The commercial implications of Core i7

The bang4buck argument

In addition to this newsletter, HEXUS.channel has exclusively learned details of documentation with which AMD is messaging its master distributors - the likes of Avnet and Ingram Micro - the main aim of which is to persuade these disties that AMD based systems offer superior bang4buck.

Comparisons are made between AMD's top end desktop CPU - the Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition - with a variety of Intel Core 2 processors. The table below shows where the 9950 sits compared to a few Intel offerings.

While pricing is absolute, calculating price performance is another matter entirely and subject to a number of variables. However, the market tends to ensure that you more or less get what you pay for, at least at the middle and lower ends.

The two most equivalently price Intel quad cores are the 65nm Q6600 at $183 and the 45nm Q8200 at $193. Intel only recently dropped the prices of these two, presumably to counter AMD's bang4buck argument.