Because of stiff competition between the world’s largest processor manufactures and the number two AMD Microsystems, Intel has been forced to cut back by 10% of its workforce, or 10,500 employees, in order to save $3 billion/year by the year 2008.
To help keep Intel’s edge up on AMD, they launched 5 quad-core processors early Tuesday morning. Four of these processors marketed under the Xenon 5300 series, and 1 special moment for gamers, the Core 2 Extreme line, with plans to pump out 3 more “quads” by the first quarter of 2007.
AMD says they will be releasing the quad processors under the Opteron series by mid-2007.
There of course will be differences in design. The Intel structure is dependent on 2 dual-core CPUs that will plug into a single socket (2 Core Duo), while AMD plans a design integrating “the processors onto a single sliver of silicon”, which they say will increase power efficiency as well as offer better performance.
Well folks, the race is on, stronger than ever before. As a gamer, it will be interesting to me how quickly software is developed to exploit these new technologies. I impatiently await the first reviews when this does happen.
As far as gaming goes, I feel AMD has had the edge for quite some time, and this has cost Intel dearly in terms of losses in the market.
What are your predictions for these to similar but different technologies?
I’m voting on AMD, as they have not let me down yet in terms of perform and and cost, where running modern game is concerned.