Intel favor Apple?

On the 7th of Augest Apple released their new Aluminum iMac with the top end spec being powered a 2.8Ghz Intel Core2 Extreme X7900 processor. This is excellent for the performance as the Intel Extreme processors can run a faster front side bus and higher multiplier than their Quad and Duo counterparts that have limited multipliers and FSBs. This is all well and good but the thing that bugs me is that Intel only released this processor yesterday (23rd of August), Almost 3 weeks after it was released to Apple. This means that competitors of Apple such as Dell, HP and Sony have been unable to use the X7900 processor in their high end range. Computer enthusiasts have also been unable to get this processor and because it was only released yesterday to everyone else their is currently no place in the UK that sells it, This is probably the same situation globally. It seems that Intel has done apple a favor by allowing them to use a processor before it’s been released to it’s competitors.