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

To: Process Boy who wrote (56762)	4/29/1999 5:48:00 AM
From: Process Boy	Respond to of 1570558

Thread - Latest K7 Update from Sharkey Information contained here differs significantly from various other WAG's I've seen on the subject. 1) Predicting 500 release. 2) Predicting .18 K7 Q2 of 2000. 3) Indicated K7 "equivalent" to .25um PIII, and will be at a disadvantage vs. .18 Coppermine. sharkyextreme.com AMD K7 Update In AMD news, the K6-3 400 is now in stock in several of the outlets we talked to this week, no more endless "backordered" status for the time being. The K6-3 450 on the other hand was backordered to a large degree still, so it might be a little tough to acquire one if you are so inclined. Also, not much additional K7 information this week and the silence is becoming deafening on that front. It's gradually getting clearer to our researchers that AMD will not be offering a superior performance CPU to the high-end Intel P3 (550) at the time of the K7's launch (July-minimum). Parity might be the best that that the initial K7 500 can offer against the P3-550, which ain't that bad considering that the P3-550 has a higher MHz level from the get go. This isn't due so much to AMD's problems in getting their next-generation CPU out to market out on time as it is with Intel dropping the P3-550 CPU into the retail channel a little early. If you look at the Sharky Extreme CPU Price Guide's historical figures, it's easy to see that in the seven weeks that the P3-450 and 500 CPUs have been on the market, Intel has dropped their prices by approximately 25 - 30% thus far. If that trend continues, the upcoming $750 P3-550 CPU will cost approximately $500 - $525 at the time of the AMD K7's launch. Sharky Extreme has learned that AMD hopes to have the K7 500 priced in the $475 - $525 range at the time of its launch, which offers a unique challenge to the beleaguered semi-conductor manufacturer when the realization sets in that the P3-550 will actually be at or possibly below that price when the two finally go head to head. Add to this the fact that existing P2 and Socket-7 owners will have to upgrade their mainboards and likely their memory subsystem if they choose to go the K7 route, and you begin to see that this much hyped battle could be nearing its conclusion before it ever actually begins… Right now, If we were faced with the prospect of upgrading our CPU, mainboard, and memory in August, we'd rather spend the extra cash (roughly $200 - $300) and get Intel 820 Camino AGP 4X chipset-based mainboard along with a .18micron P3-600 CPU and 128MB of either PC-133 SDRAM or RDRAM. This is instead of the expected alternative, which will be the AMD K7-500, 128MB of PC-133 SDRAM and a Slot-A mainboard upgrade. That's our story now for now, and we're stickin to it. If, however, AMD could manage to pull a rabbit out of a hat like debuting the .18micron K7 earlier than Spring 2000 (it's expected arrival) or if they could push their .25 micron K7 to 575 or 600MHz, then that could change things in both our minds and the mind of the educated consumer alike… We'll know more as the information on the K7 develops, and as soon as we do it'll be in print.