Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[blauboad]

KeithDust, it sounds like rationalization. If you can add 64 bitness for next to nothing, why not. Applications not apparent today will develop for the chip. If nothing else, you can say why buy a Celeron/P4 when you can get an Athlon and get 64 bits for free.

I used to be on your side on this, but I've been convinced that it is a bad idea. AMD cannot meet demand for all segments. They don't want to steal $100 Celeron sales, they want to steal 1000$ Pentium 4EE sales. A64 is a compelling product that people are willing to pay more for. AMD should let them. Well, I guess make them is more to the point.

You can see what's happening now with the Athlon XP competing with Celeron instead of P4. The clock to PR pricing is identical, even though the XP is clearly superior. Now, if there were a value line like Duron, Athlon XP prices might have held up much better against P4.

The other reason I've changed my outlook on this is because I am more and more convinced that Yamhill will be AMD64 compatible if/when it comes. Saturating the market with AMD64 only makes sense if AMD is trying to dig in against an upcoming Intel-x86-64 chip.