Ever since the benchmarks for the Conroe chip, aka Core 2 Duo, leaked out at Xtreme Systems many amongst the enthusiast community have been foretelling AMD's decline. However, we must accept that the enthusiast market is a very small minority in computer sales, and the general ignorance of the casual user. Ordinary Joe doesn't know that Conroe is the way to go when he steps into PC World -- heck they probably don't even have them for sale right now. Now one might argue that this information trickles down from enthusiasts into the mind of the casual buyer. After all, that is how AMD got their market share, by being the performance/price leader.

So whilst the Core 2 Duo might be the best chip, and this might benefit sales in the long term, it shouldn't make an immediate impact -- apart from enthusiast sales. Most likely the sales of FX-62 processors have dried up.

Second, I'd like to make some points about the price/performance issue. The informed general customer wants the best performance he can get for his buck. Right now the situation is rather skewed, with enthusiasts and OEMs taking all the Conroe chips the prices are rather high. When these chips return to their RRP, then the Intel chips will hold this crown, even with AMD's huge price drops. I wouldn't be surprised to see AMD further decrease the price of the Athlon chips, to steal this important crown. After all, the R&D costs for the Athlon 64 must have been covered with the initial high prices AMD set, which they set because they could, they had no real competition.

AMD really need to get more done to help maintain their market share until K8L appears. Another price drop when consumers finally get savvy and Conroe chips finally hit their RRP sounds like the best option to me.