If you’re shopping for an affordable PC today it is hard to find anything Intel based, as Intel has been so effective with getting rid of anything with less than 775-pins that all there’s left is overpriced high-end systems featuring PCI-E and +3GHz processors. AMD on the other hand has just reduced the pricing for their CPUs today, no longer keeping price parity with Intel’s. That’s a smart move as although Intel is trying to get people to buy their hot-headed Celeron-D processors on a watered down version of their PCI-E platform, people would rather invest in something with real processing power and opt for AMD’s Athlon-64, getting 64-bit support to boot. And frankly now that the channel is virtually clear of socket-478 all that’s left for an entry-level or mid-range PC is AMD.
We’d say this is rather ill executed strategy by Intel, as socket-478 CPUs are still in high demand, and they risk losing a fair share of the entry-level and mid-range market, where the most profits are being made, to AMD. AMD on the other hand might be on a winning streak lately, their CPUs have consistently outperformed anything Intel has available, and as of today even at a lower price point. And with socket-478 Intel CPUs becoming rare as snow in July Intel basically handed them the entry-level and mid-range markets. Things should be rosy now in Sunnyvale, whereas thick thunderclouds are forming over Santa Clara, maybe Intel will make some more socket-478s? Or is it AMD me, you, them, everybody from now on?
