Where In Quad’s Name Are They?

We posted last Monday about the possibility of Intel’s 45nm desktop Quad-Cores hitting e-tailers, and as X-bit predicted, it did happen. What we didn’t expect though was the fact that the allocations would be incredibly tight, so as a result, it’s as though they were never released at all.

In talks with various e-tailers, it seems that replenished supplies will not come until the end of the month, and even then, units will be scarce. With demand so high, it would not be unexpected to see whatever stock hits to sell out almost immediately. Regular stock should improve by mid-to-late April.

For those who want a piece of the 45nm Quad-Core action as soon as possible, an alternative option would be to consider a Xeon equivalent. Though marketed as a server processor, specs-wise, they are identical to the standard Core 2 Quads. NCIX.com let us know that they are expecting a shipment of such Xeon’s sometime this week. For those interested, here are the models to be on the lookout for:

• X3360 – 12MB L2 Cache, 2.83GHz, 1333MHz, 95W
• X3350 – 12MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz, 1333MHz, 95W
• X3320 – 6MB L2 Cache, 2.50GHz, 1333MHz, 95W

Note that the specifications are identical to the Q9550, Q9450 and Q9300, respectively. I’m also told that these processors will be priced almost identically to what the Core 2 Quads will be, and will remain so until the regular C2Q stock gets in order.