I have a bone to pick with fanboys and the perspective some have on the CPU industry. I've never been a fan of one company over the other when it comes to CPU's. I've always found myself migrating from one company to the other varying on there product offering at the time of purchase. But I've noticed alot of Hypocrisy, especially coming from the AMD fans out there.
I seem to remember paying nearly $1,200 CDN for my Athlon64 X2 4800+ when it was released. I seem to remember it only having marginal gains over the Pentium D from Intel but still AMD was bloating the price tag essentially in the end scr*wing the customer. Now AMD reduces the prices to near nothing with the flick of a switch... how absurd. Anyone still thinking that AMD is some sort of freedom fighter need to realise that we the consumers are being royally dupped. I'll explain why I think this.
Core 2 Duo is released. Intel releases a brand new product that obliterates the competition at ridiculously low prices (comparatively speaking). I don't understand why AMD fans always point the finger at Intel in this case. seems to me AMD is all about scr*wing the customer just as much as Intel is (profits, profits, profits). Of course we're a market oriented society, so this is to be expected but we still don't have to like it.

My next point is a bone to pick with Intel fans. Why is it that when AMD had the better processor, Intel fans were so quick to defend there Pentium 4/D whatever CPU's when they were clearly outmatched? Why now is it that these same individuals parade the Core 2's advantages over the K8. Seems to me those doing so lost there right at an objectionable point of view due to there undying loyalties.

Many things I question, many peeps think that because all of a sudden I now support the Core 2 Duo that I'm an Intel fanboy, few months ago because of my support for the Athlon64 X2 I was apparently an AMD fanboy. Some peeps seem to forget that objectionable points of view shift a persons beliefs based on factual data.. in this case a marriage of Performance, Power Consumption, Cost and Features are taken into account each time I make a post.

Any thoughts?

Your answer is; fierce, dirty MARKETING! It's all I can think about. When one gets the edge they squeeze it as much as they can, no matter if it is very marginal.
Personally, I haven't liked Intel because thy've been selling so much just by GHz ratings and I didn't like AMDs number shifting lately.

I'm only a fan of whoever gives me the best product for my money. I don't give a damn if a cpu is made by some hobo on the street if it rapes both Intel and AMD, I'll be a fanboy of the hobo.

i dont think he would be a hobo for long if he managed that

unless of course he blew all his profits on hookers and blow

See, what I can understand are fanboys of subjective things, such as music, art, books, yadda yadda. But when you get to objective things, such as which processor is better than the other, I don't see why there are fanboys. I mean, obviously this processor rapes the other one. Why are you still clinging to the now-obsolete processor? It's not even old enough to be a classic, its now just an outdated hunk of metal. If its cheaper, than good, talk about how its cheaper, just don't talk about how its still better than everything else when the rest of the world proves you wrong.

All I can say is that brand loyalty can be a funny thing. It's really not a bad thing unless it is taken to the extreme. Unfortunately many people have. Perhaps they were jaded by AMD or Intel and vowed never to buy their products ever again.

While marketing can play a role, AMD's marketing has always been rather mute compared to Intel. They mainly relied on word of mouth, benchmarks and lower prices. Hell, I built my Athlon XP machine because of two out of those three factors. Can you guess which two? AMD had their PR rating and I have to admit when I first saw them I was initially confused, but a bit of research helped. As for Intel just about everyone knows that they are guilty of pushing MHz and Netburst. That worked for a while, but eventually they became Intel's Achille's Heel.

I think people liked and went with AMD in the past because they were the underdog. I'm sure a lot of people root for the underdog in any industry or sporting event because they just wanted to see the "winning team" get knocked down a peg or two. However, people have idolized AMD as the underdog to the point where they think AMD exists to "enpower the consumer" by providing inexpensive, but powerful CPUs. Nothing is further from the truth. Both AMD and Intel are "evil" because they are driven by the shareholders.

There are good things and bad things about both AMD and Intel, but they need each to improve performance. More importantly we as consumers need them both. How fast do you think Intel's CPUs will be today if AMD remained in the shadows and simply built CPUs for Intel like they have done so in the past?

Ideally, price and performance should be the driving factors of any market economy. Unfortunately, brand loyalty seems to make some people ignore the hard data that is readily available as to who's CPU is better at a particular price point.

Its the same reason some people love old Ferrraris. They may not be absolutely the fastest any more but they still have tons more style than the competition.

Intel invented the X86 instruction set. AMD has copied it. AMD's stability has always been an issue. Back when they first came out AMD chips were terrible for blue screens, incompatability and odd crashes. They're pretty good now, but there's still odd problems with drivers etc. Why even go there? just buy an Intel.

Its the same reason some people love old Ferrraris. They may not be absolutely the fastest any more but they still have tons more style than the competition.

Intel invented the X86 instruction set. AMD has copied it. AMD's stability has always been an issue. Back when they first came out AMD chips were terrible for blue screens, incompatability and odd crashes. They're pretty good now, but there's still odd problems with drivers etc. Why even go there? just buy an Intel.

Could you please share some of the incompatibilities AMD chips currently have with us?
We'd also like to hear about the od problems with drivers as well. Please share some examples with us.

thank you.

Getting both sides' fanboys into thread, w00t
Synergy6

Very much in agreement with this. Intel pulled some very dirty tricks years ago that drove me into the AMD camp. But AMD hasn't had any real improvements for quite a while, still cranking out cpu's in the 2.2-2.6 mhz range. They change the names and numbers, but little or no performance increase occurs. So I end up looking to Intel again, though a bit warily.

I think its a time for all cpu buyers to think carefully about how they spend their money.

Its the same reason some people love old Ferrraris. They may not be absolutely the fastest any more but they still have tons more style than the competition.

Intel invented the X86 instruction set. AMD has copied it. AMD's stability has always been an issue. Back when they first came out AMD chips were terrible for blue screens, incompatability and odd crashes. They're pretty good now, but there's still odd problems with drivers etc. Why even go there? just buy an Intel.

Could you please share some of the incompatibilities AMD chips currently have with us?
We'd also like to hear about the od problems with drivers as well. Please share some examples with us.

thank you.

Where as I don't have any printed material for you, I can say the from professional experiance AMD has had compatibility problems in the past. Our company owns several hundred PCs. Over the years our IT's statistcs have shown that the PCs with AMD chips have suffered considerablely more strange crashes/BSODs/ and replacement then the PCs with Intel inside. (Small pun...sorry)
Even though our company is driven somewhat by money, (AMD PCs were always a few bucks cheaper apples to apples) We are no longer able to purchase PCs with AMD CPUs. IT doens't want to mess with them and Accounting doesn't want to spend the extra money over the long run.

I won't say that AMD still has these problems today because I don't personally know one way or the other. I can tell you that past performance has left a bad taste in my mouth and left me in some dark/dank job site with a misbehaving PC.

Some of the software I use on machines runs the factory/refinery/plant. BSOD's are very frightening to the operators. After a few times, they have a tendency to lose total faith in the control system and along with it, our company.

So when the rubber hits the road, and we are talking about machines that do more than just play games, we pretty much stick to using Intel. At least for now.

BUY FROM THE HOBO'S ON THE STREET!!!!!!!

Whatever, we can only choose from these two companies. We can be wary and complain all we want, but unless we're going to start our own 65nm fabs and design a new processor from the ground up, we have no choice but to buy from either of these two.

Quantam computing anyone?

They pay the price of bleeding edge so they can have the bigger, better, faster. Then, because of Murphy's Law, they find themselves in the back seat and feel they have to defend their expenditure/choices.

Same thing as a 48 yo man buying a red Ferrari only no mid-life excuse.

The reason for love of old Ferraris is subjective, not quantitative. It's about style and art reasons, not performance. The closer comparison is akin to GM vs. Hyundai. I say Hyundai, because they've had a rocky start, some people had poor experiences with them, but they were usually good value for the money. Hyundai is now producing vehicles with (in many cases) higher quality and better satisfaction than many of GM's offerings. You're also seeing them introducing 'Premium' vehicles to increase profits and take advantage of their recently improved image. But, regardless of how good they become, or what sort of value they represent, you'll have GM fans who will only buy GM vehicles.

Had to reply, since it seems so much fuss is being made of a little piece of silicon. This argument would have been over if AMD and Intel hadn't had a spat over the direction of X86 when the Pentium was designed (sounds familiar - can you say IBM-Microsoft?) but having both has been good for all.

Besides, truly, processor speeds and general performance haven't been a real issue since the 2 GHz barrier was passed. Dual core isn't an answer either, until the software catches up. Now graphics and IO bottlenecks - why isn't more invested there? And while CPUs cool off, the rest of the parts of a PC heat up, so we're still losing that battle too. Neither of these are either AMD or Intel's fault (well maybe AMD can be complicit now that they are buying ATI, and Intel's integrated graphics don't qualify). Meanwhile fanboys, sheath your weapons or, better yet, go beat up the graphics, chipset and disk drive makers. We need more speed there! (And while your at it, theres a place in Redmond and some flightless aquatic birds that could be flogged too!)

At first, i pretty much hate k6,k6-2 and k6-III for their random crashes (didn't know mobo and ram played part too, what a stupid noob i was back then), but when athlon came out, i just loved amd.my love deepen when athlon xp, and much later athlon64 came out.it was because here in malaysia, amd's cpu were sold a bit cheaper than intel's (if my memory serves me right) and while at similar speed (athlon xp and athlon 64), amd beat intel... guess i just love something cheap but a bit powerful IMO.I thought like "i am an AMD fanboy" plus amd's claim that intel use monopoly /pressure/unfair business practice moved me farther from intel...but now as i found out,C2D beat am2 and now i was like "hey!intel beat amd n i'm gonna support intel!".now i realize brand loyalty won't satisfy my need, it's price/ferformance that will...so as long the performance is good and the price is right, i'll choose that camp...and i don't preety much care about unfair practice as long that doesn't hurt either me or my pocket IMO... sorry for the long history..

The world is filled with brand loyal fanatics and there is no way you can argue logic with them.

Chev VS Ford VS Dodge is a great example.

What pisses me off is many people have never owned enough of their hated brand's product to really have a valid opinion.

Arguments like "I had (brand X / model Y) once, and it was a peice of sh..."

"A review at (website X) had 1 whole product for 3 whole days and said (product Y) was the bomb or it sucked! Now I'm the authority on it and I will spread the newz!"

Or the classic "My friend's girlfriend's former cousin-in-law had a (brandX) and it sucked!"

Unless someone has a history with and brand and product, and has purchased / serviced at least dozens of them over a few years, I don't feel their opinion is valid. There are bad lemons that make people sour pretty quick to judge.

Don't pick on my red Ferrari or mid-life crisis. I fell in love with my red Ferrari when I was only 12 years old. Thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Ok, I hadn't quite discovered the football cheerleaders yet. And at least I've lived long enough to have a mid-life crisis and to afford the Ferrari.