- Tuesday, 24 November 2009
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We're not in a hole. A lot of companies would like to be in our hole - Scott 'touch'n'feely' McNealy
AMD's Phenom II to claw back market share
PC SALES may be slowing and Intel's Atom may be the only product buoying the market (and Intel's market share) but motherboard makers say they expect AMD's new 45nm Phenom II processor to come to ChipKong's rescue in 2009.
According to the latest IDC numbers, PC processor shipments quite literally sank in Q408, with a drop of 17 per cent quarter-on-quarter and 11.4 percent year-on-year.
Whilst the 'recession proof' Atom helped Intel snatch an 81.9 per cent unit market share in the fourth quarter, up 1.1 per cent over the previous quarter, AMD dropped to 17.7 per cent, almost one percentage point.
But many believe AMD will be able to win back some of the motherboard channel market, at least, with its 45nm Phenom II, giving the company a much-needed boost.
Since AMD-based motherboards can support any of the firm's CPU lines, its platforms are attractive to punters who want to switch out their CPUs, without having to change everything else, at reasonable price for performance, no less.
In fact, the only thing really holding back AMD's newest CPU socket design, AM3, is the highly cost un-friendly DDR3 memory modules it needs.
Whatever, happens, AMD is well aware it will have to fight much harder for an ever-shrinking pie, with IDC reckoning market revenue went the same way as shipments, declining 18 per cent over the previous quarter and 22.2 per cent compared with last year, according to IDC. µ
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I think that due to recent financial and economic events worldwide AMD is an ideal CPU to buy. Quite literally intel has caused people to upgrade their motherboards every time they came out with a new CPU.
Beyond that intel CPUs are more expensive & in comparison to Phenom II intel cpus consume more power. They require a more expensive platform as well.
In a time of recession when people are encouraged to spend and yet are weary, what will they buy?
I think AMD will do nicely this year.
I like the idea I can drop an AM3 Phenom II in my AM2+ board today for an instant speed boost. I'm sure a few of my customers of AM2+ based PCs will be happy in that thought too.
Sure I do like the Intel kit, I like the idea that when I'm replacing cheap crappy dead ECS motherboards on some of my client's PCs I can still get Socket 775 boards that will take a P4 2.8 and in the future be swapped out with a Core 2 Quad. The thing is, how long are Intel going to keep selling the Core 2 Duo & Core 2 Quad for now the Core i7 is out and by the sounds of it the Core i5 being out soon too.
Still at least when the Core i5 comes out I might be able to pick up a cheaper Core 2 for the wife's PC (she has a Pentium Dual Core at the moment).
Rob
Two points here:
The AM3 socket does not require DDR3 memory. It can handle both DDR2 and DDR 3 on the same motherboard
"Since AMD-based motherboards can support any of the firm's CPU lines" is false. You can use an AM3 CPUs in AM2/2+ sockets but not AM2/2+ CPUs in AM3 sockets.
please do some research on wikipedia before giving false information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM3
Also, since the AM3 socket can support DDR3 memory, DDR3 is not holding the socket back.
the last sentence should say "Also, since the AM3 socket can support DDR2 memory, DDR3 is not holding the socket back". I apologize for the typo.
also, I was a little misleading in my first post. The socket can handle DDR3 or DDR2 memory, but the can't support both at the same time.
Apparently I'm good at spreading misinformation too.
That middle zone where the Phenom II might fit in sounds like a dead-zone either way. Even the low-end processors are good enough that you're not going to need an upgrade for a while, and if you're looking towards the future, you'd go with Intel's lines, not AMD's. So you've got this Phenom II line that may be "future proofed" against its own future line, but whose future doesn't seem all that bright anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if AMD aborts its socket again too, and won't that piss people off?
please do some research on wikipedia before giving false information: ..
That line gave me a pretty good laugh. Wikipedia? A place to do research? What a riot.