in brief AMD has confirmed it is delaying the shipment of two of its new quad-core Phenom desktop processors.
An AMD representative said the Phenom 9900 and 9600 are being pushed into the second quarter, after they were originally scheduled to launch this quarter. The representative strongly denied that the delays were in any part related to the TLB errata discovered in December that is screwing up AMD's launch plans for its Barcelona server chip and Phenom, which is based on a similar design.
In place of the delayed chips, AMD plans to focus on its triple-core chips and bring forward the launch of two energy-efficient Phenom processors. It says it's doing this at the request of its customers but the representative did admit that "resources" forced AMD's hand to a certain degree.
The triple-core chips that AMD plans to emphasize in the first quarter are a creative way of reusing quad-core chips with slight defects to one core. The energy-efficient chips are expected to run at slower clock speeds than the 9900 or 9600, which makes them easier to produce.
