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

To: pgerassi who wrote (134979)	5/14/2001 7:15:38 PM
From: fingolfen	Read Replies (8) \| Respond to of 186894

Thus, a 1.4GHz Tbird matches well to 2GHz P4. Athlon 4 at 1.3GHz would probably match 2GHz P4. Since 1.8GHz Athlon 4s are probable due to current multiplier maps (18x100). There might be a chance that end of Q4-01, Athlon 4s could be up to 2+GHz themselves and transistion to 2-3GHz Throughbreds. Honestly, I don't think that the design has those kinds of legs. I'm not sure how AMD is generating the speed bins they are at this point, but my guess is that they're pushing down gate length faster than Intel is at this point (at least until Intel transitions to 0.13 micron). That's great for the short-term, but takes all of the fire out of AMD's 0.13 micron transition. You may outrun a P4 today on a few select applications, but you won't be next year as more SSE2 software comes available (especially with the x87 performance increase people are discovering... see JC's). You're also assuming that both the K7 and P4 scale linearly and the slope of the K7's line is greater than that of the P4... which is a questionable assertion. I don't think the Athlon will be able to keep up with the Northwood-P4's, and any market share that AMD gains will erode back to their traditional 15-18%. AMD has held as much as 25-30% in the past... and probably will again. Then Intel will take it back again. Looking to the future, AMD is going to become increasingly dependent on corporate welfare for fabs and processes. They simply don't have the money to develop their own processes and build all their own fabs like Intel. Moto helped them out with a back end... now IBM is bailing them out with a front-end SOI process. Pretty soon AMD isn't going to be making CPU's on a process which in any way, shape, or form was originated by AMD. Intel on the other hand "rolls it's own," and develops a new logic process in-house every 18 months. As processes move to 300mm wafers, AMD is going to find itself further behind... I just don't see the long-term growth potential. AMD has always played to a niche market, and doesn't have the capacity to ever do more. They are a legitimate competitor to Intel, which has pushed the CPU market forward faster than anyone expected... but they aren't in a position to dominate it, even if the Athlon was really as good as you seem to think it is... This is business. Intel has the capital, know-how, and resources to succeed in the long-term... This isn't "Jerry Skywalker" and the "Quest for the Speed Crown." It's not even a good mythos structure upon which to build fiction, much less base investment decisions.