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.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maxwell who wrote (36420)	8/28/1998 12:33:00 AM
From: Tenchusatsu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1572280

Maxwell, I mentioned this before in passing, but I guess I could emphasize it again. Thanks to the K6-2, the PII and Mendocino HAVE NO 3D ENGINE! Uh, the logic of that argument speaks for itself. DirectX 6.0 does nothing to PII or Mendocino. It will however improve K6-2 up to 50% when future games access DirectX 6.0! PII and Mendocino may look good with old games but future games will UNLEASH the power of 3DNow! No doubt about it, DirectX 6.0 is a big win for 3D-Now, but I think your 50% figure is a little exaggerated. Before you say that '3DNow! is a pain in the ass' because of the software drivers consumers have to load JUST THINK OF KNI KATMAI. I'm not going to argue that. Ironically enough, the software drivers may even be beneficial to Katmai. Why? You can assume that all it takes to port 3D-Now drivers over to KNI will be a recompile. In the worst-case scenario, KNI will exhibit the same performance increase as 3D-Now. In the best-case scenario, 3D-Now drivers will be further improved to take advantage of KNI's more powerful instructions and thus make the Katmai pull even farther ahead of 3D-Now. Then again, I could be wrong. Let's face it, INTC still has trouble trying to roll out the 3DLater Katmai to compete with the K6-2. Intel knows it. They are adding more die size so they can tell you how bigger a die size they are giving you. AMD has done a good job relegating the PII and Celeron. Intel is so desperate that they will do anything to keep AMD from getting a bigger market share. The only viable chance that INTC has in breaking through the 3DNow! is KNI but that is not even a sure thing. Well obviously Intel sees AMD as a real threat. But I'll bet you it's not because of die size. (I think Jim McMannis is overblowing the advantages of a smaller die size.) As for 3D-Now's chances vs. KNI, I have two words for you: Critical Mass. Can AMD achieve it, considering that everywhere you go, the K6-2 is being pitted against the Celeron? The technological advantage of 3D-Now means little when AMD can't even market it against the Pentium II. Remember how Intel was so successful in pushing MMX technology, even though the benefits of MMX were dubious? Just think how successful Intel will be when they market KNI, which will unarguably be better than 3D-Now. Perhaps AMD needs the same guys who advertise the PowerPC G3. If I see the "Pentium II on a slug" ads from AMD very soon, I'll be more convinced that AMD has a chance against Intel. Until then, critical mass just won't be achieved, and 3D-Now will be in "danger of becoming a footnote in history," as Microprocessor Report puts it.