AMD Future (Not good)

[Zachstar]

Let's be blunt. The glory days of AMD are long over. They got a great reprieve with their 64 bit tech but it got slaughtered by Intel's dual cores.

The tris and quads are generating cash but not nearly enough. And people are sticking with existing builds more with this economy.

What is not helping them (Tho it is great for budget builders like me) is obvious fab failure rates resulting in them having to open a new line of Kuma class CPUs with 2 cores disabled.

But I think several upcoming techs by Intel and Nvidia are going to force it to consider being merged.

#1 New Intel Graphics. Sick of having their IGPs being called useless. They are getting new versions out that will compete with weaker models of the ATI mobo IGPs. All of their boards in the future will be able to play Blu ray with no additional card. Robbing ATI of a badly needed source of income.

#2 http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/19/i...will-robinson/

This is HUGE loss for AMD. This was supposed to fill a gap and get them some serious mula. Now at best it will be split.

By far the worst tho will be this. #3 http://www.techpowerup.com/82322/GT3...hitecture.html

Unless they have somthing that can answer that with a budget build. Their graphics sales will plummet.

While this will mean huge savings for those who want to graduly update their computers. It will mean huge losses for AMD.

So what is going to happen?

Well simply put if AMD dies Intel will have nobody but Nvidia to compete with and Nvidia does not produce X86 cores.

In my view by 2012 after a congressional hearing or two. AMD will be allowed to be Merged into IBM. Part of the deal will likely be to put ATI back on sale. It is the ONLY way to put enough pressure on Intel to innovate so we dont end up using bargain bin Kuma CPUs in 2015.

BTW this is just a discussion post. This is not saying you need to think that AMD is not going to support you in the future. AMD still is kicking and will continue to be the leader in sub 400 dollar builds.