Taiwanese Contract Manufacturers Set Sights On Brand-Name Prize

Intel Up In One Measure, Down In Another

from the turning-silicon-green dept

Wed, Jul 18th 2007 8:35am — Joseph Weisenthal

On Wall Street, there's a constant battle between growth and margins. Ideally, a company can show good growth and healthy margins, but often one gets sacrificed for the other. Last night, Intel came out with quarterly earnings that were up by 44% over the year-ago period -- perfectly respectable, particularly considering the headwinds facing the industry. But in order to keep sales high and keep AMD at bay, the company had to fall on its sword with respect to pricing, which proved a disappointment to investors. The company says it foresees continued growth, but it's hard to imagine that it could keep up this clip at the same time everyone else in the industry is suffering. Still, the fact that it managed to grow while remaining quite profitable is a further indication of how badly the company is drubbing AMD right now.

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Filed Under: semiconductors
Companies: amd, intel

12 Comments

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glitch, 18 Jul 2007 @ 9:38am

let the market be damned
i have been a devout system builder since he mid 80's

i started build AMD systems with the 386SX model and have never bult an Intel system since. i rebuild my system every year.

let the "chips" fall where they may, with me it will always be AMD.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 18 Jul 2007 @ 9:48am

AMD vs Intel
The debate never seems to take everything into account.
As the evolution of chips progresses they seem to be more directly comparable.
I remember when AMD would always rock Intel at running a small number of processes, and Intel would always rock AMD at running a ton of them at once based on the Hyperthreading technology that each used (or didn't).
With all the multiple cores and such these days, that debate doesn't seem to matter as much and the two can be directly compared now.
At least thats how it seems, I am not as up on the CPU architecture as I used to be.
I do not rebuild my system every year, but I do, and always will, use AMD.
They have never let me down and I am consequently brand loyal. Same reason I use GeForce over ATI (that might change once AMD and ATI fully merge everything and the synergies take off ...)
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XCetron, 18 Jul 2007 @ 10:02am

I've always been using Intel except in the case of my new laptop that came with an AMD chip but with nVidia graphic technology. I will always stay loyal to Intel when building a desktop however.
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MrGreenthumb, 18 Jul 2007 @ 10:40am

Brand loyalty is for suckers
i will never understand the die hard fan boys of the various tech giants. Brand loyalty makes some sense in other markets as its a status symbol, but computer processors? Come on already.
There isn't a stand alone solution for everyone's computing needs, and to pigeon-hole yourself to one particular company is asinine.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2007 @ 10:44am

Re: Brand loyalty is for suckers
I agree.

My desktop uses AMD because I play games on it occasionally.

My laptop uses Intel because I run a lot of physics simulations and I need the clock speed.

Let the cpu gods strike me down now for my infidelity.
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Misanthrope, 18 Jul 2007 @ 11:10am

Re: Brand loyalty is for suckers
Well said. I was going to make a similar comment, but you summed it up nicely.
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teddy, 18 Jul 2007 @ 12:06pm

i use both intel and AMD.. depends on what u wanna use it for. If i had to pick one over the other i would be intel.

AMD prices for ok speed are mad nice right now... for super highend tho would never go with AMD ever
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2007 @ 12:09pm

intel/amd
Bedside heater that plays music: Intel

for Everything else, there AMD.
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Overcast, 18 Jul 2007 @ 12:32pm

Well, I must admit - the main reason I bought Intel the last time I put a PC together was the simple fact that it was cheaper and ran cooler.

Sorry, you can't compared the heat on most Intel CPU's with AMD - AMD just runs a lot hotter.

That was for my wife's PC - mine is an AMD. She has a nVidia Video Card, I have a Radeon...

No brand loyalty here!! But I have to admit, I like the Intel just a bit more, if only because it runs a bit cooler.
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GoofJB, 18 Jul 2007 @ 1:24pm

I have built with AMD for years, price to performance was always the battle and AMD was always the winner. Now with the Core 2 Duo line Intel is really making up for lost time. I hope AMD comes out with something great in August because Intel is currently the King even with the enthusiast crowd.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2007 @ 1:30pm

Re:
That depends on the uses, for a server, right now i'd personally rather go with AMD. Because of the difference in power requirements per work unit. Its not much of a difference on a desktop/laptop, but once you space the power usage over a rack or two running at 70-80% CPU usage at all times, AMD is just cheaper for overall cost of ownership. Even in the high end market.
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Haywood, 18 Jul 2007 @ 1:44pm

Re: AMD vs Intel
I'd agree with what you said. For me, as a gamer, an AMD works fine I'm presently running an FX55 dual SLI rig that does everything I need. My wife, on the other hand, requires an Intel. She is a hyper-multi-tasker, she will have 5 huge PDFs open, pulling another off the web, watching TV in a pip, and playing a card game + intermittent surfing & multiple bit torrent downloads. I put her on a 3.4 ghz that is barely keeping up. She also only reboots when it becomes absolutely necessary, meaning it is on 24/7 until it locks up.
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