The rumours this time were not correct saying that the Athlon XP with Barton core processors would be launched and available from the 7th of February 2003. Apparently, the newcomers from AMD will be out tomorrow, on Monday, the 10th of February, according to other sources. As almost always with the new processors from AMD, we pay our special attention to their availability, as earlier we noticed that sometimes the Sunnyvale, California-based company cannot deliver its high-end CPUs on time.

As reported over here, the novelties will be priced as follows:

• Athlon XP "Barton" 3000+, boxed: $635, tray: $629;
• Athlon XP "Barton" 2800+, boxed: $407, tray: $399;
• Athlon XP "Barton" 2500+, boxed: $193, tray: $185;

Though, availability is expected to vary depending on dealer to dealer, what is rather natural in case of all chips that come to the market.

Since AMD produces the Barton microprocessors at the Fab30, we can suppose that the yields are quite high, hence; because of the fact that Barton processors run at lower core-speed compared to the Thoroughbred processors with the same model-number, AMD has more chances to deliver the 2800+ and 3000+ right after the launch. Moreover, since they currently have no such fast processors at all, they would really better to unleash them next week. As for the Athlon XP “Barton” 2500+ chips, it is not logical for AMD to make them available now, because AMD’s partners as well as AMD itself should have bunch of Athlon XP “Thoroughbred” 2600+ and Athlon XP “Thoroughbred” 2400+ in stock and it is not good to affect the sales of those parts

Do not forget to visit us on 10th of February, since we may provide you loads of additional information about the new processors from AMD.