Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[wbmw]

Re: All this 45nm prowess you talk about, yet Intel can't make a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD decoder without using a third party:

Are you not aware that HD DVD and Blue Ray requires a Digital Rights Media (DRM) compatible chip to decode the stream? Boy, you are really scraping the bottom of the FUD barrel if you can't come up with better gripes than this. Be glad that Intel doesn't infect their CPUs with DRM.

Re: So the Xbit labs article compares shipping and available A64s against not yet available Penryns (Wolfdale).

Actually, Pete, the review compared AMD's fastest dual core processor available (and fastest for the foreseeable future), and it fails to live up not only to the slowest of the upcoming Wolfdale CPUs (which will render it incapable of competing even in the $150 price point), but also to the E6750 Conroe based design, also used as a basis for comparison.

Re: 16 45nm CPUs announced, no higher speed ones yet available. Real good process, eh?

Actually, Pete, the E8500 is a 3.16GHz chip, which is indeed faster than the fastest Conroe based dual core that Intel has shipped. You must not have noticed that this design also dissipated only 33.4W of power under load, compared to 114.6W of power for the 6000+. AMD's chip isn't only embarrassingly slow - it's also embarrassingly HOT!

Yet, I can see why you might empathize with AMD. Xbitlabs is forced to use a 90nm design, compared against a 45nm design from Intel, because AMD doesn't have a 65nm dual core chip that comes remotely close to what AMD could build on 90nm. Their embarrassingly slow 65nm process can only produce chips that are clocked 500MHz SLOWER!

So AMD's slow 65nm processors aren't even in the same league. They compete with Intel's low cost Allendale processors right now, where they are still outclassed. And AMD's faster 90nm space heaters aren't worth more than keychain dongles these days - completely outclassed by Intel's Penryn. Too bad you don't like it, because you're going to have to get used to it, Pete. AMD won't have much better until 2010 when they finally have a chance to compete with Intel's 2007 parts with their Bulldozer core.