www.overclockers.com/tips00157/

The only actual bench of a GB board I've seen so far had 186+FSB, so I don't think they will be limited in that way...just no memory "overclocking" options so to speak. Even so, at 186FSB, that's "only" DDR372, but I guarantee it's the highest DDR memory benchmark you've ever seen

So, if you don't have DDR yet, I'd say good PC2700 would be all you'd need unless you're pretty sure about a 175+FSB overclock. I personally had one stick of PC3200 and just bought a matching one....figured it would come in handy when the Prescotts are released with their stock 166FSB. I imagine 200FSB OCs won't be too much of a problem on them and there will be the DDR400.

 

[edgemaster]

hmmm.......im really looking forward to have one of those boards....with corsair pc375 ram.....lets see how high i can push my cpu........i think 170mhz fsb are possible...had 166 at stock voltages..... i think the ram "underclock" should be ok.....maybe i can chosse better timings at the slightly lower speed?!

 

[Ross]

What proc is that?? A 33FSB OC on stock Vcore is pretty damn good.

Technically, it's not a "ram underclock", you just can't overclock async to the FSB and yes, faster timings will make a difference. Whether you'd notice it in everyday use, I doubt it. The difference between my fastest timings and my slowest timings at the same FSB is about 30-40MB/s, so maybe 60-80MB/s on a DCDDR mobo. Still not a lot when you are talking about 4200-6400MB/s

I ran across revised release date on a roadmap page for the GBs....11/25, but it's got a big ole "?" after it. I'll keep my fingers crossed...

 

[edgemaster]

its a 2.4b.....can push it from 133 to 166.....nice cpu!!!!
ok...so we cann all just wait and see....
i know asus and abit will build gb boards....any other manufacturers too?