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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (123481)	9/5/2000 2:50:00 AM
From: jcholewa	Respond to of 1583677

> There always is considerable discussion wrt whether a particular tech writer is biased towards Intel or AMD. In the > past AMD's poor performance colored people's perceptions re the company. And I am sure that that is still true to some > degree. It isn't just the performance. It's the smallness. And the origin thing. Intel is performing now no better than AMD performed in '97, comparatively. But Intel is not underperforming on an AMD ISA, and Intel is not a small fraction the size of their competitor. If AMD were selling all their product right now at 900MHz and up, they'd still be the obscure player to the masses. Now, if AMD were selling all their product at 750MHz but they were making fifty million processors a quarter, everybody would know about them and assume that they're a hunky-dorey corp (but they would probably be losing money bigtime), > But now it must be said that AMD looks to be in a turnaround that has some legs. Well, more a "turnedaround". AMD already did the one-eighty. Their pivot point and global valley was, more or less, an instant before the 1998 Q3 earnings report -- where they literally were living on a string and a report below a given level would have thrown the company into a very inferior debt rating. AMD's just sorta "coasting up" right now, occasionally adding thrust or whatever to make sure that they don't turnaround in the other direction. :) > So given this change what drives current biases for or against AMD and Intel? Is it simply that Intel is chimpzilla > and AMD is the poor second? Does if it have to do with the quality of the product? The two AMD threads rave about the > Athlon but is it really as good as we say? <g> Is it simply rooting for the underdog? > Inquiring minds need to know!! Awesome post. To really see how good the K7 microarchitecture is you need only look at the in-depth opinions of the smarter, more techish people out there, like Scumbria or Paul DeMone (er, my explanation here is kinda bizarre considering their very opposing opinions of the P4, but I digress...). The K7 almost singlehandedly (well, seemingly at least) maneuvered the market such that Intel's only severe advantage over AMD was (and is) pure fab capacity. At the very least is it a solid design, and the actual evidence of that has been the fact that AMD has been able to sell product at high-endish prices, despite their market stigma. > I am assuming, of course, that someone in your position has an overview and a feel for the pulse that the rest of us > mortals do not. <g> Set me straight if I am wrong. All of this may not be figuroutable but I want to try!! Pulse? Position? Hrm? Don't worry. The figuroutization of the AMD situation is pretty self-apparent. > And btw the classic AMD thread is a very good thread!! You've only posted on the classic thread, never on the other. Your comment is like a person who has only used Intel x86 processors in his/her entire life saying "Intel x86 processors rule above all". ;) -JC