Joe, Keith - re: Weather channel - I'd have to disagree to some extent. While it isn't "high profile", there are probably more people than you realize who use it. For example, yours truly. And I have both a broadband internet connection and a life, thank you. ;)
I don't check it out on TV, actually I go to weather.com, though for US weather, I probably go to accuweather.com more frequently. The Weather channel is a useful tool for people who travel a lot or who have family spread out around the country - or the world, for that matter.
Paul

UpNDown - fixed Mathematica link
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=4687810&tid=amd&sid=4687...
Paul

mas - Linus vs. Paul - OUCH! My favorite part was:
"Yes, the size of Intel has allowed IPF to go on for much
longer than it otherwise would have. With sufficient
thrust you can make that pig fly, but without wings it
won't _keep_ flying unless you put it into orbit. Which
just doesn't look all that likely." No insult intended, Intel folks, I was just tickled by the image! ;)
Paul

Keith - Other than a psychological impact, I can't see how it should affect shareholders, unless they figure Jerry is playing the part of a "puppetmaster", and I don't see Hector putting up with that.
Paul

re: A64-M, thanks, guys! eom

Looks like some substantial upward pressure in early trading this morning.
Paul

Keith, yb, BUGGI1000 - Could you take a look at the tecchannel.de article here:
http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/1291/index.html
and see if they have anything important/new to say about mobile Athlon64? I'll look, but as weak as my technical German is, I'm afraid I'll misinterpret something.
Thanks,
Paul

UpNDown, if I recall correctly from the "C-level" interview at EEtimes, Fred Weber spoke of propagating x86. Let's see.... here's the page with the interview links:
http://www.eetimes.com/c-level/weber.html
Paul

jhalada, chipguy - I'm of the opinion that, at least regarding Opteron, the rate of acceleration in adoptions of Opteron by OEMs and important end users is a far more important and effective benchmark than SPEC. In the same vein, I use 3DMarkxx as a guideline and a fun basis for competition, but the real world apps are the meat of the matter.

Paul

EP - re: earnings
http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_10329,00.html
Paul

Are the eMachines notebooks the only consumer/business oriented A64 notebooks so far? I'm not counting the "big dog" VoodooPC gaming notebook. I'm looking into one for my wife for general business/travel/school use. How long do y'all figure it'll be before machines hit the market with mobile A64 chips?

wbmw, do you have any recommendations re: Pentium M machines? I don't care to pay extra for the Centrino name, any good wireless system is fine.

Feel free to PM me, I can receive, just can't respond(except during Happy Hour).

Paul

Does anyone know how big the market is for babies like this? Quite the hotrod "keyboard".
http://www.openlabs.com/neko64.php
Thanks to panic mob over at SI
Paul

UpNDown - Why don't you check/add to the folder over here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/amd_intel/links/

Paul

SemiconEng - I thought you were still using chicken entrails?!
;)
Paul

Keith, Joe - That's the same reason Johan stated for the lack of C 'n' Q in the new upgrade article at Ace's now.
Paul

Doug, sgolds, jhalada - You may be right re: Prescott release. I would only be mildly surprised, not greatly. :)

About the demo. It's the same game as that bootable 64-bit CD, but it's just the regular 32-bit version. Let's see, let me dig out the settings from the e-mail I sent Johan...

Paul

PS. Through most of the game demo recording , my system ran at @35-40 FPS with the settings listed below. The game is based on the UnReal engine. Before you judge the intensity of the game based on my IGP results, note that with a little more tweaking than these settings, I've got the top results for nForce2 systems using IGP at Futuremark in both 3DMark2001SE and PCMark04. ;)

Johan,

Well, I finally got around to it. Sorry it took so long, I had to learn how to get some things working right with the new version. I also included a FRAPS log for this demo on my machine(using IGP video), its specs are below. Listed below that are the game settings I used.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me here. BTW, to run the demo, place the file (AAdemo.dem) in the America's Army "System" folder, start the game, enter the console (~), then type in " demoplay AAdemo.dem ". Have fun!
Paul
My machine's specs -
1700+ @ 2141MHz/1.825V / Corsair TWINX512-3200LL 2-2-2-11 2.77V
EP-8RGA+ v1.1 203.9FSB/RAM / IGP/NB vA2 @ 210MHz/1.8V / IBM 60GXP 40GB
SLK-800A/Thermoflo 92/ Volc 2/Thermoflo 60 on NB

Game Settings:
Resolution - 1024 x 768

Textures - All settings at Very High

Decals -
Max Decals - 209
Door Decals - 10
Fade Door Decals - Yes

Advanced -
Shadow Detail - Blob
Trilinear Filtering - Yes
Triple Buffering - No
Use Cube Maps - Yes
Use Compressed Lightmaps - No
No Client Side Effects - No
Disable Dynamic Lighting - No
Detail Textures - Yes
Use Projectors - Yes
Use Deco-layers - Yes
Use Coronas - Yes
Enable Vsync - No

Audio -
3D Audio - Software
Channels - 32

All - FWIW, I just sent a recorded America's Army game demo to Johan at Ace's to use in reviews that we'd tried to get together for the 3400+ release, but couldn't in time. He responded that he'd gotten it OK, just in time for the Prescott review. Can't be long now; I'd be mildly surprised if it were to take place as late as Feb 2, as I've heard mentioned, if he's looking at it being received 17 Jan as "just in time".
Paul

sgolds, Keith - I don't know about "announcements", but with roadmaps I've found that, unless they run into trouble, the center of the "block" is about where it actually comes.
Paul

Semi - Truly an historic moment! ;)
Paul

mas - Let's hope the part about AMD remains true. If they can get 90nm going within a few months of Intel, they'll very likely be fully switched over before Intel, and things will be looking very good.
Paul

More good news. IBM to add 15,000, 4500 in US.
Paul
http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/Business/ap20040118_250.html

sgolds, Doug - Agreed, the important thing is that eMachines is up-and-coming, and they're doing it with AMD.
Paul

sgolds - eMachines is #3 in US. See my earlier post on this.
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2153373
Your link says they "jumped into the top 5". True, but not into position 5, unless it was written a while back.
Paul

wbmw - Looks like they have some presence in Japan through Tsukomo("one of Japan's hottest PC retailers), and some in Europe. Not up to the level of an HP, though. But that can come in time, they seem to have made quite a turnaround since Inouye from Best Buy took over. They're privately held now.
Paul
http://www.emachines.com/corpinfo/

re: trash can
In his younger, scrappier days he got into a fight with a number of guys at once and wound up on the losing end. I can't remember the exact details, but it seems to me he was helping defend a friend.
Paul

yb, wbmw - re: emachines
http://www.eetimes.com/pressreleases/bizwire/117185
About eMachines, Inc.

Recently noted the No. 3 top-selling desktop PC vendor in the United States by industry analysts IDC, eMachines, Inc. is a privately held company dedicated to providing consumers with affordable, high-value personal computers. Incorporating the same high-quality, brand-name components as other major PC brands, eMachines is able to offer premium value to its customers by working closely with its manufacturing and retail partners, and by maintaining one of the lowest operating costs in the PC industry. Since inception, eMachines has shipped more than six million PCs through leading national and international retailers, catalog and online merchandisers. For more information, visit www.emachines.com

Paul

LinuxWorld conference Jan 20-23, Javits Center.
Think any announcements may be made there? I don't see any AMD speakers, but Sun, IBM and Rackspace are participants.
Paul

http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/linuxworldny/V40/index.cvn?id=10299&p_navID=15

Keith - re: eMachines
What's more, they've developed a very good reputation for customer service. If they can keep that up and carry quality, high-performance products that are reliable, it won't be too long before they're giving the other Tier-1s a run for their money. Especially if they can convince the customer that they have breakout products in A64 systems.
Paul

Something to consider for those planning early activity after MLK day, though I guess this post is a little late to help.
Paul
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=19700591

Doug - Yes, but it doesn't mean it doesn't apply here, as well! ;)
Paul

Keith - respect will have to be earned, but it may yet come.
Paul

I believe this is what they meant by "rolling thunder".

Interesting how that SC system is spec'd for memory - only 1GB per CPU. Lots of room for expansion there. Of course, maybe 1GB is all they need per CPU for their purposes, with CPU horsepower being the more important factor.

yb - Very nice! First OC and it already tied the record for SuperPi, too.

Edit: Oops, my bad, the graphic had a glitch and hadn't finished loading yet. Thought that was too good to be true, considering the frequency.

sgolds - congratulations! It's sure nice to see all that green this morning, isn't it? It's taking off quite nicely, hope it keeps up and holds... it's got a ways to go to reach my contest entry price!
Paul

mas - I'd be very likely to believe it; it answers one of my questions voiced here earlier - that is, do they really want to deal with having 2 FX-53s that perform differently, depending on the socket? This seems to show how they'll deal with it.
Paul

BUGGI1000 - agreed, Anand and Ace's do a far better job on that type of review.
Paul

update to tecchannel's Opteron/Xeon workstation test. Break out your favorite translator.
Paul
http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/1235/index.html

Sun CC slides (pdf)
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/investor/earnings_releases/Q204_SLD.pdf
some good mentions of Opteron(and even mobile Athlon XP 1800).
Paul
PS. A little visual psychological factor - Opteron is the top item mentioned on 3 consecutive slides - 19,20 21(of 27).
PPS. Oops, my mistake, top of slide 20 isn't Opteron, it's US; but the other 2 are.

dougSF30, SemiconEng, greg s. - I'd appreciate it if you would please cut it out.
re:
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2141394
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2141749
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2141827
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2142034
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2142081
'nuff said.

Paul

Pravin's impressed by Otellini's comment. It may very well be meaningful to the market; perhaps that threshold we're hoping for will be crossed, with all the wins coming to light now.
Paul

http://www.siliconinvestor.com/stocktalk/msg.gsp?msgid=19694320
"DRBES,

Who knows ? AMD common might be getting ready today for another run.

It should, now that Otellini has stated (yesterday's CC) that competition in the server space "has materialized".

I repeat: Intel President Paul Otellini stated in yesterday's conference call that competition in the server space HAS MATERIALIZED.

Pravin "