Newly launched Xeon MPs have lengthy lead time

UPDATE 17:31 UT Intel rang this afternoon to say despite the TPC-C links below, these Dell and IBM machines are expected much earlier.

I WAS CHECKING the latest performance numbers for Intel's newly launched 2.8 GHz Xeon MP. On reading the TPC-C results, I was astonished at the dates for hardware availability

1. 12/30/03 for Dell's PowerEdge 6600 four-way server.

2. 12/31/03 for IBM's eServer xSeries 445 eight-way server.

That's six months before these products become available. The report dates for both test results are dated only yesterday. So is this silicon just literally out of the oven?

I did read another report (last paragraph) that said HP would be shipping its ProLiant line of servers with these new Xeon MP processors in mid July, but the report was not specific about speed grades that would be available.

So why are Dell and IBM waiting six months before they make their "top-end" Xeon MP servers available.

We contacted Intel and there doesn't appear to be any availability problem on the 2.80GHz MP processors.

So maybe the PC vendors concerned can shine a light on the availability of the newly launched Xeons, and we'll update this story to reflect those facts. µ