Replies to post #40366 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[upc]

I have answered this question multiple times. Athlon XPs, as they were released, were benched and rated and marketed against the P4's "GHz" rating. But what happens over time? New Athlon XPs are released, at higher speed grades. The older Athlon XPs find themselves in a segment where Intel is marketing Celerons. Celerons are also marketed by GHz, even though this is a different rating system, and low end consumers cannot tell the difference. AMD, being without 2 brands, hestitates to remark the parts, because their one rating system would then be internally wildly inconsistent, and they would cannabalize mid-high XP sales, as consumers confuse the ratings. How much more clear can I make this? Low end consumers read 2 things off the tag: the price, and the rating. Simply with the passage of time, Athlon XP processors migrated into the Celeron segment, and once there, their unadjusted rating killed their prices. Do I need to sketch an example?

This all happened because Intel is using two rating systems that sound the same to the mass consumer. GHz and GHz. One is P4. The other P4 Celeron.

Please cite a benchmark roundup comparing a 3400+ to a 3.4 GHz Prescott (let's forget about EE and FX, okay?), which exhibits, on average, a 5-10% advantage for the 3400+. I don't think you can find such a thing, for it would be remarkable, and imply AMD could have rated the 3400+ as the 3600+ or 3700+.

upc

[jhalada]

mas,

I really could not disagree more. Why has no-one answered my question posed many times, the Athlon XP has been benched and marketed against the P4 since its birth as its predecessor was against P3 and P4. Why the hell is it now competing with Celerons on price ? What went wrong ?

AthlonXP has been marketed against P4 at approximately 50% discount. <g>

As far as what went wrong, it is hard to sell equivalent performance at equivalent price (therefore the current success of A64 is notable). Selling less (AMD) performance for equivalent price is so much harder.

Athlon XP compared very well with Pentium 4 with single DDR channel (845), and the ratings did not exactly keep up with 800 MHz dual channel P4.

The limited access that AMD has to premium market is now take up completely by Athlon 64. So Athlon XP is somewhat destined to compete with lower end P4s and Celeron. It would not be disaster if the prices were the same, and AMD could sell out its production...

Joe