And here's why:

Whenever AMD or intel get a decisive lead like we've seen over the past few years, things get stagnant. Case in point, in the summer of '05 you could buy a dual core x2 cpu (fx) running at 2.6ghz. Here we are a year and a half or so later and things have gone up 400mhz, and the new speed bumps are going to be in 100mhz or 200mhz versions, and they're not even on the radar from AMD. This is due in part to two major factors and numerous smaller ones, but the bottom line is that AMD didn't feel pressure from intel until it was too late and they weren't in a position to compete with the core lineup. The only interesting cpu news from AMD is that they might have a true quad core next year.

Now intel is in charge, 45nm cpus are being pushed into '08, and the only revisions we can expect to their current lineup are fsb boosts over the next year. Intel apparently is a bit worried about a speed bump because it'll make it's 45nm process have to compete that much more aggressively when it comes down the pipe.

The end result is that when one company dominates we, the consumer are getting hosed. Even in '08 the new intel cpus probably will be more of an improvement than an 'oh wow that's roxxor' factor. The AMD quad core is rumored to be a gap closing measure, but intel's advantage in always having more resources to throw into getting it's new fab tech up and running will probably ensure that the AMD quad core, even if nearly competitive in terms of raw horsepower per clock, will probably be at least 2-3 speed grades behind intel.

What the time is perfect for is an upstart like VIA to step in with something they've been working on in the shadows for a long, long time. Let's hope someone can take up the mantle. Otherwise from summer of '05 to mid '08, we'll have gained extra cores, and maybe 30-40% speed boost on a core for core basis. Compare that with the original Athlon launch that almost doubled in speed in a year and a half or less, and this is quite boring in many ways.

exactly + the closes the race is the better the prices are between the two.

and the faster we see progress. Example in point: ATi and nVidia. We haven't had any length of clear domination that's lasted more than 6 months or so without the other closing the gap or edging the competition.

I am for one enjoying the GPU race....I might just think about it -- 2 years ago when the 9800pro dominated the market and was considered to be a new age of the sweetest design and what-not. Look how far we've come in those 2 years

I partly agree with what you are saying, but I am not so sure it is them being lazy. Clockspeed is more meaningless now than it has ever been. Performance has still been going up in decent intervals. As far as the response time for new products... that's a bit mixed. When we had the K7 vs P4 most of the gains would be from increasing the clockspeed. Whenever they want to bring out a faster part now the process is more involved, meaning it takes more time.

I'd disagree with the clockspeeds part - on the AMD side they're really relevant as the only major changes have been the new core, and the the new socket which has had very little impact. As I stated, the overall performance per core has only gone up 30-40%

Not really sure how to put this... AMD X2 to I guess AMD X2 DDr2? the ONLY difference, was ram, and it WAS slower than our normal ddr ram. I dont know if its changed now, but I dont see the point in upgraded for ddr2 for a loooooong time.

I think personally that the race would be more competitive when DDR3 shows up, So far as everyone knows Intel has won with the C2D. They have done an amaizing job with this CPU. Jeez it got me using Intel(haven't had that pleasure since 98, AMD K6-400 was my first AMD, and since that time everything was AMD till now). Hopefully AMD would get their act straight and since they could work with ATI more closely this would bring a lot of good things to the end of the table.

I just think we need something new on the market something that will kill everything out there.