Re: You want to discuss these "higher ASPs " for AMD ?
I'd love to.
AMD's current ASP is $92, they are showing fiercely competitive products in the Athlon line priced from $190 to $500 (roughly). IMHO, AMD's Q4 ASPs will be heading higher. The key is that Dresden is evidently making very few parts slower than 1GHZ, and none of Intel's FABs can make anything faster than 1GHZ. P4 may clock higher, but early indications are that it will have winchip/transmeta per clock performance, and be stuck with dual Rambus to boot. P4 is a no show for Q4, and a big question mark thereafter - Intel has to move to .13 on new steppers and a new copper process simultaneously before P4 is a significant part of the picture. AMD has only to update the optics on its existing steppers - and it's at .13 on copper for Mustang etc.
As I've proposed before, AMD's Q4 / Q1 is looking quite good. OTOH, Intel is facing some issues on the desktop, which is the big sector in Q4. Intel still has servers and notebooks, but the volume area of this business continues to be desktops, especially in Q4, and Intel has only junk speeds available for Q4 for desktops. Add to this the probability that there will be a $1 Billion reversal from income to loss in the investment group, and INTC has its work cut out for it in Q4. For Q1, things look a little better for Intel on the desktop (assuming there is a non-rambus P4 chipset by then) but AMD may well be putting pressure on the server and notebook sectors by then.
IMHO, I think AMD's ASPs will be heading up, while Intel's ASPs are heading down. AMD volume will be up 20% or so, Intel volume will be up 10% or so.
End of ASP discussion.
:-)
Dan |
