AMD's price-cutting strategy backfires

[Gizmo]

EE Times
Mark LaPedus

Call it the tale of two processor makers: Intel Corp. continues to gain momentum in the microprocessor market, while Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s apparent price-cutting strategy has backfired, according to an analyst.

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[aztec61]

I guess it depends on what the author defines as "low end", ie: less than a 3800?

[Gizmo]

Not sure I follow? The last I knew, AMD was drastically cutting prices on chips across the board, with the lower end of the performance segment practically falling off the face of the planet?

[skool h8r]

Personally, ever since C2D, AMD have lost market share by the hour. I mean, i know a lot of friends of mine who's computers have suddenly backfired on them, and decided they wanted C2D rather than AMD. There's only one person i know who's decided against this, but that's only because he's getting a whole AMD X2 system from his uncle for about £90.

The only thing that AMD had going for them was very low prices (i mean, about £30 for a 3200+). Now it seems they don't even have that with the entry level C2D retail costing just over £100.

Barcelona will be here soon. I sure hope AMD get back some of their hard earned reputation.

[GrahamGarside]

I've just built an X2 3800+ system for my parents for the bargain price of £400, couldn't have got close to that with intel for the time being.

[Wolf2000me]

A lot of people judge quality by its price tag. This is why we see goods marketet as superiour and inferiour while it is pretty much the same thing.

Lower something in price and its expectations drop with it.

[Gizmo]

Hence the saying "You get what you pay for".

But it pays to remember another saying "A fool and his money are soon parted".

[keithwalton]

I notice the Sempron has made a swift exit from the market since you can now pick up a 939 A64 for £17! (3000+) and only £30 for the 3500+
I remember when the Durons first came down to £30 a few years ago followed by the celly's, they made for amazing modern system that cost peanuts

Though the drastic price cuts on newer models has left older models sat on the shelf at higher prices.

939/AM2 pricing is odd though as a 3500+ on AM2 socket costs £60, twice the price of its 939 equivelent.

But then a 3800+ X2 on 939 costs £117, where as its only £61 on AM2 a whole pound more for going to dual core on AM2 (2.2GHz single vs 2GHz dual).
For now amd only has value and Barca' needs to do with the Quadfather didnt do and that is be quicker than a kentsfield for similar / less power.
The pricing of Quadfather was very competitive when they bundled two FX cpu's for less than the cost of one normal fx.
Total cost of system for Quadfather was more though with motherboards being expensive and 4 matched ram sticks a min not to mention 700w+ psu's needid.

Has anyone other than asus released a board on that platform or is it like flogging a dead horse now ?

[Gizmo]

Quadfather was, IMO, nothing more than a marketing ploy to allow AMD to say "We can do quad-core, too!".

[aztec61]

Originally Posted by gizmo

Not sure I follow? The last I knew, AMD was drastically cutting prices on chips across the board, with the lower end of the performance segment practically falling off the face of the planet?

I mean that CPU's slower than say, a 3500+ or 3800+ may be getting cheaper, but for instance, I haven't seen Opteron prices (165-180) drop much in the past few weeks. Yes, they're a much better deal now than a year ago ($188. for a 170 vs. $329.+ Feb. '06), but those are not the low-end.

[aghastpumpkin]

Originally Posted by GrahamGarside

I've just built an X2 3800+ system for my parents for the bargain price of £400, couldn't have got close to that with intel for the time being.

My rigs entire cost was £450 excluding GPU. So assuming they don't want to play games...and my Rig is with an E6400 which isn't exactly the cheapest C2D....

[dsio]

Stock is very sporadic, but I always make sure to pick up a Sempron 3000+ AM2 when they are available. Current prices here are $32, which is £13 british, or less than I spend on a Pizza night.

What's more, theres an all in one ASUS AM2 board that drops below £20 from time to time, that has one of those S3 Deltachromes on it, and PCI-E.

To be perfectly honest, they arn't in any way slow CPUs either.

[GrahamGarside]

Originally Posted by aghastpumpkin

My rigs entire cost was £450 excluding GPU. So assuming they don't want to play games...and my Rig is with an E6400 which isn't exactly the cheapest C2D....

The system I built has 2GB DDR800 and a 320GB Spinpoint though

I couldn't have gotten the important components for my parents usage like those on the same budget had I gone for intel. The cheapest good dual core is nearly double the cost of a 3800+ and as far as I know there isn't a comparable board to a Geforce 6150 for intel, not for just over £50 anyway.

[dsio]

It doesnt sound like a big difference between a cheap C2D and a cheap Sempron, but when you get down to the 15 quid point for the cpu, every little bit counts, and here even the E4300 is 5 times the price of a 3000+ AM2. That's massive by comparison, and the Celerons are still netburst rubbish that gets stomped on by Semprons.

Over here the cheapest C2D mobo is 3 times the price of the cheapest AM2 as well, so it tends to add up.

There are some massive bargains to be had here though.

[keithwalton]

Just to spite me OCUK have a quad father system up for sale today, only one of them though and at £822 for just the cpu's and motherboard.. i think i'll pass!
i945 core 2 duo enabled boards are as cheap as £40 and have basic crossfire support.
I wouldn't knock the latest celerons if all you want is a cheap single core cpu, they are about £30, but the latest ceder mill (65nM) based ones have been known to clock in excess of 4GHz on air going on for 4.5-5GHz with water

[aghastpumpkin]

Originally Posted by GrahamGarside

The system I built has 2GB DDR800 and a 320GB Spinpoint though

I couldn't have gotten the important components for my parents usage like those on the same budget had I gone for intel. The cheapest good dual core is nearly double the cost of a 3800+ and as far as I know there isn't a comparable board to a Geforce 6150 for intel, not for just over £50 anyway.

I'm pretty sure I could have done a quality C2D system with 2GB of Ram for not much more.

Seagate 7200.10 Barracuda 320GB Sata II £54
MSI 945GZM3-L SKT775 DDR2 PCI-E SATA 7.1channel audio onboard VGA mATX £40
OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 £117
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1.86ghz £117
Coolermaster iGreen 500W £49

+ Case for say £25
+ DVD+RW £20
Total Price: £422

Thats with a speedy Barracuda, Cas 4 latency Ram and a powerful PSU and a highly overclockable E4300.

[GrahamGarside]

I won't argue that the C2D is a better cpu than an X2, but it ain't nearly £50 better in it's default state, and you won't get the sky high overclocks without a half decent board.

If you have an absolute price ceiling and you want dual core there isn't a better price/performance option than the 3800+

And that £50 will do a freeview card and a sound card, something much more appealing to a none enthusiast