Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[mas]

Well not bad for a yarn but how then do P4s continue to be sold quite happily against Celeron ? According to the picture you just tried to paint consumers wouldn't bother with the P4 at all as it's the same Ghz and cheaper and they couldn't tell the difference according to you which shows the 'brand' concept has passed right over you. Processors don't just 'migrate' by osmosis to lower segments over time without external influences, what kind of explanation is that ! How about coming up with one that actually makes sense ? The P4 is an example of a brand that started high, stayed high through to 130nm and will now be eol'd at 65nm due to the brand-destroying effect of the A64. If it wasn't for the A64 Intel would be under no pressure to change it.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?Submit=TOPSELLER&DEPA=0

Look at this Newegg bestseller list, 2500+ Barton followed by the 3.0 P4C at twice the price without a Celeron in sight and the reason ? It's made by Intel, it runs at 3 GHz, it's got HT technology and it's a Pentium brand, this shows the power of branding and marketing. What AMD should be doing in terms of marketing is something like marketing the K8s with the slogan 'fastest memory access on the planet'. It's catchy, easily understood by Joe Bloggs and best of all it actually happens to be true. Instead they are trying to lose 300PR points and hope customers don't notice or mind. K7 Semprons are probably being done to help the margins and yields as K7 asp is falling, customers though may not be so understanding and impressed and may exact due revenge eventually. Hell I hope it works and delivers as everyone expects, I am just not going to be remotely surprised if it doesn't though .

Actually you would be hard-pressed to find a benchmark suite that doesn't show an appreciable advantage. The reason there's a performance advantage is to entice people away from the market leader, all markets work that way, to displace the incumbent you have to be better otherwise customers stay with the known and most popular brand almost out of a feeling of comfort and security.

Check out some of these advantages the 3800+ has over the 3.2C. It's only a 19% clock increase which should give about 13% performance advantage but there are much much higher ones there.

http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=65000314

AMD also rate the 3400+ 4% higher than a 3.4 P4, that's why it's called a 3400+ and not a 3400, duh.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_9487^9500,00.html