AMD beware, Conroe is coming

Stan Beer
Friday, 14 July 2006 14:59

Your IT - Home IT

Last month it was Intel's Woodcrest Xeon throwing out the challenge to AMD Opteron server processors, now the spectre of the imminent release of Intel's Conroe desktop processors has been tipped to force AMD to duck for pricing cover with its Athlon range. According to a number of reports, the Conroe dual-core processors significantly outperform their Athlon counterparts. This has led to speculation that AMD will drop the prices on its dual-core Athlon chips, which have been considered expensive but worth the extra money for performance sake.

Performance edge has been a significant factor in helping AMD take market share of its bigger rival in the past two years. AMD recently pushed past the 20% market share mark, prompting the company's CEO Hector Ruiz to talk of 30% market share as being a realistic target by 2008.

However, AMD's market share ascent has stalled at least momentarily in the wake of first Woodcrest and now Conroe. It seems that the processor game is a case of playing leap frog. Right now, the lead frog is Intel and the market is waiting for AMD's next leap.