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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (53389)	1/8/2003 5:37:03 PM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

If so, how do you see it? In following the benchmarks, particularly the AMD versus P4 competition, there was a period up through the low 2 GHz where the most recent product from each manufacturer would beat the other on some tests and the reverse on others. Even then I noticed, as some pro-AMD authors did not, that the margins of victory for AMD tended to be small while the Intel margins were sometimes significant. As the speeds got up to 2.5GHz, which is about the same time as the FSB speeds jumped from 400 to 533MHz, the P4 jumped ahead on all tests, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. As things have gone on since then, AMD jumps up again at times as they come out with new technologies, but their advantage tends to be in computationally intensive tasks, while those involving moving large amounts of data in and out of RAM significantly favor the Rambus systems. If you compare Intel DDR to Intel Rambus, the comparison is even more clear. This doesn't mean that as DDR advances it isn't going to cut this margin from time to time, but it seems clear to me that Rambus has a significant edge and, unless they stop advancing, they won't be caught. Does it matter? That depends on the work you do. My 2.5Ghz box with 1GB RDRAM and 533MHz FSB is a stunning contrast to my prior box in applications like CAD and photo editing, but who would notice in Word or a program editor?

To: Jurgis Bekepuris who wrote (53389)	1/8/2003 11:44:20 PM
From: Gary L. Kepler	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

If Carl Bilow is to be believed on the Rambus thread (and I gather that he has called it correctly over the last two years or so), RDRAM is at a dead end, is down to something like 4% of memory production and has no future at Intel beyond the current support. He recently produced a press release indicating the agreement with Sony/Toshiba was for a fixed amount and that the agreement would have little impact on future earnings. Sony seems to have side stepped the issue of whether they would rely on RMBS in their future PlayStations even though that was implied by the announcement. As for RDRAM, even Dell is shifting away except for the most expensive work stations and that may soon change as well. RMBS's value may relate primarily to the court cases and so far Rambus has not faired well. Someone correct me if I am wrong but my impression is that Rambus is a pure speculation with odds that are not favorable.