The recall of Intel’s 1.13GHz Pentium III part was just a couple of months ago and now Intel is postponing the launch of their 900MHz, 2MB cache, Xeon CPU. Actually there’s more to it, the CPUs that have already been sent out to OEMs and distributors for verification and manufacturing of their server systems have been recalled. The CPUs were supposed to be start shipping in volume by the end of July and actually represent the top-of-the-line of their Pentium III Xeon CPUs.

We feel that Intel handled this issue as it should be handled though, just like with the 1.13GHz Pentium III recall or the issues with the i820 MTH, they took responsibility and have shown that they do care about the quality of the products they sell. Unlike others they are able to admit to their mistakes and although it must cost them a lot of money every time and especially in case of the whole i820 MTH motherboard recall, they still rather tell it like it is than have their customers buy a defective or ill-performing product.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said about other manufactures. It took Via a couple of months to finally confess that their 686b southbridge had issues that made it incompatible with a number of popular soundcards, the SoundBlaster Live! in particular. A more recent issue has just been raised, and although the jury is still out on this one, there seems to be some issues with AMD’s new 760MP platform. We’ve had problems with it ourselves and are working towards a solution with the manufacturers, but it turns out that others have reported similar problems, so we might not be the only ones affected.

If there indeed is a problem, and it is caused by either the motherboard or any other components that interface with it. We feel it is in AMD’s and Tyan’s best interest to look into the matter quickly and to come up with a working solution, as we frankly would hate to see the 760MP platform, and all its prospective claims of performance and stability, to whither away and not live up to these claims due to stability related problems.

Sander Sassen