Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe NYC who wrote (133151)	4/23/2001 12:29:36 AM
From: Joey Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

"We tested the 1.7GHz Pentium 4 and it clearly does bring performance to the party," Feibus said. marketwatch.com Intel unveils its P4 at 1.7GHz Further price cuts expected By Janet Haney, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 11:00 PM ET Apr 22, 2001 SANTA CLARA, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- Intel continues to feel the need for speed in its Pentium 4 microprocessor family, unveiling Monday the fastest processor yet for desktop computers, running at a whopping 1.7 gigahertz. FRONT PAGE NEWS Trade data quirk could signal false GDP strength March-quarter earnings carry few real surprises Counting on the Continent; turbos like tribbles Market news and more! Sign up to receive FREE email newsletters Get the latest news 24 hours a day from our 100-person news team. Intel's processor business -- the bread and butter of the chipmaker's livelihood -- appears to have stabilized, with normal seasonal patterns looming on the horizon. See Intel Q1 earnings story. That's good news for the industry, as well as investors, amid this tumultuous economic environment. Still, does the marketplace need a processor as speedy as Intel's latest introduction? "For the vast majority of us, you don't need this kind of performance," commented Mike Feibus, a principal analyst at Mercury Research. The P4 at 1.7GHz marks Intel's (INTC: news, msgs, alerts) first completely new desktop processor design from Intel since the Pentium Pro processor, with P6 micro architecture, which was brought to the market in 1995. Intel's newest processor push is said to enhance performance for processing video and audio, encouraging Internet technologies, as well as 3D graphics. "We tested the 1.7GHz Pentium 4 and it clearly does bring performance to the party," Feibus said. Additionally, the product is based on Intel's 850 chipset with Rambus dynamic random access memory (RDRAM), along with Intel's Netburst micro architecture, helping the processor to run at high speeds. A chipset is a group of chips designed to work together to execute a function. "As consumer electronic devices go more digital, the amount of the performance that users are going to want with their PCs is only going to increase," commented Anand Chandrasekher, vice president of Intel's architecture group. "I don't see an end to the amount of performance that they'll need." Intel intends to be at 2Ghz speeds in its P4 family in the second half of the year. Price breaks Intel said the P4 at 1.7GHz is now available and has a price tag of $352., in 1,000-unit quantities. Chandrasekher said, though, that price will stay the same through the rest of the summer. The company also intends to lower prices on its P4 at 1.3GHz, 1.4GHz and 1.5GHz on April 29. "Our goal has been to double our manufacturing ramp on Pentium 4's quarter to quarter," Chandrasekher pointed out. "We're getting much better yield as we produce more processors." The Santa Clara, Calif. company slashed prices a week ago on its Pentium and Celeron processors. See related story. Mercury Research data pegged Intel's preliminary total market share percentage for total PC processors shipments in the first quarter of 2001 at 78, while Advanced Micro Devices (AMD: news, msgs, alerts) was 21 percent. That compares to the fourth-quarter level of 81.5 percent for Intel and 17.1 percent for AMD. On Friday, shares of Intel close down 6 cents to $32.43. Janet Haney is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in San Francisco.

To: Joe NYC who wrote (133151)	4/23/2001 12:58:19 AM
From: dale_laroy	Respond to of 186894

"The high ASP in the mobile segment that AMD is hoping for will not materialize." You can say that again. But the important thing is that by kicking Intel's mobile margins in the nuts, AMD can make it more difficult for Intel to take a loss in the desktop market. Intel is however, a slippery devil. Not only will AMD find it extremely difficult to get a toehold in the server/workstation market, they will find penetration into the corporate market in general very difficult. This is what the P4 price cuts are all about. Corporate America has rejected P4 as firmly as they have rejected AMD. Intel is taking advantage of this by keeping the margins on P-III relatively high even as they are slashing them on P4. Intel is hoping that corporate America will continue to buy high margin P-III processors even as Intel floods the consumer market with low margin P4 processors. In Q2, the only real limit on how many P4 processors that Intel can sell into the consumer market is the limited availability of DRDRAM. By Q3, with the availability of DDR SDRAM mobos (unless mobo vendors decide to wait on Northwood to introduce their DDR SDRAM mobos), P4 in the consumer channels will be a real problem for AMD. However, margins on mobile processors should remain healthy in Q3. The greatest danger this year to Intel is that, if the market picks up after they have switched major capacity over to P4 production, a shortage situation may develop in the corporate market, thus forcing some corporate purchases to AMD by default.