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

To: Cirruslvr who wrote (60369)	6/3/1999 12:34:00 PM
From: A. A. LaFountain III	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 1571862

Cirruslvr: re "Do you see any other likes and differences?" I believe that there are two significant differences. The K-6 was obviously a significant improvement from the K-5 (which doesn't say anything), but it still had some noticeable shortcomings. While not an MPU designer, I don't see a noticeable feature missing from the K-7 as it has been described (the relative merits of 3-DNow! and KNI can be debated, but that's probably more of a flavor preference than an actual missing feature). If anything, the question is how long the K-7's leadership position is likely to last. That's certainly one big difference. However, I believe that the second difference is even more important. Due to the abject failure of the K-5, there was no infrastructure support for the K-6 when it was introduced. The MB and chipset vendors had adopted a "show me" attitude towards the K-6. But as it became apparent that the part was carving out a respectable slice of the market and as Intel became even more of a competitor to such vendors, many of them have allied themselves with AMD. Now, I understand that the initial boards and chipsets for the K-7 are going to be supplied by AMD. But it is readily apparent that right behind the rollout will be suitable third-party support for the chip. This is important, because while a lot of people make money off Intel, they are all probably pretty nervous about their position. On the other hand, the vendors who are working with AMD are keenly interested in seeing it succeed. As are, I believe, many of the OEMs. Self-interest is a powerful motivator. - Tad LaFountain