I was reading on the Inquirer today

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20406

an interesting article about Intel, AMD and 2005. The article is yet another forecast that Intel will be pretty much sucking wind the next year or so and AMD will be flying high, only limited to how many processors it can make.

I've always liked Intel processors, but I have to admit, Intel really has it's hands full... especially considering how well the new 90 nm A64's seem to be performing.





Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

What about this strained silicon announcement made by IBM and AMD just awhile ago (about a month). Apparently its an low cost upgrade to existing facilities and should allow 25 percent increase transistor speed. Starting 1st/2nd quarter 2005
<A HREF="http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,98251,00.html" target="_new">http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,98251,00.html</A>

<A HREF="http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041213-4459.html" target="_new">http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20041213-4459.html</A>

<A HREF="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2004-12-13-strained-silicon_x.htm" target="_new">http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2004-12-13-strained-silicon_x.htm</A>

Does that translate into 25% faster CPU's? If it does it will provide some interesting times for Intel!

The loving are the daring!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Flinx on 12/28/04 11:41 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Amd doesn't need faster, at the moment. If they get too fast, everyone will want one, and they just dont have the production.

True, but then that would enable them to charge even more, increasing profits.
Believe it, if they could produce faster chips, they would.

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

Or at least they'd move everything to 90nm to decrease costs.

Maxtor disgraces the six letters that make Matrox.

No they wouldn't. AMD dropped the MHz race something like 3 years ago. They'll only produce CPU's at speeds to keep them competitave with Intel, no faster. When they produced the A64 4000+ they got a significant lead by accident, anticipation a P4 4.0GHz that was never released.

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<<No they wouldn't. AMD dropped the MHz race something like 3 years ago. They'll only produce CPU's at speeds to keep them competitave with Intel, no faster. When they produced the A64 4000+ they got a significant lead by accident, anticipation a P4 4.0GHz that was never released.>>

Funny I guess its how you look at it. I personally see it as INTEL dropped the MHz race when they dropped the V6 for a 4 cylinder with higher RPM for misleading marketing purposes. AMD made the right choice sticking with the V6 design IMHO. The a64 might even be considered a V8 compared to the 4 banger Prescott.

Right now I see AMD as building a reputation. AMD might very well be able to produce higher clocked cpu's then the current offerings maybe 20% faster. But AMD has obstacles to over come. Like the impression Intel can do no wrong. For example look at tom’s stress test. Just bump the computer and the Intel fan might move ever so slightly causing a huge spike in temps. Could AMD get away with that? Could AMD get away with cpu throttling under load when MHz matters? If AMD cpu's would draw 130 watts over intel 89 watts what would Dell say about that.

I remember arguing with people in these forums who stated one of the reasons Dell does not offer the consumer a choice of AMD is cause if you actually dropped a computer off a desk the fan might pop off and cpu could fry. Believe it or not Intel lovers talked about that a lot.

No I think AMD did it right sticking to a performance design over high MHz design. I'd bet intels next generation cpu will put performance over MHz. If it's going to take intel a long time to get the next generation cpu out the door you might see the p3 play a bigger role, at least the p3 was designed with performance first over marketing as in MHz.

As to your theory about AMD being able to launch faster cpu's but won't. I disagree when it's there (tested and safe) and cannot be bashed by biased journalism or what not amd will release it. If for anything for servers AMD could supply all x86 servers and stay status quo on desktops or enter high end nootbooks, so why not just do it with opterons. AMD's manufacturing capacity is growing and with the new IBM/AMD strained SOI on 90 nm clocks and performance will go up regardless of what intel can or can not produce.

AMD might be capacity constrained at the moment but capacity is growing rapidly as will performance when available. IMHO.


If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

Actually it was more like 5 years ago when AMD announced they weren't going to race against Intel any longer, come to think of it. They've been pacing Intel ever since. Every time they've had the opportunity for a significant lead, they delayed it while Intel caught up.

As for Dell, they have a special arrangement with Intel. If any company was going to ignore AMD based on quality, it would have been chipset quality, as chipsets for AMD processors in 2000 and 2001 were truely bad.

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Hmm. Here's a thought. Amd starts ramping speed. Intel says to Mikey, hey have we got a deal for you. So Dell does a hostile takeover of Amd, and starts making thier own chips, under licence from Intel.
I mean no-one would believe another stockholder revolt was "unsponsored" at this point.
For that matter Motorola may just need expanded fab facilities for thier phone chips, if the price was "right"

<<Actually it was more like 5 years ago when AMD announced they weren't going to race against Intel any longer.>>

You mean 5 years ago since AMD said they would stick to performance and not go with a 4 banger for marketing purposes. Glad to see you corrected yourself.

<<They've been pacing Intel ever since. Every time they've had the opportunity for a significant lead, they delayed it while Intel caught up.>>

I'm not sure what you mean there perhaps you could elaberate, then I will respond.

<<As for Dell, they have a special arrangement with Intel. If any company was going to ignore AMD based on quality, it would have been chipset quality, as chipsets for AMD processors in 2000 and 2001 were truely bad.>>

Chipset issues was over exagerated and is completley non exsitant for quite some time now. It's the special (marketing and pricing) arrangment that matters and always did. I could show you a link where someone claimed a little over a year ago that dell won't use amd cause of bad chipsets and fans that pop of when an AMD computer is dropped from a desk.

My gripe was

<< AMD dropped the MHz race something like 3 years ago. >>

It was intel that dropped the race and AMD that refused to follow that misleading marketing game. have you seen the stanford video were the head intel engineer quit intel because of what he called blue crystals? (Blue crystals do nothings in luandry soap just there for marketing) He told craig barrett and friend hey we bought you a couple of years with these blue crystals now what will you do with it, cause the clock is running. His bosses said you listen to us we decide product direction you do what we tell you so implement faster clocks. Needless to say he quit.

So your claim AMD dropped the MHz race is some what silly as they just refused to implement a bunch of marketing nothing. It was Intel that changed the rules thank god AMD had the brains not to follow this misleading marketing plan as it seems to have blown up in intels face.







If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

I'm only stating the facts, you're the one spewing myths. AMD specifically stated that they were dropping out of the price wars AND MHz race back around 2000 and instead targetting the midrange market. That was in response to Intel stating AMD pushed the industry to far, putting product on the market that wouldn't have to be upgraded as soon, and too low, sacrificing profits in order to gain market share. The statement was listed on MSNBC.com, I read it in the stock news.

Now obviously they have matched Intel at every step and offered minor performance improvements as compared to Intel. But they have followed their plan to never get too far ahead of Intel, or charge too much less than Intel, a plan which favors small market share increases over the long term rather than MHz and price wars.

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And there weren't any good chipsets available for Athlons until the SiS 735 was released.

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<<I'm only stating the facts, you're the one spewing myths.>>

You are only stating your opinion and its wrong. Just like the news guys at aljehzera. You want to enter web tech journalisim and you cannot grasp the importantce of being unbiased.

<<AMD specifically stated that they were dropping out of the price wars AND MHz race back around 2000 and instead targetting the midrange market.>>

Please show me where ((AMD)) said they were backing out of the MHz race. You know full well that is misinterpeted, as AMD refused to impliment those phoney clock rates as its an expensive marketing thing to implement. Very expensive but it did by intel some phony advantage for a couple of years.

<<But they have followed their plan to never get too far ahead of Intel>>

Again that is just your opinion and I say its wrong. I say amd or intel will push the advantage as far as they can if AMD can't produce enough only offer it in high ASP's servers or notebooks. This plan of yours never to get to far ahead of intel is beyond stupid.

As I said my gripe was

<< AMD dropped the MHz race something like 3 years ago. >>

That is biased and misleading, as intel is the one who changed the game for marketing only, and not AMD. AMD stayed the course and did the right thing not implementing phony clock rates into the cpu design just to give it a marketing advantage. Thank god AMD had the forsight not to follow such a stupid lead, and to do even better with what count performance. Just think of the crap you would be spewing if Intel had stuck with th p3 like amd did with athlon and then amd implemented phony clocks to mislead like the p4. You would have a hay day bashing AMD. That is a fact but I would doubt you would accept that.


<<And there weren't any good chipsets available for Athlons until the SiS 735 was released.>>

I can't remember when SiS came out with 735 but its irrelevant to the fact that AMD has had solid chipsets available for a very long time. That was the point was it not?



If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

No unbiased opinions here, just facts. We've already had the discussion how filtering out one news report from 5 years ago is nearly impossible. You're spewing biased opinions to counter facts I repeat from news reports. Unless you can show me an article where those reports were proved bogus, but then again, if I can't find 5 year old news I doubt you will either.

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