lets hear it for AMD, 'RHA!RAH!RAH!

[BEOR999]

Intel surprised the industry by introducing its 800MHz Pentium III in limited quantities on Dec.20 but AMD was not far behind and sources from AMD said, "We will continue to push the performance envelope with Athlon and will likely ship an 850MHz version of the chip in the next few months." AMD also announced plans to show-off at the up coming CES (Consumer Electronics Show) with chips running at 900MHz at room temperature. One such chip will be similar to the current 800MHz chip. This is indeed good news for AMD and bad news for Intel, and makes a reporter's job alot more exciting http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif I will keep you updated on any new developments as they unfold. (Source: sysopt)

[OuTpaTienT]

I was just browsing through a local computer magazine (you know the kind, 85% ads from local vendors) and noticed that the AMD Athlon is the prevalent CPU of choice for the ma & pop computer shops.

Nearly all the local vendors (which is literally 100's due to my proximity to Silicon Vally) are offering Athlon systems at 700mhz & 750mhz (December issue), but the fastest Intel systems were limited to a measly 2 venders offering the 667mhz PIII.

So Intel can "officially release" whatever MHz chip they please, it's obvious they cannot deliver. What the hell, why don't they just go ahead and release their 1Ghz & 2Ghz CPU's now?

Intel may be getting some high-end CPUs to the likes of Dell & Compaq, but they seem to have completely cut-off the small vendor in attempts to fill the big orders. A grave mistake IMO.

[This message has been edited by OuTpaTienT (edited 01-07-2000).]

[Axel]

Great - that means we can all make mistakes so much faster than before http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif ;0 http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

It also means that 650mHz chips should quickly drop in price..... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif=)

Looks like there are going to be a bunch more slot A boards in the very near future. Has anyone seen any multiprocessor slot A boards out there?

[This message has been edited by Axel (edited 01-07-2000).]

[BEOR999]

YEP and I thought that i would have to wait untill christmas to afford an Athlon 700 http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
Could be my luck will change come Easter

[lost1]

My, how the mighty have fallen...
Seems Intel dropped the ball big time with Gateway. According to ZDNet news, Intel couldn't deliver the specified number of processors their contract called for, so Gateway lost a ton of money in the last quarter of 99. They rolled the dice on Intel as the sole supplier of CPU's, & got bit.
They're saying now that they won't make that mistake again & AMD stands to score some lucrative new contracts.

Hmmmm, the plot thickens...

[This message has been edited by lost1 (edited 01-07-2000).]

[Nathan]

While we are enjoying Intel bashing, let's not forget that Intel never needed (that I'm aware of) a patch for the processor. AMD and Cyrix did. While it's OK to push to get the latest technology out the door as quickly as possible, let's hope that quality doesn't suffer.

[psyklone]

hell, if all i have to do is install a patch to have a cheaper kickass processor .... SIGN ME UP!

http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[richamies]

Lets not forget that the patch was only required because the orignal files were coded for Intel processors...

AMD are rising, and I hope they continue to do so. As one of the 2 giants in modern Pc's(Intel and Microsoft) is seemingly starting to fall, lets hope that the second giant will start to tumble in the same way....

*EDIT*
And lets also not forget that Intel needed the biggest patch of all - replacement processors - for their early Pentiums. And they can hardly say that was down to pressure from competitors, as AMD was still on the 486 cloning. Intel also showed off their inability to full test processors with the recent P3 Coppermine bug, which causes systems to not boot up successfully.

I don't recall AMD having a problem like that, the worst they had was very hot chips when they first started producing them. But they seemed to iron that out fairly quickly....

[This message has been edited by richamies (edited 01-07-2000).]

[Nick66]

The industry in large owes many thanks to AMD. Innovation is paramount, Intel was stagnant until K7. Even Intel freaks agree that the tech world has benifited from AMD's strides. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[Axel]

Reminds me of the Hayes modem company - first they were bought by USR and then USR got "merged" with 3com. Least that's the way I remember it.

I wonder what's going to happen to Intel.....

[richamies]

AMD Inside

Intel Outside, by quite a distance http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[BEOR999]

Intel never needed (that I'm aware of) a patch for the processor. AMD and Cyrix did.

True, but I remember the Intel floating point error, big bummer that one http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

I say credit where it is due, and I think AMD deserve a big share in the market now. In fact, large companies, like HP http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif are already using AMD, they are well keen on Linux and it will not be long b4 we see high end netservers with kickass AMD's powering them, from the leading manufacturers.

Go get 'em AMD http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[bigslammer]

great to hear. all I care about is cheap computer parts and AMD has made that possible with cpu's. plus the whole rambus fiasco probably had a significant impact on sdram prices (ram prices were sky high before any earthquakes in Taiwan). http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[UKLee]

Well, the good news for us consumers amidst the whole AMD vs. Intel thing is that it can only lower prices... and the good old "trickle down" effect on CPUs that we see is going faster than ever right now because the big two are releasing newer and newer versions of their chips all the time... I've just ordered a new PC with a 600MHz PIII and I know it's not cutting edge compared to the 800 but I'm satisfied with it because I know that a few months ago that chip was as much money as the 800 versions will cost now, and the demands of software haven't increased that much since last October! At the moment I don't see any reason why I need to fork out big money for the very latest processor. The biggest joke around at the moment, though, has to be RAMBUS - I've seen the benchmarks as I'm sure many of you have, and I'm not too impressed considering the fact that its three times or greater than SDRAM. At the moment it is even slower than SDRAM in some situations (especially in some games)... 133MHz RAM seems pretty pointless as well as it seems stupid to change motherboards just for it... the best hope for easing bottlenecks in the future will be DDRSDRAM, as we've seen on the GeForce graphics cards.

[Nathan]

I agree with you all on the problems ALL processors had. I just had some bad experiences with AMD that I rarely had with Intel. Just too many of them came back for replacement, of which I wasn't reimbursed my labor costs. All the hours wasted thinking it was one thing when it was the processor. But we all have horror stories to tell I know.

But actually I'm glad they are around. Maybe it will bring Intel down some.

[This message has been edited by Nathan (edited 01-07-2000).]

[lost1]

Well, at present I have 2 AMD machines and 2 Intels (hey, no one's perfect http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif) so I'm kinda middle-of-the-road, but all I can say is that the Intel folks better hope that AMD stays with us, or you can forget sub-$100 Celerons and affordable PIII's.
By the same token, in the unlikely event that Intel should fold, BELIEVE ME- that K62/450 that costs $54 right now would triple in price overnight. K7's would be for the elite only, and we'd all be cursing AMD as the Big Bad Dog.
As consumers, we can only hope that both companies will continue to do equally well so that we can reap the benefits of cheap, bleeding edge technology.
Hopefully, the days of $550 PII 300's are gone for good... http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[OuTpaTienT]

...and with them, the days of $525 486DX-2/66's! (yes, I paid that for one.)

[CMonster]

I never needed a patch with Linux...

Seems to me the only O$ that needed a patch also had a bug that caused it to crash every 49.7 days

Ya know something else - G4s need a hellava patch to run X86 code - no fault of the CPU.

I am so glad to see AMD prosper, it is a boon to the consumer - I am so glad that Intel helped give them their start.

In the end it's whatever works - I may even get a couple of those red-hot-chili-pepper CPUs whachamacallum? -Joshua processors?