whither Sharikou?

I saw a headline at Anand that AMD’s CEO is resigning – possibly because despite saving the company from extinction, the board probably wants to sell AMD off. Reading about AMD, and having just completed an Intel/Nvidia build with barely any consideration of AMD or ATI this time around, makes me remember that wacky blogger “Sharikou, Ph.D.” who was the ultimate AMD partisan fanboi back in the day.

Sure enough, he’s still around, and still pushing the AMD kool aid. Last we checked in with sharikou was almost three years ago, where he was predicting Intel going bankrupt in 2Q08. Obviously that didn’t happen, but it’s pretty funny to search his blog for the terms “intel bk”.

April 12 2007: Intel will BK 2Q08
October 17 2007: Intel will BK 1Q09
October 26 2007: Intel will BK 4 quarters after Phenom enters the market (Phenom entered March 2008)
December 1 2007: Intel will BK 1Q09
September 8 2009: Intel BK in 2011 (quarter unspecified)

So basically, once 2008 rolled around, Sharikou stopped predicting Intel’s demise. Late September, well past his oft-extended deadline, he punted. This seems to be the big year, but Sharikou has yet to narrow down the date. 😛

At any rate, Sharikou is right that 64-bit computing is indeed pervasive now, with Windows 7 and Vista. It’s practically impossible to build or buy a 32 bit system nowadays. I can’t believe I am rocking 8 GB of fully-addressable RAM, and upgrading to 16GB will cost less than $100. (but is there any point? none I can see, even for MATLAB). I’m not entirely clear what other advantages having 64bits gives me, but it’s pretty cool. 2^6, baby!!

The only question remaining is whether AMD’s CEO resignation will delay, or speed up, Intel’s BK.