Fxthey have never had as deep of pockets as Intel. dont forget that we are in a recession so that had a tremendous impact in addition to the merger

I cant blame them for wanting to be well rounded. they diversified and now have a complete platform. as the economy picks up I am confident their focus on their CPU line will improve

many have come and gone yet AMD still weathers the storm and is set to be better than ever. I am proud to support them with all of my purchases

If the costs of being deverse are reduces market share and inability to compete in your current markets, I don't think it is a smart move. If you are already falling behind in your current markets, trying to expand to other markets isn't smart.

And having blind loyalty to one company, for whatever reason, is dumb. For the most part I buy whatever gives me the best performance for the price. However, I also make sure to keep at least one AMD rig and one Intel rig, because if either one goes under the other will jack up prices to insane levels.

Meecrobwrong, k8 always was planned to have 3 original sockets 940=server, 754 low end and laptop, 939 for mainstream and enthusiasts, the 940 got an FX chip to hold over till they had a stock of 939 chips ready to ship(the 939 are VERY close to the 940 chips but dont requier registered/ecc ram.)
Some thought AMD planned to use 940 as the server and workstation platform but they never did, they always planned to put out a consumer socket along side their server sockets.

940 and 939 were not even thought of when 754 was being developed, it was originally supposed to be the same socket for both server and desktop, similar to the way Socket A was. They started 754 as a desktop socket to get K8 and 64-bit processors out to the consumer before Intel could. The problem is that they rush it to market, and didn't think it through. When the single channel memory support started to bite them, they needed to come out with a new socket to support it. The redesigned the socket to come up with 940/939. Which were essentially identical sockets, the extra pin was used solely to stop people from putting multi-processor capable processors in desktop boards. 940 was released first only because AMD wanted to sell off the old stock of 754 before releasong 939 to replace it.

Meecrobas to sitting on their hands, this isnt exactly true, they had a k9 in dev BUT some exec's didnt like the fact that it was a radical redesign of the core that was RISC based, they scraped the project(and lost some of their better engineers in the process) and then had another group of people work on "enhancing" the k8 design, thats where phenom came from, It was a stop gap, and phenom2 Is an evolution on that stopgap, they hopefully get bulldozer out sooner then later, but for now the phenom2 is a decent chip for the price with what you save on cpu and a good/kickass board you can get a better videocard or more ram ;)

Nothing really to argue here, and I hope the come up with something better soon. It is already starting to look like they are reaching the limits with Phenom II.

MeecrobI know a good number of people who have left Intel for AMD in the past 2 years due to issues with cpu/chipset compatabiliy and other issues, none of them have told me they plan to go back, sure they mostly admit to loosing some perf in some apps and in most benches, but they gained in other uses and they also have had less issues.

I didn't say Intel hasn't suffered from similar issues, the move to dual-core netburst made a lot of motherboards incable due to a power specification change, the move to Core 2 did the same, as did the move to 45nm Quads.

I know several people that won't touch an AMD machine for various reasons, what is your point?

Meecrobreally amd's problem is and always has been marketing, even with a less powerful product AMD could gain market share, the problem is that unlike intel, amd's marketing dept suck ass.

I really can't argue with you here.

MeecrobYou need no more proof of how important marketing is then to look at how intel held onto market share with the p4/netburst when it sucked so horribly bad compared to the athlon cores/designs.

Wrong, in the small time when AMD had the performance crown, AMD actually started gaining market share. The problem was that Intel was too quick to release Core 2 to counter, and AMD fell back to second again. I do agree that marketing is important, but having a competitive product is also, they don't have to best Intel, but at least show that they can compete at the highest tier.

inferKNOXI agree. I'm glad to support them because Intel is about 40 times bigger, but they still manage to keep up with Intel. Sure, they may not be hitting the very top tiers now, but they're giving it a good try. Not only that, but nVidia is 30 times bigger and ATI still is right up there with them in performance.:rockout:
Give it time & they may just take the crown back.:p
Not only that, but some have been saying that truly a graphics processing CPU seems to be the best road. Look at Intel following suit & going for a Larabee. Some actually believe nVidia may be in big trouble because they can't fuse their GPU with any CPU, and nVidia has even started working on a CPU. So the AMD-ATI may not have been as daft a move as you may think newtekie1.:toast:

For low performance GPUs I think you are correct. However, I don't believe, in fact I hope we will ever see a time when GPUs are fully integrated into the CPU, with no other option. I prefer the option to upgrade my GPU without having to do the same to my CPU.

Meecrobamd would loose business in the short term, but in the long term(6-12months) they would make more by focing people who want better bench scores to go with amd for the cpu if amd's videocards are ahead

The problem with this is that AMD's GPUs are not ahead. So in this senario, it wouldn't force anyone over to AMD. People would still be going with Intel because the processor provides better scores, and nVidia cards because they provide better scores.

Meecrobif nvidias where ahead, and nvidia didnt allow SLI on newer intel chipsets, well AMD would still get more sales on cpu's going into nvidia based boards, Intels already cut nvidia out of the i3/i5/i7 chipset market so intel wouldnt have any dual card options if both amd and nv desided to take away their ability to do that, and most crazy benchers want 2 cards or more from my experiance.

The problem with this is that nVidia will never not have SLi on an Intel platform. AMD buying ATi essentially turned AMD into nVidia's competition, they are not going to work with them to try and force Intel out of the market, you just don't work with your competition, especially not to remove your competition's competition.

And Intel can't cut nVidia out of the i3/i5/i7, Intel has almost nothing to do with the decision, it is entirely up to nVidia what chipsets SLi supports.

Meecrobnot saying they wouldnt loose some money in the short term, but it wouldnt be as large an ammount as you may think, sales of CF and SLI setups arent as big a deal to amd as they are to intel and nvidia because amd really is more targeted at selling the low and mid-midhigh platforms, intel wants to get i7 sales up(and i3/5 as well) since that will be how they make alot of money, chipsets+cpu's all at a huge profit margin!!!

admit it, intel would look less appealing to gamers and benchers if you had no way to run sli or cf like all the benches show kicking ass ;)

I'll admit it, but that doesn't mean it will ever happen, and it doesn't mean the opposite isn't true. AMD would look less appealing if SLi wasn't an option.

newtekie1If the costs of being deverse are reduces market share and inability to compete in your current markets, I don't think it is a smart move. If you are already falling behind in your current markets, trying to expand to other markets isn't smart.

And having blind loyalty to one company, for whatever reason, is dumb. For the most part I buy whatever gives me the best performance for the price. However, I also make sure to keep at least one AMD rig and one Intel rig, because if either one goes under the other will jack up prices to insane levels.

it isnt just expanding into other markets. these "other markets" complement their core business because if anything it gives AMD their own platform which promotes the sale of their CPUs from low end to enthusiast... that is a lot extra money. the future is about integrating systems. that is exactly what they have done and are doing a fine job

no blind eye here. when it comes to cpu, chipsets and graphics I support AMD to catch up to Intel. whenever Intel's new X25-M 160GB SSD hits the shelves I plan to be among the first to purchase one

newtekie1And having blind loyalty to one company, for whatever reason, is dumb.

Of course it is, fanboyism is always stupid, especially when you're doing it at a disadvantage to yourself. I simply support AMD at the pricepoint that is in my reach. If I could afford a i7 775XE, I... well I might've taken it (considering heat & noise only) based on performance.
AMD is covering the market segment that most of us are buying at, and doing so well, so whe I can support them without sacrificing myself, I'm happy to do so.:)
Such is the life of an anti-monopolist... (cue old western tune) me he he he he.:pimp: