Political Crossfire Forums

Free Thinkr · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:16 pm Post subject:

FCTE wrote: Newsweek just ran an article that Intel and AMD are in brutal price war. Intel has lowered their prices lower than AMD which is a first ever so in turn AMD had to lower their prices. The processor prices are suppose to be cut by both manufacturers by $50-60% and new PC prices will drop by $100-$200.

They are both cutting thousands of jobs as well.

All the PC and parts manufacturers and software companies whether Dell, ATI, Microsoft, MSI, etc. are hurting as they have to lower their prices because demand is down. Current PC's and parts have gotten ridiculous as most users will never use the capabilities, businesses certainly do not need to use most of the stuff available. Everything has plateaued.
Tomshardware ran an article saying that AMD was set to drop prices 50-60%, but that even at those prices, their tests show that Intel still may have superior value. That says a shiznit-ton for the new Intel processors, IMO.

At any rate, the sales have plateaued at current prices and technology. With these new prices and processors, I expect that there will be a resurgence, and the price cuts will be scaled back. Ebb and flow and all that.

Quote: Yeah the dual cores are nice, but I'm not even really fully utilizing my AMD 64 yet so why buy something that I'm not gonna use other than bragging rights? It's pointless.
Multi-tasking, baby! How about gaming while you're encoding video; thatsa niiiiice (I friggin' wish, running this 1700+).

Quote: Intel is coming out with Quad Cores, seriously unless you are engineering bridges, car engines, or running a small country there is no need for such a processor as Windows and Linux run great without them and cannot utilize the extra power.
That will be changing very, very soon. Shrinking dies further will soon no longer be an option: multi-cores are the wave of the future, and programmers will be gearing software toward that end. Intel's already talking many-core: I've heard up to 32!

FCTE · Joined: 11 Mar 2004 Posts: 18816

Free Thinkr wrote: Tomshardware ran an article saying that AMD was set to drop prices 50-60%, but that even at those prices, their tests show that Intel still may have superior value. That says a shiznit-ton for the new Intel processors, IMO.

The performance difference is not substantial. You wouldn't even notice it and AMD has a hardcore fan base that would never leave them. Like politics, they are only looking to grab a few fence sitters. To claim that this difference is going to sink AMD is laughable, AMD is here to stay, they have much support.

Quote: At any rate, the sales have plateaued at current prices and technology. With these new prices and processors, I expect that there will be a resurgence, and the price cuts will be scaled back. Ebb and flow and all that.

The largest portion of the market will always be business PC's. Companies are cutting back and cutting cost, most businesses are perfeclty happy with a P4 Dell with Windows 2000 and Office 2000 and it's plenty for them. I see no real boost in PC sales and I don't think the manufacturers do either, which is why they are grasping straws with sales.

Quote: Multi-tasking, baby!

My single core AMD 64 multi-tasks beautifully as is. No reason to blow $300 on a new processor.

Quote: How about gaming while you're encoding video; thatsa niiiiice (I friggin' wish, running this 1700+).

:lol: Even if I could I wouldn't, I'd focus on my gameplay.

Besides I have a whole other Linux box sitting here to do all the ripping with.

Quote: That will be changing very, very soon. Shrinking dies further will soon no longer be an option: multi-cores are the wave of the future, and programmers will be gearing software toward that end. Intel's already talking many-core: I've heard up to 32!

Ok, well I've heard all these 64 bit dreams when I ran out and bought the AMD 64 two years ago and nothing has really happened. Vista will still run on a 32 bit processor and I prefer the 32 bit versions of Linux over the 64 bit versions as none of the applications are 64 bit.

The world is going to be 32 bit for a long time as applications are all 32 bit and you only run as fast as your slowest application.

Because 64 bit is still horribly infantile, I don't expect much from dual cores for at least another 3 years. Business computers drive the market and businesses will not upgrade every 6 months to have the latest and greatest.

Even the gaming industry has not really adopted these new technologies as most of their customers have a standard 32 bit single core processor.

They can jump the gun and make all these crazy processors, but if you can't sell what people don't need, it's futile.

Free Thinkr · Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 10:52 pm Post subject:

FCTE wrote: Free Thinkr wrote: Tomshardware ran an article saying that AMD was set to drop prices 50-60%, but that even at those prices, their tests show that Intel still may have superior value. That says a shiznit-ton for the new Intel processors, IMO.

The performance difference is not substantial. You wouldn't even notice it
That's not how I understand it.

From the link:
Anandtech wrote: Testing Conroe with eight motherboards and thirteen different 2GB memory kits taught us quite a lot about using Conroe as the center of a new system. The Core 2 Duo CPU is fast, cool, and generally easy to work with in every motherboard with every memory we tested. Most of our Reference systems have been based on AMD/AM2 for the last couple of years. To be honest, going back to some of those same systems after our Conroe testing, the differences are more obvious and painful than you might think. Conroe is clearly the faster platform - and not by small, barely measurable differences.
Emphasis mine.

I was dead serious with the title of this thread. This is a giant stake!

Quote: and AMD has a hardcore fan base that would never leave them. Like politics, they are only looking to grab a few fence sitters. To claim that this difference is going to sink AMD is laughable, AMD is here to stay, they have much support.
Oh, I agree. I didn't mean to say AMD will be going under or anything. What I did mean to say, however, was that they'll be relegated to budget-processor status for at least a year, and very possibly, much longer. That's what they were until K7, that's what they'll be until at least K9.

Quote: Quote: At any rate, the sales have plateaued at current prices and technology. With these new prices and processors, I expect that there will be a resurgence, and the price cuts will be scaled back. Ebb and flow and all that.

The largest portion of the market will always be business PC's. Companies are cutting back and cutting cost, most businesses are perfeclty happy with a P4 Dell with Windows 2000 and Office 2000 and it's plenty for them. I see no real boost in PC sales and I don't think the manufacturers do either, which is why they are grasping straws with sales.
We'll see I guess. I wish I had some money sitting around to invest in some Intel stock, though! It's no doubt sitting pretty low right now, and I strongly believe it will be going up significantly.

Quote: Quote: Multi-tasking, baby!

My single core AMD 64 multi-tasks beautifully as is. No reason to blow $300 on a new processor.
Depends on how old your processor is. I'd tend to agree for the moment, as the new Intel technology is very pricey, being brand new and all.

Quote: Quote: How about gaming while you're encoding video; thatsa niiiiice (I friggin' wish, running this 1700+).

:lol: Even if I could I wouldn't, I'd focus on my gameplay.

Besides I have a whole other Linux box sitting here to do all the ripping with.
Well, that's just one example. I hate how when I run two cpu-intesive apps I take a performance hit in both. Dual cores are cool that way.

Quote: Quote: That will be changing very, very soon. Shrinking dies further will soon no longer be an option: multi-cores are the wave of the future, and programmers will be gearing software toward that end. Intel's already talking many-core: I've heard up to 32!

Ok, well I've heard all these 64 bit dreams when I ran out and bought the AMD 64 two years ago and nothing has really happened. Vista will still run on a 32 bit processor and I prefer the 32 bit versions of Linux over the 64 bit versions as none of the applications are 64 bit.

The world is going to be 32 bit for a long time as applications are all 32 bit and you only run as fast as your slowest application.

Because 64 bit is still horribly infantile, I don't expect much from dual cores for at least another 3 years. Business computers drive the market and businesses will not upgrade every 6 months to have the latest and greatest.

Even the gaming industry has not really adopted these new technologies as most of their customers have a standard 32 bit single core processor.

They can jump the gun and make all these crazy processors, but if you can't sell what people don't need, it's futile.
Who cares about 64 bit? That's irrelevant. It's definitely headed that way, but multi-cores present a much more usable technology now, and will be more important in the near future. The technology is newer than 64 bit, but is already seeing wider use. It's easier to utilize multiple cores than it is to transition everything to 64bit (and it has much greater benefits).

Edited: derrrr... k9; k8's in use already.

Quell · Joined: 06 Jan 2006 Posts: 6183

People will stick with AMD for a few reasons.

1.) Many people including myself, have seen intel chips crap out on us while AMD chips chug along like good little soldiers.

2.) It will be at least 6 months- a year before the VAST majority of users (even most gaming) need something like what intel released.

3.) AMD is WAY more over clock friendly.

4.) Many people I know, who have pretty decent chips now, are just going to wait it out till quads+ if they are going to plunk down big bucks for a new comp.
-------------------------------

BTW..this is REALLY good for the consumer. Comp prices are tanking. I just got 3 comps for the office, that are 4x better then what we had for $400.00 EACH WITH a 19" flat panel moniter.

The next few months are going to treat "nerds" very well..not really because the intel chips are rockin (which they seem to be) but because these price wars are bringing prices WAY down...60%-70% off...just crazy.

Anyway..ill be sticking with AMD..purly for the reason that I have had 3 intel comps crap out on me early, where as my home gaming computer (AMD) is now 5 years old, and chugging along great after being OCed for 3 of those years...and yes it was the chips..maybe I just had bad luck.

Secondary Oak · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 3395 Location: Haifa

People, I may not be an expert, but considering what I know about CPUs, and considering I just finished Operating Systems course in my university and the material is still fresh (:)) - I have to say that all the "current software doesn't utilize that yet" argument is utter rubbish. An OS makes context switches all the time like a monkey on crack, even if it seems like you're only running one application. Not to mention many applications are multi-threaded themselves.

Also in theory the CPU can run the same code on multiple cores simultaneously, since it performs instructions asynchronously anyway, but I don't think the current CPUs work that way (huge overhead).