Ahead Of My Time

If you hang around here at all, I'm sure you've noticed that I love analysing the tech industry, providing my views and recommendations as often as I can squeeze the time into my busy schedule. It's kind of nice when a prediction comes true, especially when I'm so close to reality based on nothing more than a hypotheses.

This was from May 1st, right here on TechNudge Live, from the article "AMD vs. Intel: Entry Dual Core Edition."

So where does AMD go from here? For the short term, they need to cut the price on the X2 3800+ to keep it competitive. For the longer term, they need to keep the prices on their processors in a much more competitive range. Anyone for an X2 3500+ at around a $200 price point. That would be a big seller in the Fall if it came to market. Longer term, AMD will need a true entry level dual core processor at a $125 price point to match Intel's popular 805. I eagerly await a dual core Sempron versus Pentium D 805 matchup! For AMD to remain in this game, they must produce a competitive chip at this more affordable price point.

Well, here we are just under two months later, and what do we read from our friends over at The Inquirer? That AMD is prepping the Athlon X2 3600+ dual core processor!

Taiwanese board makers told Digitimes they are expecting a memory-slashed 2GHz Athlon 64 X2 chip to tip up in the final quarter of this year.

Sporting just 256KB of level-two (L2) cache per core, compared with the 512KB of its elder brother, the new 3600+ will be nicely priced.

The part is expected to sell for around $140 to $160, depending on what happens to the rest of the chip market. They are slashing the cache on an Athlon X2 3800+ in half to justify the price. However, the clock speed will be the same between the X2 3600+ and 3800+ part.

The plan is to keep AMD in the entry dual core chip market, which Intel has run away with. Their very overclockable Pentium D 805 is currently $108, so if AMD doesn't release the X2 3600+ till the fall, it may be too little, too late. The time for the X2 3600+ was months ago.

However, I still applaud AMD's effort to plug the hole in their line up. With the increasing pressure of the Intel Core 2 Duo processors at the high end, AMD will have to become more competitive (translation: cheaper chips) at the lower end while their next generation of microprocessor architecture gets readied.

--Jonas