Intel Recalls 1.13-GHz P-IIIs Due To Glitch 213
KuRL writes "C|Net is reporting that Intel has begun to recall their 1.13-GHz chips, which had the best clock speed on the market, due to a glitch that caused the chip "to malfunction in laboratory tests under certain conditions." Yes, it was only that specific. It is quite clear that Intel rushed this chip out upon hearing that AMD would be releasing a 1.1-GHz chip of their own."
Re:Temp.. (Score:5)
Re:Dusting off your F00F bug jokes (Score:1)
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Re:Temp.. (Score:1)
"... certain application software ..." (Score:2)
Re:well duh! (Score:2)
In that case, it's time to punish them for their disregard for consumers by not buying their products.
All this bottom line garbage is stupid. We're moral creatures because that's what works. If it didn't, we wouldn't be here. It's time companies were held to the same standards.
Re:What are his credentials? (Score:1)
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Did Intel actually learn the mistakes from the i820 debacle too? Will they become the "release and recall" company? I think it's a better marketing jingle than the "Intel Inside" was *grin*
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Re:Just AMD all over again (Score:1)
Anyway I've had more than my share of K5 problems under normal windows, not to mention NT.
I'm not sure which conspiracy theory to believe, that intel would make features for MS only, which sounds a bit far fetched since offering these performance enhancing features to all operating systems would make them look a lot better for any type of solution, that MS would make intel only features which shouldn't happen without the first option since the x86 spec is there for everybody to see and again the world domination thing, or AMD makes some bad parts. I never did like the K5 so I'd be inclined to believe option 3, but I don't want to assume anything based on the few K5's I've used sucking.
Supposedly some branch of the K6's (K6-2, 3?) I don't know, throws up when running 98SE, but is fine in just 98 first edition. That's what one of the computer shops in my area told me when I commented on their lack of anything AMD, no Athlon, nothing. I haven't played with the particular combination, 98SE seemed like such a waste. As did running it on a K6 at the point when 98SE came out.
AMD apparently said to the shop it was a windows issue and the processors would work fine when underclocked if 98SE had to be run. At that the owner of the shop decided to do without AMD. If thats the case I probably wouldn't have thought highly of pin the blame elsewhere, especially if they worked when underclocked.
I know the shop doesn't carry anything AMD and this is the given reason and they supposedly tested this out thoroughly and received that response from AMD, but could somebody tell me up as to whether this was ever an issue? I'm inclined to believe them because they know their stuff, and are one of the best shops in town, but I'm not big on the whole conspiracy thing. Does anybody know if or which AMD's aren't fully compatible?
Re:Tom's Hardware still biased, but true (Score:1)
And his attitude shouldn't be what it is considering what he is doing
Are you really trusting enough to think that Intel didn't even consider trying to hush the problem up by making sure they had all of the problematic chips? Especially given how forthcoming they've been in the past (about the Pentium floating-point bug or the Rambus performance problems or the 820 chipset issues)? Intel had as many 1.13 GHz chips as they wanted and I didn't see anything about Tom not being willing to share his tests (and, in fact, it was a test that Tom was the first to try - the kernel compile - that probably pushed Intel over the edge). Tom was willing to help Intel, he just wasn't willing to let Intel back him into a corner.
Not biased, emotional... (Score:2)
I don't think that he bashed Intel when their CPU's were clearly superior. In general his reviews are quite good, original, and present products in true light. However, the arrogance that his articles are laced with doesn't make him very popular. Money and fame can get to anyone's head.
AMD's 1.1GHz Benchmarked (Score:2)
Now we can see if AMD has the mettle to become the processor leader or not.
Re:market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:2)
Then I'll show you a company soon to be bankrupt.
Re:What are his credentials? (Score:1)
And I can probably name some other scientists who know more about hardware than he does. What gives him so much say.
Yes, and so can I. That's not relevant to the post at hand. Richard Feynman isn't Albert Einstein either, but he's no hobbyist. Comments need to be relevant to be useful. As for what gives him so much say, I suggest you peruse his site, and see if you can find a better one on the net.
Re:Correction, and more facts about the Pinto case (Score:1)
I might have known if i had my driver's license.
-j
yay sawfish
Re:Tom's Hardware still biased, but true (Score:5)
Let's say that both Kyle and Tom returned their chips, had them switched with working ones, and Intel then fixes the problem quietly without a public recall (which could be easily done considering how few are really out there). Tom then looks like a total idiot who can't test a computer and Intel buys their way out of a huge mistake.
Tom, if you're reading this, you're awesome. Keep up the damn fine work.
-B
ouch. (Score:3)
.mincus
Re:How about the manufacturers themselves? (Score:1)
oh yeah, intel.com is the best place to find out about vital flaws in the PIII 1.13Ghz that you just bought.
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Re:Another Intel Blunder (Score:1)
Wake up, buddy. the p3 1.13Ghz wouldn't have a release date next year, problem or no problem, if they didn't have to compete with AMD. Chips wouldn't be even close to the Ghz range by now if intel could still hide behind Moore's [economic] law. The Highest end of us would be using 650-700 Mhz chips, maybe
It's called capitalism. It means that when companies compete, they have to work harder and produce better products, or they go out. So the longer this "pissing contest," as you call the free market economy, continues, chips will continue to get faster.
If faster chips cannot be produced that are stable, (which they can, in any case, as AMD is showing us every day) it is because the technology really is at its limit, at least for now, not because of competition between chip manufacturers.
If you really think that all that's been at stake over the past year and a half or so between Intel and AMD has been essentially bragging rights (as in a pissing contest) then you are sorely mistaken.
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all the more reason to buy AMD (Score:1)
See?? (Score:1)
Re:Word is already out... (Score:1)
That's disgusting. (Score:3)
"For a long time, Intel was this machine that couldn't break and AMD couldn't take two steps without tripping," Gwennap said. "For the past year, Intel has been having problem after problem, and AMD keeps cranking out more and more chips."
Is anybody else repulsed here? I find myself reminded of a premise in 'Fight Club', that car companies tally up the repercussions of a recall before bringing the faulty vehicles back to the manufacturing plants...if the cost of all the lawsuits is lower than the cost of the recall, it's never issued.
This is similar, with a twist...i find it really difficult to believe that intel couldn't find fundamental errors in the architecture of this chip before it was shipped. Like the article says, they've been doing this for far too long without a hitch for things to suddenly start going wrong. So if they found the problem, why was the chip released?
This is where the other quote comes in: Intel doesn't care. The market value of beating AMD to the punch was far, far greater than the cost of pulling a few thousand chips back to the plant, and angering a handful of Linux users in the process. Much like a couple of passengers burned to a crisp wouldn't stop the SUVs from rolling out onto the pavement, why should Intel let poor products keep them off the front pages of tech columns around the world?
Only, this hypothesis is somewhat more insidious...i'd go so far as to claim that Intel was aware of the problems before the release of the chip, and shipped it anyways...i doubt if Ford Motors would put a time bomb into showrooms simply because there was a profit to be found in it. of course, the fallout press in that scenario would be cataclysmic to their PR, but who is going to shed a tear over some poor Slackware hacker?
-j
Re:Intel vs. AMD (Score:1)
I'm planning on a thunderbird soon.
Think Firestone (Score:1)
all publicity is good publicity. (Score:2)
All a type of hype.
This sure will make the rock solid 2.0+ GHz P4's and merceds look sweet by comparison. will you buy a 1 GHz Celeron now that the x86 core has shown itself to be unstable at high speeds? (alright maybe that's stretching the machiavellian a little, but realistically, the value in the pIII name is going to have to be downgraded in favor of the other chips).
I wonder if the p4 will really swoop in and take the lead at this rate... between rambus and 1.0 GHz problems, the pIII is looking pretty bad in middle age. The p4 will be like a sleek and solid dream machine by comparison.
Now Anand has a piece too (Score:1)
Glitch the Cause of Top Speed! (Score:5)
the market due to a glitch that caused the chip "to malfunction in laboratory tests under certain conditions."
Intel executives today cited "ambiguity in language" as the source of the misunderstanding that caused them to release their 1.13 GHz chips a bit too soon.
"We thought that the glitch was what gave us the top speed," said one exec. "Really, that's the impression we had from the report our engineers gave us. And even some Slashdot headlines."
Sources say misuse of commas or failure to see them is becoming a widespread industry problem. "There's so much focus on the dot... some people think that's it, period, as far as punctuation goes. We really also need to look at the comma,"
said an economist somewhere in New York.
In other news, Intel also lost a bundle when they misunderstood some foreign currency prices...
Intel uses Schumberger testers (Score:1)
Testers are used for characterising chips (timing, functionality, input currents, etc.). Schlumberger's fastest tester (the ITS9000KX) reach 1Gbps, although according to the a schlumberger employee they mostly use a slower model (I think it was ~400Mbps) so intel may not be testing these things at speed (although, are there any pins that run above 400MHZ?). They might have left the at-speed testing to a bench setup (i.e. a computer) running windows, and that may be why they missed the bugs.
Considering the obvious problems reported on Tom's hardware, you have to wonder if they're giving enough coffee to their product engineers.
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Daniel
Dusting off your F00F bug jokes (Score:4)
I guess it's time for us to dust off the f00f bug jokes that plagued Intel when the Pentium first came out....
Q: What's that 'Intel Inside' sticker called? A: A warning label!
Comeon folks, use 'em if you got 'em...let's get all this out of our system before Jay Leno and Dave Letterman get on the bandwagon tonight and ruin the fun for everyone...
The Tyrrany Begins.... [fearbush.com]
Re:Correction, and more facts about the Pinto case (Score:1)
Not enough Corvairs were sold to support an entire car line that shared virtually no major parts with any of GM's other vehicles.
Re:Temp.. (Score:1)
Re:ouch. (Score:2)
*anguished scream* (Score:1)
Re:That's disgusting. (Score:1)
With all the "blood loss", one would have to wonder if the P4 will be truly ready, or merely "ready enough" when it comes out.
I've grown a bit leery of anyone's "latest and greatest" processor cores; I will be buying Athlons and Lower-end PIII's for my servers for a bit to come, until other people have beta-tested the sledgehammers and P4's.
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Re:How can this happen? (Score:1)
Re:ouch. (Score:1)
Shh!!!! (Score:3)
Didn't you get your cheque from Intel to be mum about this?
Re:all publicity is good publicity. (Score:1)
Do you think Firestone execs are laughing in their boardrooms right now?
Do you think they are happy about all the new-found publicity?
I highly doubt it.
I for one would think twice about the prospect of purchasing a shiny new set of Firestones for whatever car I was driving. Sure they will fix this problem & their QA department will look doubly hard, but why take that chance?
I would rather deal with a company whose current record was less tarnished. Execs at both Firestone & Intel know that.
This is not some attempt to keep Intel in the media spotlight.
This is the engineering department getting overruled by the marketing department. If you have any questions about how this can happen, simply read any of Scott Adams books on how this process takes place.
It's about time (Score:1)
Re:That's disgusting. (Score:1)
If you enlist the aid of malaysian masons who use glue sticks to lay bricks, is anyone surprised when the house falls down before it's finished? This is the kind of problem i could find early.
More to the point, would i sell you a house like this?
-j
How about the manufacturers themselves? (Score:1)
"rush to market" errors plague both Intel and AMD (Score:5)
I am a fan of the Athlon, and have been more pro-AMD since the overhyped and under-performing Pentium II was released.
So I shed no tears about this recall. Intel's position as a 2000lb gorilla needs to be shaken; they have dealt with issues like the 486DX50, and Pentium FPU bug in a less-than-graceful way.
This product was a crude attempt to FUD AMD out of the market with what looks like an overclocked part. But AMD has been guilty of faulty components as well.
An earlier poster mentioned some bad K5 CPU samples. I would go so far as to claim the entire K5 line with its "PR" rating was a joke. The performance was poor and the failure rate high.
At that time AMD was willing to do anything to stay afloat...this continued into the earky K-6 (less than 300Mhz) era. But since then AMD has been producing an enterprise-level CPU, even if some of the motherboards for the Athlon were not up to snuff.
My point is that both Intel and AMD have at times traded reliability for release dates. We should not let them forget it, but nor should we rule out one manufacturer's product on the basis of rumor or a recalled product.
Talk about a slam to Intel. (Score:1)
AMD still not ahead, according to PC Magazine (Score:1)
test in laboratory == Tom's Hardware?? (Score:5)
I wonder how those who flamed Tom for his negative review feel now...
Re:all publicity is good publicity. (Score:1)
As I've stated elsewhere, I have a different opinion. With all the problems Intel (and AMD too) have had with their latest cores, I believe the P4 will have at least 1, if not more, issues that will require massive engineering attention. Every new core, from the 486 to the P6, have had some issues associated with it, and I don't think the P4 will be any different.
Of course, I would like to see Intel absolutely shine in their P4 efforts, but then I'm biased; I have several friends who work for various Intel subcontractors that I don't want to see out in the streets =P
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Huh? (Score:5)
Re:Interesting object lesson here (Score:2)
You're right - it's all AMD's fault.
Are you seriously suggesting that having a single competitor is too many for the good of the consumers?
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Anything BUT higher quality (Score:2)
It's long been the mindset of a lot of people that having a strong competitor in your marketspace creates higher quality products in order to compete. Not always so. Case in point: This article. Instead of creating higher quality products, Intel creates a shittier one.
How much do you want to bet that marketing (which should be latin for as much for as little as possible- but isn't) would opt to rush products out the door instead of getting some actual meat into what is being released?
The same would happen with Linux if it were doing as well commerically against Windows as AMD was against Microsoft. Microsoft would be releasing versions of their software earlier, and doing seemingly whatever it can to make money without higher quality products.
Re:It's about time (Score:2)
Re:market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:2)
A sure sign that your company is "marketing" driven instead of "engineering" driven, is when your CPU is named "Pentium" or "Thunderbird" instead of a nifty number like 80486.
It sort of reminds me of NICs. Personally, I have always liked the engeneering/project name better than the marketing name. Vortex and Boomerang sound much cooler than Ether Link 3.
At least AMD uses better names.
Missed a word,... (Score:2)
This should have read: due to a glitch that caused the chip "to malfunction in laboratory tests EXCEPT under certain conditions."
Gotta love the 'ol Intel two-step here.
"laboratory tests" (Score:2)
Devil's advocate here! (Score:2)
Both are market driven; Intel defines the market, and AMD has to become skilled at playing in that market. However, if Intel ever stops defining the market, AMD has the potential to catch up and define it for themselves. Once they define the market in such a way that they(AMD) get all the advantage, then AMD will also get all the money.
Still, I would think Intel is making enough money and has enough mindshare that it wouldn't do something so stupid as rush to market...
The nick is a joke! Really!
Re:Temp.. (Score:2)
Re:What do you mean conservative? (Score:2)
Increasing the core voltage (again), a much larger heatsink than even the 1ghz PIII and terrible instability under CPU intensive tasks, this sounds very much like overclocking to me.
Intel were trying to out do AMD with their 1.1Ghz Thunderbird and paid the price.
Recall, really? (Score:2)
It seems this is one instance where Intel's failure to ship product might have saved them some pain.
They are looking pretty foolish right now. First the unavailable 1GHz PIII launched for PR purposes, now the broken 1.13GHz launched for the same reasons. I had heard that the PR tail was wagging the engineering dog over there, looks like the rumours were true. Anyone betting that Dell ship an AMD system next quarter?
CHeers,Angus.
Re:Tom's Hardware still biased, but true (Score:5)
And his attitude shouldn't be what it is considering what he is doing
Speaking as someone who has been following hardware sites since Tom's page didn't even have its own domain...
Tom used to be noticably pro-Intel. This was true until somewhere in the AMD-K6/Pentium Pro days, when he started noting that the K6 would run at 100 Mhz bus, and the socket 7 Pentiums wouldn't. He then gradually started becoming more pro-AMD and less pro-Intel.
I see two possibilities here.
1. He judges things purely on technical advantages, and really thinks AMD is better.
2. Someone at Intel pissed him off somewhere along the line, and he has a personal bias.
It's also possible that both of the above are true.
There is one thing I can't stand about his site - since he added the daily "technical news", I have seen news bits that are obviously press releases, and contain obvious technical errors that Tom should notice. I don't think he actually reads some of the stuff before it gets posted as "news".
I do like the reviews and articles that are actually written by his staff, though. I think keeping proof of the situation was important in the case of the 1133 Mhz chip. I think if he would have sent it back the problem may have dissapeared, much like it did with Kyle's chip. I think when he sent it back they did a microcode load or something, then returned it saying there was nothing wrong with it.
None of the four chips that this group of reviewers got would compile the Linux kernel. When Kyle slowed them down to 850 Mhz they worked. This points to the chips being flaky at their rated speed.
As far as Tom's attitude, it is the sum of all his experiences, just like anyone elses is. Though he could make a concious effort to change it, I think his honesty is important in an industry where too many reviewers simply regurgitate praise.
NEWS: Intel to Lose Hundreds of Dollars in Recall (Score:5)
The 1.13GHz CPU, or Central Processing Unit, is the chipmaker's fastest consumer product to date. It is unclear as to how many of the units have shipped over the past few weeks, but based on the company's current yields, industry experts predict it may be as many as a dozen.
Re:market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:2)
Can you give me an example of a company that is not market driven?
Re:x86 chips are too complex to be devoid of probl (Score:2)
buggy, yes, but if someone wrote a less buggy clone of Windows, it is still going to be an overly complex piece of software
that I would not stake my life on. AMD is prone to exactly the same issues. It's not like AMD chips are orders of magnitude
simpler than what Intel is working on. AMD could easily stumble at any moment, as could anyone working on something so
complex.
Hmm, that's funny- I don't remember any recall-worthy bugs in CPU's in the past couple years. Sure, CPU's are complex, and there will be floating point errors, f00f bugs, etc- but selling a CPU that doesn't work at all? Come on now. It's painfully obvious intel is really trying to keep up with AMD here, and they're failing miserably. If you can't even compile a kernel cleanly on 3 of 3 samples, something is wrong here. While AMD may be prone to exactly the same issues, they're not about to ship a CPU that is that broken. Unfortunately I've been in a similar situation to intel's engineers, on a smaller scale- marketing sets hard deadlines that are a joke. What do they care if the technical department has to work 18 hour days?
Some facts: (Score:2)
AMD THUNDERBIRD 1GHz OEM (SOCKET A) - AMD CHANNEL OEM PARTNER - $ 475
AMD - * ETA late Aug, Thunderbird 1.1GHz - from Authorized AMD Dist. Channel INCLUDES - 1 year AMD warranty, 1x1 logo case sticker , AMD TRAY product $ 719
AMD DURON 700 SOCKET A - OEM - AMD OEM CHANNEL PARTNER - * LIMIT ONE - PHONE ORDERS ONLY MUST MENTION PRICE WATCH $ 95
So, in closing. Who cares? No one would buy one of these over-priced space heaters anyway. Notice how the only people who found the problem are Kyle and Tom? Aka two people who didn't even buy the CPU in the first place? Exactly.
Re:Dusting off your F00F bug jokes (Score:4)
.
.
.
Or, can I just shred my copy of the press-release?
Re:Another example of the Slashdot effect? (Score:2)
If you've worked in a large IT company before, you'll know which one is more likely.
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Re:Who's FUDing who? (Score:2)
Intel vs. AMD (Score:2)
What happened when it was found that a certain AMD chip (was it the k6-3-350?) had problems booting Win98? All other AMD chips had no problems, just this one chip would have to be reset a number of times before it would successfully boot? Did customers get no chips? No. They had to wait until Microsoft released a patch to Win98 that solved AMD's problem...
It really seems that Intel, for all their faults, are a lot more on the ball about addressing said faults. Not that that sways me at all... I'm dying to put together my Duron system...
Re:market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:2)
Were Intel to make a better product, but fail to report the earnings and stock value growth that their investors and market analysts expect, they could be sued by their stockholders for mismanagement. Advertising can, and often is, a far more effective means of increasing sales than simple quality and customer satisfaction, especially in a complex field such as chip design and fabrication, where few of your customers have any indepth understanding of the product they're buying.
A couple months??? (Score:2)
"We've seen that when certain software is running at certain voltages and certain temperatures, there can be an issue with the software not working properly," Michael Sullivan, an Intel spokesman, told CNNfn.com.
Notice how they make it seem like it isn't the processor that has the problem...it is the software that isn't working properly. Gotta love spin!
I am also surprised by the market's behavior...AMD remains unchanged today, Intel up almost a full point. Go figure. Perhaps we will see more fallout from this tomorrow.
Maybe I do live outside the asylum?
Re:How Many Times? (Score:2)
NO CHIP IS EVER BUG FREE
Ok. Having said that, of course it was wrong of Intel to release a chip that was unstable to the point of not being able to boot a kernel (that should be one of the first tests). But, you have to be realistic about these things...You don't expect any moderately large piece of software to be bug free, do you? Of course not. These chips designs are HUGE. The best that these companies can do is to find as many bugs as they can in design phase and do some rather extensive testing after taping out. The should've caught this bug, of course, but to expect every chip to be bug free is unreasonable.
Re:Intel Did The "Right Thing" (TM) (Score:2)
Give credit to Tom AND HardOCP (Score:4)
In this instance however Kyle from HardOCP supported Tom, as he had bad experience with the chip as well. And eventually HardOCP hosted the testing session with 3 CPUs (one from AnandTech, credit to them too) and an Intel's engineer, where the problems were confirmed.
I'm just pointing this out since HardOCP is relatively low-profile site, and they deserve some credit here. They are not as thorough as some other review sites but they sure are fun to read.
Re:test in laboratory == Tom's Hardware?? (Score:3)
Not only does Tom give you the facts, but he often has a "gut instinct" or opinion about things included in the review. Always a pleasure to find someone willing to say what they think based on their experience.
Andrew Borntreger
Re:How can this happen? (Score:2)
Another 'XXX review site conspiracy' thread (Score:2)
Then you would notice, that
a) Tom gave intel ample time for reaction (he even called them prior to posting his first article) and really tried to get in contact and get some statements out of intel afterwards when it should have been intel (being concerned about their product) contacting Tom
b) Later HardOCP confirmed, Tom's findings, namely that Tom (and they too) got a production CPU that wasn't up to spec and that no 1.133 GHZ PIII could be relied on compiling a Linux Kernel
Considering the chain of events (especially intels noncommunication) I consider it highly likely that intel would have tried to hush it all up hadn't Tom acted as he had.
Also things would have been much worse for intel if the glitches where discovered later, since then there would have been much more systems already sold, and maybe intel would have started a major PR campaign about the fastest processor on the market (or somesuch). So Tom might have saved intel from a much bigger faceloss.
Had intel reacted quicker on Toms first article they could have come out of the story even better, and hadn't intel brought their 'fastest processor' to the market with uncalled for haste to beat AMD's announced 1.1 GHZ Athlon the whole story wouldn't have happened at all.
So please stop shooting at the messenger when hearing bad news.
More likely (Score:2)
Re:market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:2)
Okay, so you could test using source code that you don't reveal to anyone, but how scientific is it to perform a test that nobody can reproduce?
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No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.
Word is already out... (Score:2)
This story makes the problems Tom was having getting his first P!!! 1GHz to run stably worth another look. After other reviewers including Anand had no problems, they sent Tom a new chip and chalked it up to a faulty part. But maybe, just maybe, that part Tom got was a P!!! 1GHz which hadn't had the microcode update? If anything fails to even POST properly without a big microcode update, there was a *major* flaw in there somewhere. It wouldn't surprise me if that was the problem Tom was having.
The P!!! core is basically the PPro core with a few new instructions and a wider path to the L2 cache, more or less. Is it any wonder that this ancient 5-year-old core is straining? Of course not; it was designed to operate at 200MHz, and it's a wonder they got it to operate at 1GHz at all. But the Athlon is all new, and seems to be feeling no strain getting into the highest speeds.
Compare this to the P4 design, which Intel admits won't be as fast clock-per-clock as the P!!! thanks to the huge pipeline. Athlon will probably at least match this new P4 chip clock-for-clock, if not slightly outperform it. And, the new Mustang(?) cores are on their way. Face it: Intel is inferior now. For years AMD was the underdog and Intel was king of the x86 castle. And now, AMD has surpassed Intel in every way, in price and in performance when you consider that the P4 will perform worse clock-for-clock than P!!! while the Mustang cored Athlons will surely perform better than the Thunderbirds we have now.
Re:Dusting off your FDIV bug jokes (Score:2)
A: RU-Pentium -- It prevents cells from dividing properly.
Temp.. (Score:2)
Killin' me (Score:3)
How can I be expected to get anything done with a 1.1Ghz processor?
C'mon Intel, this isn't rocket science. Get with the program. You guys are so sloppy. Way to ruin my day.
Re:That's not too likely (Score:2)
Like I said above, if you've been reading Tom for a long time, his biases have shifted. That leads me to believe that if he is partial, it is for personal reasons, not financial ones. His wage is paid by people clicking on his site. The only thing I know of that the hardware manufacturers give him is parts to review.
This is interesting and all... (Score:3)
but I just read about it here [slashdot.org].
I guess that even slashdot scoops slashdot.
Personally I'll wait for the new AMD 1337 MHz chip (Score:2)
Re:market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:2)
Well, they've gotta do something for their product to stand out.
Their superior price/performance figures plus having the fastest working x86 CPU on the market make them stand out just fine.
Re:well duh! (Score:2)
What do you think the biggest priority of a billion dollar company is, making people happy? Why do you think all intels chips are made in malaysia? Thats what companies are supposed to do, make money. If you were head of intel I bet your biggest concern would be the profit margin. The world revolves around money, get used to it.
That is all very true (too true). However, there's something to be said about enlightened self interest. Even MS will eventually loose because of crapware (MS is clearly the most skillful player of that game!).
The question is, at this rate will Intel win the battles and loose the war?
Re:Reliability (Score:2)
The aforementioned quote from Michael Dell can be found here [zdnet.co.uk].
=================================
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Missed a word,... (Score:2)
Yeah, the "certain conditions" were:
1. Chip plugged into Board.
2. Board powered up.
"But boss, it worked fine until I hit the ON switch!"
Re:well duh! (Score:2)
It's nice to sit around and say "yeah, we'd like some money. Let's focus our efforts on making money". You still need to DO something to earn that green...for a multinational, i would argue that the immediate concern is publicity. To be known, admired, watched, loathed; any sort of attention is desirable, because then people (and by extension, $$$) are suddenly looking at a bright blue logo thinking profound thoughts like 'are you ready?'
Case in point: consider this new venture of Microsoft's. story at cnet [cnet.com] Will it be profitable? You may think so, but anyone who's been paying attention to the book industry knows that Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Chapters (the Canadian equivalent of those outlets) are all taking huge losses on internet sales. Some transactions are being made at a loss, for a number of reasons. Why then would Microsoft choose to parlay a hand into this opportunity? Probably because the exposure is worth the expected loss.
That sort of freewheeling i can accept. If a really fat company needs to shed a few million dollars to make itself look like it's at the forefront of things, then by all means drop the cash. It's just sound business. But marketing faulty products to make waves? That might also be good business sense, but it's still WRONG...
No, if i were head of Intel, my chief concern wouldn't be our profit margin. Which is probably why i'll never be CEO of Intel.
-j
Re:market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:3)
Re:Tom was right!!! (Score:2)
Steven E. Ehrbar
market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:4)
I think I know why the chips failed (Score:2)
I think I know why the Pentium IIIEB 1,130 MHz units were having problems.
Simply, Intel has pushed the Slot 1 design beyond the limits that Intel expected for that form factor. That explains why the PIIIEB 1,130 MHz chips are experiencing so many failures.
What I do find a bit puzzling is the dearth of PIIIEB CPU's using the PC-PGA Socket 370 form factor beyond 800 MHz. Intel has yet to ship in reasonable quantities of the PIIIEB 900 MHz or above in FC-PGA packaging. Is it possible because the PIIIEB chip runs extremely hot at very high speeds that FC-PGA becomes impractical for 1,000 and 1,130 MHz versions?
Note difference between Intel and AMD on this issue. The "Thunderbird" Athlon CPU's -were- designed right from the start for socket-type packaging (Socket A), hence the reason why AMD can ship the "Thunderbird" Athlon in Socket A format from 700 to 1,100 MHz with no fears of overheating issues. (Note that except for a very tiny production batch for a few OEM's using Slot A, all "Thunderbird" Athlons are use the Socket A form factor.)
Re:market driven vs. engineering driven (Score:3)
Back in the days of the Intel 80486, other companies (AMD, Texas Instruments, and Cyrix) started making chips called "486", with other letters or whatever tagged to them. Intel sued someone (can't remember which one) and the court said that "486" couldn't be trademarked because it was a model number, and other companies could have model numbers containing the same digits.
So the legal department told the marketing department that they needed to come up with a trademarkable name for their next generation of chips. Hence the "Pentium" name, which became a registered trademark. (By the way, a company called NexGen beat them to the name 586, which was a Risc86 chip, and became the design for the AMD K6.)
x86 chips are too complex to be devoid of problems (Score:5)
Correction, and more facts about the Pinto case. (Score:4)
Incorrect. Ford's engineers were fully aware of the fault before the Pinto's release. The problem was a poorly shielded gas tank that tended to get crushed in rear-impact collisions, causing an explosion. The engineers brought the information to management, along with a proposed (and inexpensive) fix. Management did the math on the number of deaths, how much each would cost them in lawsuits and PR, weighed it against the per-vehicle cost of the fix and decided to produce the vehicle unmodified.
The Pinto is now a text-book example in engineering ethics. The really chilling part of the story is that the primary motivation for not including the fix was that it would push the car's cost up enough to force a reprice. Marketing had been advertising the Pinto's low low target price like mad and weren't about to back down. Thus, the deadly defect remained largely due to marketing promises.
While it's easy to villify Ford or any other company for making decisions like these, it must be remembered that this is the extreme case of a common phenomenon. It isn't surprising that by spending more money on a car, you can design it to be safer. You expect a Volvo to be safer than a Kia, don't you? If the engineers so liked, they could keep lopping life-saving features onto a car until it 1) looks like a tank, and 2) can only be afforded by the very rich. Clearly, this is taking things too far. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and equations based on cost and fatalities are the tool used to make these decisions.
In the Pinto case, however, Ford went too far. The gas tank problem was a severe one, and it lowered the safety of the Pinto below consumers' reasonable expectations of safety. That is the key. Consumers may have expected the inexpensive Pinto to be less safe than a luxury car, but no one expected it to be as unsafe as it was.
Anyway, this Intel mess is really a whole different ball game. Failing on speed promises like this isn't life threatening to anyone, so the stakes from an ethical viewpoint drop markedly. (Don't tell me about air-traffic control, none of those people would touch these chips) This is really just another case of Intel throwing vapor around. It surprises no one.
--Lenny
In a related story (Score:2)
Adler
Re:Reliability (Score:2)
They should just own up to it and admit that they are kissing ass for price breaks.
Firestone is innocent.. (Score:2)
The people who brought this publically are a professional organization whos purpose is to act as witnesses in class-action trials. [www.junkscience.com]
This is just another issue of someone bringing up a panic on something, so that the lawyers can come in and clean up.. Breast implants. (With no repeatible evidence YET discovered in over 10 years.) Cell phones causing cancer... Or fragrences. (Very popular in excuse in Canada, they cause everything from birth defects to insomnia.)
just when they show speed (Score:3)