Just wondering what the state of affairs is re: Intel competitor's CPU
chips and how good they are compared to the Intel originals.

I remember when AMD and Cyrix first came out to challenge Intel's monopoly,
there were many "reports" that claimed, while the copycats were good, they
were not 100% compatible with the Intel versions they were "replacing".
What I don't know is whether or not that was the view of objective third
parties, or was that simply the Intel party line? And even if they weren't
100% compatible, what did that mean to the average user?

More specifically, to the present, are the non-Intel chips as good as the
Intels? Do we simply pay more for the Intel name, or is there a
feature-difference or worse, a quality difference that the average home
user could discern? As I contemplate moving from my current Pentium 166,
the price and affordability of some of non-Intel powered systems seems
attractive, but I wonder if there is a downside that I will regret over time.

Comments and opinions?

Michael


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Michael A. Wosnick
Richmond Hill, Ontario
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