Elec
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2004
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Quote:
In the early days, AMD really was an imitator, making knockoff x86 chips. Then they moved into the K6 line which was sort of a budget chip but never a true competitor to Intel. Once the Athlon chips came out, I think AMD sort of realized their underdog status allowed them to take some more risks and a lot of the Athlon days had AMD neck and neck with Intel for the performance crown, with AMD often offering some better bang for the buck chips. In the last couple years, AMD has (IMHO) been the clear winner, pushing us into both the 64 bit and dual core eras. Intel's plan was same old, same old - ramp up clock speed. P4 chips were supposed to be at 10GHz by now, but they had some serious power and heat issues that prevented that particular goal. I don't think Intel will fail or go away or anything, but they've been chasing AMD to some extent where it's pretty clear who made the correct design choices.
You're 100% right about the chipset quality. It seems that the AMD chipsets have had a significant rise in quality in the last 3-4 years, though it's never been an issue for Intel boards with Intel providing their own chipsets to boardmakers. I was glad to see nVidia get into the business. It's a weird step for what has been a "video card company" but they've put out some good chipsets and done a lot for the AMD enthusiast board market.
| Originally Posted by cire its because the vast majority of the population don't know AMD is, whereas intel is a household name. AMD has never been "dodgy". the CPUs were always good (except for the low yield problems in the mid 90s), but "dodgyness" comes from motherboard manufacturers. they've never produced their own motherboard like intel always has and their chipset division is quite lacking. mobos for AMDs would (not saying they are) be bad only because they're built targeted to low end systems (mind you i'm ignoring the overclocking highend boards, just talking about budget boxes here). intel boards are on average much more expensive and the people who can afford (and ignorantly so) to go intel have enough cash to pay for an expensive, no holding back mobo. |
In the early days, AMD really was an imitator, making knockoff x86 chips. Then they moved into the K6 line which was sort of a budget chip but never a true competitor to Intel. Once the Athlon chips came out, I think AMD sort of realized their underdog status allowed them to take some more risks and a lot of the Athlon days had AMD neck and neck with Intel for the performance crown, with AMD often offering some better bang for the buck chips. In the last couple years, AMD has (IMHO) been the clear winner, pushing us into both the 64 bit and dual core eras. Intel's plan was same old, same old - ramp up clock speed. P4 chips were supposed to be at 10GHz by now, but they had some serious power and heat issues that prevented that particular goal. I don't think Intel will fail or go away or anything, but they've been chasing AMD to some extent where it's pretty clear who made the correct design choices.
You're 100% right about the chipset quality. It seems that the AMD chipsets have had a significant rise in quality in the last 3-4 years, though it's never been an issue for Intel boards with Intel providing their own chipsets to boardmakers. I was glad to see nVidia get into the business. It's a weird step for what has been a "video card company" but they've put out some good chipsets and done a lot for the AMD enthusiast board market.
