UK DISTRIBUTORS OF AMD CHIPS have been told not to expect the Athlon XP2600+ with the 333MHz frontside bus before mid November at the earliest. "With the way its going with AMD at the moment," said one frustrated distie, "all I can tell you with complete confidence is that it won"t be before then..."
The biggest number seen on chips from AMD at the moment is 2200+ and only one in three distributors has this chip in any volume.
"The situation with AMD at the moment is that they"ve been extremely slow in getting stuff through," said one salesman, unaware he was talking to The INQUIRER. "We get ETAs for "this week" that shift to "next week". They come and go. At the moment your guess is as good as mine", he said. Although, admittedly, our guess proved to be worse, since our whisper of a delivery date of yesterday fell well short of the mark.
Our man from a major UK distributor told us he had over 1000 XP2600+ chips on back order and said there was every chance we may have some in the next couple of weeks."
One of the three distributors we called said an AMD product manager gave a delivery date of between the middle and the end of November. Others had been given no guidance. "I expect they"ll be here by Christmas," said one. X-Bit Labs says there will no official announcement of the 2600+ with the 333MHz FSB from AMD. Instead the comany will just skip them out when it"s good and ready.