Originally posted by: lopri
The point here is not the results of individual benchmarks. The point is that
Intel basically halved the prices across the line of their dual-core chips, to the point their top model is comparable to AMD's bottom line,
price-wise Think about the past, say, a year ago. For example, P4 3.0GHz more or less matched A64 3000+ when it comes to price. Whether it's AMD's doing or Intel's doing, the model # - price parity has been kept without their acknowledgement, and we all knew what it's all about. How about Extreme Edition? Regardless of its performance, its price has been always around FX series. Coincidence? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight..
The situation is changing drastically. Not many people will consider individual benchmark wins (and with this price cut, the performance/price of P-D is more realistic, compared to X2), heat/power, cost of mobo, etc. The importance here is that
stuff that used to cost $500 untill yesterday now cost $200, and there is nothing offered from competition in that price range. Will all AT members switch to P-D? Hardly. (But someone who needs to build a new rig right now will be likely to consider) Will retail market/system builders be excited? Possibly. Will Dell be more than thrilled to offer 3.0GHz dual-core rig for $500, completed with flat-panel monitors from their inventory? Definitely.
You can't look at this from
our point of view. Even then, I'm sure many of us are now more willing than before to consider Intel build. This is the power of price cuts, and that's why AMD's stock has been slowly going down, even though they're having a golden age and analyst predict near record breaking profit for the next few quarters. AMD stock holders are scared of Intel's price cut because they know it can
kill AMD. AMD has one big relief though - the litigation. Looking back the whole story how CPU market has been going since last year, it's like watching such drama. Maybe AMD predicted a worse case like this earlier? Thanks to the litigation alone (of course they have excellent products to support themselves. I'm not overlooking it) Intel won't be able to push AMD down to where it was like 5 years ago, but it will certainly be able to not lose any more market share: by price cuts.
What's interesting is AMD's counter in near future. I can't even begin to guess how it's going to span out. Counter price-cut seems suicidal to AMD. (You know, AMD has been having supply problem and their dual-cores are HUGE, which means they can't afford to lose profit on every single die) If AMD don't do anything, they will have a hard time gaining further market share from now on.
The CPU market is becoming just as interesting as the GPU market.
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