It used to happen with 3dfx (maybe we don't want AMD to be the next 3dfx, although it is very, very unlikely it'll crash and burn in our lifetime). You write a piece about AMD, and there's be a deluge of traffic and comment. Happens with Apple, even on our site. Now, it happens with AMD. I can see it on other sites, the way the myth of AMD is perpetuated, and I am sure that AMD feels smug about the whole thing. All PR is good PR.

Unfortunately, that is not true. At the end of the day, AMD is not going to be much good to anyone if it thinks that its fanboys are going to save its financial bacon. And no, Hammer won't turn it all around. The Athlon didn't turn it all around. It kept things bubbling for a while, but it didn't turn it around. All the momentum on Athlon is lost now.

Chip Fashionistas - Ay, There's The Rub

Ay, there's the rub. Momentum swings to and fro with AMD because the fanboys are inverse snobs, and fashion victims. They can't do anything but hope that the spotlight on AMD is solely reserved for their guilty chip pleasures. Something cool, hip, cheap, something that is other than the mainstream. To hell with it if that ends up killing their idolized brand.

Look at the amount of conjecture, rumor, and gossip that passes for information on Hammer. It does nothing to help AMD, and all the forum chat of fanboy anticipation at the arrival of the new archictecture doesn't hide the fact that it is in the here and now that AMD has to succeed, not tomorrow.

The PC business isn't going to go into hyperdrive in the short term. We're in a slowdown, and it is going to get better, but we're not going to have the kind of growth that is going to fuel and help foster AMD's competition with Intel. In this market, innovation isn't really as important as execution and day-to-day grind.