Time Traveler:
Sorry to misspell your name.
<<K6 is at the mercy of the motherboard makers. From quite a few motherboard makers I have known, they are all switching to Slot-I exclusively due to obvious reasons.>>
MB makers are in the business of maximizing their revenues and profits. They will sell boards for Socket 7, Slot I, Slot II, Slot III, Socket 8, Socket 9, etc. and whatever you want. As the demand is getting smaller the number of companies that make that particular board will decrease. If you look at PPro there are still several companies that offer socket 8 boards. As long as INTC makes the PPro chips there are still MB available. When the PPro is stop the MB makers will discontinue the product line. If AMD can make 12M K6 there are potential for 12M MB to be sold. In Taiwan there are many good companies that will make anything you want as long as they are giving a chance of the piece of the pie. This is the nature of business. Thus I wouldn't be too overly concerned on the supply of MB.
<<No, knowledgeable people, like myself and a lot of people I know, prefer a P-II system with BX chipset.>>
Yes people like you who prefer the only best for a hefty price are buyers for the PII. You are the kind of buyers that represent the upper echelon of the Gaussian distribution. The meat of the distribution would wait till the price to come down or settle for something less. Remember there are over 100M Pentium systems out there and not all of the buyers are willing to upgrade to PII. Also nowaday the computers is depreciating faster than cars. This effect deters consumers from buying the most expensive system (do some study on consumer buying decisions).
<<So this processor is designed just for a game --- big deal. What the hell is QUAKE anyway? More shoot them up and advance yourself through killing more imaginary fiends? The money maker is not in the games. >>
QUAKE is one of the hottest game today. It is a interactive game where you go through a maze finding your way out and shooting down the enemy. Usually aa computer system is benchmarked by the # of frames/sec refreshing as you play the game. This game will challenge even the most powerful PII-400MHz. As you go to higher resolution the number of frames decreases. You need at least 30 frames/sec to be considered as real time movement. There are only so much data you can pump through the PCI bus.
<<The money making is in business/corporate. No winder with very impress retail market, AMD is still losing tons of money.>>
Here is where your reasoning fail. Most business/corporate uses PC to do spreadsheet, words, mail, etc. Pentium will do just fine. No need to go to PII. Why should they go to a more powerful PII? Can secretaries type faster than the computer can refreshes?
AMD needs to reach a critical mass before they can make money. That will be Q3-98. AMD had to lose money 3 quarters just to make inroad to the PC market. Wait till Q3 # comes out then make your conclusion.
It is no easy task to compete against Intel. One good thing has going for AMD is that CPQ, IBM, and MSFT all support AMD and want AMD to succeed. They don't want the 800lbs gorilla turns into 10,000lbs King Kong.
<<No, where can I buy a K6-3D?>>
The chip will be available by May 27 after the announcement. I heard that K6-3D system will be demoed in a store (not sure which one) everywhere. If you are not going to buy one just go to your nearest local outlet and check out the system with the new games. At least you must do some research on your competitors.
Maxwell |
