Of course this is all very preliminary and we won't get the real goods
until the NDA expires next month but check this out.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://diy.pconline.com.cn/cpu/reviews/0810/1438115.html
Greg Sevart wrote:
I agree that we are in the era of "good enough" computing and it
doesn't
matter how superior Core i7 is because the bottle necks are in other
parts of the system and that means primarily the hard drive. I'm
Eh, that's a pretty tired argument. While it's true that disk performance
has not kept pace, it isn't true to say that increases in processor
performance are pointless. There are a lot of workloads that do benefit from
pure CPU performance and place little emphasis on i/o--like H.264 encoding,
which is the main reason I run a quad, and the main reason I'm interested in
i7.
worried about a market with only one CPU manufacturer and what it would
mean about mainstream afford ability. I have not given in to the
temptation of Intel and my Athlon 5400+ BE is fast enough even without
over clocking. Deneb isn't here until February or March but I too look
forward to it.
And that's what it is all about. Find a product that fits your needs. The BE
5400+ may fit your needs perfectly; it doesn't fit mine. AMD doesn't offer
anything right now that is a good fit for me.
Insofar as the "one-vendor" concern, I think that with the spinoff of AMD's
fabrication plants, AMD's solvency has increased such that the risk of them
failing has largely evaporated. There is a tremendous debt load associated
with building, running, and maintaining fabs that they've been able to shed.
I do wonder, however, if moving chip manufacturing out of house will
ultimately diminish AMD's ability to execute effectively. That's assuming
that they're able to retain their x86 license, of course. :)
Greg
