interesting comment on amd from the Inquirer...AMD RIP I wonder?

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/11/29/amd-messed-christmas

regards

Thing

 

Good who need Christmas? ;-0

Media likes to do what it has to to sell copies. So it becomes fashionable
to "beat up" the flavour of the month.

AMD was crap cf. Intel. It then got its act together and threw the guanlent
down to Intel. Trouble is then having beating Intel it thinks that it has
won. Sorry the race goes on.

Even if you are leading, one needs to keep the eye on the ball and keep
moving forward.

Look Apple has gone all over the playing field and still has not gone
rotten.

I heard to-day that Intel and AMD are going to merge. See I am not sure if
it was a rumour or not.

Meanwhile, CPUs have become so powerful for Jane Doe's use that she and John
care not how much power it has.

Time will be the judge.

 

Can anyone say anti-trust? Where did you hear that?

Yeah, my AMD X2 6000 is plenty fast. Yes, a Core 2 Duo would be faster, but
it's still plenty fast... and I do reasonably high end stuff.

 

scroll down:

With all of the crap floating around about a company 1/10th the size
of Intel, it seems like everyone liked the 90s and the way Intel put
choke chains on all of the OEMs - and customers.

I don't think AMD had overly high prices. Their single core chips were
low-priced and the dual cores were costly, but they were 80% faster
than the single cores.

At the same time Intel was sabotaging AMD launches, threatening to
pull chipsets or charge the other arm and leg for them if OEMs sold
more than three AMD chips.

I think this will be a good XMas for AMD as they had record revenue
last quarter and are on the verge of $2B per quarter.

We should all be down on our knees thanking AMD for fighting the good
fight - with a "convicted" monopolist no less.

 

Something I don't understand: In an online forum where, like in this
group, people were gleefully dancing on AMD's grave, someone asked
"What did AMD do to you? Did AMD murder your entire family?" Why are
people seemingly so delighted at AMD's 'imminent demise'? Are you all
large shareholders in Intel?

 

I am thankful. I bought an AMD 486 or 586 IIRC. I haven't purchased
anything by them since, but I would if it was an appropriate choice.

 

Oh, please! I'm as perplexed as you by the anti-AMD bandwagon around here.
But while the company is a long ways from broke, your giddy portrayal of
their health right now is based on wishful thinking. I scoured AMD's site
for a report on their "record revenue" in the last quarter -- perhaps you
could post a link. Whatever the revenue figures may be, losses are clearly
piling up: US$396 million in 3Q 2007, US$457 million in 2Q 2007 (I guess you
can call that progress).

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071018/20071018006156.html?.v=1

No matter how you spin things, it's been a **very bad** year for AMD. It's
credit rating is down to B-, it's share price is hovering around US$10 (down
from US$20 at the start of the year and a high of US$40 in 2006).

http://www.investorguide.com/stock-archives.cgi?date=083107

Blaming this predicament on Intel's hardball business practices just won't
cut it. AMD, you'll recall, made it's first big splash in the cpu market by
reverse engineering Intel's designs -- clever, but cut-throat in its own
way. I waste no tears for either of these players -- they've been more than
amply compensated for their respectives troubles.

 

It would appear I'm not the only one who thinks AMD has dropped the ball,
and it would appear that ATI is suffering under their stewardship, with huge
cash bleeds, serious issues with production yields on new chipsets, along
with numerous staff departures.

The last system I built a few years back was based on AMD and ATI, at a time
when they hit a sweet spot during Intels realisation that the increasingly
dizzying TDP's on the P4 line required a change of direction - ironically
the TDP crown would now appear to be held by AMD. I don't currently
consider them to be a credible or realistic option for anything other than a
cheap, entry level setup - hence my new system build is based on Core 2 Duo
and nVidia.

 

If you look at the TomsHardware cpu charts, you'll find that AMD competes
very, very well with Intel in terms of dual cores. For the money, I'd take
AMD any day -- the 6000-and-up X2 range will just about match the
performance of Intel's first-generation quad cores. Where Intel has left AMD
behind is with its second-generation quad cores, and that's a gap that will
be hard for AMD to close in the near future.

 

It realistically takes a 6400+ to equate an E6750, while costing more,
having a TDP almost double the C2D, and doesn't even come with a cooler as
standard.

Then there's the question of how viable are they to overclock on stock
cooling, particularly with the heat it generates. Core 2 Duo's are well
regarded in this area.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

 

Ok, let's look at what "equate" actually equates to. I'll use the X2 6000+
as AMD's option here instead of the X2 6400+, and compare that with the
E6750:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=921&model2=876&chart=435

The test I'm looking at is Photoshop CS 3 filtering a 69MB tif image. There
are other tests to choose from, some more flattering to intel, others more
flattering to amd. But in this case the E6750 completes the job in 112
seconds while the 6000+ does it in 126 seconds. A significant difference,
but just 14 seconds -- the 6000 + is about 11% slower.

Pricewise, I'm looking at Paradigm's site (not a promotion and I won't post
the link for that reason, just an example of relativities):

E6750 = $309
6000+ = $269

The 6000+ is about 13% cheaper.

So **if** you think you'll actually be able to feel that 11& performance
improvement with the E6750, you'll pay about 13% more for the privilege.

if that's your thing, then yes -- the Core 2 duos are good. But since these
are all being rapidly eclipsed now by intel's new quad cores, bragging
rights are going to be harder for overclockers to come by in the near
future.

 

I'm using these figures as a base
(http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html) and C1 for prices.

Starting with an equivalent comparison;
6400+ - $298.75 (plus in the vicinity of $100 for a sufficiently capable
cooling solution, putting it right into Q6600 price territory)
E6750 - $287.95

It's clear that AMD isn't even in the race with the 6400+.

Perhaps for the 6000+ an E6550 is more likely to be a closer comparison, and
at $257.25 is about the same price as a 6000+, and is a 65W piece instead of
125W so it runs cooler and has more overclocking potential. With the small
price differential, I would recommend anyone considering a 6000+ or E6550 to
step up to a E6750.

Once again, this just further supports why I consider the AMD chips a
non-starter, except on cheap, entry-level systems. Maybe that's why chips
like the X2 4000+ still tick over at a reasonable rate, but those looking
for more, currently tend to go C2D unless they're the ignoring the realities
AMD fanboy types.

 

Synethetic benchhmarks that meaure raw speed are useless. P4s used to always
beat Athlons in those silly competiotions, even when real-world results were
vastly different. Look at The TomsHardware tests I referenced, and then tell
me there's a clear-cut, hands-down winner. Either get yourself a second-gen
Intel quad core or stop your senseless bragging.

 

I've seen plenty of "real world" examples, particularly in the games
department, and they tend to average out in order with the raw CPU scores.
What is apparent, is that since my last system build AMD have dropped the
ball, lost the momentum, and that Intel have got their act together. Whereas
AMD was the best choice then, Intel is now.

 

That's not even close to being an accurate summary. Instead of the wild
differentials you get from synthetic benchmarks, real-world testing tends to
narrow the gap to a few percentage points.

Intel's second-gen quad cores are best by far. That's all anyone can really
say right now. Instead of cheering for one or another brand, you really
should look at the data.

 

I am not anti-AMD. In fact if anything I am anti-Intel....however I am
not prepared to cut my nose off to spite my face....

I saying that, this year I have bought a 4000x2EE and a 6000x2 as at the
moment these are powerful enough at the price I can afford to be a
decent deal....

What I can see though is strategically IMHO AMD and ATI are in grave
difficulty...in order to be and stay competitive their newest model(s)
should IMHO be leap frogging Intel/Nvidia at the top end and fighting a
good fight at the middle, guess what they are not....Intel and Nvidia
have a huge leading edge....both ATI and AMD do not look to even match
what their competitors are fielding today let alone when the next
leapfrog happens for Intel/Nvidia....at the moment that looks to be the
8 core CPUs due out this time next year....for Nvidia the 8800GT and the
forthcoming 8800GTSv2 are as good as or better mid-range cards....the
Ultra looks due for an update and will also jump well clear of ATI....

regards

Thing

 

I dont want AMD to "die"...........however from what I can see their
product range is in-adequate on both performance and energy
savings....so unless they get thier act together they are going to be
toast....and I honestly dont want to see that!

regards

Thing

 

Somewhere on teh interweb impossible typed:

My cheapie C2D E4500 overclocked to 3.3GHz, 1650 FSB, on air, at case temp
+20°C at full load, does just about everything way faster than Intels only
sub-$1K quad core, the Q6600. Even when the Q6600 is OCed on air.

As the (current) Intel quads consist of two duos in one package it also
follows that they dissapate around twice the heat of a dual core. Therefore
getting any real speed out of them requires liquid cooling. Until the 45nm
quads are available at affordable prices and/or more software is optimised
for more than two cores the Core 2 Duo will continue to be the "fastest" CPU
for the majority of tasks.

I don't see any "rapid eclipsing" going on anywhere.

 

Somewhere on teh interweb impossible typed:

Can you point out where I could purchase one of these elusive CPUs please?
They're rarer than 8800GTs and a hell of a lot dearer. Certainly not
mainstream CPUs.