Possibly bye bye Intel CPUS if you want SLI...

anybody know why ibm isn't pushing their processors anymore mainstream? i'm sure it was a big blow when apple dropped them. they were great processors afaik. didn't they get more done per clock or was that limited to apple and/or gaming performance?

 

The IBM power processors are still very alive and well. They are used in low power high speed applications as well. It is an integrated cpu for ASICs. The reason more people use ARM intelectual property is probably licensing at Asian semiconductor foundries that may not support the IBM process, like TSMC. IBM and TSMC are not compatable, learned that and lost a lot of money and time doing so.

My designers were very familiar with ARM and they offered a low voltage variant that IBM's power PC processor wouldn't even though we were manufacturing at IBM. ARM/Artisan would pretty much make us whatever we wanted to fit the featuer size and libraries we were using.

 

Actually the IMB/Motorola PowerPC chips didn't deliver as promised. They just kept falling further and further behind the Intel chips as time went on, and AMD can barely compete. The way AMD is going I doubt that they ever will be any "real" competition to Intel. To bad really. This lack of competition really hurts us consumers.

 

i think ibm and amd have the money to come up with drastically new and radical architectures to compete. i wish somebody would. i know all companies kind of came to stalemate @ around 4.0 ghz, but are there anymore possiblities beside sidestepping to more cores?

 

People are silly when they say AMD isn't "real" competition to Intel. AMD delivers a lot of power in their processors for desktops, laptops, and servers.

They have some advantages over Intel, but Intel has its own advantages, like having gobs and gobs of your money to do whatever they want with and make the best of the best. If AMD wasn't competition Intel wouldnt be making things better and trying to run them out of business with price wars.

 

AMD has not been able to match, let alone beat Intel in desktop or mobile processors in years. This is what I mean by "real" competition, and that's why I used quotation marks. Nothing "silly" about it.

 

Well.. if they really had to develop gpu, they would be in a position that could be even more terrible than AMD now.

Edit: Opps quoted something from long time ago...

 

No matter what the outcome, AMD will not be able to get back at Intel in the near future. Why? Firstly, it does not have the production power Intel has. Secondly, if by some chance, tomorrow AMD takes out a processor that beats the current Intels, the next day you will have a quad with higher frequency. Intel has left itself a big safety margin. Look back at E6600. When It came out, it killed FX52 at stock speeds and people with cheap ass coolers took it to 3.6 GHz. To take an AMD that high, you need proper cooling and tons of expensive components. Believe it or not, Intel has a 2 year lead in front of AMD and in the tech industry that is a big gap if you do not have the resources. Why do you think Intel came back at AMD so fast? They have the power.

 

^ Hear hear.
Once you dominate the market, you dictate the evolution speed and can save yourself a spot of glory for years to come..
Intel is getting close to that.

 

youre comparing a $4B company to a $120B company. The fact that AMD competes and keeps getting consumers better value for computing is quite impressive.

In technology there is always the possiblity of leap frogging or quantum leaps, in which a company, may not be AMD or Intel, discovers a new way to do things and becomes the performance leader.