> > I agree that we are in the era of "good enough" computing and it > doesn't > matter how superior Core i7 is because the bottle necks are in other > parts of the system and that means primarily the hard drive. I'm
Eh, that's a pretty tired argument. While it's true that disk performance has not kept pace, it isn't true to say that increases in processor performance are pointless. There are a lot of workloads that do benefit from pure CPU performance and place little emphasis on i/o--like H.264 encoding, which is the main reason I run a quad, and the main reason I'm interested in i7. > worried about a market with only one CPU manufacturer and what it would > mean about mainstream afford ability. I have not given in to the > temptation of Intel and my Athlon 5400+ BE is fast enough even without > over clocking. Deneb isn't here until February or March but I too look > forward to it. And that's what it is all about. Find a product that fits your needs. The BE 5400+ may fit your needs perfectly; it doesn't fit mine. AMD doesn't offer anything right now that is a good fit for me. Insofar as the "one-vendor" concern, I think that with the spinoff of AMD's fabrication plants, AMD's solvency has increased such that the risk of them failing has largely evaporated. There is a tremendous debt load associated with building, running, and maintaining fabs that they've been able to shed. I do wonder, however, if moving chip manufacturing out of house will ultimately diminish AMD's ability to execute effectively. That's assuming that they're able to retain their x86 license, of course. :) Greg
