<But where is the P7 core? Did Intel put it on the back burner for the sake of the Merced. This is AMDs opening.>
I agree that this could be AMD's window of opportunity, but there are two problems:
1) AMD may claim to be the first with "seventh-generation technology," and they may even hold a dinner where the lead architect will pat himself on the back. But it's obvious that the K7 may only achieve performance parity initially with the P6 core, because the P6 core is so mature and will get many of the performance-enhancing gizmos (on-die L2 cache, RDRAM, 0.18 micron process) before K7. If all things were equal, yes K7 may beat P6, but things are not equal.
2) Tad brought up an even better point, which is the accelerated price cuts in processors. What he may be fearing is that Intel and AMD, in an effort to accelerate development to outdo each other, could be leaving the consumer behind. We haven't seen such low prices on the top-of-the-line PC's in ages. This could mean that PC's are accelerating faster than consumer needs, which means this market could fan out even more as less and less people feel the need to buy the latest-n-greatest. What happens if the K7 takes the performance crown away from Intel, only to find that the consumer is then saying, "Nah, I don't need that kind of performance anymore"?
Tenchusatsu |
