Time to Down Play Chip Speed: No Need for "Techie" Terms

There was a time when people cared a lot about the microprocessors in their PCs–a bit like teenagers once bragged that their Impala had a 450-horsepower V8 engine under the hood. Advanced Micro Devices seems to be betting those days are over.


The Silicon Valley company–perennial underdog to Intel in the microprocessor wars–has been sending out signals that it wants to move away from marketing such chips based on how fast they are. Leslie Sobon, vice president of world-wide marketing, argues in an interview this week in TG Daily that customers don’t need to know that kind of techie stuff–what’s more important is what a PC with one of its chips does, what chores it’s best suited for. A new marketing campaign based on that concept, dubbed Vision, is expected to be announced Thursday.

To some extent, the strategy smacks of capitulation. AMD, which from 2003 to 2006 boasted a performance edge over Intel, subsequently fell behind because of its own execution issues and Intel picking up its game. The problem was exacerbated by a line of Intel chips, code-named Nehalem, that matched one of AMD’s key technical advantages and added other design benefits.


That technology has been available since November to buyers of high-end desktop PCs, willing to pay for a chip called Core i7 that lists for $999. But Intel on Monday introduced versions of that speedy chip line that list at the more mainstream price points of $284 to $562, and a model called iV that starts at $196. Those chips add to the pressures on AMD in desktop PCs.


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