Intel May Win Its War With AMD: Long Term Road Map Looks Promising

From Seeking Alpha
http://chip.seekingalpha.com/article/30791

TWP notes today's CPU environment is a difficult one, particularly with the aggressive ongoing price cuts between Intel (INTC) and AMD (AMD). The firm is incrementally more positive on Intel, however, given their findings regarding its long-term server road map, and particularly the Thurley platform. They believe that the dramatic change in architecture (i.e., integrated memory controller and CSI) bodes well for the company as it transitions off of the Bensley platform in 2H08...

Intel will introduce its next-generation server platform named Thurley in 2H08 and will feature the Gainestown processor and Tylersburg chipset...

Gainestown-Intel's masterpiece in the works: Similar to Barcelona, Gainestown will be a monolithic quad-core processor in the Nehalem family and will be manufactured at a mature 45nm node.

Once again, Scientia is incorrect to say that Nehalem will be introduced 2009. He once questioned my logic that Nehalem will be released just be in time for the Barcelona launch. What he keeps to be in denial is the fact that AMD already confirmed no significant Barcelona ramp until 2008 which really coincides with AMD's 45nm transition. AMD promised to start its transition on 2H'08. And guess what Intel is launching at the same time? Anybody who's done work in a Fab, especially in a constraint one, already knows that a monolithic QC at 65nm isn't cost competetive and would definitely be a barrier in trying to gain market share.

As far as AMD's execution is concerned, we're assuming that AMD keeps its promise of a 2H 08 45nm transition. Judging by experience, AMD's 65nm transition which was promised 2H'06 actually happened just a few days shy of 2007. And of course we're also assuming Intel doesn't pull in Nehalem which it recently did with Penryn.

All in all, AMD will ramp a new micro-architechure just as Intel releases a new one. Barcelona will never have the opportunity to shine like it did with the Opteron. K10 will be an old architecture even before it gets the chance to ramp.