I would put that comparison more in line with VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray.....Those standards evolved over many years, not a matter of months.
Its not like the manufacturers didn't know this was coming.....That was one of the problems with Blu-Ray, it was rushed to market to compete with HD-DVD (and for the PS3) and they hadn't finalized the standards...
Don't forget we still have BD Live compatible players to come (Profile 2.0), which will mandate an Ethernet connection and more local storage (1GB) for downloadable content.
I agree - although whether Intel offers better value for money yet with Core2 is not always easy to determine (motherboard support, chipset choice etc). Certainly Intel has the fastest and best architecture at the moment....but I still think the value for money argument depends on what market segment you are looking at.
Either way, I think it's a close enough battle at the moment to help continue to drive innovation and development, which is the important thing.
Ah - the KT133....now you are bringing back memories.
I invested in a KT7-Raid, although I think I was one of the luckier ones....OK, while the USB support was incredibly flakey, I started with a Duron 650 (overclocked with stock cooler to 950Mhz), by the end of it's life (over 4 years later) I was running an Athlon XP 2400 - not many motherboards were able to do that.
Still have my KT7 in the attic....it still works, although I think some of the capacitors might be on their way out.
Not at all - The Core2 is a fantastic CPU, and is the best CPU you can buy at the moment.....However, just pointing out that AMD is one of the reasons we have Core2....
You make an interesting point - I agree that if I refuse to switch to Intel when it offers better value I risk inflating the value of AMD. However, the worst case scenario is that everyone switches to Intel and AMD eventually dies, at which point the market does become a monopoly, and value disappears.
Perhaps when AMD are a little bit more established (i.e. lets see what their response to Core2 is) then I will feel more comfortable buying Intel....equally, if AMD's product was so uncompetitive vs Intel then I probably wouldn't buy it anyway.
The CPU market is probably unusual compared to other product categories that I buy, because there are only really 2 players (for the home pc market).....When I buy a HDTV screen in the near future I will buy whatever product is deemed the best on a price/performance basis - there are so many CE brands that I am not worried if a few of them don't survive - there will still be enough left to ensure healthy competition.
I take your point about economics vs marketing - Guess I've been working in marketing for too long:-) (never really did like Economics at Uni anyway)
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.
While the European market is generally larger in terms of units sales for most consumer electronic devices, it is also a much more difficult market to service from a manufacturers perspective.
The US has the benefit of being a single market/country and has a fairly small number of retailers you have to supply in order to reach the majority of the population. In Europe you have to deal with different retailers for every single european country, which multiplies the distribution complexity (and the cost). Add to that the multiple languages and issues like power/plug differences in certain countries, and you can see why we in Europe always end up being put at the back of the queue.
Slashdot Mirror
I would put that comparison more in line with VHS to DVD to Blu-Ray.....Those standards evolved over many years, not a matter of months.
Its not like the manufacturers didn't know this was coming.....That was one of the problems with Blu-Ray, it was rushed to market to compete with HD-DVD (and for the PS3) and they hadn't finalized the standards...
Don't forget we still have BD Live compatible players to come (Profile 2.0), which will mandate an Ethernet connection and more local storage (1GB) for downloadable content.
I think Britney Spears is doing a better job of ensuring "the end of the Britney Spears" than anyone else could manage...
Ctrl+Alt+4 gets me a Euro symbol on my keyboard....
ROTFLMAO
I agree - although whether Intel offers better value for money yet with Core2 is not always easy to determine (motherboard support, chipset choice etc). Certainly Intel has the fastest and best architecture at the moment....but I still think the value for money argument depends on what market segment you are looking at.
Either way, I think it's a close enough battle at the moment to help continue to drive innovation and development, which is the important thing.
Ooops....Guess my "O" key must be sticking :-)
Ah - the KT133....now you are bringing back memories.
I invested in a KT7-Raid, although I think I was one of the luckier ones....OK, while the USB support was incredibly flakey, I started with a Duron 650 (overclocked with stock cooler to 950Mhz), by the end of it's life (over 4 years later) I was running an Athlon XP 2400 - not many motherboards were able to do that.
Still have my KT7 in the attic....it still works, although I think some of the capacitors might be on their way out.
Not at all - The Core2 is a fantastic CPU, and is the best CPU you can buy at the moment.....However, just pointing out that AMD is one of the reasons we have Core2....
You make an interesting point - I agree that if I refuse to switch to Intel when it offers better value I risk inflating the value of AMD. However, the worst case scenario is that everyone switches to Intel and AMD eventually dies, at which point the market does become a monopoly, and value disappears.
:-) (never really did like Economics at Uni anyway)
Perhaps when AMD are a little bit more established (i.e. lets see what their response to Core2 is) then I will feel more comfortable buying Intel....equally, if AMD's product was so uncompetitive vs Intel then I probably wouldn't buy it anyway.
The CPU market is probably unusual compared to other product categories that I buy, because there are only really 2 players (for the home pc market).....When I buy a HDTV screen in the near future I will buy whatever product is deemed the best on a price/performance basis - there are so many CE brands that I am not worried if a few of them don't survive - there will still be enough left to ensure healthy competition.
I take your point about economics vs marketing - Guess I've been working in marketing for too long
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.
Didn't anyone learn anything from the first dot com collapse.......Valuing MySpace at tens of billions of dollars sounds a little bit premature.
While the European market is generally larger in terms of units sales for most consumer electronic devices, it is also a much more difficult market to service from a manufacturers perspective.
The US has the benefit of being a single market/country and has a fairly small number of retailers you have to supply in order to reach the majority of the population.
In Europe you have to deal with different retailers for every single european country, which multiplies the distribution complexity (and the cost). Add to that the multiple languages and issues like power/plug differences in certain countries, and you can see why we in Europe always end up being put at the back of the queue.