Sidney

Call me a Geek or PC enthusiast, they both sound good to me. Do the names mean ¡§people with above average intelligent¡¨? Well, I really don¡¦t care; if Bill Gate was a geek and look stupid, I wouldn¡¦t mind being Bill Gate. So, I can¡¦t be that stupid, can I?

IBM as we all know is selling the PC business. This will leave Dell and HP the ¡§big two¡¨. IBM does not make processor, Motorola makes the chips. Motorola, Intel, AMD, Cypress and Transmeta manufacture processors; stock values on all Companies are losing value in recent years when most of PC enthusiasts begin to surface. Few PC enthusiasts are ¡§Apple¡¨ fans. Apple is the only Company maintaining its value in the last five years; in fact trading 3 times higher than Intel and AMD as of today.

ATI and Nvidia produce other chip sets for consumer electronics besides graphic cards. Most ¡§high end¡¨ graphic cards are in short supplies despite the ¡§high demand¡¨ from both companies. Yet, both companies are making good profit in last year.

So, here is my dilemma.

The second paragraph above leads me to believe; 1) The ¡§mass market¡¨ PC sales do not provide much profit if any at all for processor makers; 2) The enthusiasts market is not ¡§big¡¨ enough to cover the lost leaders from OEM sales; 3) What ever enthusiasts don¡¦t touch, profit can be made such as Apple; 4) Unless IBM is stupid, it wouldn¡¦t get out of PC business if it is a profit maker.

The third paragraph above tells me another similar story. The top notch cards from ATI and Nvidia are in short supplies because the factories could make other products that generate more profit. The less top notch enthusiast cards they make, the more money they make. Why not let the enthusiasts make all the noise ¡K.. noise that is free advertising for the brand names.

Bill Gate was never a nerd or geek; Bill Gate is a very smart business man.

Not long ago, PC enthusiasts were those who paid the least and extract the most from the processor because they did not have a big bank account; remember the Celeron 300 MHz? Today, the enthusiasts will pay the highest priced processors and graphic cards because they are not the same type of enthusiasts of yesteryear. Yet, they are so few. I only wish every family would put aside $3,000 per year for PC kicks, which is the ball-park number for family to put aside for automobiles in the U.S.

So, what do I conclude? Or, what's the point?

1) Intel produces the hot Prescott for a good reason; kill the cheap OCing enthusiasts.
2) AMD S939 90nm gaining popularity in OCing community because AMD is never good in business. We like it. ļ
3) IBM is getting rid of PC business because they know China and India won¡¦t pay the ¡§right¡¨ price.
4) Nvidia and ATI; they understand PC enthusiasts too damn well ¡V they got you by the balls. ƒº
5) Motherboard makers are fooled by Intel time and time again.

To grow the enthusiasts market is to create more affordable hardware that could benefit our daily living besides video games such as controlling lighting and air conditioning/heating/air ventilation in regular household; dialing in your refrigerator settings; parameter security; tracking your dogs and cats; and many more. With only the addiction of video game to lure in high performance PC and graphic card alone is not enough to sustain the continuous growth.

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lazyman

Opteron 165 (2) @2.85 1.42 vcore AMD Stock HSF + Chill Vent II