Socket 7 is hardly dead. Intel's PII slot tech. really piles on the cost for OEM's trying to provide performance at a nice price. I see the following as almost a done deal: Intel will cut the price of the PII chip more than people expect. Considering the offerings from AMD, Cyrix, and now IDT, which STILL CAN FIT ON SOCKET 7 boards (boards which are very cheap compared to Intel's proprietary design), Intel must cut prices deeply to keep market share.
I believe all of us by now have heard of how hot the sub-$1,000 PC market is and will be. I sure hope none of you get sick of that statement and underestimate the power of it, because this market segment is for real. Aside from the corporate segment, this is where any kind of significant growth lies. I have several friends who have always wanted to get a computer. Yet, despite all the power/speed of the CPU, all the advertising hype, all the bells & whistles, they refuse to shell out $2,000. And I really do see this as the attitude of the majority of households that still don't have a computer.
Compaq indeed struck a cord earlier this year w/ their $999 computer (monitor not included of course). Good idea, but they're gonna have to go lower. People who have been sitting on the sidelines watch computer prices drop from month to month. They get really annoyed by how much money they spent for something that was just bought a few months ago, only to see it much, much cheaper today. Well guys, a lot of these people are probably still going to hold back until there's a price that they just can't refuse ;-)
IDT's Winchip C6 processor certainly isn't going to break any sound barriers or bring competitors down to their knees, but this chip has all the makings to bring some tidy cash to the bottom line. Great cost structure which spells some really dirt cheap prices for a CPU of its caliber. Moreover, the small die-size and low power dissipation also brings the same kind of price reductions to the notebook market as it does for desktops. IDT management hit it right on the nose as far as the market segment they're going after. I can remember vividly right after the announcement of the C6 chip all the market analysts touting how huge the sub-$1,000 PC market would be.
Let's just see how it all pans out in the next 12 months. Good luck all! CT |
