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End Of the Road for Duron
yorgasor writes: "AMD announced that their Duron processor will no longer be produced near the end of this year. They plan on focusing all of their CPU production energy on Athlons and Hammers. The Register has more about it."
AMD did not officially announce that Duron is no more, they merely stated in their earnings conference call that by the end of the year they expect to be producing nothing but Hammer & Athlon.
The Hammer will be the performance processor while the Athlon will be the value processor. They were also quick to point out that by that point it will actually be cheaper for them to make Athlons than it is for them to make the current Duron and that those Athlons will be available for equivilent to Duron prices now without the Duron limitations (in other words, full L2 cache, etc.)
With that said...like all conference calls of this nature, it was forward looking and merely states their plans, not necessarily fact.
It really depends on how you obtain your computer.
If you buy a pre-built one from Compaq, HP, Dell, Gateway, etc., then you have to accept the limitations they build into their computers. They want you to keep coming back for certain upgrades, but they really want you to come back for a whole new computer.
If you build your own computer, you can choose a motherboard that guarantees a way up. I generally view the motherboard as the most important component to spend money on, and, then, I skimp on the other stuff, such as expensive CPUs, knowing I can upgrade cheaply later on. With the right motherboard, you will have many years of cost-effective upgrades and not be bound to Dell's or Gateway's business schedule.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
Ok, I'm being trolled. So be it.
The companies that specialise in memory tend to specialise in DRAM. Cache is SRAM. The difference is that DRAM is a bunch of capacitors, while SRAM is closer to transistors. Knowledge in fabbing one does not necessarily mean knowledge in fabbing the other.