Rip off Britain

I would be impressed by these prices, but if past experience is any indication of launch prices they will shoot up the moment they appear in retailer stock.

Price

It could be possible that these prices are in quantities of 1000 units
In retail stores should be ten percent more as much.

To much money not enough performance

Will they beat Intel Q6600....probably not.

Too bad

2.4GHz is too slow, half the application (Windows is one) aren't multi-threaded so for those you end up with a single 2.4GHz core, that's not competitive for 2007, let alone 2008.

AMD lost it

If they are slower and expensive they really lost it. Somebody get Jerry Sanders back.

Yea...

But what are the motherboards gonna cost? the chip might be cheap but the rest is gonna add up.

Phenom = penryn? nope.

I would say for almost certainty that phenom will not stack well against intel's current and next generation offerings.

I figure intel will wait for phenom to launch and then just step right back on AMD with penryn. I kinda feel sorry for them being so mis-managed.However, that is the way the digital cookie crumbles.

Performance

So, is it safe to infer their performance from the prices? They're priced to compete in the market so their performance logically should be somewhere around the performance of Intel marchitecture in the same price range. If they are priced too high they won't sell. If they are priced too low, they'll sell like hotcakes, but then we'll see serious shortages of supply because I don't think AMD has the same production capacity as Intel. I think a smart move would be to price them just slightly lower than the intel equivalents (performance-wise), because AMD needs to dig itself out of its current hole, which means WE, the consumer, need to be given incentive to start buying AMD over Intel.


So, if anyone can see the prices and the equivalent models, please write them out. I don't see anything over $280 in there, so it looks like AMD doesn't have good enough yields to give us a high-end model right now, so they're targeting the midrange, as usual.

Intel is already taking advantage of lack of competition by being conservative with the clocks of QX9650. So for all those who say that if AMD (competition) is gone we're in trouble - well we're in trouble way before that, all it takes is for AMD to not have a competing product, and we're already being taken advantage of by Intel. This is just a mild preview of what's in store if AMD is truly taken out.

What is the solution? Well, that depends on what is the problem? Can anybody objectively answer just what is causing AMD to be stuck right now? Is it because they bought ATI and all the problems since are attributed just to that? Or is it poor management? Poor marketing? Overambition with technology (going "true" quad-core etc)? Is it a combination of factors? In the spirit of keeping healthy competition going (which is good for all of us), what should AMD do now to get back on its feet?

Here are some possible solutions to the above problems:

1) If buying ATI is the cause of all this, which part of this purchase created a problem? Is it the hefty financial investment? The inability to manage AMD/ATI together? The lack of resources to actualize their "fusion" thing, and so, having problems with research and development, so not making progress? It seems that selling ATI is not an option if GPGPU is indeed the future (is it?). So, what is the solution? Borrow money, spend it on mainstream/mid-range marketing - this is where the true sales volume is. You know that catchy "Intel Inside" logo and all that other stuff Intel did over the years for brand recognition and to burn itself into the mind of the consumer? AMD did not do this sort of stuff, and perhaps it's time that it did that. AMD commercials thus far have not been memorable or interesting. "The smarter choice" is not a very memorable or catchy tag line. At least add a familiar music thing to it or something - Intel has this TADADADA after every "Intel Inside" - and most people remember that little musical quirk, not so much the "Intel Inside" words.

2) Poor management - fire them. Figure out just who is an idiot, who is wasting time, who has the bad ideas, who is a psychopath in the company that is going to drive it into hell, and fire them - now.

3) Marketing - see #1 and #2. Basically, AMD needs better marketing, which might also require firing marketing and advertisement people and getting new ones who know what they're doing for once. Everything upto this point has been abysmal, which means, the people responsible for it don't know how to market efficiently.

4) Technological Overambition - well what can you do, AMD started the whole "true quad core" shtick and have gotten this far, so it's too late to turn back now. So finish it, get good yields, ramp up the clock speed. Can't do that? Then borrow money and very quickly do a redesign the architecture. Although after all this hype you cannot call Phenom a "dud" - that would bury AMD, it would be the last nail in its coffin, and Intel would milk it for all they can. So release Phenom, don't call it anything other than what it is, but quietly and quickly redesign, and shortly follow up with something much more phenomenal.

5) Whatever, just get'er done! AMD has no excuse to fail, and it would be horrible for all consumers of x86 processors on the planet if that happened. It's difficult to be a brand new startup company now and begin competing in this market, so if AMD fails, we might not see competition for a long time, if ever. Intel would squash anybody "new" in the scene like a bug on their windshield. Not to mention the billions you have to have to build those 65nm and lower fabs - unless you're IBM or Scrooge McDuck, where are you going to get the initial cash infusions necessary to even enter this market?

Btw, I'm not a "fanboi" of anything, the only thing I'm a "fanboi" of is computers themselves, and low prices.

Some people suggested that we should buy AMD now to keep them afloat. Others responded that this is counter-productive, since we'd be encouraging and rewarding them for not having a good product, something that goes against the logic of competition and having the "best man win" so to speak. I actually agree with both sides, to a point. I think we should cut AMD some slack right now, buy their stuff, give them a chance to redeem themselves - so yes, give them "free lunch" - but only temporarily. It's just an emergency buffer for AMD - to give them a chance to get back on their feet.

If after a few months AMD does not pull itself out, then start buying the products that are indeed superior, which is currently Intel. There is no sense of indefinitely supporting an inferior product if they don't use this suppot to start competing again. It's ok to do it for a little bit though, a temporary reprieve.

Another problem with indefinitely supporting AMD or any other inferior product just for the sake of keeping competition alive, is because it actually does NOT keep competition alive, this is an illusion. As I mentioned earlier, look at what's happening now - AMD is not competing in the high end, so Intel is already taking advantage of it even without AMD being dead. So indefinitely supporting AMD will not maintain competition - the mere existence of AMD does not equal existence of competition - competition means having a product of equal performance/quality that actually does compete.

So in the end, giving AMD a break and infusing them with some money is ok, for a little while, but if they don't use it to change their game, it then serves no productive purpose at all. It will be a sad day to ever see them go, and I truly hope it never happens, for all our sakes.

Follow up

I should also mention that when I suggested that AMD should focus on midranged, which is where the volume is, combined with very good marketing targeting the midrange consumer - I meant that as a temporary solution to start making money again. The high end is what drives technology forward, the midrange is what makes the bulk of the money. So add a memorable music and a memorable logo/tag line, have people recognize AMD like they recognize McDonalds. Then, sell them mainstream/low-end/midranged - when you get your marketing in order. After this, take the money you start making, and invest in R&D, and if you cannot fix Phenom, then dump it and invest this money into a new architecture that CAN push technology forward - so you can finally release a competing high-end product!

Don't get into that whole corporate mire hell where you cannot make any decisions. FIRE PEOPLE. CHANGE STRATEGIES. Do what is necessary to stay alive, stop being like "Milton" from Office Space - a mumbling idiot that is just "there". Make the necessary changes, and start coming back. Take that market share like a hungry shark on steroids. Steal the Nike logo, say "AMD: Just do it", I don't care, just get'er done!

of course they will beat Q6600

K10 will walk all over C2D at identical clock speeds. Remember AMD will actually be able to utilize the extra bandwith of DDR2 1066.

C2D's aren't sensitve to memory speeds, this was an advantage for Intel at first, but AMD wants to make this Intel's folly.

NO MORE AMD DOOM AND GLOOM!

you guys are just traitors and bought intel stuff and our trying to justify it! hope you have a p35 mobo...othewise you can shut up!

@lox

There's already plenty of cheap am2 boards out there, far cheaper than a comparable 775 board. Yes I know Phenom should use AM2+, but I can't see the difference being that significant.

Q6600 will beat it

Q6600 will probably beat any of these on almost all desktop apps. Then, why would anyone want to pay approx $300 for a Phenom, when they can get a better processor for $269?

No squinting necessary...

I love the fact that you can easily zoom the whole page in Opera with a simple press of the "+" button. I can't wait for a Phenom as my 3000+ is getting a little long in the tooth. Didn't want to have to resort to an Intel product. Ick.

Doing the Intel/AMD split

I have a Gigabyte P35 Motherboard on order.
It should be here with the C2Q 6600 today or more likely tomarrow.

But I have been a user of ATI video cards since 1992, so there is also a 2600 PRO in my future as well.

But I have had several AMD CPU based machines, so I would like to seem them stay in the game.

But at the rate AMD is going, I do wonder if they are going to stay alive. I still don't understand why they had to buy ATI. ATI was doing just fine by themselves. Integrating the two companies seems like such a major managerial distraction from the real task: Cranking out great competitive CPU's.