Exactly one month after AMD officially launched the Athlon processor, motherboards are finally shipping. Tom Chang of FIC America told us that shipments began on Tuesday, September 7. In fact, he indicated that 1700 SD-11 motherboards were imported, and every one was shipped the first day. In addition, Chang said that several thousand more were scheduled to be shipped within the next week, and they were planning on shipping over 10,000 for the month of September. “We are extremely happy with the results”, said Chang. “We believe we are the only manufacturer shipping already”.
AMD authorized distributors Hallmark Computer Components and FAI indicated that they have Athlon processors in stock, including the 550MHz and 600MHz variety, though currently purchasers are limited to 20 processors per order. These distributors do not have motherboards available to ship, but expect them very shortly. Though FIC believes that they are the first to ship the motherboards, we were told that distributors are expecting boards from GVC and MSI this week. AMD indicated that the problems with the MSI boards have been confirmed as corrected, so there should be no end-user issues with them.
Representatives from resellers and system builders ESC Technologies and Specialty Tech informed us that demand for the processors is very high, but potential purchasers have been waiting for motherboards to become available. As of Wednesday, ESC began offering systems and barebones configurations under their ASK (Athlon Starter Kit) program, and have indicated they will begin shipping systems this week. Specialty Tech is expecting to be able to offer motherboard/processor combos later this week.
Drew Prairie of AMD indicated that a number of OEMs in the U.S. and Europe have announced they will be shipping Athlon based systems in September, but specific dates are not available at this time. More information on OEMs and resellers of AMD products can be found on the AMD PC Buyers Guide page.
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