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the *OFFICIAL* core 2 duo midnight release thread 2.0!!!

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I just called TigerDirect - They said they have a shipment of 500 E6700's coming in tomorrow and that there are about 100 preorders for it. They are charging much less than the gougers ($599) so I went ahead and placed my order.

Oh - Also found the P5W DH from a Canadian ebay company - http://stores.ebay.com/id=60947062
 
Originally posted by: Some1ne
If [Intel] is going to meet it's 1 million quota it has to be either pumping E6600 and E6700 out by the hundreds if not thousands a day or they are having trouble producing them and we may not see decent stock for months. We should know my Monday what the story is (bad distribution or bad production).
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You know, I've been wondering, where are the anandtech columnists and other tech writers in all this? Aren't they supposed to speak up and cry "foul" and "paper launch" and "price gouging" when things like this Core 2 Duo fiasco happen? I know it's only been a couple days since the embargo passed, but it's pretty clear that there is no real availability of the E6600+ retail chips, and I don't understand why nobody is calling Intel on this yet, or pointing out the enormous discrepency between actual price and MSRP that the shortage of product is creating. Just as guilty as Intel for announcing a launch without having any product to supply, and just as guilty as retailers who price-gouge because they can, are the people who are supposed to serve as watch-dogs, and point out that Intel has declared "launch" without actually launching the products it was supposed to (in sufficient quantities to ensure a stable supply), and that retailers are taking advantage of the situation and trying to sell chips for sometimes close to twice what they're supposedly worth, and to analyze the impact on the playing field as a whole, and posit vague conspiracy theories and so on. Their absence in all this is rather conspicuous, and even worthy of contempt, so as long as they're not around, I'll posit my own vague conspiracy theory...given that we know that:

1. Intel declared availability/launch of the Core 2 Duo on July 27th. Supposedly this is when chips would have started shipping to retailers, OEM's, and the like.

2. Intel also had an embargo on selling/shipping the retail varaints of the chips until August 7th. Note that from a launch perspective this is meaningless (and if anything, should have made the perceived launch go smoother), as the 27th is when the chips (supposedly) started shipping.

3. We are now two days into the launch, and retail version of the E6600+ chips are virtually nonexistent (and estimates on availability push back all the way to mid/late August, depending upon who you choose to ask/believe), and while it appears that Intel did a satisfactory job of supplying the E6300 and E6400 chips in volume, the shortage of the higher-end models is driving up prices across the board.

4. The MSRP's on all of the Core 2 Duo chips are seductively low given the performance they offer, but due to the screwed up supply, nobody is getting any Core 2 chip for anywhere even close to the MSRP.

5. Hardware review sites saw no shortage of (potentially hand-picked) E6600 and higher chips even weeks before the launch date, giving plenty of time for the positive reviews to become widely disseminated, and for everyone to look at them and say "damn, I want one of those, it overclocks to 4.0 GHz".

...so, I think it's safe to declare the Core 2 Duo E6600 and higher models to be a paper launch, given that Intel had a full week and a half between the launch date and the embargo date to get product out to retailers, and they seem to have failed utterly, and may not even have product out in volume until the end of the month. While the chips all have extremely attractive "suggested" prices, the extreme shortage means that actual prices aren't going to reflect the suggested prices for quite some time yet, unless a handful of retail outlets decide to play nice to the consumers, which may happen, but it won't be the majority case. Obviously this is going to screw over and piss off most consumers, but there's another entity that's been screwed over worse...AMD. Think about it, AMD implemented some very aggressive price cuts across its entire product line right before the launch of Core 2, due to the fact that all of those reviews pouring in from the review sites supplied with those early Core 2 samples clearly showed that AMD could no longer come close to holding onto the performance crown. Hell, AMD even revised it's initially planned price-cuts and made them more severe in the wake of Intel's announced MSRP's and promises that they would have no problem supplying the channel with Core 2 chips. What's even more damning is that the entire time Intel was giving every indication that there would be no supply issues, but given that even with the week and a half grace period provided by the embargo Intel still couldn't deliver more than a pathetic trickle of the E6600+ models, I think it's safe to say that Intel never had a chance of delivering an adequate supply, and moreover a shortage of this magnitude cannot possibly be of any surprise to the company. In short what this means is that Intel must have deliberately overstated its ability to deliver its product on time...but why? Those AMD price cuts...the stronger Intel could make itself appear, the more severely AMD would have to cut its prices to keep itself looking competitive, and this is exactly what the extremely attractive MSRP prices and promises of an adequate supply accomplished, an escalation of the AMD price cuts. So lo and behold, while Intel's launch is decidedly paper, AMD's pricecuts are however in full effect, and it's too late for AMD to roll anything back now (but hey, at least no-one can dispute that with the elevated Core 2 prices AMD still holds the price/performance crown). Had there been evidence that Intel would not be able to actually deliver the product at launch, and/or that the Core 2 chips would sell significantly above MSRP, AMD could have reigned in its price cuts more, and/or pushed them back to a later date.

So there it is, I posit that Intel artificially drummed up interest and hype and demand by shipping out hand-picked product for review very early, and deliberately misrepresented supply and/or named unrealistically low pricing information to further drive up demand, all in an effort to slash away at AMD's revenue/profits by goading AMD into the aggressive price-cuts, which otherwise would not have happened had Intel let on that it could not deliver an adequate supply of the new processors for the optimistic pricing to be realized. Kind of low, actually...though I'll still be buying a Core 2 if I can ever find one at something reasonably close to those overly optimistic suggested prices.

And that's my vague conspiracy theory...now tech columnists, please wake the hell up and do your damn jobs and expose the paper launch and price gouging for what it is.
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Your consiracy forgets one little tidbit. We (ie entusiasts that buy boxed CPUs) are a tiny fraction of the market. The PC OEM's are Intel's primary focus. You can bet that Intel has been shipping tons of E6600's and E6700's to "Mikey, Stevey, and Marky".

This is also far from being a paper launch. People have no concept of what a real paper launch is like. Just because you can't get a E6600 during the Kmart blue light special doesn't mean it's a paper launch.



 
Originally posted by: C Dub
I just called TigerDirect - They said they have a shipment of 500 E6700's coming in tomorrow and that there are about 100 preorders for it. They are charging much less than the gougers ($599) so I went ahead and placed my order.

Oh - Also found the P5W DH from a Canadian ebay company - http://stores.ebay.com/id=60947062
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Did you ask anything a out the E6600? 😀
 
A lot of you also seem to forget that the prices mentioned in reviews were NOT MSRPs. They were the prices the resellers pay Intel when they buy 1000 units. Granted some of the bigger guys may get it cheaper but that still doesn't mean they will sell it at that low price. $400 for an E6600 is not price gouging either. I'm dying to get mine too but thinking this is a paper launch is ridiculous.
 
Originally posted by: C Dub
I just called TigerDirect - They said they have a shipment of 500 E6700's coming in tomorrow and that there are about 100 preorders for it. They are charging much less than the gougers ($599) so I went ahead and placed my order.

Oh - Also found the P5W DH from a Canadian ebay company - http://stores.ebay.com/id=60947062
Click to expand...

Thay said the same thing about 2 weeks ago about the E6600s. I was told that they were getting a shipment of 150 e6600 and i was 130 in line. I ordered on 07/27 and that my order should be shipping on 7/31. What a bunch of crap. I ended up canceling a week later cause i could not take all the BS. We'll see if what they told u holds tru. Seems like the same song and dance to me tho.
 
SHOPBLT REP:

"We received some 6400's in yesterday. My honest *opinion* is we'll see all
of these chips(e6600) on the 16th."
 
OMG!! ZZF changed prices to neweggish!!! BS!!! Capitalist bastards! E6600 are 399 and E6700 are 690!!!!
 
Originally posted by: Mudokon
SHOPBLT REP:

"We received some 6400's in yesterday. My honest *opinion* is we'll see all
of these chips(e6600) on the 16th."
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Ya, after the ZZF gouge fiasco last night (which sees me in a room filled with destroyed computer parts), my long ago pre-order at BLT is really my last hope. One guy I talked to there told me the same thing. But an email I got from them said that their ETAs in no way represent certainties, and that the availability of the E6600 was projected as "throughout August." So first come first serve and get in line now...
 
Wow, this whole fiasco reminds me of when the San Diego cores were launched, except 10x worse. I did the whole cancel an order that turned out to be a preorder, and reordered from Monarch the day they arrived. But it all transpired in a weeks time and I ended up getting the chip at only $25 over MSRP. This conroe thing is just insane.

And besides the availability, the compatibility issues seem to be over the top. I was an early adopter of the NF4 platform, and I thought that was buggy and ill prepared, but that pales in comparison to whats happening with conroe. Sure glad I desided not to jump on the bandwagon yet.
 
Anybody know anything about this alwayslowest.com place? Or even better, has anyone actually ordered a C2D from them? Their availability right now for the 6600 is listed as 3-6 days, and their price is not horrible (relative to the other crap out there, that is).

 
I just called outpost.com and the csr said they are expecting a huge shipment on the 14th (her words not mine). The preorder price for the E6600 is $357. Free shipping even, but I chose overnight since it was just $10.
 
Originally posted by: sirplayalot
Does anyone know if the P5B boards need a bios flash or just the P5W Deluxe boards?
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No, the P5B boards will work with Conroe out of the box because the 965 chipset is newer and is designed with Conroe in mind. The P5W-DH Deluxe, which has the 975X chipset, is older and came out before Conroe arrived, so it needs to be updated through a Bios flash.
 
Originally posted by: us3rnotfound
Originally posted by: sirplayalot
Does anyone know if the P5B boards need a bios flash or just the P5W Deluxe boards?
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No, the P5B boards will work with Conroe out of the box because the 965 chipset is newer and is designed with Conroe in mind. The P5W-DH Deluxe, which has the 975X chipset, is older and came out before Conroe arrived, so it needs to be updated through a Bios flash.
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Originally posted by: owensdj
sirplayalot, yes you need the newest BIOS on the P5B for C2D support.
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hmmm...Which board will work with conroe out of the box! I dont have any spare CPU's to flash.
 
hmmm...Which board will work with conroe out of the box! I dont have any spare CPU's to flash.
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I had the same concern. I ordered my P5W DH today, and right after I placed my order, I called ASUS. They didn't answer so I left a message saying that I wanted to use a Core 2 chip and if they could please send me the latest bios. I got a call back in about an hour, she took down my address and they're sending a free updated bios chip in the mail.

When you call, press 0 and ask for the bios department.
 
Your consiracy forgets one little tidbit. We (ie entusiasts that buy boxed CPUs) are a tiny fraction of the market. The PC OEM's are Intel's primary focus. You can bet that Intel has been shipping tons of E6600's and E6700's to "Mikey, Stevey, and Marky".
Click to expand...

Are you sure of that? I saw in another thread here someone saying that the Dell Core 2 PC's won't be shipping until September/October, and a quick visit to Alienware's website indicates that their Core 2 PC's will not ship until August 24th (and perhaps even more telling, selecting *any* Core 2 CPU causes the text "May Delay Your Order" to show up, surprise, surprise). Really even information from the OEM's seems to be saying "paper launch".

Besides, even *if* Intel has managed to successfully supply OEM's (which at this point I do not believe they have), that doesn't mean that the retail component of the launch is suddenly immune from being labeled paper. Intel implied availability of both retail and OEM parts, and if they managed to deliver on one and not the other, then the one not present is still considered a paper launch, and the absence of retail chips would likely carry over and drive up the price of OEM chips as consumers unable to find the retail version started looking for alternatives.

However, as I said, it does not appear that the OEM supply of these chips is much better off than the retail supply, given the estimated ship dates that at least some OEM's are giving for their Core 2 products.
 
E6600 @ CLUBIT NOW IN STOCK!! HURRY, I JUST ORDERED MINE!!

Edit: Just cancelled my Tigerdirect.com order... HORRAY!!
 
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