First REAL Barcelona Benchmarks

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To be honest, Intel's not fighting AMD anymore. Intel's fighting the state of the CPU market. Let's face it, the North American market is almost as saturated as it's going to become. PC gaming is on the decline (due to the increase in console gaming, I'm sure). Chips don't break faster than the motherboards. Vista is not needed for anything really, and won't be greatly used until SP1 fixes some major issues.

Thus, there is no high volume demand for expensive chips in the consumer space (no matter who makes them). Now, around the world, there are tons of people seeking computer chips and want to get hooked into the digital age. However, $700 is their annual salary, not part of a single paycheck. Other countries that are developing currently aren't willing to spend the prices Americans are willing to spend on a computer. That's what Intel is fighting. That is why they are driving down prices - they know they have to get to a cheap state in order to be able to sell to other countries and they're working it down now, rather than in some distant future. At close to 50% margins, they're still making money hand over fist while offering cheap chips.

Now, servers are another matter - they will probably be expensive for a long time. The faster Intel (and others) can penetrate other markets with low cost systems, the more Internet infrastructure will be needed (and that runs on pricey systems).

So I think Intel's frenzied pace really is less to do with AMD and more to do with the market in general. Whether there was an AMD or not, people with computers now would still need a reason to upgrade to Intel's next chip (failure replacement orders only go so far).

AMD simply doesn't have the resources to go as quickly as Intel is moving and it'll be interesting to see what happens. Remember that AMD cannot be bought, merged, or go out of business or Intel will pull their license (so any future company will be unable to use the x86 tech).

Also, I'm sure there will be further software actions implemented that will piggy back on new hardware technologies. I don't think we've scratched the surface of figuring out how to optimize computing.
 


Intel would certainly do so, but that doesn’t mean that Intel couldn’t be enticed to license x86 to an AMD suitor. Some of AMD’s IP would likely make for a tempting carrot on the end of a stick. That and some healthy royalties and license fees might buy you an x86 license, though the relationship may be somewhat more favorable to Intel than it is currently. This of course would all be worked out prior to acquisition – a potential AMD suitor that begins talking to Intel might be a cause for some raised eyebrows. However, IMO, it’s all just talk and speculation ATM. Until some convincing acquisition data is released or leaks, I ain’t buyin’ it.
 

There is realistic perspective and wishfull one. We all (or almost all) want fierce competition on the top of any market, cpu/video/cars/whatever, but its not always possible. For example Volkswagen releases fastest car which could compare max to Porshe medium class (and priced accordingly), would you compare fastest Porshe or medium one? Common sense suggests to compare apples to apples, not to mock VW how they dare to compare to competitors similar level cars instead of fastest one. If VW cant compete with Porshe/Lambhorgini/whatever, they dont, even if we would like them to. Thats why it was smart to price 2900XT to GTS, since they wouldnt have sold anything if they would have followed logic of some here and sold/compare in GTX price range.
 
What is the official release date for Barcy? And will NDA's for benchies be lifted then, regardless of whether AMD released on time?
 
Um, having an AMD cow talk about one spec AMD has recorded using an old Clovertown isn't exactly real benchmarks.

It should have said 2.0Ghz shipping...sometime (maybe)? And Clovertown shipping....>6 months ago. :-D

Go away, pest. Most people here haven't forgotten your ignorance.
 


That is no more a real benchmark than any other propaganda AMD has foisted on the market. It is mearly more AMD 'marketeering'. When Anand, THG or some other independant 3rd party gets an actual production K10, and runs it on an actual production motherboard against a comparable production Intel (your choice, comparable by price or clockspeed) on current, real applications, not a conglomerate of portions of applications that some one decided they could market to the gullible, then that will be a benchmark. A real benchmark.
 


The problem is, while VW and Porsche are both automakers, they are at the different level. Its like comparing Toyota with Bugatti. The fastest car from Toyota maybe cannot even compete with the slowest Bugatti. By comparing both of them, you're comparing melon to grapes.

A real melon to melon comparison is Porsche vs. Ferrari, or BMW vs. Mercedez. In the market, who has the fastest car get to be the performance king, and set the price. If Porsche Carrera GT outperforms Ferrari Enzo on a 0-60mph track by 2 seconds (hypothetically), Ferrari cannot charge Enzo the same price as Carrera GT, even if it costs more to make one. (its actually pretty stupid comparing electronic hardware to autos...)

Back to AMD vs Intel. Intel currently holds the performance crown, and it gets the set the price. A 6000+ cannot cost more than an E6700, so AMD must lower the price, even if 6000+ costs more to manufacture than E6700. So what AMD doing now is smart.... if they decided to forgo everything, just to hold that market share. Same with 2900XT. Yes, by pricing them accordingly to 8800GTS, ATi may sell more of them, but at a very thin margin. How is ATi going to cover the R&D cost for R600? How is ATi going to put money into R&D for future products?

The fate of AMD has already been determined when AMD bought ATi at the wrong time.
 


....and what about SPECint test? What about other server-oriented tests? AMD has always been strong in floating point, so I'm not surprised at all.

You cannot use one test from one benchmark to determine the performance of a processor.

Heck a Sempron 3400+ outperforms E6600 in power consumption. Does that mean Sempron 3400+ is overall better than E6600?

*guess you still haven't changed a bit*
 


You totaly miss mine point and car analogy angle, since no anology is absolute, you just fail to see connecting points. Its you and several others who unwisely compare a apples to tomatoes in cpu's and when I showed its absurdity, you say "its different levels", yes - there are different levels of cpu's models too, I guess its not easy for some to understand 😉



Its tough spot for AMD and I'm not sure what would be the best way from it, but its better than the one you seem to suggest. If AMD wouldnt lower the price along Intel, no one would buy X2 (who needs slower cpu's for higher prices anyway?), so higher margins wouldnt benefit anyway AND they would lose the market share. So you wouldnt solve their problem and additionaly lose share, any more brilliant ideas? :sarcastic: High volume low margin will give more money for R&D than higher margin and no volume, also its easier to get loans if you bigger player on the market. Now, if AMD would release faster cpu than Intel's offering, they could much faster convert bigger market share to profit, think about it.



Welcome doomsayer No. 545649868 😉 It was wrong time to buy ATI, and AMD lost quite a lot because of it, but they wont go bancrupt because of ATI buying, and not in next several years. After that many things may happen.
 
Look at the Randy Allen presentation from the 2007 Analyst day where this benchmark was shown off: http://download.amd.com/Investor Relations/July_2007_AMD_Analyst_Day_Randy_Allen_FINAL.pdf

It's on slide 20.

The slide was updated since it was shown off to the public:

simulated.JPG


Turns out the results for the AMD CPU are simulated! :sarcastic:

 


Sure VW and Porsche are not on the same level. But neither are Intel and AMD! A lot of people love to think of Intel and AMD as competing fiercely on the same level, but that's nothing more than wishful thinking. By any measure, Intel is on a much higher level: much bigger revenue, much more profitable, much healthier balance sheet, much bigger market cap. This was true even during the K8-Netburst days.

People would love AMD to be a Mercedes to Intel's BMW. But perhaps the reality is, AMD is more like a Kia to Intel's Toyota. Kia can compete on price at the low end of the market, but cannot compete on quality and performance with Toyota on the higher end.
 




You guys haven't changed. I think the word ignorance was just bandied about. I feel bad that you can't even believe two publicly running machines. AMD has said that fp was what they were concentrating on. It seems liek they've delivered. But then....ehhh never mind.
 


:lol: :lol: :lol:
Nice....
 
You know, I still remember when intel released its conroe info against the FX-60...They said conroe was a lot more powerful than the FX60...I was thinking BS...well now we know.

I'll stand neutral on this. It certainly could be biased, however I am gonna wait until REAL tests come out so I don't have to eat my words again.
 


Thats true, however, unlike AMD, Intel followed up by releasing ES's to everyone and their brothers, without any significant NDAs, resullting in a flood of independant third party benchmarks to back up the claims. Which Intel desperately needed to do after years of wallowing in netburst BS PR.
 

I'd put my money that this is indeed fake, but if this is true, more competition = lower prices better stuff. So I'm hoping it's true but I'm betting it's not. 🙁
 
It doesn't have to be fake to be worthless. If the best benchmark they can find to publicize is a single benchmark against an old chip from the competitor, it really doesn't help us figure out what the final product will look like. I'm surprised nothing useful has been leaked even. This thing is still just one big mystery, with the release supposidly being this month. We're eager to prop up AMD as a great company with a great product...just need SOMETHING real to fuel that optimism. :-D
 


ORLy? And did you believe Intels claims for C2D last year before the independant third party benchmarks came out?
 


Nope, he didn't.

In fact, it took months before BM even came close to accepting them as real.

2 pubicly running machines running = nothing when they aren't allowed to be benchmarked or tested. It's the task manager "demo" all over again.
 
He he, then even after he had to realize that they were real, he tried to downplay their importance or focus on AMD's next big thing (4x4 was so great, wasn't it?). As said before, he better be getting some serious cash from AMD, because there's no other good reason to prop them up so high.

I'm really surprised AMD's only released as much as they have. If they have the machines under their control and no one can touch them, I'm sure they can find more than one benchmark that looks good when compared to old Intel technology. Maybe it shows just how scared of Penryn they are?
 



Yes I did. I don't think either company will just lie. I guess now you'll do a search. Be my guest. I just like to see faster CPUs. Both companies tend to produce faster CPUs. I take them on their word.
 



I'd like to see you find that. No wonder I only sporadically post. It's the same old same old.
 
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