If AMD goes bankrupt will INTEL have monopoly?

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Amiga500

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With the margins, Intel don't need to sell anything like the numbers they do currently to make the same money.



And yes, eventually people will be forced to.
 

royalcrown

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yes, they would..after all the old used computers and modded servers died eventually, but that would be a very long time and in that meantime intel would have to ride out a huge loss of business; I don't think they will do that. Things would go up to a point, but I doubt back to the days of 3500 dollar computers.

look people already whine about gas now, but if it follows the cpu trend of the 90's and becomes, oh 6 times what it is now, people wont drive much at all and only rich people would have a car.

Fabs and all of that cost too much to be supported by a niche market, and i think the volume would drop below that threshold of volume they need if they go price nuts. Old stuff would become way to valuable to junk then, so they still wouldn't sell new stuff. I could always be wrong, but people never take that into account.

remember back in the ppro days, how many people actually had one vs a 286- 486?

 

the last resort

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funny, cause I have like 3 Pentium Pros in my basement, (from a dual socket mobo), like 18 486's, and like 12 Pentium 2 MMX's.
And no, AMD will not just "die". They have huge roots. If they "died", their server line would still exist, because too many people rely on the opty's. Such as several F1 teams, and several large scale animation company's. If no one else would by AMD to keep them manufacturing these processors, there are several companies around the world that would pool money to keep AMD going, because they run on AMD, not Intel.
 

royalcrown

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unless you sell vintage pc's...you are a packrat sir !
 

skywalker9952

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The OP has a valid point, if AMD goes out of business (not bankrupt, bankruptcy will be a restructure, not the end of the x86 world), then Intel will have a monopoly and Intel will start charging more for less.

Royal Crown brought up a good point about Fabs not supporting such low volume. Very true, so we will be stuck with whatever chip line up Intel has plus the next down the road for 5-10 years. Why? Because nothing is pushing them forward. If you want ~2 GHZ C2D to cost $100 forever then go ahead let Intel dominate the market.

Why isn't Nehalem out now? Because AMD can't compete in that market segment so Intel is taking its sweet time. Even looking at Nehalem you can see AMD's impact on the x86 industry, IMC and QuickPath, taken straight from AMD's playbook. Royal Crown if you truly think the x86 market would still advance at its current rate after AMD's demise then you are dead wrong.

What the point? Even if AMD doesn't go out of business, a weak AMD is like a taste of no AMD. You see the benefits of competition at market segments AMD competes in. If AMD can't compete due to lack of a viable architecture due to lack of R&D funds then the end loser is you the consumer. If you like paying $1000+ for your high end that rarely changes with little performance increase, keep supplying the big blue giant with $$. If you want to see the high end become the mid end really fast then consider throwing some $$ to the green dwarf with the red hat.
 

Grimmy

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Gawd... even if there were many CPU makers of all sorts, there would still be whats called "Monopolistic Competition".

And since dies are getting smaller, cost are cut, so the cherry picked ones would not be something that we would prolly not see in our rigs, unless we win the lotto, or actually work for the company and get a ES chip.

Also, allot people complain about how software hasn't be able to keep up with hardware, namely CPU's that buying a quad these days isn't worth it since it doesn't get used... much, and performs worse then duals.

So maybe the CPU line needs a break/slow down so software makers can deal with change, and give us more apps to be happier with. :lol:
 

fatcat

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I'll state the obvious, competition is good and should AMD go down, it will significantly change the CPU market and I am pretty damn sure Intel will take advantage of it. Who would not ? As someone stated previously, computers are much more a commodity nowadays then when Pentium Pro were around so I don't think Intel could charge as much but they would certainly charge more. Anyways, it took AMD and their Athlon to kick the giant right in the balls and if they are not around to pester it, the giant will fall asleep again......
 

royalcrown

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skywalker, no i don't think the pace would stay brisk, but it is already at a trickle precisely because AMD has nothing on the upper end, so it would stay a trickle.

Okay skywalker...what would intel sell once everyone had a mid to high end intel chip, they'd either have to lower prices on their chips, make the sweet spot more for less, or produce something faster, once the bulk of consumers are experienced in pcs and their computers are fast enough to sate what they ant to do, why would they upgrade unless there was a more compelling reason than a 200 mhz bump ?

The proportion of computer luddites is going to be very small in the next few years, the market is saturated now.

Fatcat of course prices would go up, just not as much as the op states imho.
 

ryman554

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I agree with just about all of your analysis in this thread.

However, I do want to take issue with the your comment above. Coming from the inside, I can guarantee you, from a process perspective, intel is accelerating their process development, not decelerating it.

Nehalem is scheduled to appear sometime in Q4 -- a little more than 1 year after Penryn, and a little more than 2.25 years after Conroe. And three years after Cedar Mill. Where is the slowdown in new products? If you take Conroe as *early*, which I do, we're on a one year cadence.

What I think you *meant* to say is that intel is not pushing as hard. ie, Penryn was not as good as it could have been (see the OC headroom there), perhaps Nehalem will be the same. In my view, a potentail lack of competition won't slow down the product releases, but it can retard the performance growth of new products.

The flip side, and that's what you and others were getting at is, this is a double edged sword. Make/price things too good and you've just cannibalized your future sales. Make/price things not good enough and 1) you get beat out by your competitor or 2) if no other competitor, nobody sees a business need to buy it. It's #2 which will prevent the catastrophy Amiga warns of.
 

Just_An_Engineer

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Many AM2 motherboards do support the phenom processor. If the motherboard manufacturers choose not to release bios updates to allow phenom support then it isn't the fault of AMD. Seriously, you seem to bring this issue up in every thread where someone says something even remotely positive about AMD. Don't you have anything worthwhile to add to the conversation or are you just trying to start flame wars again?
 

skywalker9952

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That is the point. Its a trickle because AMD is pretty much bankrupt right now (thanks ATI) and its new K10 was troubled in many ways.

My point:
Current Intel Quad Core lineup:
Q6600
Q6700
Q9300
Q9450
Q9550
QX6800
QX9650
QX6850
QX9770
QX9775
Half of Intels Quad Core line up are Extreme Edition chips. Which means $1000+. The only processors below $500 are 2.66 GHZ and lower, why? Because that where the phenom 9950 sits, @ 2.6 GHZ. The QX6800 was released a year and a quarter ago and there is no mainstream part to replace it, just another QX SKU priced out of mortal reach ($1000+). Do you want this with Nehalm? where only the rich can enjoy a high end part a year and a half after its release. Normal market cycle for tech: New product released early adopters and enthusiasts pay a premium for it. 6 months to a year later mainstream version comes out at a more mainstream price. Based on what Intel has already done they are going to release the "mainstream" 3.0 GHZ quad core whenever they feel like it, or when AMD offers competition.

Heck Intel isn't even putting pressure on AMD right now. They could cut the price on every quad core by $50-$75 and still turn a profit and put AMD right out of the market. But why do that when you need AMD to stay one company (at this point they do). So they price their chips to archive maximum margin with little to no market share change.
 

jj463rd

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First of all I'll say that 60% of the nearly 100 computers that I own are Intel based,10% AMD and 30% other.
Many of them are vintage going all the way back to 1975 and yes I still have some punchcards from even earlier times.
I just helped AMD in a little ways by getting the Phenom X4 9850 BE CPU and a ASUS M3A32-MVP motherboard based on AMD chipsets.I also bought a el cheapo ATI graphics card temporarily and am looking forward to getting a 2 GB DDR5 Radeon 4870 X2 graphics card when they become available.

The joke will be on Intel Fanboys (They are cutting their own throats but don't realize it yet)
when or if AMD goes belly up as they will suffer the consequences of drastic price increases and slower innovation.I too will have to suffer somewhat along with everyone else although I at least tried in helping AMD survive a little bit.Whenever I have the opportunity I will continue helping AMD (I'd sure like to see that Dual Deneb system become available too in 2009).


 

eklipz330

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FIRST OF ALL, i dont think they would have a monopoly, but they would grow larger. secondly, if they did have a monopoly, economically speaking, they would NOT be able to put there prices as 'high as they want'....it doesnt quite work like that... if they raised their prices to whatever they want, there profits would go down, i promise you, and as a company, theyre best interest is to maximize profits
 

the last resort

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And let me add another thing. AMD just released the new X2 5800+. Intel might feel a little something in the dual core area. This new processor operates at 3 GHz like the 6000+, but it has an 89W TDP, which is 36W less than the 6000+. And the best part is, it is only $96, making it 50% the price of the E8400 and the E6850. And for the E8500, the price is 35%. Who gives a frick if the the TDP is 24W larger. I would care more about the difference in price.

AND now I'm going to get flames because everyone is going to say that the 3.0 GHz AMD is absolutely no match for the 3.0 GHz Intel. Who cares, people. I'll keep my money, and Intel fans can keep lowering the price on my AMD stuff.
 

Hellboy

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Sorry Just An Engineer..

I know what your saying but some motherboards just dont support it... Regardless who's fault it is - to be honest I dont care who's fault it is......Im sitting in front of a Abit NF-M2SV AM2 and no where does it state Phenom compatibility...

But when news of the Phenom came out one of AMD's stances on the product is that it would be AM2 Compatible...

If it stated "should be" or "might" then there is a difference, but I sold machines on the stance that this would be compatible with the newer processors...

Thats my beef on this subject....

 

fatcat

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Other chip maker ? Name me one that has a significant importance in the x86 market. AMD is a small shop compare to Intel and most other a smaller than AMD...
 

atekido82

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Bankrupt sometimes is a good thing for large corporations.

Donald Trump one of the most successful business men in the world has done it Multiple times. I don't see AMD going under anyhow. AMD and Intel both make money off Each other.

and it would be Horrible for consumers.

Competition drives new technology and lower prices. having just intel would allow them to slack off alot. that being said..

No they would not be considered a monopoly. they would have to Buyout AMD and be subject to "trying to control the market" win CPU's

if anything someone else might say buy half of AMD stock and become a joint partner with them.

you never know who might join up with who ;)
 

ZOldDude

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Don't forget that not only does AMD own ATI,AMD made parts are in about 1/3 of all new cell phones and AMD owns companies that make other simiconductor parts.

The last group of computers I built over tha past year all used 3Ghz AMD 6000+ CPU's becuase Intel had nothing in that speed range that even came close to the price.