1.33Ghz AMD chip for Christmas?
It's a story of Swedes, pricelists and AMD's boot
It looks as though Swedish hardware distributor Dustin AB is in for a severe ticking off via Microtronica / AMD this afternoon amidst discussion over the former's pricelists and the presence of a certain "AMD-K7 ATHLON THUNDERBIRD 1330 MHZ FÖR SOCKET A". It's been rumoured for some time that AMD may have the 1.33Ghz part on sale for the end of this year, and it seems that this story may confirm it. The Register was able to contact the Swedish retailer only to learn that the "product shouldn't be out on the market yet" and that AMD called them from the US to inquire after the pricelist. As such it looks like this was no typo, but instead an accidental slip on the part of the retailer. AMD will not be pleased. Or will they? While our friends at The Reg don't think AMD have the volume production capabilities to mass produce a 1.33Ghz chip in time for Christmas and therefore would be unlikely to publicize such a possibility this side of the New Year, the more cynical among us think that perhaps a little gamesmanship is involved. After all, the high profile news story appearing on so many of the Internet's technical websites that AMD may have such a part out in time for Christmas will do Intel no favours, even in spite of its new November 20th launch date for the Pentium 4. All this said though, a staff member of the Swedish company has now told the press that there will be 1.33Ghz Athlon stock available at the beginning of December. Lets hope AMD haven't started producing paper releases in the same vein as Intel did with its 1Ghz part.