Anybody Remember Conroe?

[Cerb]

As for the actual topic raised, I both hope and don't hope that Intel can pull off a "Conroe moment" in the smartphone SoC space.

Keep in mind that AMD had started to dig themselves into a hole already, by the time Conroe came out (we just didn't start finding out much until well after that), and there's no indication that, FI, Qualcomm, is in such shape. Thing is, Qualcomm has, thus far, just needed a faster and more efficient core than the standard ARM committee-constrained one. Same with Apple, though they also wanted to be able to one-up the likes of Qualcomm and Samsung. Thing is, they all do so only slightly.

If users and developers could do more with faster low-power hardware, well, lately, they haven't gotten too many options. Given Intel's love of high margins and ASPs, it's doubtful they would be able to overwhelm others in the market, at least not quickly, but it would be nice to nudge others to do better than trying to get 5% faster to barely be at the top of a performance chart.

And, that's part of the thing: whatever the best future features and performance characteristics are, the major ARM players are just trying to barely improve performance for PR, not try to do something that might change how users view tablets or netbook-type computers. Just with CPU and GPU performance, Intel could do that, in the near term.

 

[Idontcare]

First: lol at the notion that you have to be an "old-timer" to remember when Conroe came out. That's not even more than 10 years ago. "Old-timer" to me means someone who was into PC building back in the 90s or earlier, with P6-based Pentium CPUs, Durons, etc.

As for the actual topic raised, I both hope and don't hope that Intel can pull off a "Conroe moment" in the smartphone SoC space. I hope so because leaps forward in technology are always good. Intel certainly has the researchers and resources necessary to make it possible. But "Conroe moment" also carries with it the connotation of making the competition irrelevant, as Conroe's release marked the beginning of AMD's spiral into obsolescence, left to scrounge for revenue as the budget alternative. I hope that doesn't happen for phone SoCs, with any designer, be it Samsung, Qualcomm, Apple, or ARM itself. Even competition is always good for the consumer.

I would argue that Intel's Conroe had very little to do with AMD's tribulations, it didn't make AMD irrelevant (it took Phenom to do that, just look at their marketshare, especially in servers, they continued to do well until they failed to deliver on their hype of the "true" quadcore) but Conroe very much made Intel relevant as they tried to put netburst behind them.

In my mind if Intel were to Conroe the smartphone market it would not be a harbinger of Qualcomm's demise, rather it would simply move Intel above its current level of being barely relevant. Elevating Intel to the stage of being a contender that can no longer be countered with slick marketing alone.

In order for it to then become a parallel to AMD in the post-Conroe era, Qualcomm and Apple (and Samsung) would have to then do something akin to what Nokia and RIM have so gloriously done to themselves and their shareholders in these past few short years.

No one Conroe'd Nokia, they took themselves out of the game with a deadly combination of stupidity at the BoD's level in choosing a CEO who was every bit as full of hubris as Hector Ruiz was when he was CEO of AMD.

 

[Torn Mind]

I definitely agree. Bay Trail will hopefully have the competition to improve and that's a good thing, but if Intel wipes the others us consumers will regret it badly. I just can't understand why people are hoping for an Intel monopole.

OTOH some posters here are perhaps long Intel and need the stock to gain some more value. At least the OP is long Intel according to his numerous articles on Seekingalpha.

Posting on message boards won't do anything to affect stock prices, since no rational being will buy stock due to a bunch of randoms talking about an irrelevant subject such as CPU performance or benchmarks--traders don't care about most of the stuff in this particular subforum, they just want the company to rake in the cash and hope the market for their products is good--who probably don't even have an E-Trade account.

Nor has Intel ever gotten a large price increase after the tech bubble burst in the late 90s. It's performance has been stuck in neutral for a long time, whereas real money was to be made had folks invested in Exxon instead.

http://www.getsmarteraboutmoney.ca/...hat-can-affect-stock-prices.aspx#.Udr04vrnkno

 

[Nothingness]

Yeah, I'm here to try to get the rich denizens of Anandtech to try to pump up Intel stock. The stock trades billions of dollars worth per day...sorry, but if I were trying to run a pump and dump (and I'd never do that), I wouldn't pick Intel as my target, lol

But more seriously, people tend to buy stocks when they think they'll go up in value. I think the folks who think Intel's never ever going to be a major player in the mobile computing space are wrong, and I have invested accordingly. Oh, and the company gives me a fat dividend check every quarter...so even if the stock goes nowhere, I still do okay.

Oh I didn't want to say you wanted to manipulate stock prices by posting in this forum, you are way too bright to think so.

I just meant that you and some other would really want Intel to wipe competition as that'd certainly increase stock price, that's all

 

[Torn Mind]

Oh I didn't want to say you wanted to manipulate stock prices by posting in this forum, you are way too bright to think so.

I just meant that you and some other would really want Intel to wipe competition as that'd certainly increase stock price, that's all

Being a monopoly doesn't do anything in itself to increase stock prices. They will look at earnings data and market predictions for Intel's products.

 

[Nothingness]

Being a monopoly doesn't do anything in itself to increase stock prices. They will look at earnings data and market predictions for Intel's products.

Don't you think the market would react positively if on top of the server and PC market, Intel also had the mobile market?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Don't you think the market would react positively if on top of the server and PC market, Intel also had the mobile market?

Not necessarily; it depends on how badly the PC market keeps doing, and how much of the tablet/phone market Intel can grab.

If Intel is losing a $100 PC chip, but replacing it with two $40 tablet chips, $20 LTE modem, and a $30 smartphone apps processor, then it's a net win...but if Intel is losing a $100 PC chip and replacing it with a mere $40 tablet chip...then not so great.

 

[tweakboy]

I had the Q6600 GO OCed to 3.7Ghz ..Great CPU is was for me. but not powerful enough for my DAW,, also yes I use taht RAM,, I was at 32GB usage on a project I was working on.