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AMD Businesses Intel

AMD Tops Intel in U.S. Retail Sales 257

Posted by Zonk from the not-the-underdog dept.
jimmydins writes "According to digitimes.com, AMD Surpassed Intel in US Retail Sales for the month of September." From the article: "After facing what seemed an insurmountable decline in desktop PC sales during the first six months of 2005, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) captured a 52% share of the US retail desktop PC market in September, according to Current Analysis. AMD's performance during the back-to-school shopping season topped chip giant Intel's 46% share by six points, said the market research firm. Despite its past successes in surpassing Intel desktop sales in select retail sales weeks, September 2005 marked the first time AMD was able to outperform Intel for an entire month, the research firm stated." In order to keep this in perspective, C|Net points out that this doesn't include direct PC sales, so no Dell sales are included in these numbers. Good showing for AMD just the same, though.
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AMD Tops Intel in U.S. Retail Sales More

AMD Tops Intel in U.S. Retail Sales

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  • No Direct Sales? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by CynicalGuy ( 866115 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:44AM (#13791475)
    Seems like an incredibly flawed survey.

    • Re:No Direct Sales? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:50AM (#13791539)
      I think the fact that they beat out Intel in the retail market is a good indicator of the validity of their lawsuit against Intel. With a (reasonably) level playing field, AMD wins - Intel may have some explaining to do about the direct sales arena.

      • Re:No Direct Sales? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Martin Blank ( 154261 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:03PM (#13791663) Homepage Journal
        From the other view, it may suggest that AMD just needed to mature enough to create demand. The retail market has always been much more fluid than the direct sales market, and this could simply be a sign that AMD needed to be more patient as it pushed ahead.

        Note that I run AMD chips in two of three computers. I like AMD quite a lot. Just playing devil's advocate.
    • I was surprised to learn that there *was* still a retail market for computers.
    • It's not like they hide the fact that it's only retail sales. It tells you different things than a "whole computer market" survey. What a "complete" survey would include isn't exactly clear either, would big iron fit in? Anyway, retail is a good number for seeing what home users are doing in the marketplace. Yes, some home users go to Dell, but by in large, they buy retail. So, in the past when AMD's share was smaller and shrinking, we could guess that Intel's "Intel Inside" or "Centrino" or big Mhz or

    • Re:No Direct Sales? (Score:4, Funny)

      by greg_barton ( 5551 ) <greg_barton @ y a h o o.com> on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:45PM (#13792030) Homepage Journal
      by CynicalGuy

      Seems like an incredibly flawed survey.

      Hmmmm... I'm sensing a pattern here...

  • Numbers, the new hot Christmas toy! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:44AM (#13791477) Homepage Journal
    Fun to play with numerical, isn't it?

    What a ridiculous article. Retail sales are meaningless without integrating direct sales (Dell, etc). I run two retail stores (not in IT) and if you based anything on my sales and ignored our e-commerce competition, you'd be predictably wrong.

    First, retailers will generally maximize margins buy promoting less expensive costing products. E-commerce generally runs tight margins on everything.

    Example: Intel Retail PC retails for $799, cost is $619. AMD Retail PC retails for $749, cost is $549. The retailer sees a $10 better margin on the AMD but reduces gross sales. Which one will the consumer pick, generally? Whatever is cheap.

    Don't believe any sales figures any more. They're ignorant of the true market, which is retail, e-commerce, eBay, and buying in pieces from your local OEM "wholesaler."

    Just basing figures like these on whatever market gives you the best results is more to keep shareholders happy.

    • Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jeff Molby ( 906283 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:53AM (#13791566)

      There's no doubt that this is only a portion of the battle between the two manufacturers, but the point is that 5 years ago, AMD was getting slaughtered by every measure. They weren't even a factor.

      Now, they've caught up to Intel by atleast a couple metrics. That's not insignificant, especially considering that retail sales have a strong correlation to "mindshare" amongst consumers, as pointed out by a sibling poster.

    • Re:Numbers, the new hot Christmas toy! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bellum Aeternus ( 891584 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:56AM (#13791603)
      It means something important. When people have a choice they're starting to trust and buy AMD. This is very bad for Intel. When mega-retailer Dell isn't making the decision for the comsumer, the consumer is buying AMD.

    • Re:Numbers, the new hot Christmas toy! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CSHARP123 ( 904951 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:59AM (#13791622)
      Just basing figures like these on whatever market gives you the best results is more to keep shareholders happy.
      I agree with you on the survey being meaningless. But AMD is keeping their shareholders happy. You need to chech the 3rd quarter profits [morningstar.com]
      To Quote "For the quarter ended Sept. 25, sales of chips that power servers, desktop computers, and laptops leaped 44% to $969 million. The division posted operating profit of $209 million, up from $89 million a year ago. "

    • Re:Numbers, the new hot Christmas toy! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:10PM (#13791723)
      Retail sales are meaningless without integrating direct sales (Dell, etc).

      Who's to say what's meaningful? For example, auto manufacturers have often met production milestones by stuffing huge numbers of a particular model into their captive auto rental subsidiaries. Are the market share numbers that include those artificially created purchases more meaningful than the sales numbers for dealer sales to individuals? It depends on what aspect picture you're interested in.

    • This all gives further evidence (circumstantially at least) that AMD can compete in the market place against Intel. Antitrust legislation isn't meant to make sure that consumers are all well informed, merely to prevent monopolistic business practices.

      There have been cheaper alternatives to Intel chips before (Cyrix comes to mind), but if it doesn't perform as well, then the consumer will end up feeling ripped off later when they find out about it, which doesn't help the retail store any. AMD has ben the

    • Re:Numbers, the new hot Christmas toy! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by burnin1965 ( 535071 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:56PM (#13792129) Homepage

      Retail sales are meaningless without integrating direct sales (Dell, etc).


      Wrong. The article was specifically about retail sales. If you throw in sales from a non-retail vendor who chooses the CPU manufacturer for you then you are truely playing with numbers by squewing the retail sales numbers.


      First, retailers will generally maximize margins buy promoting less expensive costing products.


      Wrong again. You have it backwards. Retailers will promote the product which will produces the largest margins and greatest amount of revenue. Sometimes this is the cheaper product but in many cases its the more expensive product. The selling price alone is not what drives margins and revenue for a retailer.


      Don't believe any sales figures any more. They're ignorant of the true market, which is retail, e-commerce, eBay, and buying in pieces from your local OEM "wholesaler."


      Again, the article was about retail sales. Throwing in all segments may be an interesting study, but it would not be a study of the retail market.

      Furthermore, considering that retail tends to give the consumer many choices while certain non-retail vendors give the consumer no choice, I think the retail market figures give an interesting perspective on what the consumer really wants.

      And lastly I would like to point out that in the article the author published a chart which shows the market data for the last 9 months. I truely appreciate this because I do agree with you that throwing out a single data point and making a headline out of it can be deceptive. However, by including the data for the last 9 months we can look at trends and follow up the article with our own research if we are curious.

      Note the downward trend from Jan to May and then the sudden jump from Jun to Jul. Rather than being too concerned about who has more market share than the other I'd be interested to know what took place in the market that would cause the sudden shift between June and July.

      I'm not curious enough to actually do any research myself :P but I do find it interesting that the author mentions this shift took place during the back to school period and then suggests part of the shift is due to interest in Media Center PCs. What do Media Center PCs have to do with back to school? Weird.

      burnin

  • fuzzy (2-bit?) math (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayaguNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:44AM (#13791479) Journal

    So, exactly what victory is had here? AMD beat Intel in retail sales? Is that units (cpu's) shipped? Is it gross sales? And, the article says this doesn't include direct sales from vendors like Dell. Hwah? That sounds like a pretty large chunk of total sales of processors to be glibly claiming victory. What percentage of Dell's PCs ship with Intel vs. AMD and what effect does that have on the total numbers?

    As for winning in retail sales, to me this is more market spin (seemingly of which many slashdot articles are) and little real information. When I talk to people who are going to buy, or have bought a PC recently I virtually never hear them discussing the finer points of their decision to buy a particular brand or processor, mostly because 99% of PC consumers don't know and don't care what the processor is (though they really should when it comes to something like a Celeron).

    So to me this just means AMD has been successful in getting their products on the eye-level shelves in the stores. Customers are buying what looks sexy, and what costs the least.

    I've been happy with a couple of AMD machines I've purchased and I like that AMD continues to compete with Intel and hope AMD keeps Intel from becoming the Microsoft of the chip industry (some claim they already have), but I can't pull much real or meaningful information from this article.

    Nothing to see here, move along.

    • Re:fuzzy (2-bit?) math (Score:4, Informative)

      by Surt ( 22457 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:04PM (#13791665) Homepage Journal
      In case you (or someone reading this) really doesn't know:

      Dell is the worlds largest PC seller, with $49 billion in sales last year.

      They ship 0% of their systems with AMD processors, due to some unholy deal they made with intel.

    • whats these numbers prove is where customers have a choice they are choosing AMD. Big deal I think concidering the stregnth of Intel's add campains. This reminds me of Coke vs. Pepsi .. Pepsi would beat Coke on teh shelves but could never beet coke at the fountain drink area simply because of thier hold on the coorprate market. However that market can easily be chipped away at. It's the Markets where people have choices that make the difference.
    • AMD is not glibbing victory. This is from an independant research firm, and these numbers come out every month. Everyone knows they don't include Dull sales. They also don't include HP direct sales. So fucking what.

      • From my post:

        o, exactly what victory is had here? AMD beat Intel in retail sales? Is that units (cpu's) shipped? Is it gross sales? And, the article says this doesn't include direct sales from vendors like Dell. Hwah? That sounds like a pretty large chunk of total sales of processors to be glibly claiming victory. What percentage of Dell's PCs ship with Intel vs. AMD and what effect does that have on the total numbers?

        So, if you could point out to me where in my post I stated that AMD is making these claim

  • good plan (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wraithgar ( 317805 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:44AM (#13791480) Homepage Journal
    Selectively choose the input data set, and I can make the numbers say anything.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tezkah ( 771144 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:46AM (#13791500)
    Tezkah reports: Chef Tezkah holds the record this week for most meals sold! He captured 52% of the meal market for the first six months of 2005. Congratulations Chef Tezkah! Its important to note that this doesn't include any meals sold in restaurants, but good showing for Tezkah just the same.

  • Not really surprising (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jawtheshark ( 198669 ) * <slashdotNO@SPAMjawtheshark.com> on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:47AM (#13791508) Homepage Journal
    When people come to me in order to ask to buy a new PC, I just tell them to get what is on sale at the local computer store. You know those 400€ PC's you all laugh at because they can't play Halflife2. For their needs they are good enough. The only thing I recommend is to get 512Meg RAM, which the shop will usually happily install for a small fee. (I also recommend the Apple Mini, but most people want Windows... Cope!) Those PC's usually feature AMD CPU's. (Typically Semprons, or whatever they are called these days)

    The other end of the computer-buying public are gamers, who already know that they better go with a top-notch AMD64. Those people don't ask me anything anyway, but AMD is simply "the gamers choice".

    Intels customer base only are OEM manufacturers that target the business market. They still get credit for being more stable, which I don't understand because all my AMD machines - from a K6-II 333Mhz, over 2xAMD MP 2400+ to a couple of AMD64 (2400+ to 3400+) just run perfectly fine.

    The other consumers are those that don't ask their Geek friends and only know Intel from the commercials, so it "must be good". (They also think that "Centrino" is a processor, because of the sticker on their machine). That said: I never saw an AMD commercial in my whole life. Do they exist?

    AMD just kicks in the performance/€ factor, and CPU performance has become less important in the last few years. So if you want to save some money, just buy a slower CPU. It's just that simple.
    Oh, I just see that it doesn't include OEM machines (sorry, didn't read the story entirely). Most definately AMD will kick in the self-buidling crowd. AMD is popular with them... (performance/€ + easy overclocking possibilities. Who builds a PC himself with an Intel CPU anyway? ;-)

    • Re:Not really surprising (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      Who builds a PC himself with an Intel CPU anyway? ;-)

      thos of us that are forced to becuase all current video editing apps (prosumer not the cheeze crap that coesm with cameras and firewire cards) require Intel P4.

      I can not wait until Sony Vegas comes out as 64 bit for AMD next year. I'll drop this Adobe crap like a hot potato for that and jump on the AMD 64 bandwagon fast. (still wish I could get MAC editing platform as cheap as a wintel platform)

      Adobe Premiere Pro does not work well under AMD. they hav
      • thos of us that are forced to becuase all current video editing apps (prosumer not the cheeze crap that coesm with cameras and firewire cards) require Intel P4.
        Except, of course, for the ones that require PowerPC*...

        *yse, Final Cut Pro does probably run on Intel chips by now -- but it doesn't matter, since you can't buy it yet.
      • Who builds a PC himself with an Intel CPU anyway? ;-)

        thos of us that are forced to becuase all current video editing apps (prosumer not the cheeze crap that coesm with cameras and firewire cards) require Intel P4.

        As well as those of us who don't want to deal with poorly-documented motherboard chipsets and consequent FOSS driver flakiness (sometimes combined with unavoidable [derkeiler.com] bugs [speedtouch.com]). Now that AMD is following Intel in building their own chipsets, this should become less of an issue.

    • "Those people don't ask me anything anyway, but AMD is simply "the gamers choice"."

      stupidest. statement. ever.
    • Intels customer base only are OEM manufacturers that target the business market. They still get credit for being more stable, which I don't understand because all my AMD machines - from a K6-II 333Mhz, over 2xAMD MP 2400+ to a couple of AMD64 (2400+ to 3400+) just run perfectly fine.
      I think it's simply an urban folk tale that more expensive hardware is more reliable. I just bought an AMD system at Fry's this morning for $129. This is the fifth Great Quality brand PC I've bought (with Linux preinstalled) f
    • That said: I never saw an AMD commercial in my whole life. Do they exist?

      They seem to focus on sports sponsorship deals and advertising at sports events. They used to have ads at a lot of football matches, British premiership particularly and some international matches. They also used to sponsor Liverpool FC. Additionally, they sponsor both Ferrari in F1 and Ducati in MotoGP (though, the logo is barely noticeable on the Ducati motoGP bike [theregister.co.uk]). They've also had hoardings at F1 races. Also, they apparently spons

  • What this says... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BJZQ8 ( 644168 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:51AM (#13791549) Homepage Journal
    What this says is that AMD is making serious inroads on Intel. Just a few years ago, AMD beating Intel at anything, by any metric, would have been laughable.
    • They beat Intel in heat output ;)

      (Obviously not true anymore)
    • Does that include AMD breaking the 1GHz barrier first? In 2000 [theregister.co.uk]?

  • Retail is the word here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rectum2003 ( 686009 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:51AM (#13791553)
    I think it is not so surprising that AMD sells more Retail CPUs than Intel, considering their cheap prices, their great performance and the cheapness of their motherboards/chipsets. They are the perfect home system. However, when you consider than the vast majority of PCs sold in America and troughout the world are trought direct sales (say Dell) as the Ed implied, and through wholesale (Businesses), AMD is marginalized.

    Why? Because they can't promise the same level of production as Intel does. They do not produce their own motherboards, and while some third-party manufacturers produce some great silicon, most are abobinable pieces of flaky crap. For most mom'n'pop users at home, stability and performance don't matter too much, and those $40-60 MoBos are a bargain.

    Anyway, props to AMD for their successes!

    • Perhaps not now... (Score:5, Informative)

      by WidescreenFreak ( 830043 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:07PM (#13791695) Homepage Journal
      Why? Because they can't promise the same level of production as Intel does.

      AMD just opened a new manufacturing facility in Germany that, if I recall correctly, will be able to product 100 million more chips per year. Whether that's CPUs or IC chips I don't know, but it's clear that AMD is growing. That's still not going to overtake Intel any time soon, but it's encouraging.

      And so what if AMD doesn't produce their own motherboards? Okay, Intel has the facilities to do both. So what? Why does that matter? Dell doesn't manufacture their own hard drives or memory chips or ... just about anything that goes into a Dell PC. Why do you hold AMD to standards that are not required for other electronics manufacturers? As long as AMD has an open relationship with other motherboard manufacturers where technical specs are available to make appropriate motherboards, then so what if AMD doesn't make their own? If certain mobo manufacturers don't make quality products, then don't buy from them. Buy from competitors. Don't blame AMD for bad products from other companies.
      • I worked at a computer recycling company for a few months. Every system was first booted with memtest86+ and then knoppix for hardware detection (funny using linux for that...).

        And you know what? Over 80% of the pre-Athlon AMD processor systems had *terrible* memory bandwidth. I'm talking 50-100MB/s. I have a P2 450 that more that doubles that speed.

        *That* is why AMD should be making *good* chipsets. They have made some in the past, but they have funny bugs in them, like requiring a mouse to be plugge

        • Re:Perhaps not now... (Score:3, Informative)

          by dmadole ( 528015 )

          I like AMD, my first system that I built myself was a k6 350 and it is still chugging along today. But only 128MB of ram is cachable by the chipset, and that makes many things slower than they should be. Another point where my P2 450 beats the AMD just because of a shit chipset.

          It's such an old relic of an anecdote that I don't know why I bother responding, but...

          The AMD K6 was a socket 7 CPU, the same as the Pentium. AMD did not make any chipsets at the time; the same chipsets were used that were use

    • Re:Retail is the word here (Score:5, Informative)

      by manno ( 848709 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:59PM (#13792163)
      "They do not produce their own motherboards, and while some third-party manufacturers produce some great silicon, most are abobinable pieces of flaky crap."

      "most" huh?

      I have made dozens of A-64/A-XP PC's in my day, and I've used motherboards made by Tyan, MSI, Asus, AsRock, Abit, Biostar, Foxconn, Gigabyte, and ECS. Using Chipsets by AMD, Uli, Nvidia, and Via. And out of the 100+ boards I've been shipped I've only had problems with 2 that weren't my responsibility. With one and only one exception and that's if I installed Nvidia's Software IDE Driver, that being said I've experienced similar issues with Intel's Software IDE drive, called "Intel Application Accelerator" or something like that. So I call that a wash, and don't install either.

      How do you define most... for argument's sake lets say that I'm lucky, and assume normal return rates with electronic goods, when I was in the distribution biz, we expected 20% of all of our electronics to come back whether it was defective or otherwise. So let's put it at 20% how on Earth does 20% constitute "most"? You literally don't have a clue as to what you are talking about.

      Let's continue shall we?

      "when you consider than the vast majority of PCs sold in America and troughout the world are trought direct sales (say Dell) as the Ed implied, and through wholesale (Businesses), AMD is marginalized.

      Why? Because they can't promise the same level of production as Intel does. They do not produce their own motherboards, "

      Do you think Dell buys Intel manufactured motherboards? Wrong! One of Dell's largest suppliers for cases/Mobos ect. is Foxconn/Hon Hi, In fact one of the major suppliers for every PC manufacture sprawling from Dell, to Intel, to even that sacred cow Apple is Foxconn/Hon Hai. Please post "facts" on just the topics you understand.

      mod -1 FUD

      -manno

  • AMD is Growing (Score:3, Informative)

    by CSHARP123 ( 904951 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:53AM (#13791568)
    I agree that this survey do not give the whole picture. AMD is growing you all got to see their third quarter profit [morningstar.com]
    • www.moveamd.com [moveamd.com] -

      AMD to build on sacred land.

      AMD's proposed move to the Barton Springs watershed is a threat to the health of Barton Springs and the Edwards Aquifer, and therefore a threat to the long-term health of Austin.

      Here's how AMD's proposed move threatens Barton Springs:

      Create pollution in Barton Creek, Sycamore Creek, Williamson Creek, and Barton Springs from construction and post-construction runoff
      Encourage employees to buy homes in the Barton Springs watershed, thereby boosting s
  • being the Pentium-DRM have contributed to Intel's fall from grace in the marketplace. I also hope AMD will read the lesson, lest Cyrix or some heretofore unknown Chinese manufacturer becomes the ascendent chip supplier to those who would still like general purpose computers as opposed to *AA controlled media delivery devices.
    • As an owner of a Pentium D I don't know what you are talking about. It's a 775-pin chip with a i945 [or better] chipset. Nothing that special. It runs x86_64 gentoo linux just fine [as well as all the tools in it], etc...

      Maybe you're thinking of ... nothing, because you pulled this out of your ass?

      Tom

      [n.b. the Pentium D does still suck in performance wars against the AMDX2 even with a clock advantage...]
  • I think the 'brand importance' and 'Hz' of CPU seems less and less of a factor in deciding which computer to buy, compare to 3-5 years ago, especially most computers today are fast enough for whatever majority consumers intend to do, AMD is around for years, and the Hz just doesn't pop up as advertised by Intel/AMD.
    • Instead, price and "brand importance" of the PC itself reigns supreme.

      Dell, HP, Compaq, eMachines, and Gateway are the novice's friends, or so they think.

      IBMs are expensive, and not worth it, in the eyes of the novice.

      Averatec is an unknown, but when they look at the size of the laptop, they think, "Averatec's awesome!"
    • Let's look at processor model numbers:

      Athlon64 3200+
      Pentium 4 540

      Eureka! Clearly consumers are drawn to the processor that uses the bigger number!

  • The question I have is..... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @11:55AM (#13791589)
    ..... Does this make AMD money? After all, the comsumer computer business tends to have VERY low margins. AFAIK, AMD doesn't have much mindshare in the moneymaking enterprise market (although to be fair they are trying to push that at the moment) So if AMD is discounting the hell out of these chips to gain mindshare, are they making money? If not, how long can they continue to do so?

  • I don't see how this matters... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by indytx ( 825419 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:00PM (#13791636)
    Laptops are now outselling desktops, and AMD has lagged behing Intel in its portable chips designs. Now, a breakdown based on the numbers of CPUs shipped would be interesting.
    • Having had good experiences to date, all our mobile workers who need number crunching power (which is in fact all of them...) are now getting AMD64 laptops using Turion processors. The bang for buck is very good, the battery life and heat buildup are also good. Mind you, for the moment we will buy Pentium D for developer workstations, because the cache is bigger than it is for the Athlon dual core units. It's a tradeoff based on the kind of work you are doing.

  • How does that saying go...? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Grfxho ( 866867 ) <grfxho@@@yahoo...com> on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:06PM (#13791680)
    "Figures never lie, but liars always use figures."

    While I think a full out celebration would be premature, this same set of numbers showing an increase from a previous data set is still a positive sign...isn't it?

  • I'm going to just go out on a limb here ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <<kt.celce> <ta> <eb>> on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:07PM (#13791702) Homepage Journal
    But don't most "hobbiest" or "enthusiasts" or "people who build their own computer", shop around? I mean if you have the common sense enough to build your own computer, then you're doing it because you know you'll save money. It's been long known that you get "more bang for the buck" from AMD, so this just seems like something that is becoming more of a mainstream "known".

    People still buy from Dell, but more and more people are building their own systems, or having someone build one for them.

    Now for people to argue with me about how much "bang" you get for a "buck" ....

    Note: Take into account the amount of money saved through popular amd chipsets (IE: nforce). It's not a lot, but it is something. Plus you're cool because you have something your neighbors don't which is nearly priceless.

    • People still buy from Dell, but more and more people are building their own systems, or having someone build one for them.

      I send people to Dell if they are non-technical. And I advise them to upgrade their warranty to 3-year, on-site service (unless they plan on replacing the computer in less than three years).

      I build my own (and I'm on my third AMD CPU at home, and on my second at work - our whole office runs on AMD, and so do the majority of our servers), but I hate doing it. All sorts of little issues po
  • But what these number DO show is consumer sentiment towards the AMD brand. Retail sales are great for showing what is going through a consumer's mind when browsing for a computer. If they are purchasing AMD in retail outlets, that means that the AMD vs. Intel FUD is relatively mute. I'm not arguing for either side, I'm simply happy to see AMD able to compete in what is usually the toughest sale-- the real sales floor.
  • Commercial Idea (c) myself 2005, i hereby grant exclusive, permanent, non-revokable license for use to AMD.

    ---
    The typical hare and turtle cartoon race. But they're in racing cars. The Hare starts first in its "Famous inside" car. The turtle starts next, and its car reads: "AMD powered."

    The race starts, and we see the hare pushing the gas to the bottom. But when it looks back, there's no turtle! Where is it? Oh, the turtle just crossed the finish line! The hare's jaw drops as the turtle is already being cheered by the fans and given the gold medal.

    The hare opens the race car, and sees (instead of the engine), an AMD CPU.

    The tagline: "AMD. Faster." (When the phrase is said, the background switches to a bar chart comparing "AMD" and "Other", showing AMD is faster)
    ---

    Seriously, if AMD wants to win the market, they should start making TV and radio commercials. Remember what happened to the Amiga. It was a superior product, but lack of marketing lead to bankruptcy.

    Only when customers start asking for "AMD processors", vendors will start using them.

  • Data set doesn't matter... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by brockbr ( 640130 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:17PM (#13791782)
    It doesn't matter what set of data was picked.

    Comparing Apple's to Apple's in the same data set, AMD won. Period.

    And no, I don't think it's indicitive of the actual market, but it is a noteworthy sign. (pun anyone?)
    • the number of AMD chips coming out of AMD factories is 100%, while Intel is 0%.

      so AMD must be better.

      what? I compared apples to apples....

      These numbers are poor. When you support numbers just becasue they support what you like, then you look like a mindless idiot.

      Also, when comparing Apples to Apples, Intel won. Note the use of capitalization.

  • Buggy Pentiums (Score:4, Funny)

    by ewg ( 158266 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:18PM (#13791799)
    I'm pretty sure these statistics were prepared on a PC with one of those faulty [wikipedia.org] Pentiums [wikipedia.org].

  • All bigots voice your (worthless) opinions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by seniorcoder ( 586717 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:21PM (#13791819)
    On behalf of the less-bigoted, may I say I am ecstatic that there are two (three?) cpu companies to choose from. This means I can buy whoever's cpus are currently the best and that there is competition to make them all try harder. For those of you who [hate Intel | love AMD | hate AMD | love Intel] I only hope you actually benefit from this chauvinism. Perhaps you have shares in one or the other. Perhaps you work for one or the other. Whatever. The rest of us should be buying on the merits of whatever is currently available. I am buying AMD64 cpus at the moment. Prior to that I was buying AMD Athlons. Prior to that I was buying Pentium IIIs. I have also had good success with Cyrix in the past. Lave the bigots to scream and shout. Please buy on technical merits. May the best cpu manufacturer of the moment win.

  • Of course it favors AMD (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evilned ( 146392 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:27PM (#13791874) Homepage
    Intel's strong suit right now is its laptop processors, and who buys those at retail? AMD's strong suit are desktop processors, which are what people put into home built computers.
    • Intel's strong suit right now is its laptop processors, and who buys those at retail?

      Non-corporate buyers. Over the last couple of years, laptop sales for personal use have increased by at least an order of magnitude (yes at least 10x more, probably 20-30x more). The average, non-geek buyer is definitely looking at buying a laptop.

      AMD's strong suit are desktop processors, which are what people put into home built computers.

      The survey is not about retail processors, it is about retail fully-assembled compu
    • I am also seeing many cheap, good, AMD based laptops on the shelves of local shops.

      AMD isn't simply going to let intel have the laptop business without a fight.
  • Laptops are huge - desktop markets have plateaued, but the number of laptops sold, and their portion of the entire market for personal computers, is growing constantly.

    Saying that AMD has overtaken Intel in a declining market is not saying much. While Intel certainly hasn't given up on the desktop market, they do know that desktops are the past and laptops are the future.

    Further, as has been said, the lack of direct sales data is pretty weak. That's like saying "More computers are sold with OSX installed th

  • Dell's disservice to its customers (Score:3, Funny)

    by unsigned integer ( 721338 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:58PM (#13792142)
    I can only imagine the hookers and blow that Intel is sending to Dell, to keep it exclusively using Intel processors. Benchmarks, tests, performance reviews, all laud praise onto AMD and their processors, yet Dell continues to steadfastly use sub-par chips.

    Ah, to be the Dell CEO and snorting lines off a hooker's ass ...

    • And yet ... the dell customer is at fault as well, because they could switch to hp/compaq or gateway or even alienware for that matter, and get AMD powered computers. Why is everybody choosing dell, if dell has made a gross mistake in its purchasing choice for the heart of its computers?
    • Yep. Michael Dell sure is fucking it up. I mean - he's only the 10th richest man in America and he's already 40. What a slacker.

      If ONLY he used AMD. Then he could really make it.

      I mean, they only made 3 billion dollars in pure profit last year.
      They somehow gain marketshare every single year.

      They should adopt a strategy like Gateway or IBM. Oh, wait, IBM is out of the PC business because they can't make any money. Gateway loses money every single year...and HP makes the majority of their money from pri
      • Not only that, but the threat of incorporating AMD chips into their lineup is part of the reason they can get such good prices from Intel. We can only imagine the co-marketing agreements and massive volume deals they get thanks to Dell "hinting" at a switch every now and then.

        Like Apple incorporating x86 processors into their lineup, they'd do it in a heartbeat if it made sense from a business perspective. This isn't a philosophical battle, it's about how to maximize your leverage with vendors. Dell's wi

  • Somewhat meaningful (Score:3, Informative)

    by DaEMoN128 ( 694605 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:59PM (#13792158)
    Let us look at these numbers. They exclude most of the market (I know very few people that buy retail computers). I am not suprized that AMD beat intel in the retail market. Most people that are buying preconfigured boxes from a retail store are usually looking for a cheap computer. AMD will win in this case.
    I think this is a sign that AMD is getting a shelf presence. That is it. 5 years ago, you couldn't find a computer with AMD inside it without doing some serious looking. Now you can find 4 out of 9 on walmarts computer page. I personally build only with AMD for now, but I have no issue with Intel processors (other than the loss of my left arm to pay for it). It is a good sign that AMD is becoming mainstream to the public, not just the enthusiast.

    It should only be a couple of years more before Dell ships an AMD system. HP, shuttle, alienware, velocity micro, and monarch already do. I dont know about Gateway 2000.

    all in all, Good for AMD!

    FYI, 1 Athlon XP, 1 Duron, 1 G4, 2 Xenon, and 1 P4M at home.
    • FYI, 1 Athlon XP, 1 Duron, 1 G4, 2 Xenon, and 1 P4M at home.

      Xenon processors? Wow, those sound really neat! Who makes them? Whoever they are, they should look out because Intel just happens to make a chip called a Xeon. With names so similar I'm sure a Cease & Desist order is on the way already.

      (/sarcasm)

  • I contributed to the market share by buying an AMD64 to put on a shuttle box, topped with Fedora 4 as the OS.

    My experience with that? I will never go back to expensive Intel chips. This system works just great.

  • AMD Rocks - We need more AMDs and fair market!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by managedcode ( 863136 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @01:12PM (#13792286)
    I have personally done benchmarking of some compilers on AMD64s. I can't reveal the results but the bottomline, AMD's performance was far better than Intels. It Rocks!
    I think it was a pain even at Microsoft to port their software to Intels Itanium. They have said that support for it will be limited in Longhorn. Regarding Media Center, I think Dave first ported to AMD64 and Acer was marketing the combination.
    Their are some serious issues with Intel and not many liked it including Linus Trovalds and he blasted INTEL in one of his e-mails for not giving credit to AMD.(Dig through Kernel archive)
    I like free market and competition. It was the WinTel lobby but these suckers somehow managed to escape from slashdoters, I am glad they are now losing.

  • 46+52=98 (Score:2)

    by szo ( 7842 )
    where is the remaining 2%?

  • Missing the Point (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pdxdada ( 684092 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @01:54PM (#13792672) Homepage
    Personally I don't care what AMD or Intel's exact market shares are, I do however take this as a sign that the market is in a very good place. We have two companies in relatively comparable strong positions and several smaller companies filling out the niche markets (Via, Transmeta ...) and they all run the same code. It's also finally gotten to the point where the market dictates the course of the standard instead of just one company (Intel borrowing the x64 extentions from AMD). The companies are proffitable and the customer has choice. I can only wish the OS market looked like this.

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