Tim Sweeny truthfully states that Intel has smacked up on waaaay to much of the piss.

[SpaceDrake]

Fair warning, this is a somewhat techie thread. Perhaps it belongs in Tech Talk and should be moved, but it's just as much about business goings-on as it is about pure hardware. It seems to fit better here.

First, this article: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=54835&cid=5371889

And this too: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-985432.html

What are my thoughts on this?

There's one thing I think everyone is missing, including Intel: the vroom-vroom factor. With the OS upgrade, Hammers WILL outperform the current generation of 32-bit processors. Sure, the first few Hammers out the door won't be THAT much better than the immediate competition. They'll probably have a few flaws in them. But look at history: most processors do. And most processors get any kinks worked out within a year, tops. That means by April of next year, the A64 will be perfect. And it'll be a hell of a lot faster than anything Intel can offer in the Pentium 4. (The chip can only be scaled so high, after all.) Not only that, but by then a lot of games/apps/etc. will probably have 64-bit enhancements available. Unreal Warfare is going to run ONLY on 64-bit systems, unless I'm reading Sweeny wrong. Put simply, 64-bit computing will be the killer app of 2004 and probably the latter half of 2003.

And Intel isn't going to be providing any kind of 64-bit, high-mem CPU until... 2008. Maybe even 2009.

OK, assuming that the A64 takes about a year to catch on and become popular... that's still FOUR FUCKING YEARS that they're essentially handing high-end home computing to AMD. And Christ on a stick, by late 2005-early 2006 the Hammer won't even be high end. By then it'll be the mainstream headed toward the lower end, with the "Thunderbird 64" (note: bring back the Thunderchicken name, dammit ;P) rocking the high-end market with god-knows-what capacity. Intel will be left out in the cold.

Someone needs to stop passing the %##% around at Intel. They either need to start working on a 64-bit desktop RIGHT NOW or admit that they're becoming a server-only company at this point. By 2008 (2006, probably) AMD will completely dominate the home market with what will simply be superior processors. They're out of their minds if they think a half-assed implementation of 64-bit architecture on the P4 will last them four years. Unless, of course, Intel gives them some competition.

The point is: never, EVER doubt the power of the gamer dollar, even the high-end dollar. And in a year or two it won't be so high-end.

Thoughts?