Intel have announced that the company adjusted the product strategy and will push back the release date for three 45-nanometer quad-core CPUs. There have been some rumors about that emerging early this week, but Intel decided not to fuel further suppositions and made it official. The delayed processors were scheduled for unveiling in January next year, but as of today, there is no certain release date.

The company has notified its technology partners that the chips' official launch will be pushed back to an undisclosed date (probably in February or March next year), "depending on AMD's schedule for triple-core and the upcoming Phenom CPUs".

According to sources within Intel's motherboard manufacturing partners, the affected processors are the Core 2 Quad Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550.

"Launching the CPUs now will not benefit Intel much in its battle with AMD, while they could cause damage to Intel's 65nm quad-core CPUs, therefore the company has decided it is in no rush to release new products until AMD is able to present more of a threat", reads a Digitimes report.

The report leaves the impression that Intel has delayed the official launch of its quad-core processors in order to give AMD the opportunity to finish working on its triple-core and upcoming Phenom CPUs. The situation would have been really emotional and the market would applaud Intel's initiative but the reasons for the delay are completely different and it's for sure that Intel did not intend to spare AMD a painful death.

Rumor has it that the Core 2 Quad Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550 chips will be delayed as a side effect to postponing the release of Intel's new X48 chipset, that is not to hit the market anytime soon. The X48 is still an unwanted presence on the market and motherboard manufacturers have pressured Intel not to release it until they get rid of the huge stock of X38-based motherboards that have piled up into their warehouses.

Forget about chivalry and blame the delay on the motherboard manufacturers.