Why not have a 2.08ghz 2800+ AthlonXP for $300 and a 1.5ghz 2800+ Athlon-64, also for $300?
I suppose they could do this, but from a marketing perpective it doesn't seem to be such a great idea to overlap. It makes it harder for the advertising guys to hype A64 as the latest and greatest when AMDs own TPI rating shows it performing the same as the old 32bit processor--know what I mean? No "wow" factor there, and AMD is going to need lots of "wow" to make this 64bit strategy work. It seems to me they'd be shooting themselves in the foot releasing a whole bunch of A64s that perform about the same as AXPs.
It seems more likely to me that whatever speed the slowest A64 arrives at will be the cutoff for high performance and anything below (i.e. AthlonXP) will be the Duron/Celeron equivalents. It will make it difficult to differentiate the market like this and demand higher prices for A64 if the chips share the same PR ratings. Conversely, it will make it difficult to unload all those AthlonXPs if they are selling at the same price as the brand new hi tech 64-bit Ueber-chip Athlon64 that you saw in all those tv commercials. People are already holding off on Axp purchases to buy A64s... how do you think its going to be when they actually come out?
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