Well, what's AMD's stance on this? Hopefully they - at least - will continue to make CPUs that the "modder" community can take advantage of. If not, that would be a real shame. I've been an AMD fan since my 386DX/40, and would love another reason to continue supporting them.
Otherwise, one has to feel that this is just another battle in the "War on General Purpose Computing". Sure, PCs will - for now - remain "general purpose" computing devices, but you have to consider this one more step down the path of locking them down, and making them less accessible and hackable.
Came here to say something along these lines - if Intel steps out of the ring then it's basically handing AMD a monopoly on CPUs for the modding/custom-built community is it not?
If Intel's offering holds the performance crown (and/or the performance-per-$ crown) I'd have thought they'd hold onto a lot of the enthusiast market. A lot of modding, after all, is oriented towards getting performance.
Otherwise, one has to feel that this is just another battle in the "War on General Purpose Computing". Sure, PCs will - for now - remain "general purpose" computing devices, but you have to consider this one more step down the path of locking them down, and making them less accessible and hackable.