Replies to post #45036 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[chipguy]

This is perhaps the most stupid thing I have read in a very long time.

So you never proof read any of your posts before clicking
submit?

[kpf]

Yuri

Isn't Willamette and Northwood Celeron convincing evidence for Tenchu's claim?

K.

[Tenchu]

Yuri, This is perhaps the most stupid thing I have read in a very long time.

Think the average consumer cares about differences in performance of about 10%? Maybe even 20%? What will that bring to him or her? Faster-loading web pages? Quicker application load times? A more secure, virus-proof system? Fewer programs crashing? A smarter Microsoft "Clippy"?

Processor performance might have an impact when he or she decides between two closely comparable systems, but that's about it, and the impact on the bottom line isn't as large as you might think. The world is not beating a path to Athlon 64 (with the notable exception of Opteron). The proof is the lackluster ASP and profit margins of the supposedly "capacity-limited" AMD.

And even if you do pretend that performance matters all that much, it'll only be a matter of time before Intel either comes out with something better, or just follows along with a Microsoft-like "me too" strategy. What's AMD going to do then, find the next magic bullet?

The bottom line is that AMD does not have much leverage in the marketplace. No need to pretend that x86-64 proves otherwise, because in this case AMD simply swam with the flow while Intel didn't until recently.

Tenchu