AMD's delays on their latest product lines haven't helped them any, and in fact have made the market a pushover for Intel. Even now, motherboard manufacturers are estimating that AMD will make their latest and greatest Phenom CPUs available no sooner than November. It also seems that at launch, a mere four varieties of Phenom will show up - making it a bit difficult for retailers to craft a wide variety of options for their customers. In fact, only two models of quad-core Phenom are expected to be available.

Within a few months after its initial release, another handful of Phenoms are expected to appear. That, however, may not be until several months into 2008. By that time, Intel may again have something to one-up AMD.

The new Phenom processors are eagerly anticipated, both to see how a true quad core CPU behaves and to see whether or not AMD can reclaim the lead they lost to Core 2.