Hold the show dude! Generic? Junk?? I think not! Think back to May of last year. If you will recall, Intel had the Pentium D, and AMD just introduced the AM2 version of the Athlon 64 X2. Let's cut to the chase: the Pentium D was a half-*** piece of crap attempt at a dual-core cpu. It was two single core dies slapped together. AMD actually took the effort and time to put both on one die, and the X2 absolutely blew away the D on benchmarks. They didn't even have many dual-core benchmarks at that time, so the scores aren't even what they should be. Not to mention the fact that the original design came out in 2005, and Intel didn't have an answer to that for over a year! AMD had a true dual core first, and Intel had been sitting on their butts and got a wake-up call. I will admit that the Core 2 Duo was a breakthrough for Intel; the benchmarks are undeniable. However, there is absolutely no basis for flaming AMD: they have come out with a new (superior) version of a cpu every year since at least 2005.

You can't call me biased either, because I owned a Pentium 4 AND voluntarily built a Core 2 Duo system for a friend, AND recommended them for new computers at my dad's work.

You are entitled to an opinion, as am I, but consider the REAL facts before you make such ridiculous claims. Go to Tom's Hardware if you don't believe me...

I'm not going to get in a flame war with you, there are enough of those. I just can't help but wonder why you are so biased? Yes, the X2 line is old, but it took Intel at least a year to come out with something better. What makes you think AMD won't give it their all to once again gain the upper edge? If AMD truly doesn't deserve to continue in the processor market, then economics will drive them out. A company can't survive unless consumers buy product, and any knowledgeable person would buy the better of two competing. This monopoly mentality is bad for everyone; it drives up prices and lowers the drive to make a better product. It's just like Microsoft: they are a complete monopoly, and innovation (and prices) have suffered for it. Imagine if all Unix-like products owned 40% of the OS market share. Don't you suppose that MS would come out with a version of Windows that is twice as good? Right now they have little incentive to stay on schedule or make a killer product. Yes their customers demand, but they still aren't driven by competition the way most other companies are. Competition ultimately benefits the consumer; economics has proven that.

The point of this is, AMD didn't rip Intel off by making X86 or X64 processors. Those are open specifications, and consumers have benefited by a competitor like AMD. I also want to make it clear that I'm not bashing your experience, it's just that I have never seen an instance where AMD caused headaches... remember Hyper-Threading by Intel? It was innovative, but I know that was a headache for some.

You sad people and your sad devotion to amd. Why would I buy amd64 bit junk when they couldn't even get 32 bit to run? Double the trouble? I seen and it didn't impress me. I know now you want to go on and on about benchmark tests and crap like that, but you didn't call me out on anything. My life started to run so much smoother replacing amd junk. Once again you are just living in the past. amd burned me along time ago and I will never go back You can respond if you want. I won't be wasting my time here anymore.

:lol: Spike.

I'm not an Intel Fanboy by any means I've had several AMD PC's over the years. The phenom is a joke and it was aimed at high-end users. Most core 2's can whoop the Phenom. So unless AMD has a magic CPU architecture coming up, they're done for in High end. Don't get me wrong. The athlon x2's are great for most people, but this column isn't talking about most people. it's talking about the high end chips.

Benchmarks from tom's hardware indicate that at 4 core operations ( see the movie encoding or 3D scene rendering benchmarks) AMD is in line with Intel numbers when you consider clock for clock speed, so give them a new gen chipset and let them put out some higher clocked chips (not just the 2.2 they have now) and yes, I believe they will compete. Maybe not kick a*** but at least worthy.

Of course, penny for penny, at this point it's a no brainer; I'd choose Intel