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Intel

Intel to Cut Pentium III Prices 197

Posted by Roblimo from the get-'em-while-they're-hot dept.
nemoest writes "Intel is planning on slashing the price on Pentium III's by as much as 15% on Sunday. After which, they also plan to also cut the prices on the Xeon, Pentium II and III, and Celron on August 22nd. It looks like they want to try to run AMD even further into the ground with convenient price slashing just as they gear up to release the Athlon. You can read the complete story here on Cnet's news.com. "
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Intel to Cut Pentium III Prices More

Intel to Cut Pentium III Prices

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  • Roblimo is from Andover... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Follow his link to http://www.techsightings.com/
    (sucks btw)

    A whois techsightings.com gives:

    Domain Name: TECHSIGHTINGS.COM

    Administrative Contact:
    Technologies, Andover Advanced (AAT4) andatech@SHORE.NET
    508-635-5300 (FAX) 617-861-7262
    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
    Registrar, Domain (DR1432) shore-dns@SHORE.NET
    781-477-2000 (FAX) 781-593-6858
    Billing Contact:
    Technologies, Andover Advanced (AAT4) andatech@SHORE.NET
    508-635-5300 (FAX) 617-861-7262

    Record last updated on 01-Jul-98.
    Record created on 01-Jul-98.
    Database last updated on 17-Jul-99 09:14:31 EDT.

    Sorry for the anon post.

  • Why support a name!? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have owned a Cyrix, AMD and Intel. To be honest, I go for the best bang for my buck. I am not going to buy an AMD processor just because they are AMD. I am going to buy an AMD processor if it is a good product at a good cost.

    I have just purchased a dual Celeron 433 system that I am running at 540 each. I paid just over 500 for two processors, 256MB ram, an ABIT BP6 and a case. That is a good bang for a buck. I went with the Intel Celeron not because it is by Intel, but because it performs well at a low price. I will go K7 if it performs well at a good price.

    I owe my allegiance to the almighty dollar! It is mine! I worked hard for it! It is going to a good place!

  • Re:Rumor Mill - Intel wants out (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've got another rumor with the same validity -- M$ wants out of the software market. They're going to focus on producing mice, and will become a computer peripherial company.

  • Re:Oh, spare me -- exactly! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You obviously don't know what you're talking about. The big difference between the US Vs Japan battle and the one between Intel Vs AMD is that in the former case there were at least 6 big companies competing with each other. Even if the US car companies had gone under things wouldn't have been that bad because there were many Japanese (and later European) car companies competing against each other. Better products at better prices would have still come out even if they were not by US companies.

    In the processor market things are very different. If you exclude high-end products e.g. Compaq (Alpha) Sun (UltraSparc) etc. that have a very limited market there are only two companies competing in the PC market, Intel and AMD. Intel is far bigger than AMD and has much bigger cash reserves. It can therefore afford to make very small profits (or even losses) for a long period of time until AMD goes bankrupt. The free market system does not work in cases like this one, which is why there are so many laws and government bodies that are monitoring unfair competition and abuse of power by monopolies. Do you think the US government would be spending so many millions of dollars each year watching companies like MS, Intel, IBM and AT&T in the past, if markets were always self adjusting? Before posting things like that it is a good idea reading some history and some basic business textbooks.

  • off topic (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I can't quite put my finger on it but there's something about all these Roblimo posts that's just.... disturbing, out of place.

    Maybe it's just his different style. This Roblimo just suddenly appeared one day with little in the way of introduction. Who is he exactly? Has he written free software? What projects does he participate in? Maybe the target audience has changed or something.

    I'm really not trying to be a jerk.
  • Without INTEL, AMD would take the market by storm, for the fact that they would be the only serious x86 chip manufacturer.

    If INTEL falls, AMD will look more like another company we all know.

    INTEL is fighting for the customer, we need to fight to INTEL.
  • Well, certainly companies want to make as much as possible in the short run. The only people buying a K7 right now are those that are just too antsy to wait. Hell, there isn't even a motherboard to put one of these things in yet, so why pre-order something you cannot test? I called one place, they were taking pre-orders but once the chips came in they would ship 'em to you. The catch was that they gave a 15-day return policy, but didn't expect motherboards for at least an additional month. Go figure...

    After a few more months, once there's enough chips/boards in the marketplace, expect them to come down to more reasonable levels. I'd say $399/449/799 for the three. But then, there'll be big warehouse type places that are willing to take a loss, hoping you buy all the parts for a whole PC, so maybe another hundred bucks off those guesses.
  • I'll probably buy a new computer in Sep/Oct. I'm strongly considering the K7, but am a bit worried by the fact that it is (will be) so new. What if I buy a K7 system, then it turns out to have some weird bug that affects me?

    I guess I'll keep a close eye on the initial couple months of reports before buying. If it looks like there are problems, I'll go with the PIII. I *really* do want to support AMD. INTC needs the competition.

    Currently I use a Cyrix 6x86 P166+. Works fine for most things, but it almost always segfaults when running PovRay or other 3D modeling programs. So I've been a bit hesitent to get anything non-Intel again.
  • It seems that people are assuming that Intel cutting prices unethical, wrong and should be illegal. First of all, these price cuts are hardly predatory, correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that Intel is still making healthy margins on CPUs.
    The argument given most often is that Intel is trying to drive AMD out of the market. Well, if AMD can't compete with Intel maybe it should be driven out of the market. I for one do no tremble in fear of Intel monopoly. If Intel drives AMD out of the market and raises prices to unaffordable levels it would hardly be able to keep competition from entering the market. And a new competitor doesn't have to be a startup w/ no money. It can be one of well established companies, lets pick a hypothetical name: Motorola. The only significant barrier to entry into CPU industry is initial capital commitment - which a lot of companies can pull off.
    Finally, I would not be terribly upset if CPU prices go up and new models aren't introduced quite as often. Upgrading CPu every year is becoming a norm, if this stops maybe people would actually pay some attention to increasing efficiency of their software rather then pumping up the productivity of their CPU.
  • Remember: predatory pricing hurts Intel a lot more than it hurts AMD. AMD only has the capacity to make ~1M Athlons per quarter. Intel
    makes a lot more processors. If it's 10x more, then Intel loses 10x as much money (assuming all other factors are equal). I think the stock market would be much more willing to keep afloat an AMD losing $150M per quarter than an intel losing $1.5B per quarter.

    It gets even better. If Intel starts selling processors at a loss, AMD can just switch its fabs over to producing mainly flash memory or something. It has to keep selling a few Athlons to maintain mindshare, but if the supply is low, it can keep the price up. If it all lines up right, it can be making money at Athlons while Intel is losing money on processors. I'm sure AMD would be happy to maintain that situation!

    Of course, things never work out this perfectly, but remember that it is a two way street, and predatory pricing can easily do much more harm to Intel than to AMD.
  • see this site for details [pccost.com]. (Link from JC's news)

    Next question is: when will Jedi/Gobi/M3/whatever be coming out, so that Cyrix will be competitive in terms of performance as well?

  • "Antitrust law has never been intended to "fix" market failures; it has always been intended to help politically connected firms who can't compete in the market."
    Are you totally out of your mind? That's the weirdest perspective on Standard Oil, big steel, and the abuses of the fledgling Industrial Revolution that I've ever seen. Ever heard of a 'company town'? It sounds like your 'homework' is entirely the result of blindly accepting the information of pseudo-libertarian web sites (read some _books_ man) which are, very likely, told what to say by Microsoft spin control experts- 'astroturf' libertarians.
    It's quite another thing to claim that antitrust law _fails_ to fix market failures- I would argue that this claim puts the standard of 'fixing' arbitrarily high and doesn't allow for real world stupidity and awkwardness- but to claim what you do is outright madness, and as worthy of ridicule as the most crazed 'black helicopters' Microsoft ranting.
    Don't post websites, read some history books. In particular, check out where the labor movement came from. You're free to argue that Labor is simply wrong and evil, but it might give you some perspective on that and on trusts to check out the powers really big economic forces can exert when unchecked. Quite 1984-esque, really. It's basically the ability to supplant and outright replace the government- it's a sort of feudalism, where the company is way more important than the government to its subjects but can't be voted on or altered in any way- insta-peasants! Yes, my liege, of course I wanted every possession of mine to be acquired only through _your_ channels at extortionate prices- it's the American Way!
    Antitrust law is merely the awkward attempt to represent American citizens even in situations this desperate. Of _course_ it looks stupid: it's _law_. But it's not about helping any firms except in that said firms would be composed of citizens being denied a fair shot at American business. It's mostly about the peasants created by trusts. Anytime a business concern gets so powerful that its interests are _more_ important to its subjects than the government's interests- you're going to have the government becoming very interested and trying to stop it, because business concerns traditionally don't even operate on the level of government and policy, and trusts are completely able to supplant the government in their areas of control- see 'company town'. Deal with it. That's not going to change, so you might as well adjust to it. You're not ever, ever going to persuade any government to let itself be marginalised by a business concern, are you? If so, are you really that expert in political science to demonstrate that the feudalism you're advocating is genuinely preferable, or are you simply illustrating blind and stupid faith in abstract concepts that fail in real life?
  • I have a username, sir, and you're a damned fool.
    The reason you are a fool is this: there is absolutely no correlation between service and unregulated capitalist victory. None. Nada. Zero. You're pretending there is, and that's extremely stupid. If you seriously believe that, go take figure skating lessons from Nancy Kerrigan, and I'll hang out around the corner with the nunchaku.
    You are a _damned_ fool to correlate service with success, and overlook the plain and obvious fact that crime pays. If crime did not pay, there would not be any of it. If crime was service, it wouldn't be called 'crime'. Crime is breaking the kneecaps of the Mom and Pop store in any of a vast number of ways. The goal is no longer 'how can I enhance services to win more business from these people?', instead it becomes 'how can I slash their tires more cheaply than I could win business, thereby getting their business by default?'. If this tireslashing requires temporary inconvenience, well, one just has to take the long view, doesn't one?
    This approach _beats_ ordinary service, in an unregulated environment. Every time. That's the whole reason we even have government at all!! Crime pays. It's cheaper to garrotte your competitor's best salesman than it is to find one of your own (and pay him). And so, over thousands of years, human beings have struggled to find governments that would keep the tireslashing to a minimum. Sure, it's awkward, but the natural way sucks- everybody's tires end up slashed, the products suck, and nobody's willing to do actual work because any gains will only result in the winner getting mugged. This breeds a peasant mentality, and the rulers end up being muggers and bandits. This record is repeated over and over through history.
    Ethics is a positive-sum game. The point of it is to establish an environment where people feel justified in working hard and contributing, knowing that they're not just gonna get 'mugged' for their trouble. You want to throw away all that, because you're a damned fool and don't even know what you're suggesting.
    AMD is getting mugged already. They're losing a lot of money, and the amount of energy and virtuosity they've shown suggests that in a balanced market with many vendors, they would be pushing 50% maybe- they can do inexpensive, they can do a pretty decent yield, they can even do high performance, they can do PR, they can get vendors: what's not to like? Instead, they're being mugged- they are slammed into horrible losses not by virtue of them sucking that badly, but simply because they are up against a quiet monopolist. Yes, if Intel decided to ignore antitrust, AMD would be a coat of paint on the wall in weeks- but they are _still_ getting mugged, just more slowly. For what they're doing, normally one would expect the company to make even a small amount of profit. I'm not convinced they can, whatever they do.
    That's not capitalism, that's protectionism. You're merely protecting the _trust_ rather than the little guy, but you're arguing protectionism. You're saying 'because Intel is big enough to mug smaller companies, therefore this ability must be protected'. And you're fool enough to call that capitalism rather than the feudalism it is- which is why you're a damned fool.
  • Lower prices? The prices I've seen for the K7 are anything but "low prices." I could get a comparable Pentium III for less, which removes AMD's main selling point.
  • You forgot about the convenient PIII User ID embedded into every chip (so they can keep track of our Internet habits, software, etc.)

    --Proud owner of a K6/133 here...

  • Posted by Napalm4u:

    I believe that from what i've read on the overclocking sites is that Cyrix is dead. They were bought out by some company, JVC?

    Anyway don't count on them being around for that much longer- cheap pc's aren't using them anymore and i haven't seen any pc's in any ads touting a cyrix based processor.

    I think that the agreement that cyrix made with emachines was that they'd continue to manufacture cpu's till the end of the year. Then who knows.

    I may be wrong here about cyrix's plans but they did get bought and their cpus are slow! slower than any intel one!
  • Posted by Napalm4u:

    Intel is flooding the market trying to undercut AMD!!! this is illegal!!!!

    The k7 will kill the p-3.

    Hurahh!! Hurahh!! no more stupid chimes!!!!
    The King is dead! Long live the King!



    -grrhh hit enter and may have posted a blank post!

  • I dont think Intel would go into this much trouble just to kill the K7. The REAL problem is that K7 comes with "Slot 2" motherboards, 200MHz system frequency and co.

    Now, as long as it is just a "Slot 1" against "Socket 7" game, it is a win-win situatin for Intel on a long term, but "Slot 2" motherboards could prove to be killers for the whole "Slot 1" buisness. Once these motherboards are established on the market, cards will be heavily mixed again.

    In my opinion, it will be realy interesting to see intel-clones from other companies emerging which use the "slot 2" and cheap alpha-based machines, due to availability of cheap alfa-conformn hardware!

    (I suppose it wont be possible to just take an alpha-procesor and stick it into K7-motherboard, but I'm quite sure that manufacturing a motherboard for Alpha-processor will all of the sudden become much cheaper.)

  • You can change your ethernet address (MAC address).
  • WTF is convenient about it?

    I am personally reasonably annoyed at Wolfram Research, Inc., and others, who create license strings based on CPU ID's where possible.

    To go way back, if you have Mathematica running on an old NeXT Computer, then you can't upgrade the computer unless you buy another license. Similar things are done with other software on other CPU's that have ID's today, and it's a real PITA for legitimate licensees (although I will admit that not much else will stop pirates).

    This sort of thing is, of course, well within the rights of companies that offer such licenses, but making it easier for them to make it invasive and difficult for me (as someone who occasionally upgrades my computer) is not my idea of a good plan.

    Also note that I'm a fan of Mathematica, but not Wolfram. sigh
  • thinking about getting one to run maya. K6
    had some compatibility problems (at least we have seen stability problems with K6 consistantly).
  • Isn't AMD doing that by themselves?


    I want AMD to do well as much as the next guy, but it's not like this is an aggressive anti-comptetitive measure. It's a price cut. They are supposed to be competitors. How come the negative conotation was used?

  • And, there's more non-x86 competition at the server level, with Sun, IBM, SGI, Compaq, etc. So either non-x86 Merced has to be better at x86 than Athlon; or it has to be better at high-end work than entrenched RISC designs.

    In short, there's a reason why Intel went after the low end with Celeron. Without the consumer market, Intel can't maintain its dominance.

    I seriously disagree with this one. Intel doesn't make margins off of its lowend chips so this argument is flawed. Their margins come from the P3s and Xeons. That's why I thought that going after the low end with the Celeron price cuts with stupid because these prices got low enough to attract customers away from the P3! So the consumer flushout theory does make sense.

    "The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

  • I think they will need to cut there prices by a lot more than 15% to challenge AMD's market. AMD have built up quite a loyal following by produsing better chips at much cheaper prices. Normally much more than 15% cheaper.
  • It's my understanding that ethernet cards and motherboard bios' have unique identifiers also. (Not positive on the mboard, sure about ethernet). What's to keep some unscrupulous corp from tracking us now?

    Obviously the real solution is to not be connected to the net. :)

    -Teman
  • That's funny. My mom is in her late 50's and I installed Linux+KDE on her machine, and she's had no trouble using it for E-mail and for other things.

    She didn't know anything about computers, so she had nothing to unlearn. It starts up in KDE for her, she logs in, checks her email, goes on the web maybe, and then logs off, and shuts down the comp.

    No crashes to worry about. No DLL hell. None of that crap. :-)

    To each his own, I suppose. Once Linux is installed, it's not any harder than Windows IMO.

  • Exactly right.

    I don't know about y'all, but my privacy is worth more than $27... wholesale.

  • Roblimo is Robin Miller, and he's been a writer for Andover for ages, and is the guy they brought in to take the heat of Taco and Hemos. In the past, most of the links to Andover from Slashdot have actually been to his Cheap Computing column.

    If Robin's style seems odd, it's probably partially that he's new to job, and mostly that he's a pro journalist (when he's nt driving a limo or taxi, at least).
  • A lot of us are happy with our 450mhz chips and aren't going to bother jumping to 550mhz or even 700mhz -- we're going to wait for the 1ghz processors.

    Actually, since I don't play Quake much anymore and all of my games are sitting unused on a shelf, a 1ghz is just going to be a status-jump for me, since everyone else I know will get one, too.

    Because of this, I think the market will be relatively stale, but will surge come the release of Merced and McKinley.
    ---
    seumas.com

  • While to some degree I agree with your comments, I think that your assessment may be a little flawed. Here's why:

    You seem to assume that a company making a product will always have, or be able to acquire, enough resources to outlast a competitor who is selling the product below cost (the "predatory pricing"). However, this is not the case. Short-term, this will probably be true. However, investors/banks/whoever are not going to keep throwing money at a company indefinitely. If the company who is selling low has more cash, eventually they will force the other out of business. At which point, the prices will rise due to the new lack of competition. In the end consumers will suffer (though they will benefit from low prices in the short-term). And the whole scenario may very well discourage others from trying to compete with the dominant player. This is why the laws against predatory pricing are there. It is up to the government to make sure it is indeed a case of predatory pricing, not just competition. It's unfortunate that such government regulation is necessary, but is one of those (few) times where government intervention in the economy is warranted.

    Dumping is, as you said, the exact same idea, and needs to be protected against for the same reasons.

    That said, I do not think that Intel is engaged in "predatory pricing" (i.e. selling below cost). If they can make a profit by selling at prices that AMD can't match, well that's just Intel having good efficiency, and good competition. Similarly, if AMD can sell lower than Intel and still profit, great. AMD has been responsible for the amazing drop in CPU prices by creating competition for Intel. Unfortunately, AMD hasn't been able to profit yet. I hope they do, so that we can continue to enjoy the benefits of competition.
  • Intel wants out of the consumer chip business. They want to focus on server machines and turn to Xeon and then Merced and leave the consumer out of their hands.

    If Intel were to abandon the consumer market, that gives AMD a virtual monopoly on consumer processors. At the same time, AMD is selling a new high-end x86 processor on a server-derived motherboard architecture, while Intel sells a 4-year-old chip design (P6) on souped-up consumer motherboards.

    And, there's more non-x86 competition at the server level, with Sun, IBM, SGI, Compaq, etc. So either non-x86 Merced has to be better at x86 than Athlon; or it has to be better at high-end work than entrenched RISC designs.

    In short, there's a reason why Intel went after the low end with Celeron. Without the consumer market, Intel can't maintain its dominance.
  • Microsoft and IE vs. Netscape Navigator.

    Software provides an even better example of predatory pricing. After all, how much does it cost to duplicate software?

    OTOH, setting up a new fab plant isn't cheap, so if Intel did manage to drive AMD out of business... the predicted rise of various new chip companies to challenge Intel on the x86 compatible market might not happen very fast...

  • Re:power consumption (Score:3)

    by LoppEar ( 10148 ) on Saturday July 17, 1999 @08:51PM (#1797510)
    We used to run our entire house (lighting and computer) off of a 12volt deep cycle battery and power inverter. The inverter was a nice StatPower model, 800W, and had a watt meter on the front. The meter was just LED segments, so not too accurate. However, by looking at the meter and judging how long the battery lasted, it was possible to compare devices.

    My computer used somewhere between a 100W bulb and 120W. (K6 266, 64MB, IDE drive, 17in monitor)

    Our 20in TV/VCR used about 60W, i think.

    A 120amp/hour battery lasted around 5 hours with the computer.

    +LoppEar
  • No I didn't miss the point totally. I addressed it head on. Did you even read my post? I said...

    The point is that it is not usually possible to waltz into a market with a bunch of money, drive out the competition, and then recoup those losses in monopoly rents. If they don't have a product as good as the smaller businesses, those businesses will be able to survive.

    I am not missing the point. I fully understand the point and I think that point is nonsense. There is nothing fundamentally different between
    "predatory" price cuts and other price cuts. A business with a superior product has a good chance of surviving in the market no matter how much money the competition has to burn. The only way to drive someone out of business and make a profit at it is to make a better product, or find a way to produce it at lower cost. Capital markets provide mechanisms whereby smaller companies can get the operating capital they need to stay in business until the larger company gives up and goes away.

    "Dumping" is the exact same idea as predatory pricing, and it has precisely the same economic flaws. The free market has a number of mechanisms that ensure that this type of behavior can be combatted. And in the process of combatting this imaginary evil, laws against "dumping" force consumers to pay more than they otherwise would.

    I think it's great that Intel is cutting its prices, and I hope AMD does the same. A "price war" would be a boon to consumers, who would save money whoever they buy from. We should be encouraging price cuts, not whining about them.
  • Intel knows AMD will run out of money first (like MS and Netscape).

    Maybe that was Microsoft's plan, but it obviously never happened. Netscape is still developing its browser and giving it away, and they have used that to leverage their entry into the server market. What's so terrible about Microsoft and Netscape giving their browsers away is beyond me. Netscape recently got sold off to AOL/Sun for an ungodly amount of money. Doesn't look like Netscape ever ran out of money to me.

    The same is true of AMD and Intel. The chances of Intel driving AMD out of business in the next few years is pretty much zero. Even if the K7 is a flop and they lose a lot of money on it, they still have a large enough market share to make a K8 and a K9. Intel would be pretty stupid to try a "predatory" pricing strategy for the 5-or-so years it would probably take to drive out AMD, since they'd lose a bunch of money in the process. And once they get their little monopoly and raise their prices, someone else will do the same thing AMD did and create another competing chip. There's just too much profit potential for anyone who can get a piece of Intel's market share for Intel to be able to keep a monopoly for long.
  • Boy, that's a helpful comment, especially coming from a coward. I reread my post, and I see nothing unethical about the things I wrote. If this was a serious comment and not simply a random flame, I'd be interested to see you back that claim up.

    I don't think there is anything unethical about capitalism, competition, freedom, or low prices. Nor is there anything unethical about one company trying to increase its market share, even if that means that another company loses market share. What is unethical is punishing companies for lowering prices and providing services that people want. It is also unethical to harass productive businesses with nonsensical complaints about their "predatory" practices.

    If you have an actual argument to make, let's hear it. But if you simply have a knee-jerk reaction against capitalism, then please don't waste your time. And while you're at it, get yourself a username and take responsibility for the things you post.
  • Might Makes Right

    In fact that's the exact opposite of the truth. When's the last time you saw a Microsoft employee bursting into your home to inspect for Macs? Companies don't have "might." Governments do. That's why advocates of capitalism are so much more afraid of government than corporations. Corporations don't throw you in jail if you displease them.

    The weak deserve no pity

    That's not what I said. If AMD were to go out of business, I might pity them. I just don't think that we should prop them up if they are producing inferior products at higher prices. Besides, it's not like a company that goes out of business has all its employees taken out and shot. They find other jobs, and are not particularly hurt for it.

    It is interesting to me that you choose to make AMD an object of pity. They may not be Intel, but they are far from a poor helpless mom-and-pop corporation.

    All people must believe that no business ever suceeds without marketing a superior product. (*cough* Windows *cough*)

    Windows sucks. I use it as little as possible, and I have never claimed that it is a good OS. But the fact is that people chose to buy it, because they believed it was the best value. Are you going to tell me that with your superior wisdom, you're going to determine the One True OS, and force everyone else to use it? Consumers have always had choices, and always will. If they make bad decisions, that's their choice.

    Any individuals commenting on this are irrational, communist, anti-capitalist, and threats to the American Way of Life.

    Given you out-of-context bromides and complete lack of content, I'd say the irrational part of it fits you pretty well. I have no idea if you are communist. You are clearly anti-capitalist. I'm not going to pretend that I have a monoply on the "American Way of Life."

    not only does it keep the peons in line but it lets you feel that your superiority made you divinely ordained to lead.

    Actually, this is a pretty good discription of statism. I don't know about you, but I don't consider myself a peon, nor a slave to my capitalist masters.

    I'm surprised you've avoided noticing how our society works after living in it so long. (I assume you have ? )

    I've noticed that the US is both the freest and the most prosperous nation in the world, and I don't think that's a coincidence. I've also noticed that the private sector is in general much more efficient, innovative, and humane that paper-puching bureaucrats and self-serving lawyers. Actually, I'm not even sure what you are talking about. Would you like to explain "how our society works?"
  • Have you ever heard of Mr Andreas, and a little company called Archer Daniels Midland? (ADM - Supermarket to the world!) Lisene price fixing? 2 years jail time? Hmmmmm?

    No I don't. Please elaborate.

    But I will point out that ADM is hardly a creature of the free market. They make their money feeding at the government trough--recieving massive Corporate Welfare. So I doubt that it's a good example in any event.

    do yourself a favor.. read a newspaper. It talks about the real world.

    I love ad-hominum attacks and condescending attitudes. Especially when the person dishing them up won't even put his name behind them.
  • Short-term, this will probably be true. However, investors/banks/whoever are not going to keep throwing money at a company indefinitely. If the company who is selling low has more cash, eventually they will force the other out of business.

    But at some point, it starts to hurt Intel so much that even if they do drive AMD out of business, they won't be able to recoup their losses. If Intel attempts to charge monopoly rents, someone else will quickly see an opportunity and enter the market. There are a lot of chip makers who would love to get a piece of Intel's market. So At some point, it just does so much damage to Intel that they are better off just letting AMD have a piece of the market, and working to undercut them by developing better products.

    Brian Larsen also made a couple of good points. In particular, if AMD is the underdog, they will be selling fewer total chips, and so they will experience fewer losses from the underselling. And they can temporarily shift their efforts to a different market until Intel raises it prices again.

    The point is that the market is never as simple or static as the "predatory pricing" argument assumes it to be. Markets change, companies change. And it is next to impossible for a company to gain and keep a monopoly simply by bullying its competition out of the market.

    I can't cite specific examples, but I think the empirical evidence bears this out. Most of the "dumping" complaints are basically just companies whining about getting trounced by a better competitor.
  • Wow, a non-anonymous, non-insulting, and interesting response. :)

    Short-term, this will probably be true. However, investors/banks/whoever are not going to keep throwing money at a company indefinitely. If the company who is selling low has more cash, eventually they will force the other out of business.

    But at some point, it starts to hurt Intel so much that even if they do drive AMD out of business, they won't be able to recoup their losses. If Intel attempts to charge monopoly rents, someone else will quickly see an opportunity and enter the market. There are a lot of chip makers who would love to get a piece of Intel's market. So At some point, it just does so much damage to Intel that they are better off just letting AMD have a piece of the market, and working to undercut them by developing better products.

    Brian Larsen also made a couple of good points. In particular, if AMD is the underdog, they will be selling fewer total chips, and so they will experience fewer losses from the underselling. And they can temporarily shift their efforts to a different market until Intel raises it prices again.

    The point is that the market is never as simple or static as the "predatory pricing" argument assumes it to be. Markets change, companies change. And it is next to impossible for a company to gain and keep a monopoly simply by bullying its competition out of the market.

    I can't cite specific examples, but I think the empirical evidence bears this out. Most of the "dumping" complaints are basically just companies whining about getting trounced by a better competitor.
  • The goal is no longer 'how can I enhance services to win more business from these people?', instead it becomes 'how can I slash their tires more cheaply than I could win business, thereby getting their business by default?'. If this tireslashing requires temporary inconvenience, well, one just has to take the long view, doesn't one?

    You are confusing capitalism with gang warfare. If a business is slashing another business's tires, they should be thrown in jail. Slashing tires is completely different from lowering prices. "Unregulated" means that the government doesn't interfere with peaceful, non-coersive activities, not that you should be allowed to do whatever you please.

    AMD is getting mugged already. They're losing a lot of money, and the amount of energy and virtuosity they've shown suggests that in a balanced market with many vendors, they would be pushing 50% maybe- they can do inexpensive, they can do a pretty decent yield, they can even do high performance, they can do PR, they can get vendors: what's not to like?

    I am not aware of a single example in which Intel slashed AMD's tires or murdered their salesmen. If so, then I fully support arresting those involved.

    Instead, they're being mugged- they are slammed into horrible losses not by virtue of them sucking that badly, but simply because they are up against a quiet monopolist.

    What exactly is Intel doing that is so horrible? They certainly have not been mugged in any literal sense. You are confusing real warfare with "economic warfare." The first is and should be illegal. "Economic warfare" is a misnomer and should be legal. AMD has a good shot at unseating Intel, and there's nothing unfair about it. They knew the risks and challenges when they went into business, and they clearly think they can win. I think they might to.

    For what they're doing, normally one would expect the company to make even a small amount of profit. I'm not convinced they can, whatever they do.

    How do you figure? If the K7 is as good as AMD says it is, they stand to make a ton of money, even if Intel does slash their prices. If Intel's product really is inferior, then that means AMD can charge slightly more than Intel, and can thereby outlast them. And as I've said elsewhere, if they do have a superior product, then they will have no trouble getting the investor backing they'll need to stay in business.

    And you're fool enough to call that capitalism rather than the feudalism it is- which is why you're a damned fool.

    I'm glad you're not an AC, and you make some good points, but you didn't really address the specific reasons I gave. AMD is not a helpless victim on the verge of bankruptcy. The free market it not gang warfare, and it's not feudalism. You paint with an awefully broad brush. Slashing tires and lowering prices are completely different actions, and conflating the two only clouds the issue.
  • That, my poor anonymous coward, is where you are wrong. You can call it what you like, but the system I'm advocating is properly called capitalism. The only way to achieve a long-term monopoly is with government help. In a truly free market, someone will always be waiting in the wings for the opportunity to take your monopoly away from you. So even if you get a monopoly (which is extremely difficult) you can't afford to abuse it too much because you'll end up losing it.
  • now AMD dosent have any cash to ride out a rough year.

    Let's say a year from now AMD is about to release the K8, which is fast enough to blow Intel out of the water, but they're on the verge of bankruptcy. Do you seriously think they would have any trouble getting the capital they need to stay in business? They can go to any investor on Wall Street and say "how would you like to get in on the ground floor of the soon-to-be industry leader in the processor market." Lots of invstors will be willing to take that gamble. If they have a better product, then Intel will have to work hard to compete. If the K7 ends up being a flop, then I'm not gonna shed too many tears if they go under. But in any event, simply cutting prices and hoping AMD goes under isn't gonna cut it.

    Also, keep in mind that AMD is not Intel's only competitor. There are lots of other chip makers. none of them make a competitive x86 clone right now, but if AMD stumbles you can bet somebody else will want to take a shot at it. Nothing Intel could do would give them a monopoly for more than a year or two. Then someone will see the opportunity to make a profit and will enter the market. If AMD ever does beat Intel, they will reap substantial profits from being the industry leader. So you can bet they're willing to take some heavy losses on the gamble that they can come out on top.

  • Predatory pricing is nonsense (Score:3)

    by binarybits ( 11068 ) on Saturday July 17, 1999 @12:16PM (#1797521) Homepage
    These low prices may not even bring Burger Heaven a profit, but they serve the purpose of squashing the weak competition.

    It's called competition. Companies compete to have the best product at the lowest price. Whoever does the best job gets a larger market share. That's just the way the free market works.

    I don't know anywhere in the constitution where is it says that "mom and pop" stores have an absolute right to keep their market share. If Burger Heaven can produce a better product at a lower price, why should the government stop them?

    Now it may be that Burger Heaven is actually trying to drive the mom-and-pop place out of business, but there are lots of ways to combat that. They can borrow money, sell shares in the business to friends, sell their store to McBurgers, Merge with McBurgers, shift to a different market, etc. Remember also that most of the customers in the area probably prefer their superior survice and hometown feel, and will stick with them even if the prices are a little higher.

    The point is that it is not usually possible to waltz into a market with a bunch of money, drive out the competition, and then recoup those losses in monopoly rents. If they don't have a product as good as the smaller businesses, those businesses will be able to survive.

    It is particularly ludicrous to argue that Intel is going to drive AMD out of business by cutting their chip prices if AMD has a superior product. AMD now has substantial industry credibility, and if it needed more capital, it could sell bonds or float more stock without more trouble. Lot's of investors will be happy to put up the money, in the hope that AMD will be the next Intel.

    I get tired of seeing every move by Intel or Microsoft interpreted as further proof that they are evil, while AMD, Apple, Netscape, Motorolla can do the exact same things and no one cares. All companies cut their prices when competitors come out with a better product. That's life. Get over it.
  • What I've heard from a reliable little birdie:

    Intel wants out of the consumer chip business. They want to focus on server machines and turn to Xeon and then Merced and leave the consumer out of their hands.

    These price cuts could just mean that they want to get rid of chips they already have, and other obligations.

    May be true, maybe not. Makes for an interesting story never the less. (^_^)
  • ... but too high market-entry costs. There _may_ be profits quite a few years ahead, but until then it's pouring money with no return. Who do you think are willing to do that?
  • Right on. I still have constant problems with all my VIA chipset machines. It's not just on Windows either, for example Netscape on Linux seems to segfault much more frequently on the VIA mobo + K6 systems.

    I just can't afford this unreliability; I've already decided to go back to using Intel CPUs and chipsets. I'll be staying well away from K7-based systems until the chipsets and motherboards have grown long white beards.
    Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
    Thought exists only as an abstraction

  • We should all be rooting for AMD (Score:4)

    by Prospero ( 12678 ) on Saturday July 17, 1999 @10:43AM (#1797525)

    Frankly, I think this doesn't bode well for the average consumer.

    If AMD's competition prompted these cuts (and not many people would deny that) what will happen in a world where AMD exerts little or no influence on the chip market. Intel certainly wouldn't be as prone to cut prices as it is today.

    What's more, AMD's presence speeds up innovation and reductions in chip size. Without AMD exerting a strong presence there exists a very real threat of Intel slowing down its production schedule and keeping prices relatively high.

  • Not to mention, if the k7 turns out to be all that it's being proclaimed to be, someone with more money would surely buy them out. If intel can produce better chips for less money, go them. At the moment it looks like intel is going to produce slower chips at a slightly lower price. AMD could be in a possition to snag the server market.
  • in the immortal words of Stan Lee " 'nuf said."
  • Motorola is already in the CPU production market. Who do you htink Apple gets it's CPU's from? Not all CPU's begin and end with x86.
  • NO, we should all by intel chips, because they help enhance our internet experience Duh.
  • buy oops:)
  • I really hated the way the PIII was marketed to "Inhance the internet experience". This is obviously bullshit, since the cpu can't increase the bandwidth. It seems like intel is making their chips ever larger and piling on proprietary multimedia extentions for windows gaming. Sorta like the windows 98 of chips. AMD seems to be better suited for people that really know computers but also have a tight, limited budget.

    Chip speeds nowadays are plenty fast for normal stuff. For a geek, speed matters for (besides games) compiling large programs and libraries, and (this is the big one for me) running large complicated simulations. BTW, I don't know much about chips, this is just my impression. If I am wrong about something here, I implore you to correct me.

    And now for a nitpick:
    The K7 is called "Athlon", not "Avalon".

    Avalon is the name of a large linux cluster of alpha systems at a research facility whose name escapes me.
  • What on earth does the chip have to do with the uptime? That's much more the domain of the operating system.
  • Intel cuts prices all the time. It used to be a quarterly event, and a year or two ago, they started doing it more frequently; the PC makers wanted smaller but more frequent cuts to help avoid huge overnight price changes.

    Now this isn't to say that Intel is being more agressive just because AMD is looking like serious competition; I only want to give some perspective.

    Disclaimer: I own stock in INTC, and not AMD.
  • Does a 200W power supply really consume 200W? I thought that that just meant that it was capable of providing upto 200W of power, but usually consumed less, based on demand by the motherboard, drives, and such. If so, then using APM features to reduce power consumption on desktops makes a lot of sense.

    I've always thought it would be nice to have my own power meter--one that I could plug into an outlet, and then plug a power strip into it. Then I would really know how much power I used for my computer (or how much power the VCR uses when it is "off" but updating the clock and listening for remote control power on).
  • No, I have to disagree with you on this. There are certain actions/circumstances in a free market that can prevent that market from working properly. These include monopolies, monopsonies (supply-side monopolies, such as unions), ologopolies (is ologopsonies even a word?), and dumping. Dumping involves a company running at a short-term loss (otherwise an irrational behavior, something else that hurts a free market) in the hopes that they can eventually become a monopoly. If this succeeds, the market suffers.

    The dynamics of this market aren't as rosy as you paint them to be. AMD can no longer just pump out a few Intel clones. It takes massive resources. That's why they're building a fab in Dresden. Also, Intel has a lot of money--in the billions. AMD has 0. They have less than 0. They can operate at a loss until their investors/creditors stop giving them money. Intel can do this until the above are met and they run out of cash.

    Perfect markets change, not all markets. x86 chip production is nowhere near a perfect market, especially if one sells below cost. This is not to say that Intel is doing that (I doubt they are). Just giving my argument in general.
  • You missed his point totally. Its predatory pricing when Intel/Burger Heaven are taking a loss in the short term, knowing that since they have more cash on hand, they can run everyone else out of business. Once all the competition is taken care of, prices begin to rise. AKA dumping.
  • Personally, I've been an AMD fan for a while now.
    (Yeah.. so I'm not much of a gamer.. so shoot me.)

    Seriously though... with the release of the new Athalon
    and the changes it represents in the face of Intel's
    continuation of a mediocre genre of chips... I predict
    a long standing run of higher end AMD's as becoming the
    power house chips of the near future. No... I
    don't think they'll replace Intel... but with the
    architecture changes and the Alpha bus technology
    their future looks brighter than Intel's, if they
    can keep their grip on things.

    Unless something happens in the next few years to
    change the current trend... I won't be buying anything
    but AMD chips for a long while. They're good, they're cheap and now they're faster than intel.

    btw... the Athalon is in competition with the lower end Xeon chips... Last time I checked those were selling for Waaaaay more than the Athalon ever hoped... no?


    Linux-MUCK: Looking for a few good Gurus.
    (coders/builders also encouraged to apply)
    208.139.163.14 port 6666 (Telnet, people..... telnet. *sheesh*)
  • i keep waiting for either Compaq or IBM to buy them.

    Ibm, because they lost the deal with cyrix and have the fabs to mass produce these things (plus the desire to be a components company)

    Compaq, as part of an Alpha push (also because compaq uses a ton of amd chips)
  • You've got it exactly. If the US car companies didn't want to innovate and compete, then they should go under. That is exactly what they should have coming to them. The free market system is self adjusting. It ALWAYS works... until the government steps in and makes a law of some kind. Then it is no longer a complete free market, and becomes a somewhat restricted market. That is when little start ups can no longer compete with larger corporations. Little startups can not pay the overhead that corporations can handle... That's just what seems good to me. I'm sure there are other factors, such as human pride, nationalism, and the like, but this is all from a strictly Vulcan viewpoint. "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you"
  • I have not found anything wrong with his selections so far, I mean even Taco and Hemos post some wierd stories.

    However, I found the best stories got posted by CowBoyNeal when the GeekComplex shut down. Maybe we should regularly cut Taco and Hemos' power supply?

  • Something I've meant to send to The Register for a while...

    If you look at the PR ratings of the Celerons that they compare to (333-433) something interesting comes out. For the So, I guess you could call the Celery 333 a PR433. :)

    As for the Cyrix chips... if they had a real 433mhz chip it would be interesting, and it might even compete with the K6-3 on integer.

    Now, $45 or so for a K6-2 350... now there's a deal. And you can't forget the Celerons, either, especially on a nice cheap LX or BX mobo.

  • Aargh. It ate a bit of my post. What I meant to say was that Cyrix used an LX motherboard on the Celerons below 366mhz, and a SIS 620 mobo on the faster ones. The end result is that the 333 and 433 get the SAME score because of the use of a poor chipset. :)

  • Yup... the P3 adds nothing to the casual Internet user, who is bandwidth limited and probably needs nothing more than a 200mhz box. SSE is really for gamers and complicated math apps. And for a casual user of those a regular Celery or K6-2 is enough...

  • Nah. Intel can't and won't do this. Intel NEEDS the volume to keep the factories up to date to produce the advanced high margin chips.

    Also, they are NOT losing money on even the Celeron because their yields are very strong, even with the 18 million transistors on 'em.

    Finally, they've spent _tons_ of $ on branding, etc... they wouldn't do that just to pull out of the consumer space.

    As for AMD... if they can build enough Athlons, at the right speeds (having too many slow chips is bad... look at Cyrix and K6-2 350 prices :) and get chipsets and boards as good as the 440BX products from Intel et. al... they have a darned good chance of evening out the market. And that would be a Good Thing.

  • Well...

    Let's say that an average PC consumes 200W (.2kW) of power. (This is probably a little on the high side.)

    There are 720h (30*24h) in a (typical) month.

    Where I live, electricity costs $0.07 per kW-h.

    So...

    0.2 kW * 720h * $0.07/kw-h = $10.08

    A few notes...

    I turn my monitor off when I'm not using it, so that would decrease the average power consumption of the PC quite a bit.

    On the other hand, $0.07/kW-h is on the low side. In many places, it is higher.
  • Does a 200W power supply really consume 200W? I thought that that just meant that it was capable of providing upto 200W of power, but usually consumed less, based on demand by the motherboard, drives, and such. If so, then using APM features to reduce power consumption on desktops makes a lot of sense.

    You are, of course, correct.

    However, the monitor isn't powered through the power supply, and can use around 80W by itself -- and that's for a 14' monitor; larger monitors will consume more power. Yes, APM will reduce the amount of power used, probably significantly. So will the 'manual APM' that I use, ie, shutting off the monitor by hand when I leave the machine.

    Anyways, the 200W figure was a guess, and I labelled it as such. Does anyone have any firm numbers?
  • Well according to Kryotech you'll have that very soon. A 1GHz Athlon.

    Merced will not be worth waiting for (if it even becomes a reality), and I got some serious doubts on McKinley too. But the sideeffects of these might be interesting (the future HP PA RISC processors). And of course the Alpha, even if it has been quite some years on the street, the 21364 and 21464 sounds quite nasty!!!
  • I dont think Intel would go into this much trouble just to kill the K7. The REAL problem is that K7 comes with "Slot 2" motherboards, 200MHz system frequency and co.

    Well actually it won't be shipped with Slot2, but with SlotA (EV6), though it uses the same connector. The Slot2 is also an intel hrmmmm "innovation" used for the Xeon. But yes it might very well become very nasty for Intel.

    Athlon got the fastest FPU on the x86 market and the chipsets is designed for multiprocessing. One word : Technical workstations and high performance servers. That area is/was deep behind Intel lines.
    And it is cheap.....I really hope their new german Fab's is ready.....
    Also they
  • I am not buying K7 until I know for sure that there is a STABLE motherboard and chipset, when I know for sure that 3D games don't freze because of their hardware problems (When the first Super 7 motherboatd came out they came with AGP but not AGP card would work on them right) I also want to wait because the first K7 systems will be using PC100/133 RAM, not the 200mhz RAM as promissed.

  • AMDs (Score:1)

    by delmoi ( 26744 )
    well don't forget, we should buy AMDs now beacuse there *faster* :)
    _
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • We should, but I don't think theres anything wrong with Intell cutting prices like this, after all they have the *slower* chip
    I think what there doing is fair, and a good thing. the cheaper chips are for me, the better. with out AMD, there would be no celreon at all, so instaid of paying $80 to $140 for a decent, 400mhz or so chips, we'd be paying around $300.

    I certanly hope AMD can keep there footing, but assuming there are no manufacturing issues (and that's a *huge* asumption) they I think that they will be able to gain a foot hold
    _
    "Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
  • From the article, it also states that Athlons are pretty expensive out there right now, due to limited supplies.

    The quote in question...
    The 500-MHz version of Athlon currently sells for $324 while the 550-MHz and 600-MHz versions sell for, respectively, $479 and $699. Tight supply of Athlons, however, is creating something of a high ceiling price for the chip. Retailers are offering the 600-MHz version for $950, where available, while the 550-MHz and 500-MHz versions are being advertised for $720 and $488.

  • i don't know who started it first but it does seem appearent to me that the damage "vaporware" does can work for hardware too ...

    "competitors?, what? ... you mean i have to work hard and make good products? ... forget that! ... hey i know! ... let's just make ultra expensize stuff and drop the price just as our competitor is beginning to pull out of their plummit!"

    what i wouldn't give fore a real buisness man (insert woman were ever you feel discriminated) to do real buisness with real ethics and values
  • 1. Go to firing Squad's website and read their most recent K7 review. AMDs AGP implementation is at _LEAST_ as good as what is currently on Intel boards. It also appears that when you hit 4x AGP, AMD is going to blow Intel away.

    2. RAMBUS Sucks. Plain and simple. SDDRAM is MUCH faster, even if its bus is smaller. Intel is betting part of its future on RAMBUS, and may very well force a true divergence in the x86 market because of it.

    3. You can't go wrong with a 200Mhz point to point bus that (with SlotB) is Alpha compatible. I've heard rumours of API (Alpha Processor) working on a chipset to allow one to swap a K7 for an Alpha and vice-versa.
  • You missed it. His point was that java is very in-efficient. When processors get fast enough that a processor upgrade makes no difference in c games, developers will start developing in slow languages like java to save time and money in the development stage. This will cause another need for faster cpus and will drive the hardware race futher into the future.
  • What is more convenient about a register space that cannot be written to? The GUID [sp] (actually the GUID is a Microsoft ID that includes the PIII embedded serial along with about a half-dozen other identifiers) has no effect on programmers, because the GUID-enabling process is mostly aimed at large companies that don't allow programmers the rights to their code anyway.
  • Linux already has a K7 enhanced gcc either in the works or actually usable, so go for it--just remember that there's some of us that still use '486s (AMD 80486DX70, if you must know) so don't kill off the non-K7 compiles totally :)
  • I noticed some people making coments about how Intel makes MB chipsets that work the first time. And they gave ALi and SiS as people who don't. Notice someone who is missing? VIA. They make the best Super7 chipsets, IMHO. However, who will make the MB chipsets for the K7? I hope that VIA and AMD will continue there cordial relations, even though they are now competitors, considering that Cyrix's CPU R&D and production are now part of VIA. That's right, Cyrix processors might actualy have some bugless releases now. Wow, what a concept. But, thankfully, I have read on a number of occasions that VIA and AMD have allready made araingements for VIA to make MB chipsets for the K7.
  • I believe Intel is engaging in Predatory Pricing.
    What is Predatory Pricing? Well, say there's a small burger joint, family owned, who prides themselves on good burgers and good, friendly service. One day, the big bad Burger Heaven franchise moves in on the same block. In order to steal their business and drive them bankrupt, Burger Heaven drops their prices lower than our small family burger joint. These low prices may not even bring Burger Heaven a profit, but they serve the purpose of squashing the weak competition. This is illegal and unethical. It is, however, hard to prove.

    When Intel decided to drop their prices, you can bet that in their meetings they did consider how this would appear to be predatory pricing... This alone, in my estimation, would keep them from doing just another routine price drop, THUS, they are truley engaging in predatory pricing and should be boycotted. Thank you.

  • This example (the family burger joint vs. the evil Imperial Burger Corp.) illustrates that customers can have differential values, not that either company is particularly moral / immoral.

    The idea that low prices may not bring the larger company a profit though they may crush competition has a corollary: if the prices are so low that the maker does not profit, but the burgers are good enough to be a good value at that price, then customers are receiving a net benefit. (Convince me as I get a day's worth of calories for half of the minimum wage that I'm getting a bad deal, just try.) Otherwise, they would continue to eat the Family Burgers down the block.

    Only if the big company could secure a legal monopoly on the burger market ("Official Burgers of America, or Insert Country Name Here -- no competitors allowed!") would there be a problem for society. For the little burger place there could surely be a problem, if a larger company with greater economies of scale, capital base etc. can buy a good location, pay less per patty, etc. However, big and little companies each have advantages that the other can not possess, and no government can fully appreciate or account for these advantages; trying to is folly on a grand scale.

    Do you go to a given restaurant *sheerly* because of the price? Even if price is indeed the biggest factor in your decision, you probably would be less likely to go to a slightly-cheaper alternative if you were regularly mistreated there, or if the food made you sick a few times, or if you thought the management was beating up the employees, etc. Small restaurants often have an atmosphere that is irreproducable in McBurger World, and are generally more responsive (not to mention more interesting). And since markets are dynamic, today's small burger joint may discover the killer hamburger and be a giant chain 10 years from now.

    If *all* small burger places (or chip manufacturers, I haven't forgotten what this is about) go out of business, leaving MondoChip Inc. alone in the marketplace, then MondoChip had better make some killer designs rather than rest on its laurels for years, because the profits to be made by stealing even a small portion of market share are potentially huge. Maybe it would even be good for Intel to have a few years of sole possession of the desktop chip market. Think of the currents that could be stirred up in those years!

    I don't want AMD to go out of business -- and I don't think they will anytime soon. (Cross fingers, buy stock.) But let's say they do: Intel cannot sit still and say "Eh, let's just sell them these leftover Pentium II 300s -- no competition, so why not?" Again, let's say they do: what then? COnsdering how many computers are in daily use, and how many are sold, I wouldn't be surprized if a bunch of Intel engineers etc. left to form a renegade chip maker on their own.


    OK, too much rambling, but it would be good to at least consider that what the government tells you about "monopoly" may not be the most accurate rendition.

    timothy
  • failsafe hardware works with failsafe software. thats why you can pull chips that fail out of a sun E10K and ask the kernel to move itself off those chips. chips do count as part of the enterprise software equation.
  • they both suck. all companies suck. at this point AMD sucks less. i vote for AMD.
  • This has also happened in the past... as Rob found new "friends", etc. to post stuff (remember HeUnique? sengan?) Rumor has it that Roblimo is from Andover.Net, but this remains unverified.

    It's very likely a different style - people like consistency, and when it changes, it makes most of them feel uncomfortable...

    --bdj

  • Yes, but the big problem is the decision on the part of OEM's of which chip to incorporate for *NEW* computers. If Intel's chips are almost as cheap as AMD's, or cheaper, then it will become much more difficult for them to justify K6 or K7-based processors, which would significantly hurt AMD's revenues.

    --bdj

  • Don't forget, price is only one reason to buy AMD. Performance is another. But the lack of an on-chip ID is the best reason IMHO.
  • wouldn't Intel love it if it could push AMD into the maket of say Alpha?

    I suppose they would, but there's a serious difference between Alphae and x86-compatibles like the K7.

  • The 550-MHz Pentium III will drop 10 percent from $723 to $646 while the 500-MHz version of the chip will go from $473 to $415.

    The 500-MHz version of Athlon currently sells for $324 while the 550-MHz and 600-MHz versions sell for, respectively, $479 and $699.

    Assuming AMD is able to produce K7s in bulk, though, I don't see Intel's drops making that big a bite into AMD's sales, (at least not at the high end). I mean, there's still 90$ difference for the 500Mhz models and $170 for the 550Mhz.

    'course, they didn't say enough about the respective prices on the lower-end chips to make a reasoned guess about how things will turn out there; I thought that's where AMD had hurt Intel's profits the most.

  • Amen. Finally, some sense. I too wonder howcome "seeing every move by Intel or Microsoft interpreted as further proof that they are evil, while AMD, Apple, Netscape, Motorolla can do the exact same things and no one cares". I don't even see the point of the arguement. Paying high prices is good? Intel lowers their prices to compete with AMD. For once, AMD actually has a chip better than Intel, so Intel relizes that it needs to drop their price to compete with them. I don't know where you get the idea of dumping, how can you prove it? How can you not prove that AMD hasn't been doing it forever, I mean, their chips were always much lower than Intels, maybe they were dumping. You slashdot *ssholes piss me off so much because of your biasesness (that's a word right?)
  • "THUS, they are truley engaging in predatory pricing and should be boycotted. Thank you."

    Ok, I totally don't understand this predatory pricing from Intel. Lets take a look here at prices, shall we?

    In QTY's of 1,000
    AMD 600MHz costs ~$699
    AMD 550MHz costs ~$479
    AMD 500MHz costs ~$324

    (prices taken from the url posted)
    Intel 550MHz will cost ~$646
    Intel 500MHz will cost ~$415
    Intel 450MHz will cost ~$226

    Ok, so say I want to buy a new CPU, I could go out and buy an AMD 600MHz CPU which is faster than an Intel 550 for $53.00 more. Looking at the bench marks recently posted about the K7 The AMD 600MHz blows the Intel 550 out of the water in a lot of cases. So unless you're really stupid, you'd spend the $53.00 more and get an AMD. AMD has a BETTER CPU than Intel and it isn't much more expensive. So I don't see where the problem is.

    The thing I don't get, is *WHY* should Intel charge around $730.00 for a P3-550MHz when AMD is offering a 600MHz CPU for $699 which is BETTER. Intel would be stupid NOT to drop their prices. Intel would probably loose a ton of money if they don't since everyone would buy a better CPU at a cheaper price. What is wrong with a better CPU costing slightly more than a CPU that isn't quite as good?

    Actually I was thinking of buying an AMD CPU because the prices looked good for what the CPU is offering, Intel dropped their prices and AMD still is the winner for price and speed.

    Now if Intel was selling a P3-550MHz CPU for like $200.00 then a P3-450MHz for $80.00 then maybe you'd a point

  • No. Intel would lower the price on chips so that to be competitive any chip manufacturer (including intel) would need to take a loss. Intel knows AMD will run out of money first (like MS and Netscape). When AMD does run out of money Intel will raise their pice again.
  • It's always nice to see price cuts; however, I'm a little conserned about the motivation. Competition is a good thing and it's nice to see that despite terible losses last quarter AMD is giving Intel a run for it's money. Intel knows that despite AMD's exageration the Avalon is still far better than the PIII. They also know that people will lose brand loyalty when faced with more perfomance for less cash.

    The problem is this. Intel's motivation is not to sell more PIIIs because they cost less. Instead Intel plans to run AMD into the ground. Sound familliar? It should. This was exactly Microsoft's motivation for giving away IE -- run Netscape into the ground. Intel knows they have more capital and will win a war of atrition. When AMD goes under you can sure bet that Merced prices will start going way up.

    AMD is Intel's last major competitor in the PC market. We might even see a reversal of sorts. If Intel continues this trend and AMD starts to put out CPUs that are a full generation (not a half gen.) ahead of Intel's. We might see that Intel remains the standard for OEM orders and AMD becomes the company that crazy people (like me) who live on the fringes of the net use for high power desktops/workstations. wouldn't Intel love it if it could push AMD into the maket of say Alpha?
  • That's because the K7 isn't competing with the P3, it is WAY faster than even a P3 Xeon. A comparable P3 Xeon costs well over $2000, and is SLOWER than the first K7's will be, at maybe as low as $350-400 a pop. IMHO, AMB has a VERY good selling point.
  • I think you've missed the point of the 200MHz system bus. The main benefit is not a faster path to the main memory, but sustained fast access to multiple paths, thus A DMA can be running at the same time as CPU access without a big slowdown.

    Further, initial tests show the RAMBUS memory which will be able to keep up with faster system bus looks as though it will actually run slower in
    most cases, because although the data rate is higher, the latency (the time taken to start a transfer) is much longer. Only very special applications will benefit, most will run slower.

    Search www.theregister.co.uk for lengthy discussions of RAMBUS and its problems. PC133 looks like a better bet at the moment, but Intel has bet the house on RAMBUS.
  • Or perhaps just dirt cheap. Though Intel seems to have added at least a couple "features" (though I've found that it's usually the less-hyped ones that're more beneficial - like the P55C's increased cache (and not the MMX instructions themselves) and the Pentium III's beefed up FPU.
  • Why would anyone want to write a game in Java? Gamers still like performance, thats why most games are incredibly optimized and things like direct X exist. For as long as I can see games will continue to be written in native code. C is not that much slower than assembler but Java is a lot slower. And since it is impossible to write large programs like games in assembler a move to C was neccessary. Until the difference between C and Java performance becomes small as the differance between C and ASM, and Java gets so easy to program that C seems like ASM, game will continue to use C/C++

  • Re:Oh, spare me (Score:3)

    by quade]CnM[ ( 66269 ) on Saturday July 17, 1999 @02:41PM (#1797584) Homepage
    um, the only reason that the american car companies survived is because they had some serious cash that they had built up in the 60s, and earliy 70s. without that cash, they would have gone under. now AMD dosent have any cash to ride out a rough year. they just build a new fab in Germany, and they just lost $130 million. if there were another serious competator in the x86 CPU business, I would write this off as just evolution, but there aren't. Do you remember the mid 90s when Intel charged $600 for a pentium CPU. There cheepest CPU's came in at around $250. now you can get a decent intel CPU for just over $80. This is more like Intel kicking AMD while they are down. they are trying to kill off there only competition. Just look at what intel does with the Xeon processor. thee is no real competator for the Xeon (untill the AMD K7 SMP boards are out). They price these things at well above $900. They did the same thing with the PPros when they were out. Do you realy want to start paying $450 for a decent CPU again with the cuting edge CPUs comming in at over $900 (not including server chips). AMD has forced Intel to stay in check for the past 2 years with the K6. you can now get a PII 400 for $160. if the pricing of the mid 90s had continued, this processor would easly cost in excess of $350-$400. if AMD dies, prices will start to creap up again. This is in no way like the auto industry where there were three seperate compinies that compeated with each other, and several new commers came in with better products. This is a former monopilist trying to re-gain ground that it has lost by killing its only competition.

    Should we not save the whales because they cant compeate with the fissing boats ?? it dosent always boil down to Darwinian evolution, it boils down to what is better for the population of the world as a whole.

  • I remember a couple years ago when the media and internet news where saying how good Intel was doing and that didn't see anyway it could change. They even laughed at AMD when it had some construction problems. Where is gone Wintel.

    A year ago AMD was an alternative. It's now mainstream. A year ago Linux became the alternative to Windows...

    The same thing will happen to Micro$oft, but the news will not see that until the last minute, when finally Micro$oft lower the price of NT to stay in the race with Linux.

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