AMD becoming Intel?

[Andrzej_Pl]

I think that it's going to be a role change. So far Intel wasn't introducing anything creative. They were beaten by AMD in 64bit and dual core race, also AMD has a performance crown. The only thing Intel was doing was changing sockets and chipsets

Now it's slowly changing, IMHO AMD satisified the hunger and stopped being innovative. For AM2 will offer nothing new, they will just change sockets, give 3% of performance raise, force everyone to buy new coolers and so. But they switch to DDR2 only for markketing reassons "I'll get intel, for intel pwnz for it uses ddr2, and AMD just DDR"

And what Intel does? They stopped (finally) following the dead end street of changing chipsets and introduced new chip. I will not call Conroe "revolution that will sink AMD", but you have to say, even you Mike , that Conroe will be step forward from Prescott line, and step in good direction. The folks at Intel finally understood that they really have to do something creative, if they want to stop AMD on gaining market share

I won't say what the future will hold for both companies, but things are going to be interesting...and I believe that both AMD and Intel fanboys will benefit from that race, for they will get new chips to brag about, and the rest of us, normal people will just get good stuff, no matter on which company you are going to choose

 

[bourgeoisdude]

Respectfully disagree. For one, AMD is still behind Intel as far as their global market share is concerned. Intel makes the chipsets to many PCs and Laptops too. AMD can't rest until they surpass Intel's quarterly Earnings. Only then would AMD be stupid enough to rest.

That will likely never happen IMO, although it is possible. All we have now is speculation, so I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

BTW--AMD's "roadmap" if you will--definately indicates they are not sleeping on the job. Look here

 

[dvdpiddy]

nah amd wont become intel until they start spending more money on marketing then on r&d .andrzej mowis po polsku?

 

[MadModMike]

I think that it's going to be a role change. So far Intel wasn't introducing anything creative. They were beaten by AMD in 64bit and dual core race, also AMD has a performance crown. The only thing Intel was doing was changing sockets and chipsets

Now it's slowly changing, IMHO AMD satisified the hunger and stopped being innovative. For AM2 will offer nothing new, they will just change sockets, give 3% of performance raise, force everyone to buy new coolers and so. But they switch to DDR2 only for markketing reassons "I'll get intel, for intel pwnz for it uses ddr2, and AMD just DDR"

And what Intel does? They stopped (finally) following the dead end street of changing chipsets and introduced new chip. I will not call Conroe "revolution that will sink AMD", but you have to say, even you Mike , that Conroe will be step forward from Prescott line, and step in good direction. The folks at Intel finally understood that they really have to do something creative, if they want to stop AMD on gaining market share

I won't say what the future will hold for both companies, but things are going to be interesting...and I believe that both AMD and Intel fanboys will benefit from that race, for they will get new chips to brag about, and the rest of us, normal people will just get good stuff, no matter on which company you are going to choose

You: "IMHO AMD satisified the hunger and stopped being innovative. For AM2 will offer nothing new, they will just change sockets, give 3% of performance raise" - How do you know? Did you make AM2 CPU's?

You: "But they switch to DDR2 only for markketing reassons "I'll get intel, for intel pwnz for it uses ddr2, and AMD just DDR" - I wouldn't bet your bottom dollar on that one bud

You: "but you have to say, even you Mike , that Conroe will be step forward from Prescott line, and step in good direction." - Anything is a right step as long as it's made away from Press-Hot

~~Mad Mod Mike, pimpin' the world 1 rig at a time

 

[Panzerzero]

Why wouldn’t Intel jump the gun after AMD release a lot of good CPUs. By letting AMD grab a larger market share it helps them out in court(Monopoly…not just a game from Hasbro). I think the move of just moving chipsets around was calculated. Intel is huge and they have at least twice the number of engineers AMD has.

What is the best way to stop someone from saying you have fixed the fight?

By losing a fight without looking like you tried. Provide Chipset changes move cache around and then let the competition move ahead in keep fronts. It's a good play. However, it may back fire, now AMD has a strong hold on gamers, who are un-loyal to any vendor in the face of benchmarks.

In no way can AMD become Intel. AMD is just not there yet, I love their CPUs but Intel is king of spiffs(go ask a Best Buy, Fry’s Elec. Employee) . The only thing vendors understand is money and AMD doesn't offer it up. You want me to put you CPUs in my machine what are you going to give me? The avg. user takes whatever Dell, HP, and Sony drop in.

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

They will just change sockets, give 3% of performance raise, force everyone to buy new coolers and so. But they switch to DDR2 only for marketing reasons "I'll get intel, for intel pwnz for it uses ddr2, and AMD just DDR"

Then why did Intel switch to DDR2 even earlier than AMD did?

Also, there is a rumor that socket AM2 will offer support for DDR3 contingent on several factors.

AMD isn't sleeping at the wheel, they are just going to be behind a generation. As soon as AMD releases its next generation of processors it will then be ahead a generation and superior to Intel (speculatively). It's going to be a lot more like the video card market where nVidia and ATI keep one-upping each other every product release and there never is a real consistent performance leader. (As opposed to AMD just having superior processors period, which they have done for quite a while now; Conroe may end their streak when released).

 

[Action_Man]

By becoming intel, I assume you mean becoming the BEST.COMPANY.EVAR! because that's what intel is.

 

[chuckshissle]

Respectfully disagree. For one, AMD is still behind Intel as far as their global market share is concerned. Intel makes the chipsets to many PCs and Laptops too. AMD can't rest until they surpass Intel's quarterly Earnings. Only then would AMD be stupid enough to rest.

That will likely never happen IMO, although it is possible. All we have now is speculation, so I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

BTW--AMD's "roadmap" if you will--definately indicates they are not sleeping on the job. Look here

Maybe so but AMD is coming up and fast.

 

[sviola]

Well, there´s still Cell too. Afterall, it´s already being used in IBM servers. They´d probably make the move to PC as well. And with the large pockets of IBM and Sony, they´ll bring a new twist to an already boring plot.

Edit: Just to give you guys something to laugh:
Imagine Cyrix announcing a new Processor this year with better performance than AMD´s and Intel´s

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

Well, there´s still Cell too. Afterall, it´s already being used in IBM servers. They´d probably make the move to PC as well. And with the large pockets of IBM and Sony, they´ll bring a new twist to an already boring plot.

Interesting, is the Cell capable of running Windows 32 and 64 bit operating systems? If they are already for sale I would be VERY interested in some benchmarks!

 

[Stimpy]

AMD are preparing the way for the next gen of CPU's.
AM2 is just an enabler for what is to come (they are being very tight lipped about it).
They have learnt that they can't release paper releases, every product must work out of the box (remember the old "AMD isn't compatible" times of the K6 and early athlons) and they must have stock, so they have to go slowly, slowly.

If Intel screw up the conroe release they still have warehouses full of P4s to sell and masses of manufacturing space for more P4's.
AMD have to sacrifice manufacturing capacity of the previous generation to make a new one. i.e. currently they are using their 65nm fab space for 90nm chips. Only once they know they can get really good yeilds out of 65nm will they release the next gen.

 

[Panzerzero]

By becoming intel, I assume you mean becoming the BEST.COMPANY.EVAR! because that's what intel is.

I hope that was a joke. Intel is at times the least innovative company around. With so many resources they should kill every other CPU out. On resources alone ATI, and AMD would have to join forces to compete. AMD just got back in the good graces of NVIDIA and we saw a performance increase on new motherboards running AMD/NVIDIA. Intel has always had the level of access AMD just got from NVIDIA. Intel should be mopping the floor with AMD.

AMD beating Intel is like Gary Coleman beating Mike Tyson (young Mike).

They are taking a dive..

So I must ask what you talkin’ about….

 

[Action_Man]

Oh god. Did you notice the at the end?

Intel is at time the least innovative company around.

I assume you've never heard of creative. Zing!

 

[RazW]

I think AMD is well on their way to becoming greedy like Intel. Back when I bought my last processor AMD procs were half the price of Intel's and still outperformed them. I understand maximizing the bottom line but not everyone can afford a great processor anymore. :roll:

 

[Panzerzero]

Oh god. Did you notice the at the end?

Intel is at time the least innovative company around.

I assume you've never heard of creative. Zing!

got to give up to the guy with one eye zinging me. Damn you Cyclops you may have no depth when in comes to rating CPUs but you can zing with the best of them. Hats off sir hats off. 8O

 

[Heyyou27]

Well, there´s still Cell too. Afterall, it´s already being used in IBM servers. They´d probably make the move to PC as well.

I seriously doubt it. What would we compare the Cell to? By the time it could even be released for a desktop platform, processors like the Yorkfield will be available.

 

[Action_Man]

The 90nm A64's are quite cheap to make. They're only 84 and 115mm2 for venice and san diego which is smaller then all of intels except for the PM.

 

[kcmac]

The 90nm A64's are quite cheap to make. They're only 84 and 115mm2 for venice and san diego which is smaller then all of intels except for the PM.

As someone commented in another thread, you don't pay for the manufacturing or shipping, you pay for the R&D and the marketing. Just like CD's only cost pennies to burn, but are sold for $20 as a music CD or $100's for software CD's you are paying for the name and the intellectual property. If they didn't have patents someone could just copy the A64 (or the Conroe) architechure and make them for $100.00 each.

 

[Action_Man]

If they didn't have patents someone could just copy the A64 (or the Conroe) architechure and make them for $100.00 each.

Its no where near that easy.

I'd rather pay more just for the superior performance&technology over another product(in this case it's Netburst).

And I agree.

 

[kcmac]

If they didn't have patents someone could just copy the A64 (or the Conroe) architechure and make them for $100.00 each.

Its no where near that easy.



Actually once you have the technology you could probably build them for much less than that. You couldn't just start up a company for the sole purpose of copying the Athlon 64, but as part of an overall "generic" vendor strategy it could work. You could turn out inferior products, for much less money. I don't think a startup firm could sell stable FX-60s for pennies on the dollar, but they could probably turn out 1.8GHz Athlon 64s that may or may not run too hot to overclock at all, or even be stable on stock air cooling. But hey, what would they care, it's not like they would have a reputation to worry about. Yes Manufacturing is not cheap, but it the cheapest part of the line. My dad is a self-employed manufacturer of speaker enclosures. He sells them for much less that the "big boys", and does almost all of the work himself, but he does a better job than most of the "big boys". He can't compete with their mass produced boxes and he has even designed several customized enclosures that were then copied by some of the "big boys". If my dad were able to patent his designs (and he has tried, but was told it would be too difficult to enforce because if they changed any one component, or measurement, or building material, he wouldn't have much of a case) he could have charged more since he would be the only one able to make them. As it is he had to make less money for better craftsmanship to stay in business. If a semiconductor firm already had silicon fabrication plants, and lithography equipment, they could make cheap Intel and AMD clones and sell them for 1/4 of the price and still make more profit overall.

Just my thoughts.

Regards,

 

[FITCamaro]

Well, there´s still Cell too. Afterall, it´s already being used in IBM servers. They´d probably make the move to PC as well. And with the large pockets of IBM and Sony, they´ll bring a new twist to an already boring plot.

Edit: Just to give you guys something to laugh:
Imagine Cyrix announcing a new Processor this year with better performance than AMD´s and Intel´s

Cell will never be a common desktop processor. Its not designed to be. Thats not to say it won't be usable at all, just not in Windows. Its not even close to being x86 compatible. The only OS that will be able to use it is Linux (they already have servers running Linux with Cell chips).

In my opinion, Cell is a piece of garbage that Sony has just hyped up about. Even game developers are pissed about the lack of power the chip has for the PS3. Apparently its just a really crappy IBM processor with poor branch prediction and with 8 (7 in the case of the PS3) SPEs tacked on that the processor controls data flow to. The Xbox 360 CPU is the same processor but just 3 of them and without the SPEs. People have estimated the performance of it at about 2x the power of the original Xbox processor so basically around a 1.4GHz P3. The graphics chips of the consoles are the saving grace.

 

[Action_Man]

Yohna is 90 mm2 for example, so if that was you're argument then the Core Duo should be cheap to make.

I would imagine so.

A better statement is that the die size is small, relative to the dual core counterpart (X2's) and hence cheaper comparitively speaking.

The dual cores are overpriced because AMD doesn't want to sell that many, they'd rather sell more single core chips till they have 65nm.

 

[Action_Man]

If a semiconductor firm already had silicon fabrication plants, and lithography equipment, they could make cheap Intel and AMD clones and sell them for 1/4 of the price and still make more profit overall.

How many have a 90nm process as good Intel's or AMD's?

 

[Action_Man]

I was under the impression that it'd be a somewhat slow transition to dual core from intel.

 

[pip_seeker]

And I will call Conroe revolutionary (let the flames begin ). Essentially, it was a backpeddaling then implementation of some really clever technologies to address market concerns. Wider core, shorter pipeline (P3 like), then 128 bit wide SSE regiesters, not really a big deal... but micro/macro (especially macro) fusion, memory disambiguation, and probably the most amazing, gated thermal transitor technology.... this is a really big deal. Those who cannot admit this to themselves are not being intellecutally honest with themselves and griping, moaning, complaining or flaming will never change that.

Intel/AMD are simply out of sync at the moment, hence the "leap frogging" concept some people write about. IMHO

I think the proper words would be "we think" Conroe will be revolutionary due to what we know so far.

But with that said, mmm when was the last time initial claims stood up to reality? Name one. just one.

Fool me once shame on you Intel, fool me twice Intel shame on me!