AMD pricing

[The JoJo]

No wonder AMD looses money, I just checked with the wholesaler here, and started wondering about what AMD's strategy is.

P4 1.8GHz 160 Euros
Celeron 1.8GHz 70 Euros
XP 1800 56 Euros

Wasn't XP supposed to be competing with P4? I know XP is supposed to be the future "cheapo" processor, but at least at the moment there are no "high-end" processors available! No opteron, athlon64 at my importer yet.
Or is barton supposed to be the high-end?

Surely the XP is a lot faster than the Celeron, right?

What's the deal? Shouldn't the XP in this scenario be something like 100-130 instead?

Or is this just due to the summertime, demand, somethingtotallyelse?

Just wondering...

 

[CougTek]

Plus, a T'bred 1800+ is likely to achieve higher performances through overclocking than a Pentium 4 1.8GHz will. The 1800+ should reach at least 2.2GHz, while the 1.8GHz Pentium 4 ceiling should be around 2.8GHz. And a 2.2GHz Athlon XP will be faster than a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 most of the time. The 1.8GHz Pentium 4 isn't based on the latest core revision and shouldn't make it to 3GHz and beyond.

Comparing a 2400+ Athlon XP and a Pentium 2.4GHz, my answer about the ultimate winner will not be the same.

 

[CougTek]

To answer Jojo's question, I'll say that AMD tries to compete against both the Celeron and Pentium 4 lines with their Athlon XP. The Athlon XP falling in the Celeron frequency ratings feature Celeron-like prices while those above the highest current Celeron frequency/rating are pricematched to their Pentium 4 equivalent.

 

[The JoJo]

To answer Jojo's question, I'll say that AMD tries to compete against both the Celeron and Pentium 4 lines with their Athlon XP. The Athlon XP falling in the Celeron frequency ratings feature Celeron-like prices while those above the highest current Celeron frequency/rating are pricematched to their Pentium 4 equivalent.

Hmmm, not good, in my humble opinion. So is the XP an orange or an apple? It shouldn't be both, in my opinion, harder for the customer to get a grip of it. They either have an el-cheapo processor and a middle/high end one, or they don't.
Of course if you build systems, it's easy: So you want a cheap system, pop in a XP1800, or if the customer want's a medium/high-end system, pop in a XP1800

This scenario will probably be clearer (for me at least) when the opteron/athlon64 is more readily available for the high-end, the XP/Barton is there for the possible middle ground and the T????? whatever comes out, that's supposed to have the cache halved like the celerons, is there for very cheap systems. Or maybe just opteron / barton. Will see...

 

[Fushigi]

There will be Athlon FX later on. It's the new Duron.

With regard to the cheap/med/high-end systems, the CPU could be the same, but the cheap system will have integrated video with shared memory access and other cost-cutting measures while the med/high-end boxes can have GeForce 5x00s or Radeon 9xxx cards. Ditto for the rest of the system components. In other words, think of the CPU like the case. It's a foundation component that in and of itself is not that distinguished as you move up the price scale. The way the machine is differentiated is by what else goes into the PC. Video, sound, HD, DVD burner, type & quantity of RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, XP Home vs. Pro, etc.

Still, with the prices mentioned, I personally would have priced the Athlon @ about 75 euros. Substantially cheaper that P4; marginally more than Celery. Market as P4 performance for Celery prices.

- Fushigi

 

[Tannin]

And some people ask why we are an all-AMD shop....

Well, we are not really all-AMD.We sell both brands, because I don't care what they buy, I only care if they buy.

So far, our all-time sales totals stand at:

P4-based Celeron systems: zero
P4-based Celerons as components only: zero
P4 systems: 1
P4 (components only): 2
Athlon XP systems & components: enough to keep 4 people and an ape eating - i.e., lots!