Hardware Intel Sandy Bridge launch was pointless

While the review we published yesterday of Intel's new Sandy Bridge range of CPUs was extremely glowing, the fact remains that launching it at 5am (UK time) on 3 January was pointless.

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2011/01/04/intel-sandy-bridge-launch-was-pointless/

 

It all seems particularly shoddy eh. You chaps did a fine job mind, so well done.

I think the sensible thing for everyone to do, as much as they might not wish to is just chill out and wait a couple of weeks until everyone's had chance to catch up and get out/read all of the reviews.

 

I agree with you James...

...in the mean time I'll print myself a Sandy Bridge CPU, now I need to find a motherboard

 

Is it possible Intel were 'spooked' into announcing everything early?

 

Maybe just Intel reacting and trying to re-ignite the impact of the launch following the NDA failures across the world, although I agree it seems a little pointless. Retailers at the very least should have been made aware so they could have products ready for pre-order - I reckon they would have made a killing on the 'impulse buy' market. I was tempted and went looking thats for sure!

 

From what I could gather, the Mobos had been showing up in asia for retail, and some CPU's started to be available as well.

This made the hardware available and testable somewhere in the world.

 

The fun fact about this is, that most retailers allready have the CPUs in stock and just don't list them yet, as they hold on to the Jan 9th as a release-date.

I know atleast of 4 german retailers that have allready sold CPUs silently starting two weeks ago, but don't list the parts on their webpage. You can call them on the phone and get them to sell you the parts however. Mainboards being freely available for allmost 3 weeks and listed in allmost all big german eStores.
When you ask them about the CPUs, they all give the same answer initially, that they aren't supposed to sell the parts before Jan 9th. After sharing some love they do sell them tho.

UK and US retailers won't sell you anything before Jan 9th tho, as they fear the mighty intel-lawyers and the consequences, something the germans only laugh about with the general anti-american-british attitude they formed during the last 10 years (thanks to Bush and Blair).

 

Pfft come on, lets not go there again.

 

Hmmm, while I can see prices for P67/H67 Mobo's here in Germany, they come with a release date of Jan 9th.
Don't see any pricing of SB processors though.

 

Launch day was put back to the 9th officially so the fact everywhere seemed to launch early was the waste of time. Patience is a virtue.. its a shame so many people lack it.

 

I wonder if intel saw AMD's Fusion APU release as some sort of threat and pulled Sandy Bridge forward in an attempt to steal all the lime light?

Or are Intel trying to really kill AMD off by overshadowing anything AMD release at any point of the market?

 

Sandy Bridge and the first batch of Fusion products seem to be aimed at different price points (approx £200-£300 for a working Zacate based system?), however it does seem to be a bit about stealing AMD's thunder about it's Atom-killer release.

 

"As a result, no major UK or US retailer is listing any Sandy Bridge products as available to ship, let alone pre-order."

Shouldn't it be - "As a result, no major UK or US retailer is listing any Sandy Bridge products as available to pre-order, let alone ship."?

Sorry to be picky.

 

quicksync and the 3000GPU interests me but only cause I want to replace my netbook with something similar that can handle light gaming. TBH I get the feeling we won't be seeing SB in laptops for under £600 mark with the old i3/5/7 filling the lower end with crappier on board graphics and good old atom still being almost useless.
In all honesty SB was pointless for gamers, that is, SB just improved part of a PC that for many people doesn't actually need much more improvement compared to other areas. Yes quicksync is useful and yes we should see price drops but unless the product actually appears the market stands still. The area I want improvement in is graphics for low end, If quicksync and applications that use the GPU take off, low end graphics will have to catch up ie not be tied to SB but filter right down to atom. Zacate is what I'm really waiting for

 

It may be possible that intel is scared shitless if not about AMDs Bulldozer capabilities then definitely scared about AMDs Bulldozer and Radeon combined in Fusion (one chip die on the cpu socket). So Intel tries to imprint in our brains that nothing is better than it's current (yet unavailable) offering long ahead.
I hope that i'll have a reason to switch back to AMD after 5 long years.

 

Sounds like Intel are just jumping on the hype bandwagon that's been accompanying the slow release of motherboards that have been popping up lately, trying to get a bit of the headline themselves. wonder if it was timed ahead of the VAT increase in the UK for Pre-order purposes?

 

There are separate NDA releases on press and retailers remember, the two were never set at the same date even before the press NDA was pulled forward.

 

well, it may seem like a pointless paper launch.

but thanks to great websites such as Bit-tech, i was able to look at reviews and not press the buy button to spend unnecessary money. early review and then a few days of thinking time stops impulse buys.

 

I didn't spot this at the time of writing the blog but even Intel hasn't put Sandy Bridge on its own website yet

 

I didn't notice any motherboards but my local computer store had over 25 new Sandy Bridge i5's and some i7's on Dec, 27. So I thought that was when they were released.