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Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: fastpathguru who wrote (219801)	12/9/2006 10:39:10 AM
From: economaniack	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 275872

I'm trying hard to avoid personal "attacks" so I will simply say this whole thread is silly. Intel isn't going to start giving away highend graphics chips. IE has 0 (zero) marginal cost, and Microsoft has a monopoly on the PC operating system, so they could bundle them together, charge whatever they wanted and "give" away IE while making whatever profit they wanted. Graphics processors eat huge amounts of silicon, and development is nontrivial. If Intel manages to produce a competitive graphics chip it will be a first for them (Yes I know they are the largest seller of graphics chips, but they are now and have always been embarrassingly poor in comparison to other integrated solutions, never mind discrete). If Intel tried to recover the cost of graphics in the processor or chipset, AMD or nVidia would kill them. Graphics is currently the most important determinant of high end performance, and efforts to make the GPU a coprocessor for demanding FP calculations will only push that trend. Intel needs to become a serious player for the same reason that AMD bought ATI, because stand alone CPUs are becoming the tail that wags the (GPU) dog. It will be interesting to see the results. AMD has committed to a Processor centric model in which the CPU is responsible for memory access and coordinating and directing data streams. Intel currently puts those functions on the Northbridge, which might be an advantage for integrated video and emphasizing the GPU, but they apparently intend to bring memory to the CPU in the next few years. nVidia has been aiming to shift most of the attention to the NB for a while now. I don't ever remember a time when the basic architecture of the PC became a battleground like this. Perhaps the closest parallel was IBM's attempt to reclaim their monopoly with Microchannel. I think the lessons from that are that open architectures have an overwhelming advantage, and that losing one of these battles can be damn near fatal. I like AMD despite some of their recent travails cause I think they have the clearest vision of where the platform is going, and the most credible plan to get there. They still need to execute and Intel has a lot more share and money to just overwhelm any problems but if they are just rolling the die, AMD has a lot to gain and Intel a lot to lose. e