Intel Corp (INTC)

[mas]

From Q406 onwards on the client front it's not looking good for the Green side at all. The clock is ticking until full conversion to Core 2 and if by then there is no substantial clock improvement from 65nm (3.4+ GHz) or no K8L it's going to be back to lower asps and reduced market share again with very possible red quarters. You could conceive of situations where AMD's top-end bins end up scrapping with Intel's low-end bins for market share. Prices and skus could almost change from month to month under this kind of assault.

Once again I was most impressed with the low-res game scores from that review, they were just in another league from K8/P4 and bode well going forward at higher resolutions with next year's graphics cards. AMD need K8L yesterday as 65nm K8 is only going to delay the inevitable changing of the guard. The dual-core K8L will also need at least 3MB L3 to start countering effectively.

Obviously AMD's server business will help cushion the blows as there are different considerations and less sensitivity to benchmark differences in that sphere. Having Dell will also help AMD cushion the blow as no doubt Dell will get a good price and sell more than a few cheap AMD boxes. It's ironic if Dell, long the most despised of OEMs from AMD fans point of view, ends up being their savior .

Hats off to Intel for raising the bar so high and the majority of the market that they serve will benefit greatly from the much greater compute power allied with the much lower power consumption compared to the previous P4 generation. Over to the Green side now to see if they can sufficiently respond well enough to stay in the game long-term .