Assuming that the rumor is true - the 9500 will be essentially a four pipeline 9700, with the fierce competition in the 3d graphics business I don't think it makes much sense to intentionally degrade good 9700s to 9500s. More likely the majority of 9500s will be manufactured with only four pipelines. Concidering that the pipelines takes up the majority of the chip and that the probability of defects is proportional to the area of the die, the yeild of a four pipeline chip (vs an eight pipelined) should be much higher. Not twice as high - but still much higher. So you could get say three 9500s from the same area that would fit only two degraded 9700s. They want to sell as much functional silicon as possible. The degraded 9700s would be just in addition to the "real" batch. Similarly, I don't think Intel intentionally degrades good P4s and sells them as Celerons...
Regards / ushac
Regards / ushac
