Kash, <Tench, You make some excellent points regarding AMD systems being percieved as low end due to market positioning/segmenting by OEMS.>
These points were rised before. This is not only
a question of poor perception of AMD-based systems,
but also a problem with overall system reliability.
I will reiterate main points for newcomers:
Due to price/performance advantages, early adopters
were mostly small-size boxmakers. They still hold
a significant share of AMD processors, I believe.
However, their volumes are not big enough to
compete with volume parts pricing of bigger OEMs.
Therefore, they have to cut corners everywhere:
cheap (and underdesigned) mobos with sloppy
and early BIOSes, cheap and poorly performing
video, cheap everything, including heat sinks.
The combination of cheap underdesigned parts
narrows ranges of safe and stable system operation.
This has created a false image of lower quality
of AMD chips. It takes time to overcome that
image.
BTW, I saw a funny thing today at local CompUSA:
A K6-2-400MHz Compaq system was priced higher
than the equally equipped P-II-400 system,
by $300! ($1,699 vs. $1,399). The AMD system
had slightly more memory (128 vs. 96), and
a "generation-3" DVD vs. "generation-2" for
P-II system. It looks like the K6 is breaking
into middle-to-high end, is not it?
Regards,
- Ali
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