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woodman , understand though that AMD has been stretching the K8 artichecture as much as possible, so that they can regain funds for R&D for K8L

At this point, AMD has achieved critical mass, and as much as it may suck for enthusiasts, they are probably right for changing strategies at this point by going for big business deals like Dell and HP.

As for performance, they still rule the 4+P server space.

I think what gets people is that Intel tells us so much about their future plans. I can look at their roadmap and dream about the CPU I might buy in a couple years. AMD is hush-hush, which annoys people who enjoy talking about what's down the road.

They can't! AMD's and Intel's business models are vastly different. AMD neither has the resources, or the capacity to release new architectures on the same timeline as Intel can. If AMD were to use Intel's business model, they would be doomed. AMD has to extend the life of it's architecture's comparably, and be very smart about it. Which goes to AMD's credit, as they have managed very sucessful competition, on an open market, while being behind in manufacturing process. I'm eager to see the state of affairs next year if AMD also comes through with it's promise in closing that gap in mid '08.

thats exactly right , those are the kind of things that AMD have to imply to compete well with Intel. Letting Intel know about AMD's plans can turn out to be not a great thing.

I think arch-enemy would be a fair description. Intel, AMD. Coke, Pepsi. Inspector Gadget, Dr. Claw.

I disagree. If more people put a posiive spin on the COMPETITION, maybe there wouldn't be flame wars here.

You whining about the need for a positive spin is about the same as the fat, sweaty guy that lets an SBD go in the elevator while complaining about the perfume the lady next to him is wearing.


When was the last time I made a negative post regarding the competition? You guys are pathetically living off of CPU companies. How can you call yourselves men?

ALL HAIL THE DUOPOLY!!!!!

Boy is that negative. I see what you mean.

Timing is good for AMD.

- Unlike before, in this amd's down trend, they have arrangements with sys integrators like dell,HP and etc.,.

- In the server area sun has taken Opteron under their arms.

- IBM teamed up with them in server space.

Taking out AMD from competition is almost impossible,unless they start delivering "more" ill procs.

- Global growth for power hardware is getting sluggish, since current business softwares web servers,app servers,databases,ERPs (non gaming didn't grow up much to utilize more power compared to last releases, this is one another reason behind low IBM hardware sales.

- Though rack servers keep on getting more power compared to main frames, businesses hasn't brought more apps to racks.

- Every time intel released a new proc almost closely there was a new OS released by MS, windows is the MAJOR driving factor of consumer/general level hardware growth,because of the giant footprint with more features.

- Even if intel started delivering more powerful processors after c2d for desktops, very few non-gamers will use those unless vista compelled them to use, or if either MS or Apple pushes out a power hungry OS.


my 2 cents

1. AMD ad campaign needs a major push ???

2. God knows how their NUMA is helping servers,any links to benchies proving that it helps are welcome.

3. AMD didn't let themselves back, i think they are spreading their wings into more sectors not relying only on desktop sector,they are behind stream processor,HTPC's, which are major growable sector according to MS and at last, "may" their ATI acquistion lead them to new areas.

4. AMD is a small competitor to intel when compared in reality (capital,employee,fabs,market,brand) but considerably a big pain.

To be fair to AMD, Intel also took it on the chin in Q4 as well. Their price war hit both companies pretty badly. However we (the customers) win as chip prices have tumbled over the last several months.

Remember this: they still made money when selling chips that were far more inferior to the best that the market had to offer in the past than they are now. Between 1994 and 1999, AMD had the performance lead exactly once, when they released a 40 MHz 80386 to Intel's 33 MHz unit. How much did the K5 get beaten by the Pentium and Pentium Pro? How much did the K6 lineage get beaten by the Pentium II and III? And AMD didn't go belly up.

I don't think AMD is in any trouble at all. I work in the computers department at a large electronics retailer. We sell a lot more AMD desktops then Intel desktops and it isn't even close. For the vast majority of people an Athlon X2 4200 is more then enough and quite a bit cheaper then a Core 2 Duo system. Regardless of what you buy processors for at New Egg you have to remember that the big PC manufacturers (HP, Acer, Cisnet etc.) overprice their Core 2 Duo systems. Simply put, people expect to pay more for better technology, and HP is happy to meet those expectations. I can see AMD holding the mainstream for quite a while yet.

thats a good point Kanati , i mean why buy and spend more money on a CPU you dont need, when You can get one that does the same job , at a cheaper price , with extreme performance still!!

Not wanting an Intel monopoly isn't going to change AMD's troubles.

But if we wish hard enough, and click our heels together 3 times, wont it help?

1. K7 was introduced in 1999 or 2000. K8 was introduced in 2003. It is still reasonable to introduce K8L in 2007.
2. Do you remember when K8 was first introduced? A 200mm^2 CPU with only about 2GHz speed. But now K8 can stretch to almost 3GHz.
3. In 2003. AMD only had one 200mm - 130nm Fab 30. But now AMD has 200mm - 90nm Fab 30 and a 300mm - 65nm Fab 36. Fab 30 will be upgraded this year.
4. What was the market share for AMD in 2003? Now the number was about 23%.

You think Intel is fast to introduce Core Arch? Intel has started the Core Arch project when they hitted the brick with a much higher power consumption of prototype Prescott model, which was in 2002 time-frame.

If you include Dell's partnership with AMD, then the market share of AMD processors may not drop fast.

You seem to be disliking Dell

Dell needs to review its business models before it can regain market share

No, its not poor planning. No matter much you think it is.

Take a hard look at point number one. 3-4 years to introduce K8, and now you want K8L in only 3? If they lauch K8L in mid 07 like they claim they will, it will have been another 3.5 years between lauches. Why is it that you think they can lauch in 2.5? (so that they could have lauched K8L with C2Ds lauch mid of last year.) What gives? Is AMD supposed to magically pull new cores out of their ass? It takes TIME to do this, for AMD it looks to take about 3-4years to develop and lauch new cores. Worry and complain when they start taking 5+ years, as THAT will mean AMD is having problems. I swear, you are trying to make something where no problem exists. If it takes them 4 years to lauch a new core, then K8L will lauch sometime in 2007. Start your bitching back up when/if 2008 comes and it still isn't here. I'm sorry to say chicken little, your a little early.