AMD will die within five years

[buleyb]

To follow up on Goose's comments...

I also believe they are in competition, only because software makers don't like porting software, its usually hard and costly. They will develop for the fewest amount of platforms they can, and most likely, they will do IA32, and if they need 64bit platforms, most won't likely do both x86-64 and IA64. Software will win the war, and that is why AMD is pushing 64bit to the desktop. When they can cover server, workstation, and desktop markets, they are a good option for software companies, because they will have the widest exposure. Intel has said they have no plan for 64bit desktop chips anytime soon, because like Ice9 said, there is no need for it. Practically, thats true, but software makers don't want to develop IA32 and IA64 when they could just develop one (x86-64) to cover all target audiences.

Intel has, however, continuously said they have no plans for a x86-64 based chip, and, however likely it is that they have one ready, they won't fess up until it is ABSOLUTELY necessary. Until then, I'll buy their lack of planning. But I would find it really funny if x86-64 starts really catching on, and Intel releases a IA64 bit desktop/workstation chip, that is affordable and powerful...that would be a real suprise My wishful thinking

 

[Bovinicus]

Sorry, but I'll have to respectfully disagree with that. Intel will sell more 3.06ghz P4's than AMD will even be able to manufacture. Remember, Intel sells ~8x the amount of cpu's that AMD does. And I'm sure the market share of the top bin products is even higher, especially when you take into consideration the troubles that AMD has had in delivering those cpu's.

I'm sorry, I should have clarified. I meant percentage wise, there will be about the same number of AMD users that purchase a 3000+ as Intel useres that purchase a 3.06GHz P4.

 

[DeRusto]

I'm not here to agree with Ice, nor am I agreeing with anyone else. Lets just say I'm Switzerland.

I'm just here to defend Ice's gentlemanly composure. It seems to me that he has kept himself very proper during this onslaught, whether his information has been accurate or not..and whether he has the background to back it up or not. Kudos to Ice for his forum manners.

 

[Ice9]

DeRusto: Thank you for noticing

I try to be as factual as possible. In fact, I've used nothing but public information here for any of my points, and they are all verifiable facts and figures. I've included links to reputable sources whenever possible.

But unfortunately, sometimes facts are outweighed by religious fanaticism, just as they are in every other aspect of life

 

[Goose77]

I'm just here to defend Ice's gentlemanly composure. It seems to me that he has kept himself very proper during this onslaught, whether his information has been accurate or not..and whether he has the background to back it up or not. Kudos to Ice for his forum manners.

Sorry derusto, i dont mean to be rude or an ass, but i cant stand what this guy does. The ingorance that he spews is insaltin to anyone that knows better. Another problem of this is that for the people that dont know any better and see this MIGHT be suaded from purchasing any of INTEL's competetor products. I see all too often, things like this...

example of an earlier posting on this forum:

Guy asks why his matrox video card was really hot with his new AMD system!

Another guy responds that video cards dont agree with AMD processors and that was the reason!!!

i mean holy crap, This could be any number of things, from agp now running in 4x mode as opposed to 2x, higher voltage, or a bad chipset. All of which is not AMD's fault!

the sad thing is, this guy started to believe the anti-AMD poster until someone with knowledge straighten it out!!

its good that he posts he's opinion, but dont do it to where it sounds like fact!! and that your all knowing. Opinion is not fact, but how u feel.

this is my two cents

 

[Ice9]

just to let you in on something, AMD could always receive help from the government to keep on going. All they have to do is file chapter 11 and claim Precedents from the airline company cases which kept them alive. There are also government grants and other types of funding. Trust me if AMD really wanted to stay around they could indefinitly! Whats really funnie is that you seem to be a business major, but its puzzling how you dont know about the aforementioned items! With this in mind, you seem of a typical Intel FanBoy! and you cant say the same for me, for i have not taken any sides other than to say that AMD will not be gone in 5 year and even longer then that!

Ok, A few things on this paragraph:

1. AMD may have to fall back on bankruptcy court to keep going. This is a good thing?
2. Airlines are critical to the nation. They get people from point A to point B. AMD is in no way critical to the state of the nation.
3. AMD will not stay around if the shareholders bail. And boy, are they bailing.
4. No amount of bankruptcy protection will keep a company around if they need to liquidate their assets to pay creditors.
5. Please try to understand how the economy works and how public companies operate. Don't try to tell me what I know so well. I work in the finance sector for the largest financial firm in the world. I see comanies and competitors come and go every day.
6. I am not a business major. I am an IT professional, and have been for the past 15 years, 10 of which have been at citigroup. http://www.weckstrom.com/resume.html if you want to see my resume, this will keep you from asking questions about my credibility.
7. I'm not an Intel fanboy. If AMD had the better product, my belief is that the masses would be using it, PARTICULARLY if it were the cheaper alternative. I also believe that AMD would have no market at all if Intel didn't exist. Intel drives the market, not AMD. The fact that I prefer Intel over AMD is based on a MULTITUDE of reasons. I've already specified what they are in previous posts, so I don't feel the need to rehash.
8. My agreement with the statement of "AMD will be gone in 5 years" is based on the FACTS. If you ignore the FACTS, then you are just showing religious fanboy fanaticism.

and for your info, Opteron is in direct competition with the Itaniums, just for the fact that if AMD's Opteron does take off, Intel has made a backup plan of Yamhill !! !! And if i can remember correctly from a past article, i believe that Yamhill is the lisenced architecture of AMD's 64bit hammer! (might be wrong here, but hell, i have forgotten more crap then you'll ever know)

I don't think you understand where the Itanium is targeted. Please tell me which market you think Itanium is targeting. Then tell me what market AMD is targeting with Opteron. Please be concise. Also, why would Intel need to license a technology that it licensed to AMD in the first place? AMD licensed the x86 instruction set from Intel, and that agreement expires in 2005.

also, sorry to say but the average schlep's desktop will have the desktop version of opteron due out in september!! dood you really need to read more!

That will never happen. Not with Intel's market share and manufacturing might. Again, you're putting religious fanaticism in place of the facts. Even if it WERE fact, AMD does NOT have the manufacturing capacity to put an opteron on every average schlep's desk, even if they wanted to.

'dood, you really need to read the facts more!'

 

[Carrot44]

Actually, my initial reply to your post is: Gaming does not drive the computing market. And it doesn't.

Hummmmmmm if this is so then why do we have such Cards as the ATI 9700 and Nvida? If pc gamers are not an issue then we all could do just fine with a S3 Virge card

Ken

 

[bigshooter]

Why is everyone focusing on how AMD's gamble on 64bit computing is not going to pay off? It will target a niche, but a lot of people will still jump on it to have the latest and greatest. The opteron may not be accepted at first, but if it performs well, who knows? Also, the Athlon64 is supposed to be AMD's fastest processor in 32-bit computing as well. Who knows how final silicon will perform 5 months from know when it's released? They may have some tricks up their sleeves, or be able to release at a clock speed that will kill whatever Intel has out at the time. I doubt this will happen, but hearing people say they KNOW AMD will fail, based on facts can't possibly know. Are they fortune tellers? Do they have engineering samples of hammer sitting in their personal machiens that they are testing with? AMD's financials suck right now, but they survived the economic downturn while many did not. Intel is losing money as well, but as people have said, their market share keep them profitable. I've held on to 100 shares of AMD stock just to see what will happen. I lost about a grand, but it's not really bothering me. I'll take the gamble and see if they can pull off a winner.

 

[Ice9]

Carrot: So you're saying that because these high powered graphics cards exist, that it's fact that Gaming drives the PC Market? BMW 7-series sedans and Lexus SC430's exist, but what percentage of car buyers buy 'em? Are those the cars that drive the automotive market? Hell no.

Bigshooter: AMD needs more than a niche market to survive. They aren't going to make back those hundreds of millions in r&d costs by catering to 1% of the computing market... and the market they're targeting is already flooded with other options that people will perceive as better, if for nothing else because it has the "intel" name on it.

People are focused on the technology, and that's ok... provided you understand how it could potentially drive them out of business. It's not about fortune telling, it's about educated guesses and previous experience in that marketplace. You can discount it all you want, it's still a better indicator than any fanboy's crystal ball.

 

[Varsh]

WOW, I just spent 2 hours reading all this, now I think that I have to say at least something:
Ok, we all know that Intel make quality processors and currently with their new P4 is faster than the Athlon XP...initially, but the thing is there's not enough stability for the P4 for the side of the gamers, Intel Processors I found (ok other than Sim City 4 and intensive processor powered games which is barely any) has a much slower performance rating over an Athlon XP of less equivalence. I've got a lot of proof of this from testing other peoples machines around where I am and I also repair/build/test machines for a living AND work in a LAN Arena/Net Café.
As far as I've seen, I've had more people come to me with people either trying to overclock their P4's and completely frying them, hence they need a replacement, I've found that AMDs when overclocked hit a faster processor speed than the P4's, I've even managed to get an Athlon XP 2400+ run faster than an overclocked P4 3Ghz. Believe it or not, Games is what's driving the computer market, and in terms of PC Games, you do realise that the Entertainment industry is the largest in the world? Of which more than 75% of that is all gaming, now if I'm wrong please tell me but I don't think I am, Everything you see and use on your somputer is in one way or other drivin by games developers pushing the hardware to it's limits, you only need to look at UT 2003 to see what I mean, it's THE most power hungry game I've ever witnessed and the AMD processors OUTPERFORM the P4 Processors in that game by quite a bit with similar hardware.
This is also one of the main reasons of where I work is that we have AMD processors, they're cheap (we can actually afford them unlike the Pentium processors!!!), they're far stabler especially even when heavily overclocked, they produce much less heat and so on... When the new 32/64bit processor comes out near the end of the year, my boss has already decided to get them, main reason? Well I think you already know why.
Also about "AMD Dieing within 5 years", now Ice9, you're telling me that you're an IT Pro? Well just so you know you're not a Pro in Business, for starters a company will not feed money like hell into one product for nothing of which AMD are doing, sure it's a gamble and all companies must gamble at some time or other, but AMD have not planned this for one last ditch effort. If you think you know business' well, especially when £Billions is involved, then think again, the whole point of a business is to look into the future, what they'll plan and more, if something turns out wrong then there's always something that they're got in reserve/backup, as we all know AMD will not give up without a fight. I'm not an AMD fanboy but I know what I'm talking about, I've had and used processors ranging from a 8086 up to the new P4's and AMD's and to me I prefer the AMDs in terms of performance and the way you can overclock it and still be extremely stable.
They're still here for the long run believe it or not, just because finances are poor, doesn't mean they'll make a loss, obviously in the first 6 months to a year they will, that's always planned by companies in the first place, they'll always have something to fall back on.
Myself, I'm a gamer, I'm actually in truth a hardcore gamer (been playing games daily for the last 20 years) and I know exactly how things are now, I'm already working towards the Games Indistry at University and I've already been told by many many many games developers and even software programmers that they use AMDs as their test machines primarily because they give the most juice for their cash. On top of that I'm also fairly poor seeing that I'm at University, however if the AMD provessors still hit the same price as the Intel Processors, I wouldn't care, I'm completely sticking with AMD until I find an Intel Processor that outdoes AND has the overclocking w/stability of the AMD processors.

Edit : Did your parents ever tell you not to believe everything you read in the papers? Well same goes for the internet.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: ScrewFace
I think AMD'll be around for alot longer than a measly 5 years. Right now AMD is rocking with it's 2400+, 2600+ and 2700+ and are very reasonably priced. Couple that with the fact that you can use much cheaper DDR-SDRAM to get the full potential of it Athlon XP CPU instead of expensive PC1066/1200 RDRAM which MUST be used for the Pentium 4 to get its full potential. I've been using Intel since January 28th, 1998 but I'm gonna go with AMD next time.

not just talking CPU's though which both companies make very well... Intel makes other things that AMD does not. and that is also part of the problem. I am not even sure what to say about what AMD can do about this... I don't forsee them releasing any other parts or products like Intel does. AMD does put chips and processors in other things than just computers, but Intel does even more than that.. I don't think AMD will "die".. So many people use the product.. if it comes time and they are going belly up.. someone will buy it out and keep the business alive... AMD can only go up in my opinion. not worried at all.

 

[Ice9]

Ok, we all know that Intel make quality processors and currently with their new P4 is faster than the Athlon XP...initially, but the thing is there's not enough stability for the P4 for the side of the gamers, Intel Processors I found (ok other than Sim City 4 and intensive processor powered games which is barely any) has a much slower performance rating over an Athlon XP of less equivalence. I've got a lot of proof of this from testing other peoples machines around where I am and I also repair/build/test machines for a living AND work in a LAN Arena/Net Café.

Hardly makes you an expert Back this up. Let's see your proof.

As far as I've seen, I've had more people come to me with people either trying to overclock their P4's and completely frying them, hence they need a replacement, I've found that AMDs when overclocked hit a faster processor speed than the P4's, I've even managed to get an Athlon XP 2400+ run faster than an overclocked P4 3Ghz.

I'd like to know how ANYONE has managed to fry a P4 that has thermal protection integrated into the cpu ITSELF! I've read TONS of horror stories of fried AMD's and crushed processor cores... but NOT ONE instance of a "fried P4". And forget about crushing a P4 core. That heat spreader takes care of that nonsense. I think you need to back up this nonsensical statement as well.

Believe it or not, Games is what's driving the computer market, and in terms of PC Games, you do realise that the Entertainment industry is the largest in the world? Of which more than 75% of that is all gaming, now if I'm wrong please tell me but I don't think I am, Everything you see and use on your somputer is in one way or other drivin by games developers pushing the hardware to it's limits, you only need to look at UT 2003 to see what I mean, it's THE most power hungry game I've ever witnessed and the AMD processors OUTPERFORM the P4 Processors in that game by quite a bit with similar hardware.

BS. Writing docs, balancing checkbooks, surfing websites, writing emails, and using instant messengers. That's the bulk of PC usage. The bulk of EA's revenues comes from where?

Console games. Not PC games. Here's my proof:

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/030211/erts10-q.html

The above is EA's last quarterly filing. Some items of note:

PC Product revenues: $219,083,000

PS2 Revenues: $459,407,000 (DOUBLE that of the PC alone)
Gamecube: $111,103,000
Xbox: $116,836,000

Now, let's look at the most profitable business app company, the indubitable Microsoft:

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/030131/msft10-q.html

Information Worker includes revenue from Microsoft Office, Microsoft Project, Visio, other standalone information worker applications, SharePoint Portal Server CALs, and professional product support services. Revenue from Information Worker was $2.29 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2003, increasing 8% from the prior year?s second quarter.

That's right... The most profitable gaming company made $250 mil last quarter on PC games... Microsoft's office apps generated $2.29 ***BILLION***.

Sorry, Gaming doesn't drive the computer market

This is also one of the main reasons of where I work is that we have AMD processors, they're cheap (we can actually afford them unlike the Pentium processors!!!), they're far stabler especially even when heavily overclocked, they produce much less heat and so on... When the new 32/64bit processor comes out near the end of the year, my boss has already decided to get them, main reason? Well I think you already know why.

What third world country do you live in where Intel CPU's are expensive? Here in the good ole US of A, a P4 2.4ghz costs around... oh... I dunno.... under $200.

Also about "AMD Dieing within 5 years", now Ice9, you're telling me that you're an IT Pro? Well just so you know you're not a Pro in Business, for starters a company will not feed money like hell into one product for nothing of which AMD are doing, sure it's a gamble and all companies must gamble at some time or other, but AMD have not planned this for one last ditch effort.

Actually, yes they have planned this as a last ditch effort... The Athlon has not made them profitable.

http://biz.yahoo.com/fin/l/a/amd.html

This is a page pointing to their own reported financials for the past year. Note the final column: Net Income Applicable To Common Shares. This is their "profit".

Their profits amount to roughly NEGATIVE 462 million dollars. That's right, they have LOST half a billion dollars in the past year alone, and that doesn't even count their last filed quarter in which they lost an ADDITIONAL $854 MILLION.

http://biz.yahoo.com/n/a/amd.html (scroll down to Friday Jan 17th).

If you go back over AMD's historical data, their total profitability is roughly 1.5 billion OVER THE LIFE OF THE COMPANY. They have now lost EVERY DIME THEY'VE EVER MADE over the past 1.25 years alone. The folks over at cnet noticed this as well:

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983542.html
For the year, AMD lost $1.3 billion, close to the total net profit of $1.66 billion achieved over the past 15 years combined.

If you think you know business' well, especially when £Billions is involved, then think again, the whole point of a business is to look into the future, what they'll plan and more, if something turns out wrong then there's always something that they're got in reserve/backup, as we all know AMD will not give up without a fight.

There are non-profit companies, there are not-for-profit companies, and there are for-profit companies. AMD is a for-profit, publicly traded company. Tell us, What is AMD's reserve parachute? It's not the Athlon, that's not profitable. If the opteron fails, what's there for AMD to fall back on now that they've squandered all their money away?

I'm not an AMD fanboy but I know what I'm talking about, I've had and used processors ranging from a 8086 up to the new P4's and AMD's and to me I prefer the AMDs in terms of performance and the way you can overclock it and still be extremely stable.

Ahh yes, the world just REVOLVES around this! Geez, man...

They're still here for the long run believe it or not, just because finances are poor, doesn't mean they'll make a loss, obviously in the first 6 months to a year they will, that's always planned by companies in the first place, they'll always have something to fall back on.

So you're saying companies ALWAYS plan on huge losses the first 6 months of every year? You must work for amazon.com AMD is now working without a safety net. Any foob can see that.

Myself, I'm a gamer, I'm actually in truth a hardcore gamer (been playing games daily for the last 20 years) and I know exactly how things are now, I'm already working towards the Games Indistry at University and I've already been told by many many many games developers and even software programmers that they use AMDs as their test machines primarily because they give the most juice for their cash. On top of that I'm also fairly poor seeing that I'm at University, however if the AMD provessors still hit the same price as the Intel Processors, I wouldn't care, I'm completely sticking with AMD until I find an Intel Processor that outdoes AND has the overclocking w/stability of the AMD processors.

You are an AMD fanboy. But I don't believe for a minute that you give a rat's ass about the state of AMD as a company.

Edit : Did your parents ever tell you not to believe everything you read in the papers? Well same goes for the internet.

The proof I have presented came from AMD themselves, as they have to report their own earnings (or lack thereof) as a PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANY. It is verifiable, REPUTABLE information. Only a fool would discredit it.

 

[Varsh]

Originally posted by: Ice9

Ok, we all know that Intel make quality processors and currently with their new P4 is faster than the Athlon XP...initially, but the thing is there's not enough stability for the P4 for the side of the gamers, Intel Processors I found (ok other than Sim City 4 and intensive processor powered games which is barely any) has a much slower performance rating over an Athlon XP of less equivalence. I've got a lot of proof of this from testing other peoples machines around where I am and I also repair/build/test machines for a living AND work in a LAN Arena/Net Café.

Hardly makes you an expert Back this up. Let's see your proof.

Unless you come down to good ol' UK I can't show you proof, it's called working on other people's machines for the last 2 years, and I didn't call myself an expert, I said I work as a repairer/builder/tester, you know that means testing on a whole range of hardware? Not just speculations or facts, facts doesn't mean sh|t up against testing. You're hardly the expert yourself.

As far as I've seen, I've had more people come to me with people either trying to overclock their P4's and completely frying them, hence they need a replacement, I've found that AMDs when overclocked hit a faster processor speed than the P4's, I've even managed to get an Athlon XP 2400+ run faster than an overclocked P4 3Ghz.

I'd like to know how ANYONE has managed to fry a P4 that has thermal protection integrated into the cpu ITSELF! I've read TONS of horror stories of fried AMD's and crushed processor cores... but NOT ONE instance of a "fried P4". And forget about crushing a P4 core. That heat spreader takes care of that nonsense. I think you need to back up this nonsensical statement as well.

It is always possible frying any processor, you should know this, no matter if it has a Thermal Protection or not, at a certain range it WILL fry, it's more like saying a Space Shuttle won't fry because it has thermal protection against the atmosphere, big news buddy, it still can fry!

Believe it or not, Games is what's driving the computer market, and in terms of PC Games, you do realise that the Entertainment industry is the largest in the world? Of which more than 75% of that is all gaming, now if I'm wrong please tell me but I don't think I am, Everything you see and use on your somputer is in one way or other drivin by games developers pushing the hardware to it's limits, you only need to look at UT 2003 to see what I mean, it's THE most power hungry game I've ever witnessed and the AMD processors OUTPERFORM the P4 Processors in that game by quite a bit with similar hardware.

BS. Writing docs, balancing checkbooks, surfing websites, writing emails, and using instant messengers. That's the bulk of PC usage. The bulk of EA's revenues comes from where?

Console games. Not PC games. Here's my proof:

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/030211/erts10-q.html

The above is EA's last quarterly filing. Some items of note:

PC Product revenues: $219,083,000

PS2 Revenues: $459,407,000 (DOUBLE that of the PC alone)
Gamecube: $111,103,000
Xbox: $116,836,000

Now, let's look at the most profitable business app company, the indubitable Microsoft:

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/030131/msft10-q.html

Information Worker includes revenue from Microsoft Office, Microsoft Project, Visio, other standalone information worker applications, SharePoint Portal Server CALs, and professional product support services. Revenue from Information Worker was $2.29 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2003, increasing 8% from the prior year?s second quarter.

That's right... The most profitable gaming company made $250 mil last quarter on PC games... Microsoft's office apps generated $2.29 ***BILLION***.

Sorry, Gaming doesn't drive the computer market

You picked 1 company of whom started from the console market, and the console market in General is bigger, but we're not talking about the console market are we? I was strictly talking about the PC market, and I didn't mention anything about the PC market being bigger than the console market, I was strictly sticking to PC only and it has nothing to do with profits in terms of this matter, I am talking particularly why hardware is being pushed, if games were not pushing the hardware then nothing will.

This is also one of the main reasons of where I work is that we have AMD processors, they're cheap (we can actually afford them unlike the Pentium processors!!!), they're far stabler especially even when heavily overclocked, they produce much less heat and so on... When the new 32/64bit processor comes out near the end of the year, my boss has already decided to get them, main reason? Well I think you already know why.

What third world country do you live in where Intel CPU's are expensive? Here in the good ole US of A, a P4 2.4ghz costs around... oh... I dunno.... under $200.

I totally resent that statement, you really don't have a clue how much us UKers get ripped off do you? Unlike people who think like you (in America), we're not all big headed and think eveything's cheap, it's expensive everywhere apart from in North America, just don't think because it's cheap where you are it's cheap everywhere else. £100 ish for an XP 2200+ which performs better than a £200, yes £200 P4 2.4Ghz, now which would you choose?

Also about "AMD Dieing within 5 years", now Ice9, you're telling me that you're an IT Pro? Well just so you know you're not a Pro in Business, for starters a company will not feed money like hell into one product for nothing of which AMD are doing, sure it's a gamble and all companies must gamble at some time or other, but AMD have not planned this for one last ditch effort.

Actually, yes they have planned this as a last ditch effort... The Athlon has not made them profitable.

http://biz.yahoo.com/fin/l/a/amd.html

This is a page pointing to their own reported financials for the past year. Note the final column: Net Income Applicable To Common Shares. This is their "profit".

Their profits amount to roughly NEGATIVE 462 million dollars. That's right, they have LOST half a billion dollars in the past year alone, and that doesn't even count their last filed quarter in which they lost an ADDITIONAL $854 MILLION.

http://biz.yahoo.com/n/a/amd.html (scroll down to Friday Jan 17th).

If you go back over AMD's historical data, their total profitability is roughly 1.5 billion OVER THE LIFE OF THE COMPANY. They have now lost EVERY DIME THEY'VE EVER MADE over the past 1.25 years alone. The folks over at cnet noticed this as well:

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-983542.html
For the year, AMD lost $1.3 billion, close to the total net profit of $1.66 billion achieved over the past 15 years combined.

If you didn't cut it off here from the rest of the paragraph, this would've made more sense as I wasn't even talking about profits in the first place.

If you think you know business' well, especially when £Billions is involved, then think again, the whole point of a business is to look into the future, what they'll plan and more, if something turns out wrong then there's always something that they're got in reserve/backup, as we all know AMD will not give up without a fight.

There are non-profit companies, there are not-for-profit companies, and there are for-profit companies. AMD is a for-profit, publicly traded company. Tell us, What is AMD's reserve parachute? It's not the Athlon, that's not profitable. If the opteron fails, what's there for AMD to fall back on now that they've squandered all their money away?

How do I know, I don't work there do I? Smart arse.

I'm not an AMD fanboy but I know what I'm talking about, I've had and used processors ranging from a 8086 up to the new P4's and AMD's and to me I prefer the AMDs in terms of performance and the way you can overclock it and still be extremely stable.

Ahh yes, the world just REVOLVES around this! Geez, man...

Oooo I'm quaking in my boots.

They're still here for the long run believe it or not, just because finances are poor, doesn't mean they'll make a loss, obviously in the first 6 months to a year they will, that's always planned by companies in the first place, they'll always have something to fall back on.

So you're saying companies ALWAYS plan on huge losses the first 6 months of every year? You must work for amazon.com AMD is now working without a safety net. Any foob can see that.

I didn't say anything about a huge loss OR every 6 months per year, I said, if you READ properly, the FIRST 6 months a loss, that doesn't mean each year or a huge loss, all companies PREPARE for some sort of loss at least within that time. Like I said, I never said ANYTHING about huge losses, so making about stupid presumptions.

Myself, I'm a gamer, I'm actually in truth a hardcore gamer (been playing games daily for the last 20 years) and I know exactly how things are now, I'm already working towards the Games Indistry at University and I've already been told by many many many games developers and even software programmers that they use AMDs as their test machines primarily because they give the most juice for their cash. On top of that I'm also fairly poor seeing that I'm at University, however if the AMD provessors still hit the same price as the Intel Processors, I wouldn't care, I'm completely sticking with AMD until I find an Intel Processor that outdoes AND has the overclocking w/stability of the AMD processors.

You are an AMD fanboy. But I don't believe for a minute that you give a rat's ass about the state of AMD as a company.

Oh, and you're not an Intel fanboy??? Hipo-fecking-crite. If I never cared for AMD, why am I posting about this now? Think before you type. If us AMDers never cared about the company, then why are we saying that they won't die and we'll be buying their next processors? Stop talking out your arse for one minute and actually try and make some nice and general conversations WITHOUT insulting somebody!!!

Edit : Did your parents ever tell you not to believe everything you read in the papers? Well same goes for the internet.

The proof I have presented came from AMD themselves, as they have to report their own earnings (or lack thereof) as a PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANY. It is verifiable, REPUTABLE information. Only a fool would discredit it.

[/quote]

Don't forget that not ALL information is given away still, ok sure they're in debt and I do know that but I believe that they WILL make a come back and still be more than highly competitive with Intel, because you're an Intel Fanboy, you'll think otherwise.

 

[Ice9]

Unless you come down to good ol' UK I can't show you proof, it's called working on other people's machines for the last 2 years, and I didn't call myself an expert, I said I work as a repairer/builder/tester, you know that means testing on a whole range of hardware? Not just speculations or facts, facts doesn't mean sh|t up against testing. You're hardly the expert yourself.

How convenient for you. You claim to have proof that you cannot show. I've ABSOLUTELY run the hardware gamut. I've owned several Athlon machines, I have several friends with athlon machines, and at work I routinely work with a HUGE assortment of hardware platforms. I know where AMD can compete, and more importantly: where they can't.

It is always possible frying any processor, you should know this, no matter if it has a Thermal Protection or not, at a certain range it WILL fry, it's more like saying a Space Shuttle won't fry because it has thermal protection against the atmosphere, big news buddy, it still can fry!

OF COURSE! And you're STILL trying to convince the people on this forum that P4's fry more than Athlons?

You picked 1 company of whom started from the console market, and the console market in General is bigger, but we're not talking about the console market are we? I was strictly talking about the PC market, and I didn't mention anything about the PC market being bigger than the console market, I was strictly sticking to PC only and it has nothing to do with profits in terms of this matter, I am talking particularly why hardware is being pushed, if games were not pushing the hardware then nothing will.

I picked the most powerful and influential gaming company in the PC computing market.
And also, the most powerful and influential business software company in the PC computing market.

My point was that GAMING does NOT drive the computing market. It isn't GAMING that lures people to putting a PC in their home. Gaming is what puts consoles in homes. Gaming is NOT what puts computers in homes. Gaming certainly has an influence, but people in this thread have been making it out to be the "Be-all End-all reason desktop speeds advance", and that's simply not true when you look at the FACTS.

I totally resent that statement, you really don't have a clue how much us UKers get ripped off do you?

That depends on just how much disposable income you have. If you're a poor college student, you deal with what you have to. I am not a starving college student. My decisions on hardware are not based on bang/buck alone.

Unlike people who think like you (in America), we're not all big headed and think eveything's cheap, it's expensive everywhere apart from in North America, just don't think because it's cheap where you are it's cheap everywhere else. £100 ish for an XP 2200+ which performs better than a £200, yes £200 P4 2.4Ghz, now which would you choose?

So AMD is your savior because they sell their processors at a loss? And that makes it the better choice? Whether or not one performs better than the other is dependent on many things. My personal decision on technology isn't based on how cheap I can get the stuff. My primary goal when choosing technology is the "best tool for the job". I could go into detail, but it's pointless. I don't make up part of the majority of computer users. I make up the astute MINORITY of users who buys high-powered hardware. And I have so far STAYED AWAY from making performance claims about EITHER product to avoid the whole "fanboy" label from hitting me, but people are still mutating the FACTS I present into "fanboyism".

If you didn't cut it off here from the rest of the paragraph, this would've made more sense as I wasn't even talking about profits in the first place.

Fact: Publicly traded companies don't survive the long run if they aren't profitable. Shareholders expect positive financial growth, and positive cashflow. AMD has neither of these. The merits of their technology means NOTHING if they can't make a profit delivering it to the market. Why do YOU feel AMD is unprofitable?

I didn't say anything about a huge loss OR every 6 months per year, I said, if you READ properly, the FIRST 6 months a loss, that doesn't mean each year or a huge loss, all companies PREPARE for some sort of loss at least within that time. Like I said, I never said ANYTHING about huge losses, so making about stupid presumptions.

And i'm telling you that isn't true AT ALL. Companies that want to stay in business don't plan on compounding losses. They want profitability. It is every publicly traded company's goal to boost their bottom line, bring value to their shareholders, and in turn - more money back into the company. That isn't happening with AMD, and it hasn't been since they decided to go up against Intel.

Oh, and you're not an Intel fanboy??? Hipo-fecking-crite.

I'm not an Intel fanboy. I haven't even PREACHED the merits of Intel's technology the way everyone preaches about how the opteron will be a huge success. I haven't even ARGUED the points of Intel vs. Athlon. Instead, i've focused on the FACTS. People have harped on Intel's Itanium flop, rather than UNDERSTAND that AMD hasn't been profitable in the Athlon world, and is even less likely to be profitable in an x86-64 world. The basis of this thread is that there are people who believe AMD won't be around in 5 years. It isn't based on the merits of their technology. It is based on the FACT that AMD cannot make a profit, and don't have the ability to penetrate a market sufficiently to STAY ALIVE.

If I never cared for AMD, why am I posting about this now? Think before you type. If us AMDers never cared about the company, then why are we saying that they won't die and we'll be buying their next processors? Stop talking out your arse for one minute and actually try and make some nice and general conversations WITHOUT insulting somebody!!!

You are posting in AMD's favor simply because it's easy to do. You have no fact to back up your assertions. You are ignoring the plain fact that AMD is a company that's in BIG trouble. You are simply bantering about how you feel their technology is better and cheaper than anything in the intel world. I have not made any performance comparisons between Intel and AMD, because *THEY DON'T MATTER*. We KNOW clock for clock an AMD cpu is faster than a P4. We have KNOWN this for YEARS now. It hasn't HELPED AMD IN THE SLIGHTEST! They have LOST ALL THE MONEY THEY'VE MADE IN THE PROCESS!

It isn't an INSULT. It is a matter of SIMPLE FACT.

Don't forget that not ALL information is given away still, ok sure they're in debt and I do know that but I believe that they WILL make a come back and still be more than highly competitive with Intel, because you're an Intel Fanboy, you'll think otherwise.

Witholding information from shareholders results in CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS from shareholders (Go ahead. Take a look at what ATI is going through). Positive news is just that. POSITIVE NEWS. AMD has no reason to withold that if it will help their bottom line, and garner faith from their investors.

The reason I don't think AMD will be competitive with Intel is not because i'm a fanboy. It's because I have *DONE MY RESEARCH* and don't simply listen to the predictions of AMD fanatics who think their utopian view of a company is what will lead them to the promised land. The fact that AMD has squandered all their money trying to compete with Intel might look like the most noble of notions to you, but it will mean very little to the thousands of people who will be handed pink-slips when the company they work for can no longer afford to stay in business.

And THAT, my friend, isn't good for ANYONE.

 

[Carrot44]

I am saying that without gaming we would not have a need for faster cpu's and fancy pantsy video cards.
If it was not for AMD would we have 1 gig cpu's yet?

Ken

 

[Novgrod]

AMD's Studio 64

Seems AMD might be planning for more than six months in the future after all.

And again, it seems as though people who don't know anything about the 64 bit computer market ought not proclaim that it does not exist.

 

[Ice9]

Carrot: Of course we would. Moore's law applies to intel just as much as anyone else.

Novgrod: Care to elaborate on the 64 bit market? Care to define it? Who does it target? What are the big players that made it the market it is today? How does this correlate with AMD's offering despite the fact that it's not here yet?

I'm curious as to just what kind of market you percieve it to be

 

[Zhentar]

The thing about the Opteron is it's not targeted for joe sixpack. Servers, Supercomputing, high-end workstations; these are the targets of the Opteron. AMD already has a strong presence in supercomputing for sure, and while I don't have any experience with the other two, I beleive they have decent presence there too. The reason? Athlon XPs get 2 FLOPs per cycle, P4s get one. This mean in mathematical applications a 1.5 GHz athlon gets as much calculated as a 3 GHz P4 (yes I know thats ignoring everything else, but for some of the algorythms run, FSB and such really doesn't matter much). The Opteron/Athlon 64 gets 4 FLOPs per cycle. That gives them a lot of strength in these markets. It doesn't take very many clusters to add up to a large number of processors sold either. If they can do this well, the Opteron could be an excellent competitor with SPARC or RISC computers.


"2. Airlines are critical to the nation. They get people from point A to point B. AMD is in no way critical to the state of the nation."

Whoever said this is wrong. AMD is just as critical as Airlines. AMD or Intel fanboy, you better hope AMD makes it. Microsoft and most of the 1800's are examples of what Monopolies can do. You end up with inferior products and inferior prices. And almost all business in the USA needs cheap reliable computers; it takes both AMD and Intel to do this.

 

[Ice9]

The fact that the opteron isn't targeted at Joe Sixpack is the problem. They won't get enough profits selling onesy-twosie chips in a market that's already saturated by Intel.

As for the supercomputing market, I don't know anyone with one of those under their desks, and I don't know of anyone planning on going the Supercomputer route anytime soon.

Also, I was the person who said that about the Airlines. And no, i'm not wrong.

Airlines are going to be bailed out before any random semiconductor company. Very few complain when their favorite CPU manufacturer goes belly up, since it doesn't leave them stranded.

But with an airline that shoots thousands upon thousands of people a DAY around the globe? OH, you'll have a mess on your hands if one of those companies goes under and stops honoring tickets. Travel is crucial to the US economy. The government knows this. That's why the government is quick to bail out airlines. They are NOT quick to bail out failing semiconductor companies. In fact, I've never heard of a SINGLE semiconductor company that's been bailed out by the US government. The only time i've seen it happen at all is with Hynix Semiconductor, because they are considered critical to the south korean economy.

However, the semiconductor industry is NOT critical to ours. Intel could threaten to go bankrupt tomorrow, and the government wouldn't bail them out.

As for hoping AMD survives, I certainly hope they do. But they've seemed hell bent on going bankrupt ever since they released the Athlon if you look at how they're doing as a company. Oh, and don't dispute this without fact please.

 

[Varsh]

"And i'm telling you that isn't true AT ALL. Companies that want to stay in business don't plan on compounding losses. They want profitability. It is every publicly traded company's goal to boost their bottom line, bring value to their shareholders, and in turn - more money back into the company. That isn't happening with AMD, and it hasn't been since they decided to go up against Intel."
You also didn't read what I said AGAIN, I said PREPARE, look at the word again...P-R-E-P-A-R-E, ALL companies PREPARE at least 6 months in advance in case of a loss, that's IN CASE of a loss, I didn't say anything about them making a loss in the first 6 months or so, generally you find business' launching new products get on avg a 6 months (not calculated) annual loss, if the product flies off the shelves straight away then super, they make a profit in no time, but in any case, even Microsoft, Intel and whatever company there is, for each product they look for ahead and think of what sales they might get, if they think there's a strong market, they'll assume some osrt of loss for a while, in any case, ALL companies will prepare some form of figures for loss', gains, or other means for the first 6 months and beyond. You're telling me that I don't care about AMD and it seems you tyhink I don't know much about business' and how they're run, well working with my manager and often helping out in the financial side of things, and he always tells us everything business like and how the business is doing, I think I would know a fair bit, plus I'm also doing Marketting at University in my 3rd as a compulsory subject, I do know my stuff.
That smiley you put on the end makes you think you're the "all seeing eye", I don't like that one bit, and you're certainly not the know it all, everyone has their thoughts on the matter, you do, I respect that, but you should find some more facts it seems as shown above about more plans for AMD, glad to see that I'm right and you're not. (Still fingers crossed though).

 

[Ice9]

You also didn't read what I said AGAIN, I said PREPARE, look at the word again...P-R-E-P-A-R-E, ALL companies PREPARE at least 6 months in advance in case of a loss, that's IN CASE of a loss, I didn't say anything about them making a loss in the first 6 months or so, generally you find business' launching new products get on avg a 6 months (not calculated) annual loss, if the product flies off the shelves straight away then super, they make a profit in no time, but in any case, even Microsoft, Intel and whatever company there is, for each product they look for ahead and think of what sales they might get, if they think there's a strong market, they'll assume some osrt of loss for a while, in any case, ALL companies will prepare some form of figures for loss', gains, or other means for the first 6 months and beyond. You're telling me that I don't care about AMD and it seems you tyhink I don't know much about business' and how they're run, well working with my manager and often helping out in the financial side of things, and he always tells us everything business like and how the business is doing, I think I would know a fair bit, plus I'm also doing Marketting at University in my 3rd as a compulsory subject, I do know my stuff.

I appreciate that you're trying to learn about the business side of things.

Every product has a lifecycle. It starts with the concept cycle, then the development cycle, Prototyping, then Staging/QA, and if all goes well, Production.

Once it makes it out of production and onto the streets, this is where it's supposed to start paying off. Losses initially? Of course. You're right in that regard. But it's not 6 months. It's "however long it takes to make back R&D costs". You also have to make calculations based on your company's cash burn and the projected financial state of your company when you target profitability. As it stands right now, AMD has a LONG road ahead of them, and they don't have enough gas money. This is why people are starting to say that AMD won't be around in 5 years.

Unless something DRASTIC happens, I don't see how AMD can stay alive. They no longer have the cash, investor confidence and profitable productivity to make this new chip of theirs work. The target market for this chip is unclear at best, and they face an 800 pound gorilla that's not going down without a fight.

It's simply my feeling that AMD should have steered clear of competing directly with intel. While amd managed to get Intel's prices down, they did so at a HUGE loss to themselves, while simply not gaining appreciable market share. It's always been around an 80/20 split in intel's favor, and that percentage hasn't moved by more than 3% since this entire mess started. While it may have seemed like a great idea at one time, it's turned out to be a nightmare for them as a company.

Sure, they developed this minority culture of zealots that will always think AMD is the best. But that doesn't pay the bills. And now, they're going to try and create an x86-64 market that very few understand. Supercomputer geeks? Sure. Enthusiasts? sure. The average schlep looking to buy a computer at a local electronics store? No way. Intel can launch one well-targeted marketing campaign and get rid of that little threat.

That smiley you put on the end makes you think you're the "all seeing eye", I don't like that one bit, and you're certainly not the know it all, everyone has their thoughts on the matter, you do, I respect that, but you should find some more facts it seems as shown above about more plans for AMD, glad to see that I'm right and you're not. (Still fingers crossed though).

I've backed all my opinions with fact, none of which you've disputed. You've tried to tiptoe around them best you can. That's ok, I know it's hard to argue with reason.

You've backed your opinions with conjecture and speculation like any other pro-AMD person. Just keep in mind that's not paying AMD's bills either.

 

[Varsh]

Well in either case (I'm glad we're finally on almost the same wave-length) I really do hope AMd pull through, I'm still no AMD fanboy, just getting the performance for a better price than the P4's, as long as they're cheaper I will buy them, I know there's no way for any of us to help out AMD other than to actually buy their processors which I've doen for the last 2 years now (personally that is), unless Intel make them cheaper, I'll stick to AMD thankyou.
p.s. That smiley is still creepy after that sentence

 

[Goose77]

1. AMD may have to fall back on bankruptcy court to keep going. This is a good thing?

I never said it was a good thing, but it would keep them alive, which is all i need

2. Airlines are critical to the nation. They get people from point A to point B. AMD is in no way critical to the state of the nation.

So your saying PAM AM airlines was saved by the government because of this ^^^^, lol , and yes the gov. would help for the necessity of competition, look at what they did to Microsoft, come on dood, common sense!! another thing, since Marbury v. Madison, i find it hard to believe that any court wont give AMD equal treatment as the airlines for the fact that it is hard to go against precedences!

3. AMD will not stay around if the shareholders bail. And boy, are they bailing.

WoW, this one is good, with INTEL only $10 worth more in the stocks, i dont see shareholders sticking with them either, lol, @ $15.53
dood we are in a ressesion, everyone is doin bad!

4. No amount of bankruptcy protection will keep a company around if they need to liquidate their assets to pay creditors.

If they recieve the aid from the gov. they wont need to liquidate!

5. Please try to understand how the economy works and how public companies operate. Don't try to tell me what I know so well. I work in the finance sector for the largest financial firm in the world. I see comanies and competitors come and go every day.

It seems as if you dont understand the sector of finance, Numbers from any company can be Manipulated any which way a company see fit to benifit them, If you do work for that company then u of all people should know this. Unless you work for AMD you cant say jack sh*t about how they are gonna do. Here are 3 examples of companies that manipulated there data, WORLD COM, GLOBAL CROSSING, AND THE BIG ONE, ENRON!!!! I asked my cousin, who is CPA certified!, if it "COULD" be in the best intrest of a company to report less to no profits, she said its possible, she mentioned stuff like tax deductions and stuff i didnt really understand, since im IT and not finance! In another post you mentioned about the cost of R&D, how do you know exactly how much it cost? AMD has been getting alot of help, which im sure is not costing them all that much. Motorola and IBM gave them a lot of tech!!!! which is less spent on R&D. this is probably "ONE" reason they are able to sell athlons so cheap!

6. I am not a business major. I am an IT professional, and have been for the past 15 years, 10 of which have been at citigroup. http://www.weckstrom.com/resume.html if you want to see my resume, this will keep you from asking questions about my credibility.

DOOD!!! your fooken IT and have no business background, man you really cant say sh*t!! How can you comment on the business side of this and say you know all! So yes i can question your credibility! and your resume is not all that, i got half of that already and only been in IT for 5 years lol. I guess the younger generation does learn faster LOL!


7. I'm not an Intel fanboy. If AMD had the better product, my belief is that the masses would be using it, PARTICULARLY if it were the cheaper alternative. I also believe that AMD would have no market at all if Intel didn't exist. Intel drives the market, not AMD. The fact that I prefer Intel over AMD is based on a MULTITUDE of reasons. I've already specified what they are in previous posts, so I don't feel the need to rehash.
Your total intel fanboy, all you talk about is how great Intel's finances are and how big they are and how crappy AMD's are and how small they are. Are you in love with INTEL's money???? Its funnie how all these Joe shmoes in here have AMD, lol, im guessing that all these people are not worth concidering right??? they dont have to have a better product to be good, just equal, which they are!! DIDn't AMD and INTEL work together?, didnt intel steal the MMX tech from AMD and pattened it w/o AMD's knowledge b4 AMD could??? Well i prefer AMD over intel for your same reason, seeing as how they are equal!

8. My agreement with the statement of "AMD will be gone in 5 years" is based on the FACTS. If you ignore the FACTS, then you are just showing religious fanboy fanaticism.

facts?? that can be manipulated?? come on now Fanboy!!

Quote

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and for your info, Opteron is in direct competition with the Itaniums, just for the fact that if AMD's Opteron does take off, Intel has made a backup plan of Yamhill !! !! And if i can remember correctly from a past article, i believe that Yamhill is the lisenced architecture of AMD's 64bit hammer! (might be wrong here, but hell, i have forgotten more crap then you'll ever know)
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I don't think you understand where the Itanium is targeted. Please tell me which market you think Itanium is targeting. Then tell me what market AMD is targeting with Opteron. Please be concise. Also, why would Intel need to license a technology that it licensed to AMD in the first place? AMD licensed the x86 instruction set from Intel, and that agreement expires in 2005.

Opteron and Itanium are both for server and workstation markets, but like i said, the destop version of opteron will be out in september!! since both procs are the same, i can safely make my statements!

Quote

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also, sorry to say but the average schlep's desktop will have the desktop version of opteron due out in september!! dood you really need to read more!
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That will never happen. Not with Intel's market share and manufacturing might. Again, you're putting religious fanaticism in place of the facts. Even if it WERE fact, AMD does NOT have the manufacturing capacity to put an opteron on every average schlep's desk, even if they wanted to.

I'm guessing that you made that same statement when Athlon came out in '99, look at it now

Schlep = Windows XP 64 for the masses!!!





My final point is that no one can honestly say if amd will servive or not! all im saying is that i have a feeling that they aren't going anywhere, any time soon!!


Just keep baiting away!


EDIT:

I'd like to know how ANYONE has managed to fry a P4 that has thermal protection integrated into the cpu ITSELF! I've read TONS of horror stories of fried AMD's and crushed processor cores... but NOT ONE instance of a "fried P4". And forget about crushing a P4 core. That heat spreader takes care of that nonsense. I think you need to back up this nonsensical statement as well.

Frying doesnt always mean to destroy by extreme heat. If you had any experience with this you would know. P4 is voltage sensitive, so Fryin the P4 is easy, all you do is over Volt it. That wont melt it but the circuts cant handle large volts. Read some of the POSTING on OverClockin the P4. you will often see everyone saying dont go beyond this volt. I not an engineer, but i have a feeling that it has something to do with the large cache. DDR Memory has this same issue, where anything more then 2.75 will kill your memory. so, i use this correlation to suggest that the P4's cache might be why it is frying!

 

[giocopiano]

- paper!

 

[MadRat]

Some good points have been made already. Just wanted to add:

The recession doesn't favour the big guy. If Intel has to contract their business to match a shrinkage in the market then that can be a huge financial liability dropped on their lap. Its market contractions that have caused alot of big businesses to falter in the past! Smaller companies are more akin to weather out market slowdowns because most of them work off smaller margins and are always operating in a famine-survival mode. Whether AMD and Intel survive the market downturn is their own ability to weather the downturn.

The sad thing about this whole market is that if Intel gets destabilized they'll dump their merchandise on the market for next to nothing and bring down the whole industry! If that happens then the market will die off for all intents and purposes. Why? Because when one individual company has a monopoly share of a market, their rising and falling cycles have a profound effect on the whole industry. If Intel dies then figure that x86 processing has pretty well reached its end of life. Face it, x86 processors are the dinosaurs of the industry and eventually will die due to their overgrowth in detail!

Personal computing will live on long after Intel or AMD. Why? Because you don't need their x86 processors to do personal computing! Believe it or not but these smaller ARM processors probably have a more robust future in the personal computing industry. They are simple, cheap, and easy to produce. Not only that but their Power:Weight ratio is jumping by leaps and bounds. As soon as they make it practical to carry PDAs around and give them similar tools that we use in today's PCs, there really is little to no need for full-size desktops or laptops!

PDAs are probably the future in the PC business because it gives the industry a chance to settle down without a huge financial liability being extended in the designs. I've seen some of these phones with the PDA functions built in and they are a pretty slick solution for the average travelling worker having many functions that make a laptop obsolete in alot of cases. Heck, some the new PDAs just need an internal drive (like the iPod has 5-20GB) and detachable monitor to make it possible for most business functions! If planes and hotels had strategically mounted LCDs for travellers to expand their PDA video, then a laptop really would be dead. Maybe even portable LCD monitors where one just packs it into their travelling case separate from the PDA, but easy enough to get to when one reaches the hotel, will be something one sees here soon. We already have portable keyboards, mice, etc...

So perhaps the recession in the world is somewhat being fed by an increase in productivity of our existing tools. Perhaps fewer people are needed to do the job because cheaper tools are avialable that handle the same workload and do it better. Perhaps workloads are becoming smaller because people in general have lost sight as to what they want and need creating fewer market opportunities. Perhaps fewer opportunities give the marketers and product engineers less easy targets to aim their workload. Its an incredibly self-imploding market, so thank God the recessions are short-lived when people decide that eventually life is too short not to want anything. Sooner or later the market will materialize for a new geewhiz product and some new monopoly market player will emerge! Be it Intel or AMD, it really doesn't matter. Somebody will do it!