Even you had a stake in the talk about AMD, and nobody here has done the "AMD OMG" thing yet
If all that we're "allowed" to do is parrot "OMG INTEL OMG INTEL" then it's going to be a very uninteresting and dry thread.
As I mentioned in my very first post in this thread...
... and there's no question about it. But Nehalem being a
monster can really only be put into context next to what else is available. However, here's something you might not know trickson: The original Nehalem code-name described a netburst chip (aka, Pentium 4 design spec). That's right, Nehalem was going to be a higher clocked, higher bussed child of the P4.
Three years ago when Intel finally admitted Netburst's defeat, they re-used the Nehalem code name to describe a far-off descendant ot the new Core architecture, and they decided it would include their first integrated memory controller -- just like their competitor had been doing
In essence, Nehalem's massive amounts of computing power
is a product of netburst getting beat to death by AMD.
Let's say that in a different way: if AMD hadn't been able to compete with the Netburst architecture, Nehalem would never have been the monster that it is now.
And now, extend this logic four more years: if AMD isn't able to compete with the Nehalem architecture, Intel has no reason to create such another huge monster.
It doesn't matter if it's AMD, Sun, IBM or Via -- or it could even be someone new that we don't know yet. The core problem is the same: when a business gets
this far ahead of everyone else, innovation begins to slow to a crawl and prices stop moving downard. The whole reason that we're talking about Intel's competition is because
competition is what made Intel the powerhouse that it is today. Without competition, Intel will lose their edge -- and we as enthusiasts will lose as a result.
You can't tell me that such a thing wouldn't make you go
Oh, and to someone else's point: AMD will never die, I agree with that. But they don't have to
die in order to stop making PC chips... Does anyone from the 386/486/Pentium days remember Cyrix? They couldn't compete, but they're still around -- you won't be buying any PC chips from them though