I know this isn’t exactly the newest news and this is a security forum and we don’t generaly discuss hardware but if we can have a topic on Mac’s, i’m sure nobody will mind if i post this.
Here is a review of the new AMD Phenom cpu’s by Anandtech : http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3153&p=3
Personally i’m very glad i went with Intel it seems it was the right thing to do.
Looks like AMD is looking at some tough times ahead … What do you guys think ?
AMD is just too far behind now. Intel Is already Mass producing 45-nm parts (penryn) so I see Phenom as too-little too late
I certainly hope not as without competition, then we will see price hikes from Intel. I can remember the days when Intel chips cost the earth and there were a few other CPU manufacturers but they have largely gone to the wall. Now AMD is the only major player in the game, so I hope they can get back to performance competitive otherwise there will be no price competitiveness.
I hate my AMD 64 X2 machine, enough said… Both my new iMac and my laptop are Intel Duo 2 Core based machines and both perform at least 1/3 better than AMD 64 X2. I’ve never liked AMD anyway… and if I have to pay some more money to get rock stable Intel machine, I will do that no questions asked, but I don’t believe Intel will ever go back to those high prices again. Nowadays it’s very easy to start some other brand like AMD and bring this competition back… financial situation is a lot better, companies are huge, money involved is incredible. I’m sure AMD is not the only one who can compete with Intel, there are some other possibilities… Competition is good, but that’s not written rule… sometimes the only thing competition brings us is nothing but load of bad products trying to steal the top position from the best.
In my books, Intel all the way.
Well, you can’t exactly compare Athlon X2 and Core 2 Duo series as they are 1 generation apart. Competition for Athlon X2 were Pentium D (dual core Pentium 4 CPU’s). Athlon 64 were an excelent choice in those days, X2 included. But after release of C2D microarchitecture, Intel pulled ahead. Logical. I hope AMD will refine the K10 chips and produce something better with next series. This year wasn’t exactly the best for them. I was using AMD Athlon 1GHz and later Athlon XP 2400+ and they were both great. I was also testing laptop with Turion 64 running at 1,8GHz and it was fairly fast. So no bad experience really. Every company has it’s ups and downs. Just remember how awful Pentium 4 were (and how Intel screwed themself with crappy NetBurst microarchitecture).
AMD can make very good CPU’s, they just don’t offer them this time and C2D is a better choice at the moment. This can change over time.
I have been using AMD chips for some considerable time now and I have no problem with them, The last Intel CPU I bought was a I believe a Slot 1 celeron 300Mhz ;D so it was a little while ago. It doesn’t mean I will buy another AMD or won’t buy an Inter Core 2 Due, which is highly likely unless in the time before I do upgrade things change. The current crop of core 2 duos represent good value for money.
One of the things that I also feel important is thermal output and that was what stopped me buying a Pentium 4 some time ago, hotter than hades, but the new core 2 do has a low thermal output meaning a quieter system and that is important, certainly to me.
I don’t think it is quite so easy to set up a new CPU fabrication company as you make out it is a huge investment in plant not to mention the chip design, etc. This doesn’t happen over night, years is more like it and all that time it is a money pit with nothing coming in. There might be a lot of money around, but considering the current credit crunch not many want to lend it so freely.
Competition can only happen if the product is up to the task, bad products won’t steal anything, if they simply aren’t competitive then they will fall.
Well of course you can not mix apples and pears, but I forgot to mention that my AMD Athlon 64 X2 is 3800+ at 2.00 GHz and with 2 GB of RAM, and my Intel Core 2 Duo is 1.6 GHz with 1 GB of RAM only… so there must be some compensation and yet, Intel gives a lot better results in many areas. I see it especially when rendering exactly the same scene or whole 3D movie on both machines…
Well, as i said, 1 generation apart can make all the difference. My C2D E4300 running at 3GHz (stock is only 1,8GHz) is as fast as the fastest AMD Athlon FX-53. If i look at entry Phenom models, they are just as fast as my overclocked E4300. And next entry Intel CPU’s will probably be just as fast as todays top end Phenoms. It’s similar with graphic cards. Each next generation of mid range cards is as fast as top end cards from last generation. It’s like a golden rule of performance upgrading.
Yes, you’re right when you say this… still, somehow I always felt more confident in starting some project on one of my Intel machines, rather than doing it on AMD box… can’t explain it, but some feeling deep inside…
Fanboy 
;D
The only other Company with the resources to compete with Intel is IBM. They used to make awesome Processors but now they only care about making integrated chips for video game consoles.
Who knows maybe they’ll buy AMD.
I doubt it, IBM has been having losses for awhile now.
It’s just sad to see a good company going down, maybe they’ll do better on the graphics front with their new 38xx series cards. The new cards really are quite good and if they price Phenom right that could keep them afloat. Unless Intel has other ideas and drops prices on Penryn, that could really hurt AMD … We’ll see i guess.