Maybe AMD bought ATI because AMD is so confident that AMD will win some kind of giga lawsuit against Intel for monopolistic practices all over the world. Japan, Korea and Europe are hitting Intel on its head about monopolistic misdeeds. Only America remains on the fence and there is a good chance that America will fall on AMD's side shortly. Also, AMD bought ATI because AMD wants to be able to squeeze graphic circuits into its chips so to eliminate so called intergrated graphic chips sitting on mobos. By fusing graphic circuits with the CPU cores should create lightening fast performance. We could see that with math coprocessors and they are so blindingly fast that we took it for granted long ago. It could mean opening slow PDF files so fast that you would be knocked over on chair! Or scrolling spreadsheets or pictures or reading ebooks would be so smooth without screen creep effects. I dont know if it will be good enough for gamers with the latest games, but it should . Intel only makes integrated graphic chips not graphic circuits inside the CPU. You bloggers or analysts are missing the point why AMD bought ATI. Why start from stratch if you can put ATI technology in core chips quickly? Intel is like a turtle and AMD is like a hare that gets ahead once in a while and resting in between. With Athlons and Opterons, AMD attained 20 percent market share that was never achieved before ever. Intel is bigger that AMD and it doesnt mean that AMD can keep on taking additional market share with careful thought out and aimed strategies over long term. AMD doesnt have the luxury to make change of seat strategies every few months like Intel could . A Middle East investor put 600 million into AMD recently which should tell you that AMD still has clout. AMD's Barcelona chip was delayed probably because AMD realized that the chip can be improved further so why releasing it too soon. So AMD delayed it to get it much better than originally. So at $7 now, you would kick your rear end for not buying a few shares , though....

Intel gets big not because it has better technology, it is because it had more Fabs. Intel is more profitable not because it has better technology, it is because it could make dumber chips more cheaply than AMD would want to. AMD wants to give users the best technology and AMD is sticking to this strategy until more users realize how important new technology in their chips mean to them not exceedingly profitable dumber CPUs...

The only visible technology edge Intel has over AMD is its leadership in shrinking the circuits which is at 45 nanometers over AMD's 65 nanometer. It means Intel can make its chips run faster. But in reality, it means no difference because all chips from Intel and AMD are practically spinning its tires in mud or snow which you prefer to do. There is so much bottlenecks in the periphal circuitry all around the CPUs that Intel and AMD chips often waste over half of its clock cycles waiting for them to respond. That is why AMD is not so keyed up about the shrinking of the circuitry to make the core circuitry faster. AMD chose to maximize periphal circuitry like I/O circuitry be it graphical, Ethernet, audio, memory, whatever performance to better match AMD's core chip performance. From there, AMD shrink core circuitry after that to prepare it for next generation of perhiphal circuitry to come in the future. Intel chips might finish the process faster than AMD but you dont see it on your screen any differently. You can see that AMD is at least as fast as Intel from your screen. No difference. Perhaps, the bulk of our servers are just one trick ponies that do same things over and over and they dont have much periphals around. If you are a home user, you wont see any difference between Intel and AMD as you surf the web, print , clicking around... AMD is hard at work to getting it out on your screen faster than Intel could and it is getting there... Server operators are paying through their noses for Intel chips needlessly.

The only thing I dont understand about Intel and AMD is their 64 bit chips or so called 32/64 bit chips. Windows Vista comes in either 32 or 64 bits and I thought it would have come in only 32/64 flavor. I have 32/64 chips in my computers and they obviously did nothing about the 64 bit ends. The only thing I knew I could take advantage of my 32/64 bit chips is if I put in more than 3 gigabyte RAM which is a known 32 bit limit. I can put in 100 gigabyte RAM if I want to but most late mobos cant handle that much yet , anyway. What is the point about the newfangled 64 bit score? Nothing so far unless you use expensive applications that runs in the thousands bucks and special industrial mobos to handle additional RAM slots well into tens of not hundreds of gigabytes!! Nothing for regular home users like you and myself with 64 bit performance ...

Sure, I have seen 64, 128, 256 bit graphic cards . Maybe that is the reason AMD bought ATI to make use of AMD core 64 bit circuitry lying fallow. You may have graphic cards that do up to 256 bit but it has to be funneled into 32 bit I/0 circuitry toward the core chip (CPU) So I suppose by fusing 64-256 bit graphic circuitry of ATI into AMD core CPU would make a world of difference to the users. That is one great benefit that is well worth the investment AMD is now making into improving its chips. It is a huge effort by AMD that Intel probably couldnt undertake without putting a dent on its vaunted profits, so Intel elected to focus on shrinking the dies first then performance later. AMD elected to focus on the technological performances and die shrinks be damned!

End of Q2/3 of 2008 will be trend turn over. At the end of 2009, AMD shares will have a value ~60$ per share. And until 2011 they will be raising to ~120$. (Obviously this also depends on Intel's responses).

Before ATI acquisition, AMD had a 45$ price. Now it has much more assets, much more know-how, much more attractive ideas. AND MUCH MORE POTENTIAL TO GROWTH.

Anyone who understand what Fusion promises, will give countenance to me.

Fusion is not alone!

Go and read this Wikipedia article:
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_processing".

These technologies promise a lot of fun, for future computing.

Intel rush to cook 4 cores, binding two dual-cores with a bottleneck at the middle of them. Where AMD spends great effort to design real 4 cores on a single die, without any handicape.

Further, AMD will combine any kind of accelerated cores (probably a physics engine for gamers, GPU, multi-media accellaration cores etc. etc...) on a single die. This will shrink our motherboards, but cancel any kind of speed limits such as FSB frequency etc..., producing enormously fast platforms. And enhance the market of AMD to those sectors, which possibly needs specialized accelarated cores; SUCH AS AUTO-INDUSTRY, AVIONICS, METEOROLOGY, ANY KIND OF ENGINEERINGS etc, etc...

For short-term AMD has much more flexible core architecture; which binds cores without bottleneck. Now 3 cores underway, tomorrow 5 cores, "one core more", this will make the difference in short term. This will recover 2008, and then the future...

I believe this is the real reason why they have delayed 4 cores Phenoms. 3 cores will be a test against Intel's Core-Duo's. Soon you'll hear the news from 5 cores.

"AMD!". We need this innovative corporation.

"One core more", this battle-cry will send Intel's monopoly to the hell...

Don't worry AMD, we are waiting for an update...

But be hurry!