During AMD's pre-IDF conference call, CPU boss Randy Allen (pictured), recognised Phenom's lack-luster performance versus Intel's Core 2 chips.

"It's absolutely true that there's certainly a deficit that we have in terms of some of the performance benchmarks for our desktop processors right now, our Phenom, versus the competitor's".

However Allen was quick to point out that for AMD to be successful in the business, it needs to be successful in the mainstream and value PC segment. Allen also noted the emergence of the ultra-value space, like the mini-notebooks or MIDs where AMD cheaper and better integrated (chipset, cpu, graphics) offering might fit better than Intel's Atom. Finally, Allen admitted that having the best performing chip does create a nice halo effect and said that AMD plans to address that with some future desktop chip.

"The mainstream and value [PC segments] comprises of over 80% of the profits of client computing. So it's less than 20% that's really embodied in that high-end performance space. And when you look at that mainstream and value space I would beg to differ in terms of the suitability of our processors. Our processors that we have in the market today actually exceed the requirements for that mainstream and value space".