On Jun 8, 2:13*am, "gg" wrote:
1. Why would someone read comp.sys.intel for advice about buying AMD
processors?

* * for one, I don't expect AMD but Intel
if the group named something like intel-compatable or x86 I would expect AMD
and even Via included along with intel.


By that standard, comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips would be out of
business (and it just about is, actually) because there are no ibm
pc's any more. Historically, that group has been a catch all for chip
issues relating to "ibm-compatible" PC's. That seems about right.
Ironically, there have been good technical conversations on csiphc,
but about memory subsystems, not about CPU's. The Intel-AMD wars have
been just about as pointless there as they have been here, but it does
give the AMD fanboys a place to pursue their fantasies in peace. The
days when "which chip is ahead today" was an interesting discussion
are long gone.

If I want information or informed speculation about how either AMD or
Intel is conducting its business or about the possible effects of
litigation and regulatory actions, there is an entire professional
business press out there that pays a lot of attention to Intel and
AMD. The business press will never, of course, satisfy the emotional
needs of AMD fan boys praying for apocalyptic destruction of Intel.
Those aspirations will inevitably wind up somewhere--just not in a
group committed to discussion of Intel systems, if the world makes any
sense at all.

The ISA hides a lot of detail that is potentially important to the end
user. Such benchmarks as there are and conversations that take place
in these groups rarely expose those features, because most discussions
and benchmarks now center around doing the same thing over and over
again with a zillion bytes applications. That's understandable,
actually. Those are the only applications that currently know how to
use multiple cores effectively enough to stress the resources, at
least at the moment. If those are the *only* applications that will
ever commonly stress the resources of multi-core CPU's, computer
architecture is at a dead end, and there isn't much left to talk
about.

If someone knows enough about *both* Intel and AMD cpu's to profitably
discuss technical differences that might matter to an end user, by all
means, bring the discussion here. Personally, I expect to see a
unicorn before I see that happen, now that Intel has finally ditched
the front-side bus.

Robert.