Why is Intel in the position its in?

[Dputiger]

I'm a huge AMD fan--have been for years--but I started thinking about this last night and I'm really confused by it. Given the position that it's in, why is Intel being beaten by AMD?

Consider this: Intel has four times the manufacturing capacity of AMD (8 fabs vs. 2), a MUCH larger market presence and a much greater market, ships processors to more countries, and probably has an R&D budget as large as AMD's net income, if not larger.

Logically, Intel should have the edge on AMD in research, manufacturing, engineering, and implementation. Furthermore, it's not as if Intel makes bad chips--both the Pentium and Pentium II chips were absolutely fabulous designs, not to mention some of the earlier CPUs.

So, given all this, why is Intel increasingly on the defensive against a company which it should be dominating?

[Ultima]

Cause:

1: Intel had always had a better cpu, regarding FPU, which, among others, made the PII a better cpu then the k6-2 at same speed.
That changed when AMD introduced the Athlon.

They didn't just put a better cpu on the market then the PIII, but the PIII was beaten at the point Intel was always superior in, the FPU performance.

2: They then came with the Coppermine, nice thing, but performance was not all that higher then athlons in games, business apps intel was better.

But then Amd released it's T-bird, the coppermine version of the athlon, so that was another slap in the face for intel.

Besides, if Intel were to drop prices at the same price as Amd sells em, they'd probably sell more, but they still count on it that people will buy Intel, cause it has always been better, till somewhat a year ago.

But, people are realizing that athlons and T-birds are as good as, so not better, then katmais and coppermines.

Pim

[qball]

I was a huge fan of AMD when I bought at $40 (had little spending cash when it was at $30) and sold at $78. It went even higher but who cares.

Anyway, Intel is having a rather difficult time manufacturing the higher speed chips in any quantity. Why this is, when they have more manufacturer, is an exercise for the user.