On the AMD thing.... lol whut? AMD is massively outselling Nvidia.
Is it? And massively?
Last time it managed to do that, if I recall was on a single quarter last year. And it was far from "massively". It was something like 7% if memory serves me right.
But even assuming they did outsell Nvidia, those sales aren't translating into usage figures everywhere. Unless folks buy AMD cards to do something else other than putting them inside their computers, those cards must be vanishing somehow. Because when it comes to usage figures Nvidia shows always ahead.
Nvidia is better for folding and? AMD cards are excellent for password cracking, bitcoin mining, pretty much all other distributed computing.
Better or worst has nothing to do with it. And I think you are exaggerating. If Nvidia cards are so bad, why are they used to play modern games?
Oh and price. Pretty much every AMD GPU is cheaper than its Nvidia counterpart.
Which is something that is more worrying than comforting. Because means AMD has to sell more and means AMD, because it isn't selling more, is probably making less money than Nvidia.
TBH with the GPUs, I feel Nvidia is just selling too many models, you have:
Why I think AMD still has a hold on the GPU market. Because despite all, it still clearly is putting some (although not as much as I would desire) pressure on its competition.
I have no clue what your saying about the CPUs...... They can't price them higher because Intel CPUs beat them performance wise and tbh who cares? An i7 2600k @ 4.8ghz OR a 955BE at 3.8-4ghz? Gaming: little difference, OS: NO difference, typical average joe tasks: NO difference. That is why originally I went with an AMD and the 2600k for folding.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say you have no clue about what I'm saying. You deny AMD cpu line has all but entirely evaporated from Intel's line of sight? I mean, these two companies aren't even playing the same game anymore...
Marfig, I am particularly intrigued by your thoughts on AMD... while the CPU design team hasn't had a resurgence, splitting the company isn't going to make a difference there. Graphics is the only thing keeping AMD supplied with enough revenue for R&D and is its only advantage against Intel. Especially since Intel fired the first salvo with Sandy Bridge, history is pretty well locked on course for CPU+GPU or APU chips, whatever ya wish to call them. But I think the end result a few years down the line when we have a true APU will be well worth it!
I don't actually have a well formulated opinion of AMD... yet
But it bothers me the company isn't becoming more competitive. Only less. Despite what the the AMD fanbase may want to say about their cards (or CPUs), the fact is that on the gaming market things aren't looking good in terms of comparative sales, with Nvidia on one end and Intel on the other producing much better results.
I'd say AMD GPUs are as good as NVidia, with some models on the same price range being sometimes better. Others... not really. However, somehow the company can still not capture sales from Nvidia. One model or another reveals itself as a success, but overall the company always ends up lacking (despite Tom's Hwardare best efforts to always place AMD cards as better than Nvidia's
). I sometimes suspect the drivers team is partly responsible, because that's my only complaint when I owned AMD cards. I'd however liked if this company got its act together and put some more real pressure against Nvidia. I cannot ask the same against Intel, because I think that battle is just lost.
I'd welcome the news if the company split. I'd even suspect the stock market would too,
I seem to remember some recent news on AMD wanting to go ARM... is this correct? If so, the split would make even more sense to me. It's obvious the x86 platform is a lost cause to AMD. Still, production costs are the same for AMD than they are for Intel's. There's no magic formula here. Keeping it this way (assuming this ARM thing is not correct), I don't know how much longer before AMD's CPU division starts borrowing money from the GPU earnings. And GPUs are the one area this company can still compete.
As for APUs... I'm not so optimistic. Admittedly, I have little knowledge on the technology. But I can't see it respond to the rapid progress and ever increasing demands of 3D processing.
As for AMD firing back against the 560 Ti, they've priced their cards accordingly.
My comment on the 560 Ti was solely a criticism on Nvidia's release strategy. Not on AMD competitive products. Nvidia has becoming less and less aggressive in their price range and more abusive in their release strategies. Exactly because AMD isn't taking a piece of Nvidia's slice. On the contrary. It's been loosing it.
But, if by placing their products with the right prices, AMD still looses to Nvidia, they need to work it out. What I honestly fear is a loss of competitiveness in the market. It's bad enough that we are stuck to just two manufacturers.
As far as not going 64bit goes... 6GB is plenty for 64bit in my opinion. At least with that amount nobody should notice a significant difference if they already use Windows 7 and simply switch to 64bit. 6GB is really still overkill for most usage types.
Oh, absolutely! I was speaking just of my specific requirements. 6GB with 64bit versions of the software I use (including SQL Server, MySQL, IIS, VMWare, etc...) would just mean I hadn't evolved much from the 3.6 Gb I have now on 32bit. I'd rather justify the move to 64bit with an effective increase in free ram. Which I do plan for still this year
