SOURCES CLOSE to AMD's plan said it has started supplying quad core Opteron chips to its customers, but as engineering samples.

The chips are being shipped at no charge, but will be replaced, probably in January, with fully stamped next stepping Opterons with Blackpool Rock, sorry AMD, running all the way through them.

Customers are being told the only problems they're likely to experience are with virtualisation, but the chips will still be replaced when the fully fledged babies ship.

The sample CPUs are already shipping. µ