Intel's mistake was that they stuck with Netburst (P4) as long as they did. They should have moved on sooner rather than continue to try to improve an architecture that was clearly a dead end. The fact that AMD is releasing K8L ASAP shows that they're not making the same mistake as Intel did.
Id venture to say that AMD could have been destroyed by such a massive stuff up. Nope, with Intel, its just, "lets fire 10,000 people and get on with it" (
http://www.engadget.com/2006/09/05/intel-tightens-belt-lets-go-over-10-000-jobs/) :( That's 10% of its workforce !! In comparison, AMDs total workforce is 15,000 :p Of course, some jobs were cut as a result of the ATI takeover(though 375 job cuts (
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/061116/technology/technology_amd_cuts) is a much less staggering figure).
Even more distastrous were the plans to release the much vaunted "4.0 Ghz" part based on prescott architecture....it wouldve been a TIMEBOMB sitting in people PCS around the world. Funnily enough sanity began to prevail around this time, and the efforts of AMD and Apple to debunk the "megahertz myth" (
http://www.apple.com/za/g4/myth/) took the focus away from total clockspeed and more onto efficiency. This is why AMD 2.2 etc machines outperform the older P4 3.8 CPUs etc.
With all of Apples raving back then though, its funny theyve ended up shacking up with Intel, but sometimes necessity breeds strange bedfellows :p
What is upsetting though is that people who went out and bought machines back then would've been fed a pack of lies about high clockspeeds etc. Moreso, the people who bought prescott based systems may have been unfortunate enough to end up with a system which wasn't built to last, unless the system builder took great pains to managed the thermal issues the cpu has. A "2.8ghz" is capable by todays standards, let alone 3 years ago, too bad people like my friend would never be able to take advantage of that.
Retailers need to be more responsible. It still happens now, whether its Intel, AMD or Apple systems being sold at a retail place. Im sure some of us have had the experience of overhearing a slick salesman telling unsuspecting 'mom n dad' consumers about how whatever theyre selling is 'fastest and best'. Is it really what they need ?? People who really know what they need wouldnt be going to such a place anyway, and are DIYers. Im cringing with the upcoming release of vista, so many people are going to be suckered into buying a machine that needs higher default specs, to do things they can achieve on a basic xp machine.
Sure, those of us who are gamers(DX10), media center system builders(Vista Media Center) and business level users will know what we are going to be buying Vista for.... but 'mom n dad' consumers buying a computer for their young kids to do homework on, or for them to do some work and surf the net with ?? :(
lolz...
let's see what Sony can do to liven up this 2 pony race !!
mtfbwya