analysts say it will take AMD 18 36 montsh to even catch up to where Intel is now.

Many analysts are dumb.

The only market segment where AMD has to "catch up" is at the ultra high-end. Price cuts have made the mid- and low-end of the markets very competitive and roughly even. From a pure technological standpoint, yes, AMD is going to need a new core to compete clock for clock. But enhancements planned for K8L are going to increase IPC, and we know AMD will also have higher clocked CPUs coming down the pipeline. Plus, 4x4 will likely scale better than Kentsfield, so the pseudo-quad-core race is anything but over.

I think it's fruitless to even guess at this point. If K8L hits and it doesn't close the gap considerably, then we can all start talking about the catching up AMD's got to do. Gonna be an interesting few months.

Heh, are those the same Analysts that said intel would catch up to AMD in 2H '07?

Again I have to say that AMD's 65nm is WAY off track and if they were at 3.2 or 3.4 ghz when Conroe hit the ground (and remember they hit the ground with high end parts being hard to find for a while) then AMD wouldn't have taken such a terrible beating. The biggest problem that AMD has had is the money situation. There's no doubt that intel has WAY more money and AMD needed to put some money in the bank for a rainy day and so when they were on top of the performance charts they started to pull an intel (ie when intel is in a no-contest leadership position they release 2 speed bumps a year).

So AMD had a choice - collect money (bird in the hand) or crank up the clocks a bit and pray that intel (who has a ton more money and can more readily cut it's nose) wouldn't be able to deliver core cpus at higher speeds.

Ultimately I'm still a fan of saying that AMD should have at least done a 3.0ghz in '05 and been at 3.2ghz in '06 even if these FX cpus were VERY VERY limited quantities. Bragging rights are certainly important in this business, but as BigWop says the real money is made with lower-margin, high-volume says (ie low-mid end chips that sell by the 1,000's).

Their Dual, dual core should catch up to Intels Quad core as AMD's HT is far more effcient then Intels FSB.