Let no one doubt the power of email... to cock up the best laid launch plans. AMD yesterday inadvertently emailed a host of reporters to tell them that it will launch the Opteron 246 on 4 August.

AMD will also reveal the Athlon 64 logo on 28 July, according to the email, which contained a press release schedule.

As for the Opteron 246, it is expected to operate at 2GHz - the current top-of-the-line model, the 244, is clocked at 1.8GHz.

According to ExtremeTech, 244s appear to be in short supply. When we did a quick check on end-user prices, the 244 was generally on offer for rather more than its list price of $794, though that's for batches of 1000 chips.

Next week, on 7 July, AMD will announce Microsoft Board Support Package (BSP) certification for AMD's Alchemy embedded processors, according to the 'leaked' email. ®