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Why AMD Is Still In The Race

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the chariots-of-fire-theme-song-cued dept.

Steve Kerrison writes "Despite a woeful inability to provide some of its most loyal customers with stock, and a range of CPUs that, currently, loses out to Intel's Core 2 processors in both price and performance (and who would I be not to mention the diminishing AMD fanboy numbers?), AMD's still got enough tricks up its sleeve to retaliate against Intel in due course. HEXUS.net has an opinion piece on why AMD isn't up the creek. From the article: AMD has been showing off its 65nm wafers for a few months now, which means the Rev G core is on its way. Even if the DDR2 memory controller which arrived with the Rev F only had a small performance benefit, Rev G has a few more improvements than just the die shrink. The latter will enable higher clock speeds and a lower price, plus allow AMD to compete on an equal playing field to Intel, which has been manufacturing 65nm processors since the Pentium XE 955 at the end of 2005."

14 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Sure... by joshetc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    AMD is in the race to stay alive as a company but they are not in the race to have the top CPU of 2006/2007, which is what really matters.

    1. Re:Sure... by scottnews · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It also depends on Intel. Can Intel get the Core2 mature enough for 2006/2007? That is the advantage AMD has now.

      The Athlon 64 is bullet proof in the server market.

    2. Re:Sure... by cb95amc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What really matters is that there is more than one player in the market....The only reason you can buy a Core2 Duo for such a great price is because of the performance of AMD over the past few years.

      I haven't bought an Intel CPU since the Pentium75 back in 1995, have since bought K6-2, K6-3, Duron, AthlonXP and Athlon64, and will continue to buy AMD going forward (providing they don't suddenly become the dominant player) - OK, so I might loose out on a few FPS in some games, but then my GPU is probably the limiting factor in the majority of games I play - and I want to help ensure that competition continues.....

      If I were a large PC seller (Dell, HP etc) I would be thinking the same thing....being able to trade off two companies against each other gets me a better price. If Intel were the only CPU provider you probably wouldn't be able to buy a PC for less than $1500.

    3. Re:Sure... by CentraSpike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm a little confused by your logic. It seems to me that always buying the products of the second largest supplier in a market does not really guarantee competition or at least not the benefits that should come from competition.

      Surely you should be buying the products that give you the best value, no matter which supplier that may be. If we assume for the puposes of discussion (and not claiming any facts) that the current Intel range offers the best value (which may well be independent of market position) then by refusing to switch from AMD to Intel, you are artificially inflating the value of AMD products. This should in effect result in the type of market that would be more akin to a monopoly or cartel, rather than real competition.

      Basically you could be shooting yourself in the foot, and you're definitely acting irrationally from an economics stand point (although maybe not from a marketing point of view).

    4. Re:Sure... by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, successful businesses like Microsoft who spend three years ignoring a government directive to document server interoperability APIs. Oh, those poor, successful companies who did nothing wrong. Other than defying the government.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
    5. Re:Sure... by swillden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Athlon 64 is bullet proof? Core 2 has already trumped AMD's highest end Athlon 64 in benchmarks.

      The GP was talking about reliability, your response addressed performance.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    6. Re:Sure... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful
      If you had ever bothered to read The Constitution of The united States of America, you would, of course, know that the President of America is not elected via populat vote, but but the Electoral College.

      Nothing in my comment implies that I believe that the president is elected via popular vote in this country.

      This has really gotten bad lately, people are constantly responding to things I didn't fucking say and then when I complain about it I tend to get modded down for something. I think it's reasonable for me to be angry with people who don't care enough to read my comment before replying to it.

      As much as I hate Duhbya, I agree with the SCOTUS decision; all they did was basically tell FL: "It's your farking problem; electors are determined by the State constitution, all we care about is who do your electors vote for? Settle this internally, and come back with your answer.

      This is precisely the opposite of what happened. Florida was attempting to perform a recount - the very fucking definition, in this case, of "settle this internally and come back with your answer." The recount was in fact already underway before the SCOTUS said anything about it. Then, while they were attempting to figure out who won, the recount was terminated.

      Yeah, I know, that wasn't what they said or how they said it but that is the jist of it.

      No, no it wasn't. The Jist of it is that the results said Bush won, and a single supreme court justice took unilateral action to halt the recount because they wanted Bush to win. But, you can go on believing any kind of bullshit you like, whether it's true or not. If you had bothered to actually read and watch analyses of what precisely happened down there in Florida, you would know that the recount was stopped for one reason, and one reason alone: they knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that a recount would name Al Gore the president of the US.

      And, mind you, within this process nearly no military absentee ballots were counted... As usual.

      This isn't a democracy; it's not even really a republic. It's a kleptocracy, in which those who are most adept at theft rise to the top, because it's a system that exists only to perpetuate graft.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Chipsets.. by xtal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With their aquisition of ATI, I am much more worried about chipset instability. Anyone else remember the bad old days with the horrible via chipsets and mystery conflicts with nvidia hardware?

    Then the finger pointing starts, and we're stuck in the middle. I'm upgrading for the first time in 3 years, hopefully I can wait all this mess out. It'll be an AMD chip though. If I had to pick, I'd go with whatever platform Nvidia supports in the future. Their commitment to driver quality deserves to be rewarded and won my loyalty - and interestingly enough, I have never purchased another ATI product after their little opengl driver fiasco.

    Why doesn't AMD have a chipset, anyway?

    --
    ..don't panic
  3. One Generation by Mattwolf7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    AMD is only behind this one generation, a company doesn't just throw in the towel after their competitor comes up with a better product... AMD is working right now to come up with their own response. Plus I don't think the stock holders would be happy if AMD came out with a press release "Good Game Intel, you win, we are dissolving the company"

  4. ebb and tide. by Bananatree3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As any race like that between AMD and Intel goes, there is an ebb and tide that goes on between them. It wasn't until just recently that AMD's opteron, X2 and FX lines of chips were top of the class when it came to their prospective markets. However now with Core 2 Duo out, and Core Quadro just coming down the chute, Intel has gained significant ground on AMD. That's the way this industry works, one comes out ahead for a while, and then the competitor surges ahead. I wouldn't be surprised to see AMD back in the lead in a year or two with their new 65nm process and 4-way chip

  5. Long enough, and demand vanishes by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "A woeful inability to provide some of its most loyal customers with stock" can only mean that demand for AMD chips still exceeds supply. Otherwise, they would be happy to deliver.

    Yes but buyers can only wait so long, and if enough buyers are forced to go elsewhere then the demand will vanish too.

    Having something in demand is desirable but in the long term you have to eventually meet demand for a majority of customers or perish.

    I don't think AMD is anywhere near perishing of course, but the supply of these chips seems tight enough that it's not a healthy level of demand at the moment.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  6. Who's a Fanboy? by FreonTrip · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If I were in the mood (and financial position) to dash out and purchase a new system right now, I'd consider both offerings carefully but probably still go with AMD. The difference between the performance offered by a new AM2 and an Intel Core Duo would still not make that big a difference given that I'm upgrading from a midrange Athlon XP. More to the point, a certain amount of consumer loyalty isn't fanboyism. AMD's treated me very well since the original Athlons came out, and I have no intention of turning my back on that - particularly since a growing body of evidence suggests that their platform is more forward-thinking and less prone to regurgitation of the same product with minor tweaks, more cores, and mounds of expensive cache being thrown at an inefficient design just to make it performance-competitive. Time will tell, but Intel hasn't done anything to persuade me yet; after living through the last seven years seeing AMD upstage the Pentium III with the Athlon, the Pentium 4 with the Athlon XP, and the Prescotts with the Athlon64, you'll understand my skepticism if I don't immediately believe that the Core 2 Duo is manifestly superior in every way, and always will be, forever and ever, amen.

  7. Show me the Money by Admin_Jason · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The opinion piece compares the cost of the Athlon proc to the Core 2:

    Let's take Dell for example - one of AMD's big wins of the last year, and the one everyone is saying looks stupid now Intel is back. As a business customer, you can either buy the Dimension E521 for £499 + VAT (with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+), or the E520 for £50 more (with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300). They're both dual-core, and the performance difference is essentially irrelevant to a business customer. But if you're buying 100 of them, you'd save £5,000 by going for the E521. That's a fairly easy decision for a financial director to make.

    It's not always about the power, but rather the sock to the wallet, and when finances factor into decisions, a cheaper previous generation proc for a competitor will always win out over the current generation of the leading vendor. I would tend to agree with this assessment. Business decisions are most often made based on cost, not performance, and in IT, it seems more the case that long term consequences are not the predominant factor considered prior to making final decisions. it's always about the money...

    --
    Just another nameless binary in a crowd of 1's and 0's
  8. Don't Laugh, Intel helped create the shortage by John+Jamieson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indirectly Intel helped create this AMD shortage.

    Here are the causes
    1. By hyping Core 2 so early, it eroded confidence in Netburst, now no one wants a P4. (so the choice is Core 2 or Athlon x2)
    2. Intel cannot produce enough Conroe's. So those who cannot get Core 2 look at Athlons.
    3. AMD had to cut prices in half to match Core 2 (because Intel actually priced Core 2 a little too cheap*) it created more demand than AMD could handle until 65nm and all the Chartered product comes into the channel.
    4. Intel started kissing up to Apple instead of Dell, forcing Dell into the AMD camp.

    Yes, maybe AMD should have turned Dell away, but the real truth is that there is a shortage of everything but the netburst chips! Because Intel made/makes so many P4's the market will be this way for a few more months.

    * if Intel had priced Core 2 duo's 25% higher, it would have helped them clear out the netburst chips. It seems they were more interesed in stopping AMD than they were in making a profit.