wbmw,
Volume is important, or else you lose money on your designs.
It is not a "design", not any more than San Diego, Venice and Toledo are different designs. It is just an arrangement of components on the die. Rev E was a design, various configuration of components are less than a full fledged "design".
Once a new design, say Rev F, acquires 4 ports for cores on SRQ, Quad core design will be just one of the implementations, just like Sempron.
If you argument is correct Itanium is currently losing a bundle, since its volume will be on the same order of magnitude as a potential QC would have, and there is no further reuse of Itanium design.
That's sort of what's happening now. AMD has those fabulous X2 processors that make Smithfield look like a "donkey", but Intel is the one who will make money on their dual core, while AMD has sunk R&D costs that won't be recovered until the product ramps next year.
You are right about Intel making a lot more money in general, AMD is making very little comparativel on the CPUs, but you are wrong about where the money is made. X2 is AMD's most profitable product after Opteron, and Intel makes most money on Dothan and Potomac.
Even at AMD's sky high ASPs for these parts, they somehow found a way to possibly lose money this quarter.
Are you talking about dual core, AMD CPG or AMD + Spansion?
I can't imagine how things will look if AMD tries this approach and Intel is competitive or - gasp! - higher performing at lower power.
The reason why AMD is not selling out its production, and people instead buy higher priced, CPUs from Intel, that are clearly inferior in desktop and server segment, that is a subject for another discussion.
re: At that point, the market for systems with >2 and >4 sockets is going to shrink rapidly.
I don't see this happening. I see the 4-socket market getting used to running with 16 threads, and still carrying a premium over 8-threaded products.
I am sure Intel, AMD and all of the server OEMs wish for what I am saying not to be true, but unfortunately, it will be true, IMO. While it is true that there will be some inertia, and some will continue to buy what they used to for some time, eventualy reason will prevail, and people will not overspend on performance they don't need.
A quad core answer to AMD doesn't need to be elegant; although, Intel's Whitefield core is due in 2007 and sounds like it's native quad core.
I thought that was 32 bit only. Gee, if a real quad Opteron would be lame in 2006 in your opinion, I hesitate to ask what it would make a 32 bit only QC CPU in 2007.
And I doubt even another MCM will give the impression that Intel is behind, except for those people who perpetually think Intel is behind, no matter what products they are offering....
Impression in eyes of people with a clue or those without a clue? It makes a big difference, because in eyes of those without a clue, Intel is now ahead with their donkey.
Those with a clue know that Intel is behind, and will only partially catch up near the end of 2005, fully in 2H 2006 (assuming AMD stands still).
Joe
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
