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Click to See Complete Forum and Search --> : Why AMD is playing it safe.


Dputiger
11-15-2000, 08:45 AM
This is just my opinion, but I like to think about this sort of thing. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

I think AMD is under-estimating their own market performance purposefully. Looking around on this forum I've seen a lot of 1 Ghz T-birds at 1100-1200, Duron 600's at 950, and at their last analyst meeting, Jerry Sanders said that 80% of the chips they've fabbed since July were 1 Ghz....or above.

But wait a minute--that's not true from a sales standpoint--1Ghz chips only dropped within truly affordable range for the mass-market a few months ago. Which means that AMD must be back to its old trick of getting great yields and underclocking cores.

Furthermore, with the increased bus speeds and DDR-RAM, AMD HAS effectively increased the speed of their processors without needing to roll out a new Mhz upgrade. The upcoming Palomino and Morgan chips will feature enhanced cache and branch prediction units, once again, yielding speed increases without forcing a Mhz increase.

But, I'll be honest--I think AMD is fabbing 1.5 Ghz chips right now. The cancellation of the Mustang gives them more room to pound the Palomino home.

Just my opinion--but AMD's known for months that the Pentium IV was coming and would ramp to very high clock speeds very quickly. The Thunderbird was released at 1 Ghz last JUNE and we KNOW the Athlon core goes higher without much trouble. It's hard to believe that AMD has only figured out how to get 200 more Mhz out of that core in the last five months.

Their up to something. I'd bet on it.

scourge
11-15-2000, 09:01 AM
So go buy a pile of their stock!

Target
11-15-2000, 10:08 AM
Why wouldn't they play it safe right now??

They have done an absolutely brilliant job of clawing their way into a position of respectability, finally gaining the attention and admiration of both the user and financial communities.

We've seen how quickly the opinion of the masses turns when companies make mistakes (re: Intel), and its smart business for AMD to be cautious in the position they now find themselves. After all, there are still a great many out there that believe (wrongly in my opinion) that AMD's successes over the last 12-18 months have been a fluke of sorts.

I have no doubt that AMD is "up to something" as you state....and in reality that is a very good thing for everyone except perhaps Intel shareholders.

Not rushing their (AMD) business plan, playing things close to the vest, and concentrating on business execution rather than matching Intel's, is exactly what will allow them to continue to be successful.

To use an analogy........... it wasn't the largest stone that fell Goliath, but it was the one he didn't see coming....properly aimed and thrown, and at the right time.