Klaus, as I said on I-hub, they will definitely have to react to INTEL´s pull-in and much lower than expected pricing for Smithfield. Their silly Turion 64 timeframe ("H1") is a good example to what lengths AMD is ready to go to these days to appear competitive with INTEL´s new product introductions. Or the H2 2004 schedule for 90nm Opteron. Even keeping this in mind, Smithfield will launch in Q2, Toledo, at least according to Digitimes, in Q3. That should tell you something.
I also posted on I-Hub about Anand´s CES coverage talking about a demo of a S939 Athlon 64 dual-core processor (behind closed doors). Of course you can use the Opteron die as soon as that is readily available, no problem. But that´s not the point of Toledo, and we´ve already seen what die sizes around 200sqmm mean for AMD. That is exactly what INTEL is taking advantage of.
To effectively counter Smithfield, they need 2x512KB L2 parts asap, and in mainstream quantities for mainstream prices, available in the market for customers to buy. When will that happen? That´s what I care about, because that´s what matters for the bottom line. Is that a beginning of Q3 thing, end of Q3, or rather Q4 as originally expected?
I have enough of these schedule and paper games already.
Talk to you again about this in 6 months. We might have a better picture then. Maybe not. At least Smithfield should be available by then. |
