News - AMD's Leslie Sobon blasts Intel's marketing

[HEXUS]

AMD's VP of product marketing says Intel still markets "like it's 1995" and confuses customers with techno babble about processors.

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[Tattysnuc]

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All very well saying this, but at least Intel actually market their products. I don't remember EVER seeing an AMD advert on the TV or listening to one on the radio.

Come to think of it, I haven't bought an AMD processor since the very excellent 4200 X2 came out - why? with their 2 or 3 socket changes (754, 939, AM, AM2, AM3 etc etc) later I still wouldn't be comfortable blowing 300-400 GBP on a new rig base and feel confident that the boards do everyhting I want.

How about actually doing something positive AMD? Like coming up with a BETTER naming convention and advertising campaign. I seem to remember that it was AMD that first moved to model numbers and not frequency related model numbers. Thye just took your idea and ran with it...

I do agree with her in part though. The core range with it's crossover between i5 and i7 is somewhat daft.

[Lee H]

The thing I've found that is confusing customers the most at the moment is the i5 and i7 range on LGA1156.

I've had numerous requests for people to use LGA1366 CPU on a LGA1156 motherboard and the other way around because they've seen that the i7 860 is LGA1156 and expect the i7 920 to fit when it doesn't.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

All very well saying this, but at least Intel actually market their products. I don't remember EVER seeing an AMD advert on the TV or listening to one on the radio.

Come to think of it, I haven't bought an AMD processor since the very excellent 4200 X2 came out - why? with their 2 or 3 socket changes (754, 939, AM, AM2, AM3 etc etc) later I still wouldn't be comfortable blowing 300-400 GBP on a new rig base and feel confident that the boards do everyhting I want.

How about actually doing something positive AMD? Like coming up with a BETTER naming convention and advertising campaign. I seem to remember that it was AMD that first moved to model numbers and not frequency related model numbers. Thye just took your idea and ran with it...

I do agree with her in part though. The core range with it's crossover between i5 and i7 is somewhat daft.

Intel have had 4 sockets in the last 5 years - socket 478,socket 775,socket 1156 and socket 1366. Also,earlier socket 775 motherboards were not compatible with the 65nm Core2 processors and this was again repeated with the 45nm Core2 processors too.

OTH,most AM2 motherboards will take AM2 and AM2+ processors and AM2+ motherboards will take AM2,AM2+ and AM3 processors.

[Novo]

How many consumers are actually swayed by Intel advertising and in what way?

Intel adverts come across like shampoo ads to me - a collection of buzz words and brand names in a glossy set, that may trigger an 'I recognize that' response from punters catching a glimpse a sticker on a PC case, browsing around a PC store.

This probably works as Joe Public is more interested in buying an OEM box that handles facebook and itunes instead wondering about the internals.

Marketing is in its own world.

[scaryjim]

OTH,most AM2 motherboards will take AM2 and AM2+ processors and AM2+ motherboards will take AM2,AM2+ and AM3 processors.

Strictly speaking, all AM2 motherboards will take AM3 processors: but I doubt many non-AM2+ motherboards will get BIOS updates to recognise the new processors. What effect that will have is debatable, but I believe a couple of Hexusites have had issues with high-end Phenom II X4s running @ 800MHz constantly due to lack of BIOS support on a Gigabyte mobo.

AMD don't have the marketing budget Intel do, and frankly Intel's over-emphasis on processors in marketing has caused more headaches for consumers than it's solved: I can't count the number of times friends and customers of mine have complained about their computer being too slow, and it turning out to be because they had a 3GHz P4 with 256MB RAM. I fully agree with AMD that a) we need to change how computers are marketed, and b) that most retail staff don't have the technical knowledge to sell an unknowledgable consumer the right computer.

As to the i5 / i7 / 1156 / 1366 debate, I thought AMD had demonstrated back in about 2003 that trying to support two different sockets simultaneously didn't work - I can't understand why Intel are so desperate to make the same mistake

[SuGaR847]

You wouldn't believe how many people are buying the new Intel mobile processors just for the "i7" preceding the model number. Intel's branding is confusing for a reason...

[themaidenmaniac]

lol shes not bitter at all

[aidanjt]

It's not even just the branding, the entire Intel processor line-up is horribly convoluted. Tried hunting for a laptop with VT-x support lately? Honestly, it's not pretty. One thing I like about AMD is whatever feature is current tech is in their current CPUs.

And let's not go near that i3/i5/i7 mess.

[itslate]

On a mainstream retail level, there are an overwhelming number of customers looking specifically for Intel simply because they know of nothing else. AMD is a fading whisper of the past that sometimes pops it's old school head up, in the "20% or so" PC's or laptops that feature AMD platforms.

Now even though some customers want the flash and sparkly Intel sticker on their computer, they don't have the faintest idea what the difference is between a Celeron, Pentium, Core 2, or I5 or i7. It's all the same to the average mainstream retail customer, and a little confusing for them.

But the Intel sticker still prevails no matter what's inside, aslong as it's Intel, the majority of customers seem to feel happy sticking with what they "think they know".

On the Netbook front, if people pay £200-£300 for a netbook surely they should expect basic performance. I'm not trying to be sarcastic about this, but netbook's are built with basic tasks in mind. It doesn't take a computer whizz kid to figure out that £200 for a computer is not gonna get you very far.

[wiak]

Vision makes life easier for techsupport for family like many of use are, heck you can just tell your aunt to buy a Vision based laptop if she is only web surfing and listening to music or a Vision Ultimate if she needs (HD) video editing and heavy duty things, if she is a hardcore gamer (unlike many aunts) you should tell her she should get a Vision Black


if she wants to do something in between tell her to get Vision Premium

it will save you time to research the laptop specs, compare benchmarks etc, heck you will KNOW exacly what you aunt got, like you only need to bring ATI Catalyst to update video drivers if she has a problem and so on

btw all Vision uses ATi Radeon HD 3200 or faster graphics so you know you can game at 3 times the speed compared to Intel latest Intergrated Craptstics GMA X4500? and you will also know that the graphics can decode Blu-Ray fully in hardware with no problems

lets hope the OEMs wont **** this up as they did with a 4870 X2 or was it 4870 Crossfire laptop that had 1 year outdated drivers that was the OEMs restricted driver policy FAULT for not putting out a a DRIVER... on THEIR website

so AMD