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AMD Admits To Slowing Sales

An anonymous reader writes "Forbes is reporting that AMD has fessed up to investors about slowing chip sales. The price war that Intel has initiated seems to be taking its toll on the manufacturer." From the article: "The current drivers of business in the computer chip industry seem to revolve around Intel and AMD price war, uncertainty about how a slowing economy will impact consumer spending plans, and imminent product introductions from Intel that may be causing some consumers to hold off on purchases. Investors should get a better picture in the next few weeks--AMD will issue its full second-quarter report on July 20, a day after Intel is scheduled to report its results."

8 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Of course AMD Sales are Down... by sweetnjguy29 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I am currently in the market for a new computer. I was going to buy a new computer back in January, but I waited for a price drop for the AMD X2 chip that I wanted. Then I learned that there was going to be a completely new socket AM2 coming out that will use DDR2 RAM. So I held off a little longer. Its six months later, and now I hear that there is another AMD chipset coming out in January with 4 cores, and a new Intel chip coming out in a month that trounces anything AMD has.

    Plus, there are no reliable reviews of the new motherboards yet...and the reviews of both the new AMD and Intel chips are all preliminary...so, why should I commit right now? In fact, most major websites and magazines are saying to hold off buying!

  2. Re:It worries me when companies get away with this by LordLucless · · Score: 4, Informative

    Price-fixing is when multiple companies collaborate to set the price for their products or services. This makes them, together, essentially a monopoly. Since monopolies are not subject to market forces, this tends to be a bad thing. Thus price-fixing is illegal.

    Price-fixing does not mean lowering the prices of your products to squeeze your competitors out of the market. That is normal behaviour, even encouraged behaviour. If both parties engage in a price war, the end result is that both end up selling their products at the lowest possible price for the company to remain viable (unless they make a miscalculation and go belly-up). What Intel is doing is responding to normal market forces, and it's the best thing for them to do, both for themselves and the consumer.

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  3. Re:Intel is doing something right. by evilviper · · Score: 2, Informative
    It's not such a terrible comparison.

    Yes it is... That's why I said so, repeatedly.

    The T2400 is not a 64-bit chip, so comparing it with an AMD 64-bit chip is useless.

    AMD64 chips run 32-bit code just fine. The point is that T2400 is a new chip, and the only new chips AMD makes happen to be 64-bit. So you're disadvantaging AMD in your comparison, just because Intel is dragging it's feet on 64-bit support.

    And since I'm not made of money, I can only compare what I've got.

    You can compare all you want, but you can't draw any useful conclusions with such varied systems. I could compare my Intel 386/33MHz laptop with a modern 2GHz AMD Turion notebook, but what could that possibly tell me?

    Also, since neither chipmaker has had any real innovation for a while, the only thing they can do is put more CPU's on one die.

    That is absolutely moronic. There have been significant changes to both companies' products in that time.

    If you don't agree, that's fine, but it's a fair comparison to me.

    You can say so, but you can't rationally justify such a stance.
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  4. Re:Intel is doing something right. by justsomebody · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not such a terrible comparison. The T2400 is not a 64-bit chip, so comparing it with an AMD 64-bit chip is useless. I'm comparing mobile to mobile.

    Actually you're not. You're comparing mobile to very old mobile. There was a lot more difference than just 64-bit between XP-M and Turion. Turion runs cooler, it is faster and uses much less power.

    This claim of yours is the same as for example: Aero industry puts out a four winged plane. And since all planes have two wings the only sensible solution would be to put them against four winged from 40's.

    Also, since neither chipmaker has had any real innovation for a while, the only thing they can do is put more CPU's on one die.

    XP-M and Turion IS quite a difference.

    So I figured a Mobile AMD XP compared to a T2400 meant for a laptop was a fair comparison.

    You figured wrong. You would have to compare it against AMD Turion AM2 X2
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Athlon_64 _microprocessors
    32-bit case is the lowest denominator in your function, while you forgot all the others

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  5. Re:dying industry - not by rcamans · · Score: 2, Informative

    A 10 w cpu is not a hardly noticable improvement over a 95 wat proc in a laptop.
    It translates into much longer battery life with a smaller battery, ie, a lighter laptop.
    A lighter laptop is much easier to carry around, and even small improvements in laptop weight are very noticable. Yes, most cpus run at a lower wattage, when they are clock throttling. But if their continuous full clock power were 10 W...
    Especially if the laptop turns into a pda / cell phone / blackberry.
    There is tons of room for improvement in these directions, not to mention all the other directions available but not yet made, like complete voice control, the ability to talk to the computer and let it do the writing (dictation),...
    Get real. Anyone who says the cpu industry is about to implode is an idiot. Just like the one who said 640k is all anyone will ever need (Bill Gates?) or the one who said everything has been invented, let's shut down the patent office (in ~1900)

    the cpu implode statement is just a troll, and a fairly stupid one, at that. From a clueless idiot.

    Yes, I am a computer designer - engineer, and I work at Dell.

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  6. Some numbers by overshoot · · Score: 4, Informative
    • PC sales are down 14% in the quarter
    • Intel cut prices 30%
    • AMD revenue projections are down 7%
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  7. Re:My problem with AMD by cr0n · · Score: 1, Informative

    Please stop quoting this guy[1]. It's very old speculation from and NDA's are soon up.

    1 - http://sharikou.blogspot.com/2006/04/conroe-perfor mance-claim-being-busted.html

  8. Re:Moore? by Xocet_00 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Moore's law predicts transistor density, not clock speed. The law is pretty much holding up, for now.