Intel, AKA Chipzilla, AKA A bunch of jerks with a lot of money, has become a little TOO involved the price war initiated by AMD and Cyrix. So involved, in fact, that their current line sucks compared to their past accomplishments: the Pentium ate the 486 for lunch; the Pentium II did the same to the Pentium...then they come out with the Pentium III, which is nothing but a faster PII with SSE...and everyone made a huge deal about it! Now their next 'big thing' is Coppermine, which is nothing revolutionary. It'll be fast, that's for sure, but it'll still be based pretty much on the P6 core. Sure, there's Merced, but most people belive Merced will be a waste of time, especially in the face of Elbrus. Maybe something else based on IA-64, but god only knows when we'll see that, certainly not before Q4 2000.

AMD is back with another one of those block rockin' beats with it's Athlon, which is targeted to cut intel's kneecaps off in the high end/server market. I believe that using the EV6 bus for the Athlon was a stroke of genius. In terms of speed, it makes the GTL+ bus look like an old lady going uphill on a bicycle. We keep hearing Coppermine this and Coppermine that, but when the Athlon goes .18 micron, it'll be another story altogether, especially if AMD somehow gets to copper interconnects before intel; and if they get K8 out the door as Wilamette arrives...I think you get the point. That Leaves...

VIA Technology. With the purchase of the Winchip people, and maybe(?) Cyrix, they seem to want into the market, probably to compete in the integrated sys-on-a-chip type market. Either way, they'll be sure to keep the market far more competitive, which--as always--is good for us consumers.

I know there's others like Rise, and Transmeta (I think? Not sure on that one, don't hold me to it), and Elbrus, which wants to be like Bitboys Oy is to the 3D accelerator market. My question (I know, I know, it's about f***ing time) is what you guys think is going to happen next,what their marketing strategies and such are going to be, etc etc, feedback in general.

[This message has been edited by PsyKo (edited August 12, 1999).]

(Like this).

As for VIA, rumour has it they only bought Cyrix to get around the Intel licensing problems, as they are laying off key Cyrix staff. It'll be a shame if they stop development on the chips though, as the M3 was meant to be Cyrix's challenger to the Athlon, and was apparently shaping up quite well.

Intel: I agree - they HAVE spent too much time trying to compete with AMD by lowering and lowering their prices continually. The fact is that Intel CAN afford to do this as they have the funds from years and years of being on top in the x86/87 market. AMD on the other hand cannot take too many quarters losing $160ish million, which brings us to the Athlon. Previously Intel have always been able to charge higher prices for their top processors because, quite simply they were quicker. This is no longer true, and it is now the turn for Intel to compete on price rather than performance. From what I read they may be giving chips away too.

As for VIA and their acquisitions, who knows? With the kinds of designs that they are holding, I dont see them being TOO competitive in either the desktop or business market, I think (like you too) that their best chance is in embedded systems (set top boxes etc). The problem is that they will have to pick either Slot A or Slot 1 to continue past the Super socket 7 stage, and that could be a very important decision.

As for the rest. Who knows?

1) They don't price their CPU's $1,000,000
Were not stupid (Intel folk)

2) They keep their CPU's overclockable
Hey I'm not going to buy a CPU every year!

3) They make CPU's that are affordable, heck why not whole systems!
There are still many people here in the U.S. who don't have PC's (Make that the world
) Hehe, AMD conquers the world, take that Bill Gates! Ughh!

4) AMD doesn't over-hype crap
with glitzy comercials with brain-washing music and colors that makes you want to go out and buy Intel CPU's at your local hardware shack Wal-Mart ummmm..... must go to Wal-Mart to but a Pentium 5.... uhhhh..... what..... I just bought the Pentium 4 yesterday, ya but this is better and new and colorful..... ummmmm.....
Self-explanintelory

AMD's worst problem will be not being able to produce as many Athlons as they could sell, I hope they'll keep the prices moderate at the lower end of that CPU family.

Looks like we lost out on the overclocking of the Athlon.

Unless you happen to be highly skilled and don't mind taking serious risks with your CPU.

Well, this is one area where the Athlon has disappointed me. If they start putting that ID crap in our CPU's I just might have to find some other CPU maker to support. AMD needs to remember who kept them in the game and helped them attain the position they are now in. By taking away our ability to overclock they are alienating their best customers.