AMD Delays Phenom 9700 CPU, Possibly 9900 Until Q2 2008

Ars Technica reports that AMD has revised their roadmap yet again for the upcoming Phenom parts. According to the report, Phenom 9700 will be delayed into the second quarter of 2008, and a low power quad-core part is also planned, the ‘9100E’. Part of the reason for the delay, as Ars speculates, might be a delay in producing the ‘B3’ stepping – which does not suffer from the TLB bug that limited the clock speed of the original stepping.

It’s unclear whether this shift in AMD’s roadmap will affect the Phenom 9900 model CPU, which had been slated to come in at 3.0GHz. Also, as Ars reports, there’s probably little reason for anyone to hold their breath waiting for AMD’s 45nm components.

If Sunnyvale can’t offer a higher clock than Phenom’s current 2.3GHz, however, much of the processor’s potential appeal is going to vanish—moving from a dual-core at 2.8GHz to a triple-core at 2.3GHz isn’t going to appeal to most enthusiasts. Initial Toliman CPUs will also be based on current K10 steppings—don’t expect AMD’s B3 stepping to show up in the tri-core line before it moves to the quad-core products.

Source: Ars Technica