Vince Ref <SpecFP and the mighty clouds of joy ..........Vacillating>
It is not clear if Athlon can benefit from the Intel compiler because the compiler could end up generating other Katmai instructions as well, causing the Athlon to lock-up.
You and several other engineers seem to think that benchmarks alone guarantee business sucess. I have mentioned in several posts that benchmarks and profits are not synonomous.
Message 10023952
Message 10461310
At present AMD has a dramatically higher costs of goods than Intel, commands a significantly lower price due to its poor image, infrastructure problems, and history of not delivering on time. It has to spend a higher R & D dollars [ as a per cent of sales] than its chief rival. The only hope of making money is to have a sustained performance advantage for a few years, launch an expensive branding campaign, have deep pockets to sustain the inevitable losses. The heavy losses of the last few years, and the management's stubborn refusal to lower its fab overhead, and lack of deep pockets, preclude any profits , and there is a substantial risk of insolvency. However if Intel stumbles significantly, AMD's prospects may improve dramatically.
From time to time, the AMD stock does appeal to the gambler within me, since I believe that even in the worst case, someone will buyout the microprocessor business. However the events of the last nine months convince me that the AMD business model is hopeless, and it needs new management to be a reasonable investment prospect. |
