AMD dropping the Duron because...

[Crashman]

It cost almost as much to make as the XP but sells for much less. They can't make a profit on it. So they are moving the XP and later the Tbred DOWNSCALE to fill that void. Their is more money in the "midpriced" market because it has a greater volume than the high end market and greater profit than the low end market. They don't have to recalibrate their XP+ rating system because, it will eventually be comparable to the performance of the P4 Celeron.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[camieabz]

Makes sense.

I've been disregarding the changes in Duron prices since the XP1600 & XP1700 came down in price. The price per MHz for the XP vastly outweighs the Duron. Sure their cheap, but for little more cost (£50) you can have a CPU with a lot more than twice the capabilities.

Now we'll see the Celeron get the elbow.

<b><font color=blue>~ What do you mean "It isn't working!"...Now where's my sonic screwdriver? ~ </font color=blue></b>

 

[kief]

Yeah, Durons made sense a while ago, but nowadays the performance gap is as big as the price gap..... It is rare that id suggest a duron to any but the most basic systems with integrated everything, which I hate =/

Jesus saves, but Mario scores!!!

 

[lhgpoobaa]

saves a vast sum of moolah too.
dont need seperate dies.

do u think they will do the celleron trick and disable some cache? or is that below them?

i also read that later xp 'durons' or whatever u want to call them will use the 133fsb. what then for the top of the line.
i really really really hope barton or late tbred goes 166 or 200fsb.

extra fsb + 512k cache = yum

My tech advice here is not free. Email your credit card detials to mynic@hotmail.com

 

[chuck232]

Yeah, did you guys see on their earnings report? Their average selling price went from $90 to $86. $86!!!! that's not much money, that's like the price of a average Duron. By the way, I think this'll be my 200th post. Wahoo!!

 

[lhgpoobaa]

congrats... when u reach 10,000 we will organise a party for you

My tech advice here is not free. Email your credit card detials to mynic@hotmail.com

 

[chuck232]

Whew! 10,000. That's a lot. I'm practically still a n00b.....

 

[phsstpok]

Makes sense to me. What didn't make sense to me was the introduction of the the Duron in the first place.

At one time, in galaxy far far away, the Athlons and Durons were both run on a 100mhz bus and they even had overlapping clock speeds, the Duron (spitfire) from 600mhz to 1000 mhz, the Athlon Thunderbird from 700mhz up to 1400mhz. For a long time they shared the 750 to 1000 mhz range. In performance, the Duron only trailed the Athlon by 5-10% at the same clock speed. (OK so you could find applications that took advantage of the Athlon's larger cache). At that time, a Duron was less than half the cost of an Athlon. Why would you market something so cheap? It seemed like AMD was risking prospective sales of the Athlon going over the Duron instead. On the other hand, why didn't anyone buy it. The Duron never did become very popular. Very few OEMs built systems around it. For that matter very few OEMs used AMD processors at all except the mobile market which was still transitioning from the K6-2.

The enthusiasts liked the Duron because it overclocked so well and it was cheap but we must have been a small percentage of all the processor customers in those early days. I wonder what percent of all processors go to DIY'ers now. Are there enough of us to matter in the grand scheme of things?



<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[marneus]

so Barton may still B a non-starter (I do wish they would make up their minds... is it coming out at all or will it B cancelled...

There are no stupid questions... just lots of inquisitive idiots...

 

[marneus]

Personally, I would hope for a 200FSB and/or increased L1/L2 cache... that would be a worthy processor to buy... oh well hammer-time I guess

**DOH... I meant 333FSB... I musta fell asleep**

There are no stupid questions... just lots of inquisitive idiots...

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by marneus on 04/25/02 01:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Kemche]

What doesn't make sense to me is if you look at their earnings for last quarter they said that they sold 3.5-4 Million Durons Out of 8 Million total processors sold. That's about 40-50% duron Mix of the processor. Can they get the duron customers to buy Athlon now. there are lot of them as you can see.

KG

<b>"Hey! It compiles! Ship it!"</b>

 

[Crashman]

Maybe they can convert 50% of them at least, and that would be 2 million profits instead of 4 million losses

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Kemche]

That means that they are willing to loose market share to make profit. I think they wanted to gain market share.

KG

<b>"Hey! It compiles! Ship it!"</b>

 

[bront]

Look at 3DFX. They dominated the market share when they went belly up.

Market share isn't everything.

The Windows Gods demand money to appease the BSOD! - Rev. Bill Gates

 

[camieabz]

You'll maybe find they get shoved into budget OEM systems, for a knock down price.

<b><font color=blue>~ What do you mean "It isn't working!"...Now where's my sonic screwdriver? ~ </font color=blue></b>

 

[Crashman]

Even if they knocked $10 off the price of the slowest units, they would still make more than if they sold a Duron instead. It cost about the same to make an Athlon as Duron.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Crashman]

I think they only see that as a temporary loss of market share.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[Kemche]

If Market share is nothing then why is AMD and Intel trying to grab as much as they can. Why is AMD trying to build an another FAB with UMC to make more CPU to gain market share. I think to these companies market share is everything. They can loose money to gain market share. And That's what AMD has been trying to do past few Quarters. They have been loosing money and to some extent loosing market share.

KG

<b>"Hey! It compiles! Ship it!"</b>

 

[Matisaro]

Your missing an important reason crash.


AMD is dropping the duron because it was made at its austin fab, and the austin fab cannot make any faster durons(limit of the fab is near being reached), the austin fab is not .13 and it is not copper, so instead of using dresden space to make a duron(or upgrading austin fab) they just drop the duron and use the athlon in its spot when the hammer comes out.

The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark

 

[Crashman]

Ah, but if it were a viable product, they would convert Athlon lines to it.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

 

[lhgpoobaa]

what about bus speeds, do u think they will differentiate between the tbred/barton and the 'duron' version?

im thinkin this cauz i believe that the tbred/barton really needs a fsb increase.

My tech advice here is not free. Email your credit card detials to mynic@hotmail.com

 

[ath0mps0]

Mat's right. Austin is .18 micron and will be converted to Flash (in place of the Gresham Fab?).

The real reason that the Duron didn't do better than the celeron was integrated chipset availability. The celeron almost always sells on a platform with integrated everything (especially graphics). AMD needs a real i815E/845G killer in the chipset market to be able to compete - The SIS735/745 + the new graphics chips could easily fill this slot. They are going to need this anyway to get into the OEM corporate market.

If the thought I thought I thought had been the thought I thought, I wouldn't have thought so much.

 

[Matisaro]

The duron is only viable in relation to the athlon, when the hammer is released, there is no need for both a duron and an athlon line.


So they kill 2 birds with one stone, kill the .18 alum duron, lower the athlon to budget line(without cutting performance cause the hammer will own) and make hammer the high end.


The only reason the duron sells so many is the fact its considered a "budget"chip, in fact you can usually get an equal axp for as much or less than the duron counterpart, when the athlon is the "budget" line, the ratio between it and the hammer should be about the same as the duron/athlon.

They could rename the athlon to the duron, but that is pointless IMO, since the duron meant "budget athlon" why do they need it when the athlon is not the flagship line anymore?

The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark

 

[Matisaro]

Mat's right. Austin is .18 micron and will be converted to Flash (in place of the Gresham Fab?).

Partially(gresham fab closure*), the other reason is the only commercially viable product the austin fab can make is either flash or dram(or foundry service) since amd does not have a ram brand, and does not foundry for others, converting austin to flash is the only viable option.

The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark

 

[camieabz]

I was thinking along the same lines.

Pair up a Duron with a K7S5A and 128MB of PC1600, and you have a decent entry level system.

Not sure if you can run the K7S5A at 100/133. Can you?

<b><font color=blue>~ What do you mean "It isn't working!"...Now where's my sonic screwdriver? ~ </font color=blue></b>