Processor Wars - waiting for the Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest

Q: We're awaiting the arrival of a new-generation core from Intel, with the Merom, Conroe and Woodcrest processors. What scenarios do you anticipate, in terms of performance and the response from end-users and AMD?

A: According to the information that we have to date, the Merom/Conroe/Woodcrest core looks better than the Athlon 64 core, from the point of view of performance and power consumption. However, one thing that that the Merom/Conroe/Woodcrest core will lack is an interconnect that will scale smoothly in high-end systems. For PC systems, where the single-processor approach is normally adopted, unless Intel screws up, in terms of execution, which is always a possibility, I think that Conroe will probably emerge as the performance leader on the desktop in the fourth quarter of next year..