Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[chipguy]

seem to imply an earlier availability being possible, if demanded?

No. Bringing a buggy chip to market is worse than no
chip at all. Processor vendors can't really rush the
development cycle regardless of how important it is,
even to their survival. Consider how long it took AMD
to go from a "working prototype" to releasing Opteron
even in the face of countless successive money/MSS
losing quarters.