guys... as someone with an intel proc, albeit an e5200 oc'd, I feel that if we dont support AMD, intel will drive AMD's CPU manufacturing business into the ground. I do realise that in the past the two companies have traded blows but I also feel that AMD is at a distinct disadvantage atm. (that is excluding their enterprises with gpu's of course)
If intel were to be the ONLY cpu manufacturers our next upgrades would cost significantly more, and we here in South Africa already pay about $268 (according to www.xe.com currency converters today) for a core i5 i750 when you guys pay $199 according to newegg. It may not seem like alot, but $70 is alot more for us, what being 3rd world nation and all.
Today tom's did a review of the differences between core i5, i7 c2q and Phenom 2 and I feel, that for the word processing, occasional video conversion and gaming COD 4, 5, 6 FC2, SumCom and some F4AF flying the Phenom 2 would be perfect for me. Unfortunately AMD is frightfully expensive here in SA. I'm talking $295 for an amd 965, today newegg price = $195. Im not sure why AMD is so much more, maybe a fellow zaffa could enlighten me, but nonetheless...... We are forced to go intel.
However I digress. AMD cannot die. It would be the worst thing for us as the consumer. I mean, to pay $1.3 Billion fine to AMD and still post those profits, wow.. We are all...... screwed. Medium term at least. Possible, maybe likely even long term.............
sigh.