Up until about a month ago, AMD?s dual core roadmap called for the Opteron series to launch in late April, with the desktop dual core product line following in late 2005.  The reasoning behind this was simple; workstation and server markets would benefit immediately from dual core, while desktop performance enhancements would be more situational and program dependent.  Given AMD?s relatively limited production capacity, it made sense to push into the smaller volume / higher margin areas first, and bring up the desktop capacity later in the year, similar to how Sunnyvale originally transitioned to the Athlon 64 from the AthlonXP / MP. 

Evidently The Powers That Be (or at least the ones working at 1 AMD Place) felt that this delayed introduction left too great a gap in AMD?s product line, or offered Intel a significant marketing advantage.  Roadmaps were shredded, PR teams were flogged, and today, AMD is announcing the launch of the Athlon 64 X2, with the now-common phrase availability to follow attached at the end.  In this case, availability is supposedly following by June.  June, however, is a 30 day month, and there?s no word on whether or not availability means ?by 12:01 AM on June 1st? or ?By 11:59 on June 30th?. Its also unclear whether or not said availability hinges on the absence of a major catastrophe (Fab 30 hit by errant Iraqi missile fire) or on the sudden intervention of the Divine (And the Lord spoke, and dual core products shipped in volume?and it was good).   

If I seem a bit skeptical about AMD?s sudden launch-date shift, it?s not because of any inherent dislike of the Athlon 64 X2, but because historically, rushed product launches tend to underwhelm.  If you examine Intel?s pre-Athlon roadmaps (back in early-to-mid-1999), the Pentium 3 at 1 GHz doesn?t appear until the latter half of 2000.  Athlon appeared, Intel rushed, and while they launched the part on paper in Q1, actual parts didn?t begin shipping in volume until Q3 / Q4?exactly what was originally forecast. 

Intel?s Pentium 1.13 GHz later in 2000, and AMD?s original Thoroughbred A in 2002 are further examples of processors that launched too early or with significant flaws.  It?s a rare situation where a manufacturer can bump a launch date forward by nearly half a year and achieve strong product availability in a reasonable time. AMD will have to prove that the Athlon 64 X2 is an exception to the rule, and the only way to do that is by actually shipping the core in volume?preferably on June 1st, rather than the 30th. 

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• The Chip. (1 of 14)
• Model Ratings: A Golden Opportunity Wasted (2 of 14)
• Pricing and Market Position, Hyper-Threading and Dual Core. (3 of 14)
• Test Setup and Configuration Notes. (4 of 14)
• Test Results: Sandra, PCMark 2004. (5 of 14)
• ScienceMark, StarsCFD / WinRAR, Everest. (6 of 14)
• Cinebench, Cinebench 2003, Kribibench. (7 of 14)
• 3D Rendering: 3DS Max (8 of 14)
• 3D Rendering: Lightwave 8.2 (9 of 14)
• Game Performance: 3DMark 2005 (10 of 14)
• 3D Game Performance: Doom 3, Far Cry. (11 of 14)
• Performance Analysis:  Who Needs Dual Core? (12 of 14)
• Can AMD Bring Prices Down? (13 of 14)
• Conclusion: (14 of 14)