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To: kash johal who wrote (15595)	10/23/2000 3:41:21 PM
From: Dan3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Re: addition the k5 and cyrix all were way slow on MHZ but had better IPC than Intel. We had the infamous PR rating fiasco. In April '98 when cyrix was 233/300 and the top PII was 350, Cyrix was competitive. But by March of '99, cyrix was only at 250/366 and PII had been at 500 since February of '99. Cyrix wasn't just behind PII in mhz, they were behind in performance - and the 250/366 should have been rated at 250/300. Meanwhile Intel was pretty much giving away 300MHZ CPUs by then. Add to this many reports of problems with the MII, and the story is much more than high IPC not being significant. I see something similar to the PR rating disaster for Intel if their IPC is actually as bad as postulated by some. They would be presenting their 1.5GHZ "rated" chip, as a 1.5GHZ chip. If AMD's 1.3GHZ chip proceeds to substantially outperform the Intel 1.5GHZ in many benchmarks, P4 could fall prey to the same market contempt that doomed MII and nearly killed the original Celeron - and Intel can't simply put back the cache on P4 they way did on the original Celeron. Here's an example from another market. I bought a Mustang Cobra Convertible last January for several thousand dollars below the invoice price. The Cobra is a limited production model of the Mustang that Ford hand builds each year - it has a different engine and suspension than the regular Mustang. Cobras are much less common than regular Mustangs (they built only 4,050 convertibles in 1999) and they usually sell for more than list price, let alone invoice. 1999 started out as a great year for the Cobra because it was the first year for its new independent rear suspension (IRS - and it was only IRS ever offered on a Mustang). But when the owners started testing their cars on dynamometers (Cobra owners do such things!) they found out that most actually had closer to 300hp than the advertised 320. Sales for the car pretty much ended, and Ford had to provide huge rebates on a model that was normally sold at well above list price. The early buyers who typically paid $3,000 to $4,000 over list were pretty disappointed. Eventually Ford recalled all the cars to perform $1,800 worth of engine work (I have my copy of the invoice to Ford) to bring them above the advertised 320HP. The point I'm trying to make is that an flagship performance product that doesn't perform quite up to expectations can be harshly rejected by the market. When buyers pay for a premium product and only get a good product, they are very disappointed. The difference between the 300HP IRS Mustang and the expected 320HP IRS Mustang was trivial - but made the product almost unsaleable in the marketplace. If those early performance numbers are accurate, the same thing could happen to P4. Dan

To: kash johal who wrote (15595)	10/23/2000 4:21:21 PM
From: Joe NYC	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Kash, We had the infamous PR rating fiasco. What made the PR fiasco bad was that fastest Cyrix / AMD chips came below the performance of the best Intel chips most of time, so with convoluted nature of PR ratings, what people got from the reviews they could understand was that Intel was faster. If Mustang is actually faster than P4 in vast majority of benchmarks, it may actually create as many or more problems for Intel, than AMD. Joe

To: kash johal who wrote (15595)	10/23/2000 5:14:21 PM
From: jcholewa	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

> In addition the k5 and cyrix all were way slow on MHZ but had better IPC than Intel. This is a myth. Cyrix processors were much faster in some operations and much slower in others. K5 was a little better off in this regard, but there were still areas where P54 beat it in ipc. > We had the infamous PR rating fiasco. From a standpoint of realism, the PR rating was a fiasco for two reasons: 1) It was a lie, since it wasn't based on a general performance metric 2) It was a lie, because the manufacturers using it exaggerated to make themselves look better. A Cyrix PR400 processor was slower than a 200MHz (equivalent) Mendocino/Celeron in some benchmarks. In the benchmarks that made the PR400 look good, it couldn't even meet or beat a Celeron-400 unless you crippled the Celeron. If AMD and Cyrix processors truly and honestly met the Pentium in performance at their promised PR numbers, then I believe PR would not have been seen as such a fiasco. > It seems likely that PIV will have raw Mhz lead. Yes. > Mustang may well win some benchmarks even with lower CLK. > But its not clear to me why the PIV will not win the cream of the crop volumes as MHZ sells. I think current conditions are looking better than you suspect for Mustang. I think it will be quite a while for P4 to be a big volume seller in that regard, and I think that overall performance will have an effect on the market. Still, if P4 ramps as expected, Intel will keep their nameshare advantage. > In addition high end buyers want a PC to be usefull for a while. > With the world moving to sse2 - including hammer family - this on its own is a good reason to choose it vs an equivalent AMD chip. I'm not sure I buy that. The world was moving to SSE last year, but I don't think forward-looking compatiblity was a hugely major element in PIII sales. > So, AMD will have the middle of the market. > But remember that mid 2001 intel is bringing enormous 0.13 foundry capacity to bear. Edit: mid 2001 Intel is starting their 130nm ramp. You're making a big leap of faith in assuming that the first 130nm fab will suddenly do 130nm at breakthrough yields at 100% capacity. It takes time to ramp a new process. > Couple PIV with SDRAM, DDR and u have a killer combination for 2H 2001. A high performance combination, of course. But if the 130nm ramp starts midyear (that's when the first product is said to be coming out), then Q3 is way too early to start counting immediate AMDemise. Maybe AMD will see a little weakness in Q4. Of course, they'll be bouyed by increased Flash sales and -- if they're smart about it -- strong presence in the mobile market, in which Intel will likely be very weak in 2001. -JC