X2 6400+, a rant

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by JazzyJake

i think it's interesting that intel was hanging on by releasing higher clock speeds before when they couldn't hang with athlon....look what AMD is doing now........
history repeats itself....or at least i hope it does.

You have to remember though, Intel has the majority of the processor market in its pocket. Even though the Athlon 64 was stomping on the P4, Intel was selling P4's by the bucketload, namely to the large OEM companies like Dell, HP, and Gateway which got a kickback for using Intel exclusively. It's only been recently that OEMs have started using AMD, but its still slim and few between.

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

Next generation will consist of comparing Barcelona and Nehalem. That's the way the market, and timing, has shaken out.

Thats exactly the problem. If they can only manage to overcome Conroe, they still Penryn coming out shortly, AND Nehalem following suit. Unless Barcelona can put up a decent fight against both of the new cores, AMD's in for a double sucker punch. AMD is also fighting a war on two fronts now, with Nvidia still in the lead over R600 and with the G90 due out towards the end of the year. And history tells us what happens when you open a war on two fronts.

However, there is some glimmer of hope in all this. Necessity being the mother of invention, that is. Just look back at ATi and Nvidia. The FX series took the cake on fault by design, and couldn't top the 9800 to save its life. However this forced Nvidia back to the drawing board and coming out with the 6 series which stomped all over the competition. Then again, thats with two comparable companies. Intel still has around 80% of the market and is immensely larger then AMD. If we don't see something soon, I doubt AMD will go under, but they may lose their place as Intel's direct competition which will be very bad for us.

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Thats exactly the problem. If they can only manage to overcome Conroe, they still Penryn coming out shortly, AND Nehalem following suit.

Preaching the choir, broham; I've had concerns for AMD ever since the Core 2 architecture lived up to the hype (a trait not shared with the Prescott). I mislinked the 'AMD on the Rise' link above (it's now fixed), but that last paragraph basically sums up my opinion, still today a good three months after I wrote it.

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

However, there is some glimmer of hope in all this. Necessity being the mother of invention, that is. Just look back at ATi and Nvidia. The FX series took the cake on fault by design, and couldn't top the 9800 to save its life. However this forced Nvidia back to the drawing board and coming out with the 6 series which stomped all over the competition. Then again, thats with two comparable companies. Intel still has around 80% of the market and is immensely larger then AMD. If we don't see something soon, I doubt AMD will go under, but they may lose their place as Intel's direct competition which will be very bad for us.

This is perhaps the most interesting angle to all of this. We all knew it was a gamble to absorb ATI, but thus far, they're losing the bet. Everyone waited for the 8800 GTX killer, and instead got an overpriced mid-range offering with an apparent shift in focus towards the mainstream and budget market. Busting out my pocket Market-Speak-to-Street-Speak translator, that means they've having trouble behind close doors, whether it's with yields, disappointing performance at the high end, cost restraints, or a combination of all the above, and more.

It's a dangerous time for AMD right now, and because we're so used to the leapfrog effect prevalent in the tech industry, everyone assumes that AMD will automatically bounce back. But those of us that predate the iPod generation can recall other big names taking equally big falls, such as Atari, Commodore, AdLib, or more recently, 3DFX.

If anyone out there knows how to build and market a processor, now's a good time to jump in the fray.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

If anyone out there knows how to build and market a processor, now's a good time to jump in the fray.

The strange part is, I've been hearing about nVidia planning to release a CPU in 2008 since last year as the first step to their own fusion. Knowing how credible internet sources are that probably means nothing but still...Intel and nVidia duking it out with Larrabee and clustered GPUs while AMD goes the route of VIA. Now thats a scary thought.

[JazzyJake]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

You have to remember though, Intel has the majority of the processor market in its pocket. Even though the Athlon 64 was stomping on the P4, Intel was selling P4's by the bucketload, namely to the large OEM companies like Dell, HP, and Gateway which got a kickback for using Intel exclusively. It's only been recently that OEMs have started using AMD, but its still slim and few between.

don't worry, i know this lol.
i mean in all out performance for the (gamer) consumer