The reason why we need AMD....

This is the exact reason why we need competition on the market.... companies don't go into business to make consumers happy they are there to make money. When you only have one supplier then you will get this and it will go back to the bad old days of when you had to buy when things were cheap and not when you want to or when you have the money.

Not that AMD is the only thing we need it doesn't really matter what the competition is as long as we have competition, at the moment the only real viable maybe no so comparable CPU out there is AMD. Two speed bumps per year and 1 architecture change every 4 years anyone.... I'm happy those days are gone let's try to keep it that way thank you very much.

Good Old Intel

Yeah that sounds like Intel alright. Now that they have the best CPUs it's time to jack the price up. C'mon AMD get up, wipe the blood from your nose and put up a serious fight. Obviously you overestimated

intel dose not need it

the biggest problem Intel had last year was the problem to meet the demand. since when the demand is unanswerd - then AMD gets more sales

RTFA

The article says distributors, NOT Intel, are raising prices. This is standard open market behavior when shortages arise.

Intel isn't making a dime from this

I hope everyone realizes that Intel isn't making any extra money from this apart from possibly not having to warehouse CPUs. Intel is still charging the exact same prices that were previously anounced at wholesale. I might also add that those prices for dual core CPUs are substantially lower than the prices they were charging for equivalent 65nm parts at the same clock speeds.
The only people REALLY making money are the channel resellers who can charge higher markups due to demand outstripping supply. This may be a cunning plan by Intel to give a bonus to the channel... at the exact same time that AMD is bending the channel over and screwing them on Phenoms and K10's.

ht link

Still don't know why amd did not cobble together 2 duel processors together they have the HT link to do it, and they would still be better doing it now all they would have to do is ramp up the HT link for the bandwidth and hay presto you have a quad

AMD fanbois do not read articles

If the two above commenters bothered to read the article (or even bothered to think a bit about the Inq report of the article itself), they would know that it is the distros that raised the prices and not intel, and that it is the distros that would earn the extra dosh from *their* hikes, not Intel...

But whatever, they won't be reading this comment either.

It doesn't matter

Look. It just doesn't matter. The CPU is only a fraction of the cost of a computer; that is, a processor can only affect total cost by -- what? -- 1-8%?

There is always a need for a competitor. Intel, AMD? They differ not. Give me more computer costing less money, making less heat. I don't care if it's Wang Chung making the processor, everybody Wang Chung tonight. Just make it: Better. Stronger. Faster. Dammit -- this is not a new concept!

hang on a mo'

2 points to consider.

1. Intel are not raising their prices, it's the suppliers who are jacking them up. The article in Digitimes mentions that intel don't won't to trash sales of the 6600s by flooding the market with the 8000. This seems reasonable to me.

2. People have short memories if they forget when AMD had the prime chips at the top end of the market because Intel dropped the ball for a year. The value for money maker suddenly forgets it's self proclaimed 'good for customers' ethics in a flash then and tried to sting the market with chips up to £1000.

Close competition in any market in always the only way the customers get anything like a good deal.

As much as I hate rising as oppose to falling prices, Intel has it cushy at the moment, so obviously have no need for aggressive prices or supply. But as much as I bemoan it, just think that Intel is a company, and if you had a 1% stake in them, would you be sending a letter in to the CEO asking for price reductions and oversupply? Nope, neither would I.

If anyone needs blaming it's AMD. Is there another company who went from leaders to such a pitiful piss-poor shambles in such a short space of time?

Disties != Intel

Um, Intel has no control over the pricing that a distributor may set. Its all supply and demand. High demand causes higher prices. It was the same deal with Barcelona until people realized it wasn't going to live up to the hype.

Sheesh. How about a little reading comprehension?

gov't intervention?

Would the government be able to intervene if AMD were unable to compete? Such as if they were filing for bankruptcy?

Can a government afford to pay a microprocessor creator's bills or just nullify their bills? to try and keep AMD going and not allow a monopoly to take effect?

It takes a lot less steam to keep a ball rolling rather than start a new one.

everyone who feels this way

I guess if everyone who felt this way about AMD's competative edge went out and bought a new AMD/ATI computer for a friend (or enemy even) it might give AMD a good reason to get back on its feet.

The DISTRIBUTORS raised prices, not Intel, its called DEMAND

If you read the article, its the DISTRIBUTORS that raised prices, not Intel! Intel is having trouble meeting demand for these brand new chips, which is often the case with a new chip. Heck, Barcelona and Phenom chips are still in short supply and they were launched Q3 of last year!

But I agree that we need competition in the chip biz. For example, the day Intel launched Core 2 Duo, AMD slashed Opteron and Athlon x2 prices 30 to 60%! We need Intel to keep AMD from overcharging all of us.

Can you even imagine a world without Intel? We would still be stuck paying $1200 for the top bin Athlon 64 X2 and nobody would quad core.

buy AMD

The problem with AMD is that those who know and care about competition just won't be happy with AMDs current offerings, so they (we?) will buy la Intela.
The bulk of the population would probably be very happy with an AMD CPU (i.e. wouldn't notice the shortcommings) but they won't buy AMD either 'cause they don't know.
face it people, we are looking for though times.
Mark
P.S. I am writing this from an AMD system that will be replaced by a la Intella very very soon. Trouble is I need fast speed per core, I don't benefit from 4 cores (who does by the way) and I just can't justify the waste of electricity to get a quad core. And I am a power user! So no Phenom for me. AMD screwed it twice. That's just how it is.

Nothing to do with AMD

This is Intel's latest and greatest... on a radically new manufacturing process. I don't think there is any surprise that it isn't ramping up as quickly as expected. Intel will solve the problem in time. Meanwhile, the 65nm based E6xxx and Q6x00 series will perform just as well as before and prices aren't being jacked up as the tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists are suggesting. See pricewatch.com if you want to check that statement. Also, if you want a Phenom processor, you can get one of those as well. AMD's problems are the fault of no one else except AMD.

Give it a rest...

For Pete's sake, people... Do you really think Intel unilaterally raised the price!? Hell no. Intel is a supplier to OEM's and the channel. Intel is not a direct supplier to end users. As a supplier, Intel sells chips at a fixed price per unit (usually $ per thousand chips purchased). When demand is tight it is the buyer (OEM/Channel) that makes the coin because simply they can charge above the fixed unit price when they can't keep them in inventory when we as end users want the hot products.

This AMD/Intel fanboi stuff is out of hand. Think about this: Intel wouldn't have a CPU shortage if AMD wasn't losing customers because of continued product delays. Companies aren't going to wait for better times at AMD before switching over to Intel. It wouldn't make great business sense.

Chew on this for a while: Intel CPU shortage is created by strong demand for Intel chips because they have to supply their own CPU's and the one's that other companies had planned to purchase from AMD. It is quite a nice place to be for Intel but one can hardly fault them having supply more chips than they anticipated... not to mention the expected shortages around leading edge CPU's on 45nm.

Less buying itch for us

this move of jacking up prices might be also a blessing in disguise for us because higher prices mean less buying itch for us and in turn hold on to our hard end $. eventually this in turn would lower profits for them (distro, sellers) and soon enough they would still lower the price. less supply high demand high prices, less demand high supply low prices.

Intel is to blame

The disties are being forced to up their prices because of the low supply from intel. Disties are getting smaller ammounts of chips at a time, which means they have to pay more per chip. You cannot blame them for this, but at the same time, it's understandable why Intel are not flooding the market.