Quote:
Originally Posted by DaedalusHelios
But anubis44, Intel still has better engineers for x86 designs. Money means something, but not everything. Intel has been buying the best and brightest for quite some time now. Are you saying they would somehow be able to get them from Intel by paying them ridiculous sums of money? I would imagine most enter a lengthy contract that would have to be bought out. Also remember Apple is focused on the emerging market and not x86 desktops. Perhaps you are saying ARM mini-desktops?
I could see Apple buy it just for patent rape of other companies though.
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You're right that Intel does have formidable engineers. No question about that.
However, AMD still has a few superstars, and just recently got back probably the single best x86 processor engineer in the world: Jim Keller. In addition, AMD has made the right move and made Keller 'Chief Architect, Microprocessor Cores':
http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases...2012aug01.aspx
This guy designed the AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron chips back in 2003-2005. He has now been given essentially all the resources of AMD placed at his disposal. He is free to design whatever he likes and to hire whomever he wants. It's true AMD has less money and fewer resources than Intel, but let's be serious here. We are still talking about a multi-billion dollar company, and I don't think Mr. Keller's request to bring on board whoever he needs to round out his CPU design team will be turned down. If you'll excuse the analogy, it's a little bit like Luke Skywalker joining the Rebel Alliance. Yes, he's one guy, but... no kidding, if you only had pick for your x86 CPU team, he's the number one draft pick.
The forces arrayed against AMD may be formidable, but a few super-brilliant engineers like Keller can change the game, even against a 'galactic empire' like Intel, as we've already seen briefly in 2003-2006. I for one would love to see a repeat performance!