Usually when you have a crap product you want to divert attention away
from it till it is fixed. AMD's only real hope is to pump every penny
into R&D and a 45nm process and retooling fabs for it. They'll make
huge losses while doing so, but they are going to make those anyway if
they do nothing.

What makes a great CPU is the architecture behind the design.  Yes
they take longer to produce a 4 core that is because they are creating
architecture and designing a great chip.  Not gluing two duel cores
together.

Also you forget that every AMD chip is 64bit.  Most of the core Duo
are still based on the 32bit design.  The mac books still use the 32
bit design and all your home computers are the same way.

AMD came out with 64bit before intel and they have come out with true
quad core before them as well.  This is what makes me buy them.   They
know that if they keep making solid products that are cutting edge
then people will buy them.

You just sound like an AMD "native" propaganda spreader. Intels glued
design is far superior to AMD's native approach. Why? Because it can
be produced at high volume, hits much higher clock speeds and is
completely kicking AMD's ass while being a year older than AMD's new
product.

You seem to think because AMD's design is more complex it is
automatically better. Their design is great on paper. That is not good
enough though. "The design" was meant to launch at 2.6 ghz, it didn't.
"2.9 ghz by end of year". Again lies. That would be a good product.

Would the design stilll be good if it could only launch at 1.0ghz?
You'd still be here saying their uarch is good which technically it
would be, but design still relys on other variables. If the design
can't run at speeds high enough to give it good performance then the
design is useless.

AMD got the balance all wrong, they also waste a lot of chip space on
unnecessary bandwidth improvements forgetting raw speed is the most
important part of any chip. Intel is faster in the majority of
applications, their chips have high availability and don't have bugs
which could cause stability problems in them. Not bad for a "glued"
quad core eh.

AMD can enjoy their bragging rights on having the "better design", but
when it comes to the consumer and actually delivering a performing
product they look like complete fools.

Still I'd like to know how Barcelona is better than Core2. Sure it has
a lot of fancy features, but thats like turning up to a 4x4 day in a
ferrari, while the car may be impressive in its own right, it's not
the tool for the job. AMD have focused so much on "native" and
bandwidth, they forgot about the core that stresses all those things.
They also threw the die size rulebook out the window. I remember
reading an article where Intel said "283mm2 is too large and not
economical" obviously I was surrounded by people telling me Intel were
just scared of Barcelona. Guess who was right.

The native quad myth was just an AMD pr stunt and a hot topic on
internet discussion boards, where armchair experts were able to draw
peculiar conclusions based on that. It turned out that Intel's
approach was superior both financially and in terms of performance.
Both CPUs can handle 4 threads and that was the goal. The so called
native quad approach has certain theoretical advantages in terms of
communication between the cores, but the tests have shown that Intel's
is in most cases faster. This tells us that producing a solid native
quad CPU is indeed very complicated. One can produce faster chips
easier and that is all a company should care about.

Now before you judge me as being biased towards Intel, let me say that
I am just very impressed by soberness and rationale behind Intel in
the past two years. I really wish I could say that for AMD. Like many
have said before, I also think it's time for them to sit down and
completely re-evaluate their strategy and shift the priorities.
Something like what Apple did 10 years ago.

@drew No one is forgetting anything. Performance is the new marketing
benchmark AMD in fact can thank itself for that change. Intel's
current best beats AMD's best plain and simple no ifs or buts. It
simply is better. In fact Intel's third best beats AMD's best. Hands
down.

I think you're forgetting the fact that AMD is currently limited to
2.3GHz because of both architectural and process problems. 64bit is
nothing more than a marketing gimic at this point. Why you ask?
Software and hardware has yet to come out in any diverse quantity for
the end user to see any gains in using 64bit chips. Intel's chips are
also 64bit capable. You are simply trying to misinform investors.

One can use them in 64bit version of Microsoft's OS,but OEM's as of
yet have not shoved the 64bit marketing ploy at the end user as well.
Not to mention the lackluster support of 64bit by Microsoft let
alone...well that another topic. Go ahead and buy a currently AMD
cripple chip that is you're choice as a consumer to do so. People with
common sense won't be paying for something that they know is faulty
and is currently not performing any better than a previous generation
of chips from the same company.

I would agree AMD was a good company, but it went off on a tangent to
achieve who knows what. I for one hope AMD recovers. Why? Competition
is good for me the end consumer. I'm not saying that AMD today will be
the same in two years time, but the problem is quite that ain't it
where is AMD heading?Is it Bankruptcy,Stock value dilution,debt
growth, or perhaps asset selling?It can in fact be a combination of
all of these before it hits the dirt. That is an investor's worst
nightmare in my book. I won't count them out just yet I'll wait for
Dec.13 to make that judgment. I just think that small investors are
getting shafted by the institutional investors who keep playing this
stock as a bargain buy, when in reality it's probably a bargain sell
if anything.

 AMD is partly to blame given their lackluster effort to get products
to market. It might take a bit of  angry phone calls to both AMD and
respective motherboard companies to get a BIOS update in a few months.
AMD has certainly dropped the ball on this launch in more than just a
performance perspective. All around AMD's image is hurting. The
marketing head along with it's CEO need to go if this company is to
see any investor confidence. Myself I was waiting to see AMD's new
offering before my first build, but now
I'm just waiting for an Intel price drop to make my build.   Intel
will probably have its next
architecture out and in quantity before AMD gets Fusion out the fab
door.

 The whole affair is sad and it is very reflective even on the message
boards here of how people are purposely being duped into buying AMD
stock and products. You know AMD is in trouble when even Dell is no
longer going to be providing AMD based computers.

Three points

#1 I understand you were referring to a common desktop user but 64 Bit
is important on the server and workstation side. It is not just a
marketing ploy. There are many applications that do utilize the memory
and 64-bit o/s on the workstation side.

#2 IT departments are influenced more than you may think by marketing.
HP, IBM and Dell spend big dollars adverting in publications and on
T.V. super bowl advertising etc. That advertising gets the
conversation started and opens the door. The next phase is conferences
and marketing events. At the end of the day AMD has a good product
that usually sells for less. They get respect on the server side
especially from the database guys. The on die memory controller for
the Opteron is excellent.

#3 Dell is not dropping AMD based on performance or reliability. Dell
uses AMD as a bargaining chip with Intel nothing more. If Dell Drops
AMD that will be good news for HP. They are consistently able to beat
Dell using AMD desktops.