PHENOMenal scores! Not.

[Athildja-x64]

Ah... and the pharmacist speaks at last.

I guess all those pain meds are for the Phenom and 790 launch huh?
I think you might need something stronger.

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by Athildja-x64

I guess all those pain meds are for the Phenom and 790 launch huh?
I think you might need something stronger.

Rectally inserted will get Jokers attention....


I would hope.

[Jokerswild]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

Rectally inserted will get Jokers attention....


I would hope.

Thats the end of the filtering process not the beginning.

[Stormcrow]

Ok, so who wants to trade my 3800+ for a Core 2? Any takers...think of it like Tom's does, a long term investment. In 20 years you can sell it as the last good processor of a long dead company

[Yellowhello]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Ok, so who wants to trade my 3800+ for a Core 2? Any takers...think of it like Tom's does, a long term investment. In 20 years you can sell it as the last good processor of a long dead company

Get a E21xx and a nice P35 board and OC the hell out of it. Done.

[Stormcrow]

I would like to do so, but my computer budget for probably the next 2 years was spent on this system, before Core 2 came out. I may just end up buying a Phenom later next year, simply because it would cost more to change to a new platform and would be more economical in a sense, even if the Phenom still can't top the already aging Q6600.

[Capper]

Stormcrow, we'll build up your system....it'll just take a little time....I think you'll be Core 2 Duo by the end of the year.

[Stormcrow]

No worry Rich, I was just pointing out that Phenom isn't all a raw deal, because the cost of jumping platforms for those on a limited budget and already with a AM2 system. I do like the fact AMD kept the current Phenoms compatible with both AM2 and the new AM2+ sockets, instead of just ditching us like socket 939 users (no offense guys). It may not top the Q6600 already becoming obsolete, but a few spins and a new release and current AM2 users will have a nice upgrade without moving to a new platform. As for purchasing a new system, AMD doesn't stand a chance.

[OcciferFriendly]

It's a case of one step forward, two steps back. Socket 939 and 940 owners got shafted by AMD, and to their credit they've learned a lesson there.

But while doing that, they did so many other things wrong. The clue here was tri-core - that was the signal all was not well in the fabs. What should be an engineering curiosity was regular enough to justify a new product? Yields must be in the toilet, and they can't be when you're bleeding cubic money.

The ATI acquisition only made sense if AMD could a) launch competitive CPUs alongside the new developments ATI provides or b) AMD was strong enough that it could wait out the time period until the ATI purchase produces something, as it very well could.

I said it in another thread on here, AMD's core business IS CPUs, with a strong secondary chipset line (that only makes sense!), not graphics.

If Core 2 didn't do the business on K8 like it did, all this is moot. But Core 2 did, and that changed the game on AMD. Sticking with the business plan is laudable up until the point it becomes a suicide pact.

IMO, buying ATI was about 2 things: Integrated Graphics and eventually on die graphics (multicore w/ integrated GPU). The first part was because Intel does it, the second part is currently and will be for a while a pipe dream.

"Because Intel does it" is not necessarily a bad business plan! They are a powerhouse because they happen to be pretty damned good at what they do! So what is it about Intel that makes it Intel? Comparing to AMD, two things come to mind: manufacturing capacity and R&D. Taken together they allow agility and a constant improvement cycle - the "tick-tock" roadmap.

It is my (albeit relatively uninformed, I grant) opinion that the money borrowed to buy ATI would have been better spent addressing the weaknesses in AMD versus Intel. More fabs are priority #1 - anything you can do to shorten your product launch cycle. It took way too long for Phenom - another excellent point from this thread is that against Core 2 in the beginning Phenom would have been able to have a go. Against Core 2 after G0 steppings were out and 1333 FSB.....and then Penryn coming down the pike.....

The ability of Phenom to run in older sockets is laudable, of course (ask anyone who bought a 925XE) but disatisfaction with Intel is not going to send your company to the top - it is life support at best. If disatisfaction with the leader was the criterion, we'd all be running Linux or OS X while listening to music on our Zunes.

Done ranting for now, YMMV, of course.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by OcciferFriendly

The clue here was tri-core - that was the signal all was not well in the fabs. What should be an engineering curiosity was regular enough to justify a new product? Yields must be in the toilet, and they can't be when you're bleeding cubic money.

They are, the yields on Barcelona and Agena are horrid. Apparently AMD found the bug causing this and preventing the cores from harmonizing above 2.4GHz, but they're still too little too late. Even still, Phenom is a year behind and barely competes with the Q6600, which AMD so loudly touted as not a true quad core. Well, looks like your fancy crossbar switch and L3 cache you paraded so well still can't stand up to two Core 2's glued together through the cache.
Much speculation around AMD buying ATi had to do with Intel's Larrabee, which we still only hear whispers of. Myself, anyway. And on the forums here we believe this to be a really bad idea, and a partnership should have formed instead of a acquisition. Then again maybe the chimp suits in corporate thought that K8 would lord supreme over the land until they blessed us with K10, lulled by the flop of Netburst and not expecting Conroe to wipe the floor with them so hard. Or maybe they had something up their sleeve with Torrenza and Fusion, which has been set back to Bulldozer or even farther thanks to Conroe cleaning house.
I'm starting to sound like an INQ writer so I'll stop there, but I've been ragging on AMD for the last few months and figured I'd give something nice to say to rats still left on the floundering ship.