AMD Lowers Sales Outlook, Plans Job Cuts

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Battered by product delays and acquisition costs, beleaguered chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said Monday that it will jettison 10 percent of its work force and warned investors that first-quarter sales were lower than expected across all business lines.

The Sunnyvale-based company's job cuts, which amount to 1,600 workers out of roughly 16,000 worldwide, were expected.

But the sales miss surprised Wall Street. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were expecting AMD to ring up $1.61 billion in sales; the company says sales for the three months ended March 29 were closer to $1.5 billion, a 15 percent drop from the year-ago period.

AMD shares fell 14 cents, or 2 percent, to $6.20 in after-hours trading. The stock had risen 11 cents to close at $6.34 before the layoffs and sales warning were released.

Read more: http://money.excite.com/jsp/nw/nwdt_rt_top.jsp?news_id=...

[Pale Blue Dot]

1. THIS IS AMERICA!! EVERYTHING'S OK!! IGNORE THE NAYSAYERS WHO HATE AMERICA!!

Sorry, I had a sudden attack.

There's 1600 more jobs that aren't coming back.

[Psephos]

65. It's due to competitive weakness in AMD's current product line

Intel's been cleaning their clock with Core Duo and Quad CPUs. A few years ago, AMD's X64 technology was beating Intel's. A few years before that, Intel's long-pipeline Pentium 4s were making mincemeat out of AMD K7s.

Did you factor in the effects of AMD's purchase of Canadian video-card GPU maker ATI? That cost them a lot of cash that didn't get spent on other things. AMD is planning to use ATI technology to integrate graphics processors on the same chip with central processors. If it works, then maybe AMD will win the next round. If not (or if Intel introduces a similar, but better, product) then AMD won't win the next round.

Everything *is* ok here...unless you think it's a great idea not to have competition. Competition, by definition, means there will be winners and there will be losers.

[DainBramaged]

2. Intel kept them crushed from day one, and they never quite gained

acceptance in the business community. With PC gamers growing up, with fewer and fewer titles being released that are AMD compatible, and fewer and fewer OEM's using their CPUs, their future is very bleak indeed.

[Zachstar]

4. AMD has always been X86 compatable.

And they gained massive acceptance during the turn of the century years. They lost it tho when dual cores started getting cheaper.

Their biggest recent success was in 64 bit. It will likely be their last in my view.

[DainBramaged]

6. They never had more than 25% share of the market, period

And their CPUs sucked at business intensive applications. Dell and HP avoided them like the plague, and only "tweaks" who rolled their own made them a cult favorite. When Intel lowered their prices they made AMD obsolete.


And NVidia is wiping the floor with them too.


http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14311


After unusually strong second and third quarters, the desktop graphics card market saw exceptional growth in shipments in the fourth quarter of last year, according to a new report by Jon Peddie Research. The market research firm says unit shipments increased by a staggering 50.3% between Q4 2006 and Q4 2007, and a still-impressive 23% sequentially between Q3 and Q4 2007. The overall value of the desktop graphics card market also increased 46.3% year-over-year, but lower average selling prices actually led to a sequential decrease of 0.6%.

Looking at market share, JPR's numbers suggest that AMD actually lost a fair amount of ground to Nvidia in Q4 despite the arrival of its Radeon HD 3800 series. Nvidia reportedly expanded its slice of the desktop graphics card market from 64% in the third quarter to 71%, leaving AMD with less than a third of all shipments. The report JPR sent us doesn't include any speculation on the cause of Nvidia's gains, but we'd be willing to bet the late October launch of the popular GeForce 8800 GT had something to do with it.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39286831,...

JP Morgan released a research note Tuesday containing market share data compiled by Mercury Research. Dean McCarron of Mercury confirmed the basic numbers, which had Intel's share soaring to 80.5 percent in the first quarter, from 74.4 percent in the previous quarter. AMD's share fell in similar proportions to 18.7 percent, compared with an all-time high of 25.7 percent in the fourth quarter.

[DS1]

10. AMD processors are excellent for database servers

[DainBramaged]

11. Ask the millions of Xeon owners out there if they are

The point is, AMD is lucky they have survived to this point. I think by the end of the decade, they will be gone or absorbed by Intel.

[high density]

20. Luck had nothing to do with it

Intel was playing catch-up from the late 1990s until they released Core2Duo. Consumers benefit greatly from having AMD around to help keep Intel from blasting their prices into the stratosphere.

[DainBramaged]

21. No they weren't, where do you get your facts from?

[Lance_Boyle]

50. "business intensive applications?"

Stick with your field - you use the buzzwords incorrectly in this one.

AMD's quad core offerings will be more than competitive with Intel's glued-together solution upon the die shrink to 45nm. AMD royally screwed their 60nm process. 45nm is a year off. BTW - AMD's true quad core technology will scale better than Intel's glue-together in multi-socket systems. While they may end up tied in single-socket quad core performance, dual and quad socket systems will perform much better with AMD inside. And yeah, those are the servers that run what you might call "business intensive applications."

[DainBramaged]

51. Right, will that be if their stock ever climbs above the Mendoza line?

Dreamers.

Oh and I guess you missed out on the Intel Atom too??

[slowry]

58. What's your angle, seriously?

Why are you taking such glee in all of this? Even if half the nonsense you're spouting was true, why get so excited over some company doing poorly? Is this like DS vs. PSP fanboy stuff, or what? I don't get it.

What's with the annoying rudeness, and -spam?

[DS1]

8. There are no intel-only games

That's a ludicrous opinion. And AMD handed Intel its ass for a few good years.

[DainBramaged]

12. Yea, 75% market share for Intel is having it's ass handed to them

[DS1]

13. I'm still waiting for the list of windows games I can't play on an AMD

And Intel was fighting to catch up in price/performance in the early 2000s

[DainBramaged]

14. It's 2008, AMD's chance vanished a long time ago

And I didn't list games, Intel has always been superior in it;s execution of business applications, including Cad, Office, Photoshop, etc.

AMD was great for Diablo II. I know I had a couple of Athlons until the PIV prices made them obsolete.

Like I said, 75% oops, 80% market share, they sure are getting beat up by AMD.



Even Apple who had the chance to go with AMD, chose Intel.

[DS1]

15. I forgot how obnoxious you were

My mistake.

[DainBramaged]

17. Facts are tought to swallow, Sorry you ran into the brick wall of truth

[Life Long Dem]

43. You should be a salesman for Intel chips.

No kidding. freakin compatibility.

[DainBramaged]

16. Did I say games anywhere???

Who is Captain ludicrous now??

[DS1]

24. Post #2

cya

[DainBramaged]

25. acceptance in the business community

you just don't want to get it.

Yup

Cya, don't let the virtual door, yadayadayada

PS, Empire Earth III REQUIRES a PENTIUM 3.0 and NVidia 7300 for best performance, I'm looking at the box. It doesn't say AMD, it says INTEL PENTIUM, so I guess your assumption is correct, Intel rules.

[DS1]

26. oh, sorry. the box is wrong. you're wrong.

http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/details.aspx?itemid=6...

[DainBramaged]

27. The box says none of that since the space is too small, but you can dream

Yadda yadda yadda

[high density]

30. "For Best Performance"

You know that nVidia and Intel probably paid to have that on the box, right? It doesn't mean the game isn't compatible with AMD processors.

There's nothing in the specs that say you need an Intel brand processor. http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/Games/Pages/Empire...

http://www.direct2drive.com/4/5240/product/Buy-Empire-E...

Empire Earth® III Download Minimum System Requirements

* 1.7 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4, AMD® Athlon™ XP processor or equivalent

Empire Earth® III Download Recommended System Requirements

* 3.2 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4, AMD® Athlon™ 64 3500+ or faster processor (dual core Pentium® D, Core™ 2 Duo or Athlon™ X2/FX processor recommended).

[DainBramaged]

32. Runs great on this Intel P 4 630 3.0GHz 800MHz 2MB Socket 775

with 8700 NVidia card, 2GB DDR2 5300 and 160MB WD SATA HD.

And this isn't the fastest one I own either.

And why is it that all of the boxes neglect to say AMD on them?? Maybe because the games play best with an Intel processor and NVidia graphics card??

But we digress. his was about job losses. And at the rate AMD is losing money and piling up inventory, I'm certain more jobs will be lost.

[high density]

34. You must be buying really old games from 1995 or something

Every game I've bought in the last few years has Athlon XP on them explicitly as being supported. I'd post pictures but you're just not worth it.

[DainBramaged]

35. And you neither

Cya, keep dreaming of the old K2 days. They must have been fun when you played Civilation and Sim City. Oh the memories you must have.

[slowry]

36. I'll never understand fanbois... n/t

[Occulus]

52. Crysis. n/t

[CRF450]

60. Oh man, you gotta have THE BEST hardware to play that game!

My two 8800gt's SLI can only muster up 30fps with the graphics maxed out in DX10. My older computer has a AMD 64 3400, 1.5gig of ram, and a x1650gt vid card. Its somewhat choppy with all graphics on high DX9 with the shader quality on med. But when you get in a gun battle it runs terrible, it freezes up numerous time, and slow down even more when buildings bread apart! I'm gonna upgrade to the 9800 gx2. It'll handle the game much better than my SLI'd 8800gt.

[TwixVoy]

69. Lol

Pentium three POINT zero. Lol I love the POINT you use. I have never heard anyone refer to a pentium 3 as pentium 3.0. BTW - I don't think you realize just how out of date a pentium 3 is. The box is telling you that pentium 3 is the MINIMUM piece of outdated crap hardware you can have in order to play the game. To put it in terms you can understand - It's like me telling you the MINIMUM requirement to get this job I am hiring for is a high school diploma. That doesn't mean you can't get the job if you have a college degree.

The BRAND of the processor is completely irrelevent. The ARCHITECUTRE decides compatiblity. BOTH Intel and AMD processors in question use X86 architecture with 64-bit extensions. Therefore they have COMPLETELY EQUAL SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY.

[Tesha]

47. Consider the source... (NT)

[high density]

18. AMD had the better product from the K6-2 through the Athlon XP

But they were blown away by Intel's Core2Duo.

So yes, they were handing Intel its ass for at least six or seven years, even if businesses were too stupid to realize so. Not helping was the FUD from Dell, which is like you are spouting, about stuff not being "AMD compatible." This was and is total BS.

[DainBramaged]

22. You keep believing that, and the tooth fairy puts money under your pillow too.

[high density]

28. Why are you responding to everybody in a crass manner as if we're insulting your mother?

I have little brand loyalty when it comes to CPUs, I just want the best value. My next one will very likely be an Intel E8400. However, AMD offered the best value for years and that is a fact. You can go back and search for the benchmarks and tests if you somehow forgot that. AMD was indeed the price/performance leader even if the sales figures didn't reflect it. What you're saying is like declaring that McDonalds hamburgers are the best on the planet because they sell a lot of them.

[DainBramaged]

31. Let's see, the past is the past, isn't today April 7 2008??

You can sing the praises of AMD till the cows come home, but Intel blew them away when they introduced the Pentium D nearly FOUR years ago. I don't care what they did years ago, all that matters is that they are not competitive now. And when I recommend a system at work, it certainly doesn't include an AMD processor.

Hanging on to old stats and benchmarks is like sniffing old whiskey bottles, the memory may be good, but there is nothing to drink.

[high density]

33. You're the joker that posted Intel has blown AMD away since day one

And you have no facts to back that up. This is the argument that YOU started. I don't see ANYBODY here saying that Intel's current offering is somehow deficient, so quit it with the logical fallacies already.

[DainBramaged]

37. You really don't know how to read,

I'll leave you with this, AMD is done. by the end of the decade, they'll be history. Intel won't have to do anything but keep putting out great processors. And the future line up from them makes AMD look like the old Caruso processors from a few years ago.

May the Quad core be with you.

[TwixVoy]

70. The poster is right

Intel was getting its ass handed to them before Core 2 Duo. Core 2 Duo changed everything. AMD can NOT compete... the best they can do is slash prices for now. (and they are)

AMD started kicking ass and taking names with the first Athlon. It was better than anything Intel had at the consumer level AND cheaper.

I suspect you are on the Intel payroll though.... First you make a claim that X86 software won't run on AMD processors but will on Intel. A completely false statement that caused me to believe you were just a computer novice that didn't know better, but I see above you mentioned a code name for an Intel CPU which suggests to me you actually are not a computer novice.... just someone who is probably on the Intel payroll.

[hugo_from_TN]

49. AMD will not go bankrupt

AMD will survive because it is in Intel's best interest that they do to avoid putting Intel into a monopolistic situation. Intel will likely ease up on the price wars to let AMD have a few breaths of air before applying pressure again in the future.

[Zachstar]

3. AMD has lost their lead that they gained at the turn of the century.

I remember when getting Intel computers required some effort. AMD had cheap and great CPUs that just worked and worked well.

Today Intel is knocking the socks off them in the higher performance market. The Intel core 2 duo is a smashing success.

For my next PC (A thousand dollar build if I can ever gain that money) I plan to go with a quad core Intel. That is news considering I used to be a BIG AMD fan.

[hoosier_lefty]

5. yes AMD use to be phat and yes cheap

I've used both processors on and off, although AMD has been my favorite.

I currently have an FX-60 that overclocks pretty easy, and is fairly fast
for the age and the amount of money it cost. I will probably go
with an intel quad next (If the economy picks up & I can get some overtime )

I wonder what programs I can't run on my AMD chip?

[DS1]

9. I wonder what programs I can't run on my AMD chip?

I'm dying to find out

[eggplant]

7. I wonder if they'll still build their plant

here in upstate NY, they've been planning to build one for a while now.

[darue]

19. AMD will pull through. only 1.5 BILLION in sales... that's nothing to cry about

only the wall street moron's can get their pantie's in a bunch over shit like this. With ATI and AMD together, AMD can now sell all the chips in a PC, and is close to the PC on a chip goal. quad core is a joke, virtually no one needs it. a black box amd 64 x2 dual core at 3.2Ghz is more than fast enough for most anything and will only run you $159 retail.

[DainBramaged]

23. But as I posted previously, NVidia owns roughly 80% of the video market

So AMD/ATI is becoming a marginal player at best. Their heyday is long gone.

[darue]

38. ATI graphics are still right up there, the only game in town beside nvidia

are you advocating for monopoly? Intel will be going after nvidia next on the graphics front. If people don't exercise their right to buy something else other than the dominant hardware vendor, their won't _be_ any other choice soon enough. Is that how the free market is supposed to work? Do you think Intel will try as hard with no competition?

[DainBramaged]

39. Roughly 20% market share is right up there?

You can choose what ever graphics card you like, but the clear choice for the past couple of years has been Nvidia. And the price/performance ratio is amazing. You can buy a 7300GT card for less than $50, and for most people, it's all of the video you'll ever need until your next computer.

Even if you play the Sims.

[CRF450]

40. They'll be the only one in town if AMD/ATI doesn't...

Release a dominant product, when it comes to the performance pc market, thats what users who want the best will go to. AMD was kicking Intel's ass when they first released the 64bit chips for a couple years till the Core 2 Duo's came out. I'd say AMD is doing good in the mid-range to lower end cpu's, the new phenom's do great in multi-tasking but in gaming they perform poorly to the C2D.

[DainBramaged]

42. The new product from Intel is 3 generations ahead of AMD

The new ATOM is smaller than a penny including substrate. And will dominate future notebook sales, allowing for thinner lighter and less power consuming notebooks and muti-function devices, like Super IPhones.


http://www.intel.com/technology/atom/index.htm?cid=cim:... |atom_us_brand|kB433|s

[CRF450]

44. And its things like this that helps them stay on top.

[darue]

59. intel is an evil lying company that can go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned

they're pants have been on fire for years. They lied like hell about the pentium 4 and so many other things, intel can go to hell. AMDs best dual core provided all the power that is needed by any game on the market and therefore the vast majority of applications. another example of intel's continuous pattern of lying: intel's quad core is just two dual-cored glued together. I'll never waste money on an overpriced for marketing reasons intel chip again there is no compelling reason to pay the intel tax.

AMD has had rough times before, once their current troubles are past them they'll move on just fine, charging reasonable amounts for excellent hardware. being able to win the benchmark game is of ZERO interest to any end user I've ever met.

[CRF450]

61. Oh sure AMD's best chips can handle pretty much all games (except Crysis)

But for further future proofing and better performance, Intel is the better choice now. Especially when right much their lower end $150-$200 cpu's can be overclocked to surpass the performance of the $1,000 quad core cpu's.

[sofa king]

62. Truth.

Right now the hands-down bang-for-the-buck deal is back to building your own system around an Intel e8400 chip and a Gigabyte DS3L motherboard. $600 for chip, motherboard, video card and ram will create a system upgrade that, for overclockers, makes a machine faster than one can buy in any store, anywhere, at any price.

The 300A days are back, in more ways than one. Back when the 300A could be overclocked to equal performance with Intel's most expensive chips, AMD was still flogging the shitty K6-2, and for awhile there it looked like they were going under. Only the K7 saved their asses.

It doesn't look like AMD has another K7 on the way, so this might be curtains for them. I'll be sad to see them go, because even though I rarely bought their stuff (I was on a different cycle and they never had something worth buying when it was time to buy, like now) they're what has kept computing so fast and so cheap for all these years.

[darue]

63. well... yeah

if building a new system today I'd probably go that way. no doubt intel has some good parts, but luckily I'm in a place where I can stay with my current system for another couple years, hopefully AMD will pull though and we won't be stuck with another monopoly.

[CRF450]

64. Thats what I may be getting too, to replace my q6600

But I might have to get another motherboard. Many of them dont supper a 45nm chip, I might get a EVGA 780i 3-way SLI board to replace my MSI 650i, its expensive but its a damn good board from what I'v read.

[sofa king]

68. If you can afford to wait....

...and can afford to buy it, the Nehalem architecture coming out this fall is looking good. It will be pricey for some time, I'll warrant, particularly if AMD has nothing competitive to offer.

Also around Q4 we can expect to see a new generation of Nvidia graphics cards and whatever AMD has up its sleeve in both the graphics and cpu/chipset fronts.

One thing I'm really hoping that AMD can pull off is their hinted SLI-type capability that automatically harnesses the (usually shitty) onboard graphics of their motherboards. Graphics have become the biggest system bottleneck again, so any cheap boost will be very welcome by many, many people.

Again, everything depends on AMD, not Intel, delivering the goods. If they can, everyone gets better stuff cheaper. If they don't, the Nehalem shit might was well be etched onto gold ingots for the price they'll command. Here's hoping AMD can pull it off.

[TwixVoy]

71. Ummmmm

The Atom is the new Celeron. It is the VALUE line of Intels products. It is NOT - in ANYWAY - consider high end hardware.

[DainBramaged]

53. Intel will stick with on-board graphics solutions for OEM's

They have no need to go after the gaming market. Their support of NVidia has only increased since AMD acquired ATI.

[Canuckistanian]

41. Profits are often razor-thin in the semiconductor business

Don't mistake sales volume for profitability.

For such a 'mature' chipmaker to make such an announcement is HUGE.

They've already seen the ups and downs. They're hurting.

And it doesn't bode well for the whole industry if the perennial leaders are struggling.

[samsingh]

29. stocks down again tomorrow?

[KillCapitalism]

45. Anyone could have seen this coming a mile away.

AMD has not had any great CPU's since the T-Bird & Athlon XP days. Those processors would spank similarly clocked P3's and early (Wilmette Socket 423) P4's. I originally thought their purchase of ATI was a good move at the time since the Radeon 9700/9800 Pros and X800/850 GPU's were good performers, but they sputtered out after that and Nvidia's 8800/9800 series GPU's rule the roost nowadays. I hope AMD doesn't tank however since they do have lower priced products.

[OhioChick]

46. Color me Surprised...

AMD says no job cut in India operations

8 Apr, 2008, 1649 hrs IST, IANS

BANGALORE: Global chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which has decided to lay off about 1,600 employees worldwide due to business slowdown and losses, said it would not lead to any job loss in its India operations.

"The job cuts are essentially at the global level but not in India. They are some of the rolls, which are found to be redundant in the company. The decision to slash about 10 percent of the workforce worldwide will have no impact on our operations in the Indian subcontinent," AMD India managing director Alok Ohrie told reporters here Tuesday.

The $6-billion, second largest American chipmaker for computing, graphics and consumer electronics announced late Monday, after the US stock markets closed, that it would reduce 10 per cent of its global payroll - about 16,000 employees - on account of worsening business conditions.

"On the contrary, our parent company is bullish about India. During the last quarter, we have hired about 250 people for business expansion and chip design services. In fact, our corporate headquarters is supportive of our expansion plans. We are seeing development taking place in our business and engineering operations," Ohrie pointed out.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News_by_Industry/AM...

[Omaha Steve]

48. I've had 3 AMD based PCs in a row

I also remember when the stock was $90 a share.

[Occulus]

54. What video card do you use?

I have an NV 8500 GT 512M. My next system will be that x2.

[Omaha Steve]

55. Just what came with it, except memory is now 2.43 gig of ram

I don't game. I spend my PC time on the net, mostly on the DU. Now Marta games and has a slick Velocity. Don't ask me what's on it (till she gets home)

(ATI) Integrated with up to 128 MB of allocated video memory


My PC: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docn...

Content starts here

Hardware
Base processor
Athlon 64 (S) 3800+ 2.4 GHz

*
2000 MT/s (mega transfers/second)
*
Socket 939

Chipset
ATI Radeon Xpress 200
Motherboard

*
Manufacturer: Asus
*
Motherboard Name: A8AE-LE
*
HP/Compaq motherboard name: AmberineM-GL6E

Memory
Component Attributes
Memory Installed 1 GB (2 x 512)
Maximum allowed 4 GB* (4 x 1 GB) requires the replacement of the installed 512 MB DIMMs

*Actual available memory may be less
Speed supported PC-3200 MB/sec
Type 184 pin, DDR SDRAM
DIMM slots Four
Open DIMM slots Two
Hard drive

*
250 GB SATA
*
7200 rpm

16X DVD(+/-)R/RW (+/-)R DL LightScribe drive

* must use Double-Layer media discs in order to take advantage of the DL technology
* must use LightScribe-enabled media discs and supporting software in order to take advantage of the LightScribe technology

Port type Quantity
DVD-R DL Write Once 4X
DVD+R DL Write Once 2.4X
DVD+R Write Once 16X
DVD+RW Rewritable 4X
DVD-R Write Once 8X
DVD-RW Rewritable 4X
DVD ROM Read 16X
CD-R Write Once 40X
CD-RW Rewritable 24X
CD-ROM Read 40X
DVD ROM
Maximum speed: 16X
Modem
PCI K56flex data/fax modem
Video Graphics
Integrated with up to 128 MB of allocated video memory
Sound/Audio

* Controller: AC97 audio
* Location: Integrated

Network (LAN)
Integrated 10/100 Base-T networking interface
Memory card reader

* USB interface

* Supports the following cards:
o Compact Flash I
o Compact Flash II
o SmartMedia
o Memory Stick
o Memory Stick Pro
o MultiMediaCard
o Secure Digital (SD)
o Micro Drive
o XD Picture Card (xd = extreme digital)

[sofa king]

56. We nerds have known this for a couple of weeks now.

Their non-denial denial was a classic example of the genre. When confronted on March 21st, they indignantly said, "we haven't laid off anyone!" Yet. Anyway, the smart rats have had nearly a month to jump ship.

The best guess I've seen as to what AMD is going to do is that they'll forego their billion-dollar incentive from New York and instead sell off all of their fabs, contracting production of their designs out. TSMC usually has a little room left over for such things.

I'm no industry analyst, but I can't help pointing out that AMD's latest round of troubles more-or-less began after they sold off the one dependably profitable wing of the company, their flash memory production. Once that went, it's been downhill ever since.

There's another razor blade in the dough worth knowing about: AMD's license agreement with Intel for the x86 format extends only to AMD as an independent entity. If they sell themselves off to someone else, they can't make their chips anymore, at all, ever again.

[Greyskye]

57. Intel just spun off their Flash business

Intel and ST Micro just merged their Flash memory business units into a separate company, 'Numonyx'. Look for Intel profits to increase as they narrow their focus.

They are concentrating on their core business, which is microprocessors. Irregardless of the monopoly comments upthread, market share is everything in this business.

This AMD cut is nothing but good news for Intel.

[burrowowl]

66. Would you believe Apple's adoption of Intel

vastly improved the duo-core chip?
It is true!

[mainegreen]

67. Bad timing of ATI purchase + Intel release.

However, there is reason for optimism. ATI + Crossfire has nowhere to go but up, and I think it might have the performance/price edge on NVidia here. We'll see.

Plus, there's always the next round in cpu releases, in 6-12 months. Things can change very rapidly in the market. Just ask Intel.