AMD has supply shortages

Author: Wil Harris
Published: 7th November 2006
Comments (12) Stumble
AMD has supply shortages

AMD Athlons could be in short supply thanks to Dell.

AMD has officially admitted that it is facing supply shortages of its Athlon chips.

Commentators long suspected that one of the reasons Dell was not supplying AMD machines was that AMD would not be able to produce enough chips to satisfy the PC giant.

However, now the reverse appears to be true - Dell says it has plenty of chips, whilst everyone else is going hungry.

"The one thing we would have made sure of with AMD is that they could adhere to our demand. We haven't seen any significant issues in terms of supply. It's been very finely managed," said Adam Griffin, channel marketing executive at Dell, according to PCPro.

However, others are having problems, says the Inquirer. "We received e-mails from distributors spreaded across the globe that AMD cannot supply them with enough dual-core CPUs ordered by computer assembly stores."

Well, AMD has come out today and admitted that there are shortages, but that they are entirely mundane. According to CRN, "AMD acknowledged the shortage but declined to discuss its allocation guidelines or channel strategy. A spokesman attributed the problem to a strain on supply as overall demand increases from both system builders and top OEMs."

So, if you're trying to get hold of an AMD chip, there could be wait times ahead. AMD doesn't have anywhere near the manufacturing capacity of Intel, which positively dwarves the green team when it comes to raw numerical output.

Let us know your thoughts on the AMD / Dell hookup, and your experiences of buying AMD chips recently, over in the forums.
Quote specofdust 7th November 2006, 19:56
I'm sure the general public will be deeply upset at having to buy C2D systems intead of X2 systems :p
Quote DXR_13KE 7th November 2006, 20:00
it was predictable, i hope that now AMD makes more factories to make their CPUs.
Quote aggies11 7th November 2006, 20:52
It's better to have them in Dell's hands, then ours, sadly.

Joe Q Public knows the word "Pentium", and most probably Intel. They also need to start knowing the word AMD. Putting them in Dell machines with an AMD logo should hopefully help make that happen.

Aggies
Quote BUFF 7th November 2006, 20:57
I'm sure that AMD would much rather be in the position of being able to sell every CPU that it can make (even if at a lower margin) than have the $4.5 billion stock mountain sitting around that Intel is rumoured to have ...
Quote Tyinsar 7th November 2006, 20:57
Perhaps this is part of the reason they didn't push too hard before C2D hit
Quote EQC 7th November 2006, 21:32
Isn't AMD-s 4x4 platform supposed to debut soon? If they're already running shortages, they won't be able to sell very many pairs of processors... (granted, as 4x4 is a very high end, they probably don't intend to).


Just another thought:
I'm not an Intel fanboy or anything...but on the topic of 4x4 and AM2:
Many people have always complained about how Intel upgrades their processors, and while the socket's the same, the old chipsets don't support new processors, so you're stuck upgrading more than just the CPU. I find it interesting that AMD is now forcing major upgrades too:

1) When AMD's dual cores first came out, folks were saying "in a year when prices come down, I'll be able to change out my single core for a dual core with just a bios upgrade"...which was true...but after that year passed, AMD switched to AM2, and it WAS a new socket. So they cut the upgrade path pretty short there. (I understand that AMD's memory controller is on the processor...so this had to be done to use DDR2 memory...I just think it's interesting).

2) In moving to 4x4, AMD is changing the socket again. So now, if you want to upgrade, you can't just keep your old processor and buy 1 new processor with the new motherboard. You'll have to buy 2 new processors and the new motherboard. Even if you just got a brand new AM2 processor, you can't put it in a new 4x4 system when the boards become available.


I just find it interesting that both AMD and Intel seem to make upgrading more expensive than it might otherwise be....
Quote Tyinsar 7th November 2006, 22:08
Quote:
Originally Posted by EQC
Isn't AMD-s 4x4 platform supposed to debut soon?...

I wonder if AMD is intentionally doing this (shortages) to prevent having a stockpile when they move ahead - OR - maybe even switching some resources to "future" processors. (this is just speculation - I honestly have no idea what AMD's fabs are up to - but I would appreciate input from someone who does know)
Quote speedfreek 7th November 2006, 22:39
If I were them I would be glad to have a slight shortage rather than a huge surplus, and they will be able to build up more to compete with intel.
Quote MrFusion 8th November 2006, 05:07
I'm a big AMD fan, always have been. My 1st pc was a K6. I hope they get some more manufacturing going. I finally talked my friends who were Intel lifers to switch to AMD, hope I didn't stear them down the wrong path since Intel seems to be coming out with such good stuff these days and AMD has yet to show some new shiny stuff. Hope they get it together and their 4x4 and the rest come out to be real winners. We'll have to see!
Quote antiHero 8th November 2006, 09:51
Quote:
Originally Posted by DXR_13KE
it was predictable, i hope that now AMD makes more factories to make their CPUs.

They are in the middle of it. A second production hall is currently build right next to there Factory in Dresden/Saxony.
Quote DougEdey 8th November 2006, 10:01
They were rumoured to be building a FAB in NYC
Quote mikeuk2004 8th November 2006, 13:25
at least they know every chip made is being sold and like the guy above said. Having stuck floating around costs the company money like intel.

like the Dell adverts. "We dont keep stock forming dust in warehouses, we build to order to keep costs down. :)
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