What I heard...
I think I heard Intel has a bunch of 90nm 533Mhz FSB product in inventory. I think I heard Prescott at 2.8, 3.0 and 3.2 will be shipping early January. I think I heard Prescott at faster speeds will be shipping in February.
What I think this means is that Intel should have adequate 130nm capacity, created by shipping volume 90nm products, to build significantly more 130nm P4EE products for Q1, along with the large cache Xeon products.
In general, I agree that not many P4EE have shipped yet, but that is to be expected as Intel has not been adding additional 130nm capacity. They need the added 90nm capacity to make it a reality.
Intel has not moved prices since October. The current Pentium product line (at retail) includes 2.66Ghz with 533 FSB, 2.8, 3.0. and 3.2Ghz with 800FSB. I see AMD product ranging from 2600+ to 3200+ in retail. It looks to me like Intel will move the bottom to a 2.8Ghz with 533FSB (prescott) in Q1. There has been steady erosion of the Intel lead in retail over the past 9 months or so. I do not see that continuing into Q1, but rather having Q1 look a lot like Q4. I doubt we will see either an FX51, or a P4EE in the retail channel, but we will see. I do expect the dominant retail speed to move from 2.8Ghz to 3.0Ghz sometime in Q1. I think AMD will match that with a move from 2800+ to 3000+.
In Q2, the introduction of the LGA package, BTX, 3.6Ghz, and whatever the 90nm extreme edition is should create a new high end desktop product. Add to that the introduction of Nocona for DP servers and I think Q2 will be a real "screamer" for Intel.
--Alan
