Re: You might be surprised if you knew what was coming out now....
I know, I know, "we will bury you" - and I know it's meant sincerely and is an honest opinion.
Intel is a great company and those words still give me a bit of a twinge (since I'm long AMD). But we've heard it again and again since last summer, and the threat is beginning to lose it's sting.
OTOH - What do you suppose is coming out of Dresden right now? What do you make of the fact that AMD can't seem to make a Duron that runs slower than 950MHZ even though they're using their old Austin FAB for the Durons? (at least that's what the overclockers have reported so far)
First coppermine was going to wipe out AMD, now it's Willamette. (Itanic is so far past its window of opportunity it's not worth considering) But I'm pretty confident that the management team that can't seem to let go of Rambus will manage to screw up Willamette one way or the other.
There is some sort of dementia in Intel's planning process, and it seems to have settled in permanently. If Willamette's a great chip then the chipset will have problems, if the chipset's OK the motherboards will have problems. Somebody's going to save that 0.01 cents on a part to get his quarterly bonus (or whatever pernicious incentive is causing the problem) and blow the whole program once again. Look at the original Coppermine steppings and the 820 and the 840 and the MTH and the profusion motherboards.
How in the world could Intel not be able to produce a stable profusion motherboard? Compaq didn't have any trouble.
And as far as price watch is concerned, chips faster than 866MHZ:
PIII 933 - 2 pages
Athlon 900 - 5 pages
Athlon 950 - 5 pages
Athlon 1000 - 3 pages
There are 5 page of PIII 866 chips, but that's midrange now, thinking of it as a fast chip is living in the past (as you so aptly described it). Duron can be sold at 850 whenever AMD decides to label it that way.
Sorry if I seem too harsh, but you have to admit, the "you should see what's coming out now" line has been used a little too often. We need to see products on shelves, not "what's coming out now".
Regards,
Dan |
