Will AMD make a come back?
 

I've built my first PC in 2000 with the then top of the line AMD Athlon 700Mhz slot A CPU. Since then I've gone through at least three upgrades, all with newer, better Athlons to where I'm currently at with an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 939 CPU. I was proud of AMD in 2004 when it ruled the roost and made big inroads in Intel's desktop market share. Maximum PC's end of year best of hardware issue featured only AMD procs for 1st place and runner up. But now that seems like so long ago and once again AMD is left in old territory, very late with new introductions that upon release are far behind Intel, forcing AMD to be a "budget-minded" alternative. AMD's fortunes seemed to take a turn for the worse when they over-paid in acquiring ATI. Though I'm still very loyal to AMD, it dismays me that they're repackaging defective Quad Core Procs as three core parts. The Phenoms that they are selling are ridiculous: 2.2Ghz and 2.3Ghz which can't come close in performance against Intel's lowest models. And when AMD does ship higher speed Phenoms at the promised die process of 45nm, how we will savy shoppers know which stepping has corrected the infamous TLB erratum? I'm told that the "GH" stepping of the Opterons are the stepping 3 version with the erratum corrected, but what is the designation for the Phenom that's corrected?

I hope that AMD makes a complete come back, and not as a budget alternative to Intel's silicon, but as the technology leader. Any thoughts? Can anyone brighten my outlook? Whether you're an AMD fan or of Intel, the market place benefits when two rivals compete against one another. The worst thing that could happen is that AMD folds and goes under. Then there would be no reason for Intel to sell any proc affordably, and no reason for them to improve their product line.

Not until management is changed. Intel is crushing them right now, and their management is horrible, and they're going down, losing both employees and fans.

If intel is bashing in their heads in this way,and continues to do this,I do not see ways of recovery for AMD

Although I do agree that AMD is in trouble and is in serious need of restructuring, I dont think they'll fold or go out of business. AMD has always been and most likely always will be the underdog. Yes they're doing bad right now, but in reality all tech seems to go in cycles. Some major examples are

AMD v Intel
Western Digital v Seagate
ATi v Nvidia

and so on ........... Give it some time and I bet AMD will come back yet again , then after that they'll get knocked back down and so on and so on

*I'm actually fairly happy with my purchase of the Phenom 9500, and I'll keep on buying AMD and Intel without regaurd for any "benchmark" hype, I just like buying cpu's :laugh: **

at this current point in the market, AMD is producing stable CPUs for cheap, and Intel is producing high performance, highly overclockable CPUs for more. It's really all about what you need in your rig. In my Overclocking Guide on the E6300 "http://www.techwarelabs.com/guides/misc_mod/overclockingguide/" I received a 73% overclock last June and it's still pretty stable. Michael Lynch did an AMD overclock test and didn't get very far.

Plus, AMD chairmen need to stop leaving :-)

There are a lot of AMD fans that already switched to Intel so this is not a very good thing I suppose

Used to be one of them. Fan or not, when money is going to be spent, I'd rather have it spent on a superior product, and AMD isn't up to the competition.

You are right.I had both AMD and Intel configurations.I always upgrade with the CPU that offers the best price/performance ratio,no matter the brand

Its going to go back and forth as new technologies and even management are doing new things. I think it will always be like this as long as they still want to keep making money.

I think for AMD, it's looking promising from the graphic cards side, but for processors, it's just hopeless, especially with Nehalem on the horizon.

intel is getting further and further ahead ever day they are now making the best bang for you buck processors intel core 2 duo 3.0Ghz $200 :biggrin: I love intel

I don't think, AMD will be able to come back again.With the launch of C2Ds, AMD has lot their shares,popularity & sells which they have gained from the time of Thunderbird,Athlon XPs or Athlon 64s.But, now it's Intel's time to dominate & that's not gonna change anytime soon. ;)

AMD processors aren't what they used to be. Intel chips are just too good and their prices are pretty sweet. I don't think you can go wrong with a C2D for $200 or just a tiny bit more than that for a quad

Boy, I remember using my Athlon XP, laughing at all the people buying the Pentium 4s. :D

Then came the AMD 64s, that still kept them ahead.

Core 2 Duo really changed everything!

I went with a 6400+ BE a few months ago because for some odd reason I don't like Intel & nVidia. I really wish I hadn't been so myopic.

I saw my one friend's C2D with dual-SLI and my other buddy's Watercooled C2Q with Tri-SLI in action and have been kicking myself ever since. Meh.

I'd like to see AMD pick up some slack, but it seems they got behind themselves, and lost a bit of the ground they'd gained during the AXP days and early days of the A64. Phenom seems too little too late.

Intel sure has made a phenomenal come back since the Pentium 4 (the infamous space heater of a processor). AMD still has a sizable market share, with Steam user surveys showing still a strong turnout of AMDs. Also AMD has a 12 core proc in the works (read here) and they should be cranking out on 45 nm soon (late this year). They are trying their best to even the gap.

it dismays me that they're repackaging defective Quad Core Procs as three core parts - 7beauties

This is done because manufacturing at even the 65nm level most of your costs come from the initial construction of the fab and then defective chips. Allowing one of the 4 chips to be defective, but telling people, will cut AMDs costs (and thus yours) significantly, it's not a bad move. It basically allows one mistake on a chip where even a few atoms out of place will ruin it. Helps out.

Agreed, I like AMD products, but Intel did a great job with the Core2. I'm hopeful that AMD will be able to put out a product soon that will compete with Intel.

I agree, my old AXP and A64 were great processors, too bad like many others, I've moved on to a core 2 quad

AMD will be releasing their Socket AM3 soon that should compete with Intel. It will have DDR3 support and some other extremely nice features. Personally, I cant wait. Nitro will be testing it as soon as we can get our hands on it.