AMD outside

There really isn't much chance of a win for the little guys in this game. We used to be able to rely on offering a better price, a custom build and better service than you could get at the mall. And part of that lower price came from using AMD chips.

Now we can't even do that, as Dell and HP and the other majors are all gobbling up AMD inventory like there's no tomorrow so they can join the rush to be the cheapest brand-name PC maker.

All we need now is for Apple to start slapping AMD inside its offerings and you'll be able to get an iMac for less than a white- box desktop.

Maybe we need to reverse the tables and start charging more for our white-boxes.

After all, if we're going to build any they're going to have Intel chips in there - can't get hold of anything else. Pay more in store than you would for a delivered Dell? Probably not.