AMD launched the world’s first native quad-core processor, nicknamed Barcelona, on September 10th. These new Opteron models delivered great performance with an even better performance per wattage than the previous generation of K8 processors from AMD. The new Opterons can also easily replace the old ones without any hassle. They are socket compatible, the only thing you need is a minor BIOS update, but then you of course miss out on some of the new features of K10. So, AMD launched the product, the product basically delivered what AMD had promised, but where is it? Many partners are still waiting for delivery and there’s no information on when they will arrive.
“We’re extremely disappointed with AMD on a product delivery level. What’s nice about the product is it runs great, it’s rock solid, it really performs. The real problem seems to be is that AMD doesn’t have any of these things,” – Brian Corn, VP of marketing and business development at Source Code.
And AMD refuses to tell them why there’s a shortage. The birdies on the other hand say yield problems, severe yield problems. And at the same time, AMD has fallen into a marketing trap where a single customer was allowed to purchase more than 15,000 units, while many of the other are still waiting for complete orders.
Several supercomputer companies and AMD Platinum partners have already received orders from large customers, but AMD’s inability to deliver its quad-core Opterons has slowed them down and forced them to keep a loose schedule. At the same time, AMD only launched low-end to mid-range models, and these are far from capable of matching the raw performance of current high-end Intel quad-core processors.
The channel is overall pleased with the product, but nos much by the delivery. The article over at ChannelWeb also contains quotes from other companies, some of which are more pleased with the launch, but also several other that are less so.
