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Socket 478 Pentium 4 shortages to end in December
Sufficient Socket 423 parts should have been sold by then, sources say
Don't expect the shortage of Socket 478 Pentium 4 processors to improve any time soon, sources inside Taiwan's mobo makers have claimed - at least not until December.
So claims a report over at DigiTimes, which essentially lays the blame at the door of the world's top ten PC companies, all of whom have so many PIIIs and Socket 423 P4s sitting in their warehouses, they're more interesting in selling off those chips than promoting the Socket 478 parts.
Hmmm. Doesn't quite right true, does it? If the big guns aren't buying Socket 478 P4s, there should be plenty around for the second and third-tier manufacturers - but they're the ones complaining that the chips are hard to find.
A more likely culprit, surely, is Intel itself, and claims that some PC makers are sitting back and waiting for P4 chips to become even less expensive before buying are telling.
DigiTimes' sources claim there are one million PIIIs and two million Socket 423 P4s out there in PC makers' inventories, and that Intel is managing the supply of the Socket 478 parts very carefully to encourage the run-down of distributors' Socket 423 stocks.
Intel won't comment on the matter, claiming it's in a "quiet period" in the run-up to its Q3 results announcement, due to be made tomorrow evening after the US stock markets close. ®
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DigiTimes: Socket 478 P4 supply to stabilize in December after old stock clears out
Biting the hand that feeds IT
