Brian Bedingfield

Eric,

With regards to the AMD stability article...

I believe this completely. I am now an AMD fan. My story starts way back in the early 90's...

I had always been toying around with my 386SX-16. It was a good little machine. It did what I needed (rather slowly at times). The  time had come for a new machine in about '92.

Being a somewhat intelligent person, I consulted many  magazine reviews. I purchased a Dell Dimension XPS 466V (It scored higher marks  than the new Pentiums) with a 486DX2-66. Unlike my previous machine, this  computer was fast. Much to my dismay, I started encountering a couple "problems."

After consulting Dell, I was told to consult the software manufacturers about the numerous "lock-ups." After consulting multiple software companies, I came to realize that I was hearing a lot of W.T.F. type responses. A couple years later, I realized that the computer was getting pokey on new software. I decided to do a little upgrade.

I dropped in a Amd5x86-133. Could I believe my eyes?! Since '96 that computer has not had a complete system crash once! I  love that little sucker no matter how slow it is. The only thing that I could  narrow my previous issues down to was the Intel chip. Since then, I have built many computers. Whenever someone says "Well, isn't Intel more reliable?" I  quaintly respond "I bet they'd like to believe that too."

I have not seen an Intel system that has come anywhere near close to matching the stability of any of my AMD based computers  (these include the 5x86 now running at 200 MHz, a K6III-400 at 450, a K6-2-400,  and a K6-233). Don't get me wrong, I bet people have found really stable Intel chips, but 8 years and almost 100 Intel processors later, I will still not buy an Intel product for myself. If I had a dollar for every person who asked me to  fix their Intel based computer, I might be willing to build more Intel systems.

Regards,
Brian  Bedingfield

Brian,
 
Thanks for writing about your personal and professional experiences with AMD. Many of us are recent converts to the AMD Way, and really didn’t have much experience with AMD K5 and K6 processors. They were always considered much slower than “real” Intel processors. However, one thing that none of us knew was that maybe they were slower, but as you mention, they also could have been more stable. And with stability being one of the key ingredients in computers and especially in IT, it is possible that we were all missing the boat and should have considered AMD more seriously in the past.
 
Of course, now many of us are making up for our past mistakes and are quite interested in the demonstrated stability and performance of the Athlon and Duron processors from AMD.
 
Thanks again for your letter,
Eric Svetcov

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