Fyo - RE: "However, it's fairly clear (or, at least, it's my claim) that if the IPC of one were… say… 10x the IPC of the other, the McMannis law of "MHz Sells" would break down."
I should say IPC matters more for the mid-high end of the PC market than low-end. AMD made big inroads in the low-end with the K6-2 even though the Celeron was the better performer processor, but the K6-2 platform was much cheaper. The tables have turned and now the Celeron has the cheaper platform and the Duron is the better performer.
"The question is if AMD can push the IPC high enough to accomplish this."
I'm no engineer, but if they did, I bet it would significantly come at the expense of clock speed.
"To some (admittedly very limited) extent, I believe they already have. I hear people around me talking about buying an Athlon over a P4 for performance reasons in much the same way I heard people talking about buying a PII over a K6."
Yeah, there are some smart consumers who know what they're doing. But the general public generally doesn't know.
The two largest segments of the PC business are retail and corporate PCs. AMD has nothing in the corporate world. In retail in the US, Compaq and HP, the two dominant companies, set up their PCs such that GHz/MHz if one of the main factors that makes a PC cost more. (That along with dvds, cdrws, hard drive.) I don't know how it is in other places in the world, but I would guess it is the same or close to the same.
So in one big market AMD is shut out. And in the large market where AMD can play, GHz is the deciding factor for the general public.
AMD may have a big following in the do-it-yourself and screwdriver shops, but when Northwood and the SDR i845 chipset come out they will lose customers based on price, and with the DDR-enabled i845 they will lose sales on price/performance.
I usually browse Anand's messageboard. Now, many people are asking questions about buying the Athlon, and one of the big reasons is because they get more for their money. I bet nine months from now the number of Athlons posts will be down significantly and P4 posts will be up significantly. Especially if the i845 chipset is like the BX chipset in terms of stability and performace.
"I believe Scumbria has at least seriously entertained (if one can do such a thing) the idea of introducing "P-rating" for the Athlon - at least I seem to recall him arguing the point. Certainly, in the extreme case of IPC disparity, something other than "pure" frequency is needed."
Yeah, PR ratings are an option. When AMD does that we'll know they're getting pretty desperate in keeping up with Intel in clock speed. I'm not a fan of PR ratings, but if they want to sell more processors without sacrificing price so much, it might be a good option. The thing with PR ratings is I feel like it dilutes the processor's image. If AMD can't bring up clock speed, the desktop PaloMIA [TM Chuck] would be a good time to introduce PR ratings... |
