The weak floating point performance of those K6's and Cyrix 6x86 were mainly based on Intel managing to get patents issued for an FPU. The patent was too generic. Often than not, it's a matter of money and politics in this country.
Let's not forget, Intel is no saint, and is not without their blunders.
Like so many other monopolies, they do not want to lose that position, and since losing it, have tried their damnedest to get it back with trying to force specifications and architectures onto the industry.
ATX 1.0 with its silly 'push air into the case via the psu.
The first Pentium 60/66. expensive hot plate.
The Slot-1 changeover.
Celeron processors.
Working with Microsoft to develop cpu serialization reporting/spying.
Socket 423 and RDRAM/RAMBus...trying to corner the market again.
Prescott, Hyperthreading, DDR2.
Early offerings to combat 64-bit AMD cpus were pitiful.
The only true bright spot was the Pentium M. And now they return to exploit it after the P4 dead end.
Intel has deep pockets, can afford to bleed. What we see is a natural progression in any market. Counter or die off.
AMD made deserved shares of the windows pc market. Their product was technically superior, better priced, and basically better marketed. I was never interested in an Intel product after purchasing a 1.8a Northwood.
Price to performance is my yardstick. Having the latest and greatest can be someone else's priority. C2D is a great concept that has come to fruition. Hats off to the development team. Do I need one, no.
AMD imho, made an error acquiring ATi.
Their rise in market share, savy marketing and good timing of releases, should have been exploited further. They started to drop the baton when Intel managed to convince Apple to port to an Intel cpu. AMD was the obvious partner. The marriage of two well-established yet loved underdogs, with fierce loyalty, would have been a marketing orgy.
Apple users aren't caring how things work under that industrial design icon called a Mac. But the idea of associating their faith with Intel is like biting into a wormy apple.
Took some time and many marketing dollars to squelch.
This would have been a niche market that AMD could have really made strides with. Macs would've retained some of their uniqueness against the Wintel hordes.
AMD may be losing sales numbers, but this is still a company with A LOT of capital invested. They will be around for a while. And they will counter with respectable product.
If investors are short-sighted and bail on the company, it'll simply change hands.
Likely scooped up by some Chinese corporation and pump surplus dollars into development.
The whole Vista and C2D/Core Quad escalation reminds me of must buying the biggest SUV each year.
Why?
Gaming may drive the current pace of development, but it's hard to swallow for many non-gamers as justification to upgrade.
It is not the 'killer app' that will forge a mainstream push towards multi-core 64-bit systems.
