Quote Originally Posted by roofsniper View Post
little early to predict amd's future. as we know anything can change at any time as seen by the 4870 even tho those weren't the performance leader they still came out ahead over the 280 because of its price. phenom II could end up the same way and it has been showing promise in what we have seen so far.
ATI vs. Nvidia is purely up to the microarchitecture design because both companies have the same chip manufacturer(TSMC). AMD vs. Intel is up to the microarchotecture design, manufacturing process and manufacturing volume. Remember the K8 vs. P4, the reason why AMD dominated was the fact that Intel failed with their microarchitecture while AMD succeeded very well with theirs. Soon after Intel got theirs very right(C2D was huge success like K8), AMD got their ass kicked.

CPU produced at Intel's fab will cost less than the same CPU produced at AMD's fab for at least two reasons; Intel can pack transistors more tightly resulting in smaller die and Intel has better yields. More working dies per wafer. This means that the only way AMD can keep Intel behind is Intel struggling with their designs and fabs, which is not likely due to their superb expertise and knowledge. Both companies have extremely talented designers and engineers working for them, but Intel has better fabs, so they can sell for cheaper, and sell way more.

Well, this is off topic, but where is the thread to discuss this anyway?