Originally posted by: stonecold3169
Do we have ANY rough estimating of cost of these guys? Will these be likely to be priced consumer level, or are we talking much larger then this?
Here are my thoughts (not cold hard facts, but you can see my arguments and tell me if you agree):
Originally the Hammer (I'm focussing on the consumer version not the server Sledgehammer) was going to have dual processor support, and a large cache. I said it would be in the $700s range. Then we were told there will be a single processor and dual processor Hammer - so I adjusted my price range to $500s to $600s for the single processor version and $700s for the dual processor version. Now we are being told that the single processor version will have less cache - I might be willing to narrow my range down to just the $500s for the consumer single processor, low cache Hammer.
Where do I get my $500s estimate from?
1) AMD needs a high priced product since they have been losing money ever since they stopped pricing their chips at
$1299. Yes, less than 3 years ago, AMD sold chips for $1299. Their last high priced consumer chip was released Oct 17, 2000 at $612. Then in 2001 they started losing money - lots of money - with top chips priced at $350. If AMD sold chips for $600+ in the past, why can't they now?
2) I lost the link, but AMD said that Clawhammer will be priced at a significant premium over the top Athlon chip. The top Athlon currently sells for $397. I don't know exactly what a "significant premium" means to you, but to me it means at least 25% more. 125%*$397 gives you about $500. Heck just a half year ago, the 2100+ was released at $420. 125%*$421 = $525.
3) Limited production. Very, very few people need a 64 bit processor at the moment. Thus the first Clawhammer will have NO advantage over the current Barton of the time. People have been under the impression that a 3400+ Hammer will be a speed king. Well that sounded great two years ago, but times have changed. Barton will be roughly 3400+ speed at the time Hammer is released. Couple that with the higher price, and there will be little demand for the original Hammer. AMD itself confirmed this recently by saying that they expect Barton to outsell Hammer throughout 2003. Without large quantities sold, the start-up costs must be spread over very few Hammer chips, increasing the cost per chip to manufacture.
4) Added expense. Hammer isn't a small chip. Larger chips cost more to produce. Plus with AMD now using some outside fabrication plants (which will need to be paid, an additional expense), AMD's chip production will be more expensive.
5) AMD said at the end of 2003 Clawhammer will barely fit into a sub $1000 computer. The other parts, motherboard/video card/Hard drive/OS/etc, costs in the $400 range leaving $600 left for a processor. This means that at the mid-2003 the processor may be even higher than $600. Thus I'm still a bit reluctant to reduce the Clawhammer price range from $500s/$600s down to just the $500s.
6) Economy picking up. I feel strongly that the bad economy lead to the low AMD/Intel prices far more than any other reason (including competition). This is since when AMD was the best competition of all, prices soared to $1299 per chip. Only when the economy slump hit did prices drop (in fact as prices dropped, AMD lost their competitive speed edge). When the computer slump ends, thus I think we will again see the days of $750+ processors.
So there are my estimates and my reasoning behind them. Feel free to disagree, but if you post your thoughts please give reasons to back them up.