Is AMD's Desktop Dominance Over?

**Lemur** · 05-23-2006, 14:21

I had gotten used to AMD being the top dog. Makes me kind of sad to think of their heyday baing over. For a while. Oh well, nothing lasts forever.

If this were boxing, the Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 would be Lennox Lewis, the Athlon 64 FX-62 Bernard Hopkins and the Intel Presler E.E 965 Ricky Hatton. They all punch their weight, but some punch a lot heavier than others.

There's no real need for a summary. The benchmarks tell all. Intel's Conroe simply outmuscles every currently available CPU. Would you buy an AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 now? AMD must be thinking that K8-L can't come soon enough.

A little bird also tells us that the Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition may well debut with a 3GHz clockspeed. Just imagine that. Gentlemen and ladies, start your salivating.

**Mikeus Caesar** · 05-23-2006, 16:21

Even if Intel end up producing 50000Ghz processors, i still refuse to buy them.

Why, you may ask?

That damn music they play on their adverts when it shows the Intel Logo. Drives me crazy.

**_Martyr_** · 05-23-2006, 17:02

Doo do doo do...

I'll judge Conroe when its released. Im always a little unbelieving of marketing drives. As I said in the other thread, it can only be a good thing if Intel get back into the game.

**Papewaio** · 05-24-2006, 00:47

Also whallop for cash... how much will it cost?

You can always get the equivalent speed jump of step up or two in chip speed by going for lower latency RAM for instance. So it still may remain cheaper to get an AMD with great RAM vs a Great Intel Chip and moderate RAM that in the end have the same performance specs.

Also it is task dependent... what will you use it for? Dual core chips are better at some tasks. Other tasks only make use of a single chip and hence need more speed out of that.

Also note that the clock speed of a chip isn't so important... its how many things it can do X the clock speed that gives you its output. Clockspeed is only part of the picture... that is one of the key reasons dual chips are doing well... they may have slower individual clock speeds then a single chip but they duals can do more instructions per clock cycle.

**hoom** · 05-25-2006, 07:28

Reluctantly Conroe looks very good.
Being 65nm & with Intel having huge manufacturing capacity, Conroe is going to be able to beat AMD on price.

Hopefully this will finally create some actual downward motion on CPU prices, the same model of CPU I bought about 1.5 years ago is only about 10% cheaper now than then.
The new CPUs after that one just got more & more expensive but the slower ones just stayed the same.

**doc_bean** · 05-25-2006, 11:53

I barely realised there was an AMD dominance, when I bought my last computer i did consider an AMD, but they were still the underdog. Intel just had a little set back, that's all.

**Phatose** · 05-30-2006, 04:17

In the enthusiast market, which isn't a huge portion of the market - but is an important one for word of mouth - Intel's been getting thrashed hard for several years, more or less since the A64 hit the market. AMD's been cutting into their server sector too.

This processor does look sweet though.

**Sir Robin** · 05-30-2006, 14:57

With my own "time for new pc" rapidly approaching I have been wondering myself.

Still "bang for buck" wise AMD's 4400 and 4800 seems the way to go. Even if Intel really does retake the crown (companies lie?... never) their price will be way to high for most of the married with children and mortgage crowd to buy.

**fatsheep** · 06-01-2006, 01:39

I wouldn't get two excited, AMD will have their answer for it. However, if the Conroe really outmuscles what AMD comes up with dollar per dollar then I will be making my first Intel processor purchase.