AMD Phenom Delayed Until Q1 2008?

Although AMD sent out a press release last week stating that native quad-core chips based on their 'Barcelona' core would ship in August, some rumors are spreading today that claim AMD's Phenom processors for desktop machines won't ship until early 2008...

"AMD intends to modify its process technology to increase the yield rate and frequencies of Phenom processors in order to improve the competitiveness of the CPUs against Intel's Penryn family, said the sources. AMD has already notified several motherboard makers that Phenom will now begin test-production in November or December, and will launch in first quarter of 2008, noted the sources.

With Phenom set to not appear in 2007, several motherboard makers have made plans to decrease shipments of socket AM2+ motherboards and to increase those of Intel's platform, added the sources."

It's looking like the first 'Barcelonas' to ship will be lower-clocked, server-class Opterons and the Phenoms won't hit the market until AMD tweaks their manufacturing process to improve yields.