Computex Half-a-World Away - Part 1: Intel Roadmaps Revealed

Final Words

Every Computex we get a good deal of information about Intel's forthcoming plans, with this year's show moved to the Fall we weren't about to let a good update on Intel's roadmap slip us by.

Intel has been coming on strong in the past couple of years, the ball has been in AMD's court for quite some time now - Athlon 64 and Opteron both need to do well in order for AMD to regain lost ground.

What we're hearing from motherboard manufacturers and the server guys is that Opteron is doing quite well in the same areas that the Athlon MP has sold well in (HPC, clusters, etc…) however they have yet to see much expansion above and beyond where AMD used to be.

The idea of a single processor Opteron workstation (using nForce3 Pro for example) continues to be an interesting one, but the closer we get to AMD's September launch date for Athlon 64, the less interest there will be in 1P Opteron machines. ASUS had better get those nForce3 Pro boards out and onto the market soon in order to capture the opportunity.

Athlon 64 motherboards have been ready for quite some time, and the motherboard makers are growing impatient waiting for AMD's launch. Luckily, it seems as if the 865-line of chipsets will be increasing demand for products from our friends in Taiwan. The one to benefit from the delays the Athlon 64 has seen seems to be NVIDIA, as the nForce2 is doing quite well in the Socket-A market.

More what-you-would've seen from Computex coverage to come, so stay tuned…