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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."
For the cash strapped, making a linux server on lower end hardware is the way to go (my server is on a P1-120MHz box). Why must they push the envelope so hard?
The lowest end CPU you can find now-a-days is like 800Mhz, unless you go to auctions...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
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.
When processors cost $300 and up on average, having a budget processor line was important. Now that a lower-end Athlon processor (the Socket A 950) is all the way down around $70, it's more worth while for AMD to just produce Athlon series chips in the 32-bit world. Heck, the top-of-the-line processors are generally right around the $300 that used to be an average selling price!
Fewer chip lines=more efficient production=lower costs=lower prices on balance.
Intel's pretty much done the same thing, except they've all but killed the P3 in favor of the Celeron at the low end.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
On the other hand, AMD's pricing hardly justifies a value processor, since compared to Intel processors they are already pretty cheap.
If they widen the XP line just a little bit by extending the slower models lifetime a little, they can fill the gap the Duron leaves behind with the XP itself.
Also: when the Hammers arrive, the XP will fade away and presumably act as a value processor for a while. A Duron as an even cheaper CPU wouldn't make sense in such a scenario.
Another reason I can think of, is that it doesn't make so much sense to make a CPU with a 100 MHz FSB. With today's materials this will probably not be cheaper to procuce than 133 MHz parts. So you're actually producing less than you can for the same cost, just to create a difference between models. Essentially the smaller L2 cache is the probably the only difference in cost of production between the Duron and the XP.
why??
I bought my Dual system a while ago with a pair of P-III 800's in it.. and I just got a pair of P-III 1.2ghz's , the limit of the motherboard, for it. no problems, and 2 gig of SDRAM from my 1Gig was trivial. Geforce3 is still happily plugging away and the U160 SCSI bus still has room for another 10 drives. no problems at all upgrading over a year later..
You gotta spend the money up front to be able to keep the upgrade path open.. a el-cheapo mobo will lock you down.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
First I decided to get a VLB mother board. Just after the purchase PCI won the market. Then I chose to buy an Aureal sound card. And just after that, the Aureal died. Then I got a Voodoo3 video card and that also died a horrible death. And now... just after purchasing an AMD Duron and a new motherboard, they claim that there will be Duron no more. Damned... Either I'm a bad decision maker or then I'm an angel of death. Too bad there is no place to bet for the loser because I'm going to buy a new monitor...
If you are the angel of death, you may as well put it to some good use! :)
Nathan