The Athlon Ultra 3400+ FUD

Okay. Let's get the FUD out of the way on this whole K8 thing.

Now - samples with vendors with limited clocks. Enough to get boards built and tested.

Next month - second sample set.

August - samples that will give an indication of actual performance. Yup, probably getting close to, or reaching, production yields.

October/ December - shipment of first batch of product (could be the 10,000 units we talked about earlier). It all depends on who you talk to. Can it be that in the space of two days, AMD has changed shipping dates by moving it up from January, to December, to October, and now, to August (check out this news story)?

Possible name - Athlon Ultra (like it matters what it is called)

Possible PR rating - 3400+ or something to indicate that it can compete with Intel in the 3+ GHz range.

Actual frequency - 2+ GHz.

Oh, yeah. Apparently, Jerry Sanders has said as much before going Chairman.

Can someone tell me what all the fuss is about? And most of the fuss is from purported AMD fans. You wanna build it up to knock it down, or let someone else knock it down? You want to predict problems that are not there yet, because there is no product in hand? You want to line up outside of CompUSA to buy the first chips at midnight on the day of launch? I don't think that's going to happen.

So, is the objective to just create idle chatter and drive up page impressions on enthusiast sites?

I have to know. Maybe I am obsessing, but the tech press has its own ennui and psychosis to deal with right now. There's other stuff to talk about. Doesn't anyone care that the Nvidia Mascot Dude just melted away? Disappeared. Gone. Nothing but rayon.

There's other stuff to talk about.