For a long time AMD were the "indie" manufacturer in the microprocessor world - and prior to about '06 had vastly superior chips. I hung out on a forum dedicate

For a long time AMD were the "indie" manufacturer in the microprocessor world - and prior to about '06 had vastly superior chips. I hung out on a forum dedicated to hardware at about that time, and the paradigm shift that Intel's Core 2 chip caused was insane. Within literally weeks AMD was old news and Intel was king (this was after a couple of years of outright dislike of Intel as the "big corporate"). AMD beat Intel to 1GHz, X64(proper) and Multi-core(proper). But Intel produced a brilliant and quality line of chips in Core 2, which has left AMD basically floundering for nearly 4 years now. I think that's fine. In a few years, with luck, AMD will produce a killer chip that leaves Intel scrabbling. Such competition is good :)