Intel's Anti-Athlon Campaign 219
levendis wrote to us about Ars Technica, who is currently running a feature piece about Intel's FUD-like attempts to bash down the Athlon. The chip-wars have gotten pretty bloody this time around, with all of the hype behind Coppermine and the Athlon - what do you folks think about all of this?
Re:They lost already (Score:1)
Re:What do I think? (Score:1)
Re:The real funny thing: No average user needs the (Score:1)
Re:Well that got totally hosed... (Score:1)
Take the Celeron for example, when the K6-2 came out, I couldn't wait to buy one. 100MHz bus, 3dNow instructions, a super chip at the time. Problem was that it ran hot. Sure you can cool it, but still, it ran hot.
The original Celerons were obviously a huge flop. Consequently, no one bought them and Intel was forced to add the L2 cache. In the mean time, AMD increased its market share at the low end.
A strange thing happened though once the Celeron 300A hit the market: People found out that it was a great chip. It overclocked exceptionally well. It ran relatively cool (unless overclocked). And, perhaps most importantly, it gave users an easy upgrade path all the way to Intel's newer P2 and P3 chips. Consequently, lots of folks (including me) that support AMD (I owned the stock) left AMD for the Celeron. Why? Value. Celeron was just a better value for me.
The author of the original article had to confess that he was writing the article on an overclocked dual-Celeron system. Value.
Don't insist that I buy something to give anyone the finger. I will probably own a K7 at some point, probably when motherboard bus speeds and memory increase to make it a worthwhile upgrade to my overclocked Celeron 366. I certainly recommend the K7 to friends and family since its a better VALUE. Few people will buy it to make a statement.
Dave
Re:A correction... (Score:1)
Very true. After the first swapping of terms I should've realize you meant pipelined rather than superscalar with regards to the fabbing
beacuse its cost effective (Score:1)
But the problem for intel is, AMD is currently at the top of the heap performance wise (even for servers, where intel's cash cow xenon's reside). So for people who care about speed and nothing else Athlon is the only choice. AMD can charge whatever they want on the chip, and for once have a good quarter. Intel on the other hand looses money. Intel isn't worried about dying, but they are worried about loosing money in the iterem..
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
Re:Just the Facts (Score:1)
defeat without serious economic results (unfortunately, Money seems to drive the market more than
performance).
Money IS the market: it's all about 'shareholder value.' Performance, customers, whatever - they don't care, all they have to do is show a greater profit next quarter than they did in the last.
Intel has billions of dollars cached away, if they were serious about this, and, of course, they weren't under such scrutiny by the feds, they would just give p3's to everyone in their stockings this year.
You gotta think way outside of what we do when you're examining issues like this, and remember, all large corporations are driven by pure evil. That's just the Way It Is.
Again, I hate it when companies do this, but: one, can you blame them and two there's nothing I
know that can be done (if you know something please tell me!).
Uhm.. it's easy: Don't buy intel processors. Hell, don't buy anything. _We_ are the reason this boom economy exists, the more crap they put out there, the more we buy. You want it to stop? Stop it. As soon as those Xeons sit on the shelf and gather dust, the whole economy changes. I'm ready for it; I'm sick of paying a buck fifty for a gallon of gas.
--
blue
Re:What do I think? (Score:1)
The Illiminati were refrenced in the artical, next time, read before you post.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
Re:To be expected (Score:2)
Socialist countries? You mean, like England? (Home of the computer, the transputer, the steam engine, the dirt-repelling paint, the jet engine, the jump-jet, the clockwork radio, optic memory, anesthetics, etc, etc)
Fascinating, what all these poor, pathetic socialist countries can come up with, without the "benefit" of rampant capitalism. It makes you almost stop and ask yourself "what, exactly, have all these capitalist countries actually produced?"
I don't want to get into any political debates, but honestly, I don't see much difference between the US and Japan in terms of stolen technologies, "acquired" ideas, and blatant copying. I =DO= see that American corporations have a habit of rewriting history to delete inconvenient originators. I'm sorry, but whilst that's not illegal, I'm not exactly going to keep my mouth shut over it, either.
Xeon: Warrior Processor (XWP) (Score:1)
Wargames [image of Matthew Broderick hacking WOPR]...
And King's (Quest)...
a motherboard in turmoil cried out for a hero.
[Intel person in colored environmental suit whirling sword about] She... is Xeon. A mighty processor forged in the heat of a 5V Pentium...
The power... [imagine Xeon chakram hurled by Intel babe in a leather hooded lab environmental suit, bouncing off of several walls in a flash of sparks... cutting an Imac in half on return bounce]
The passion... [Xeon guts Athlon CPU with aluminum heatsink sword]...
The CPU ID [Xeon looking back at you, raising one eyebrow, like she knows the viewers every move]...
Her courage will change^H^H^Hrge your credit card!
While I think this post is a little late... (Score:1)
Lets look at both the average consumer and the large corporation.
Most households which would buy a computer have bought a computer. My parents finally put a 286, bought in '90, to rest and bought a new computer. They were happy with it, it did everything they wanted and finally stuff started to die and they - finally - bought a new one.
when I was home during breaks and holidays through college, teaching them how to use a computer was one thing, now they are re-learing absolutely everything and I'm 1,000 away working - it is a whole hellova lot harder...
Anyways, what's my point. The average household has purchased a computer by now and they expect to get a bunch of years out of it - not the six months propellor heads (like me) expect to get out of a machine. My parents had their computer for almost nine years. They, like most computer quasi-pseudo-non-literate people see a really fancy TV when they look at a computer. They expect it to last them about 9 years... Yes, now they are on the internet, and yes they now find it really cool, but there is little technology has to offer them in terms of hardware that their Pentium III-450 (or even if they had only a Pentium I-166) would not be able to offer them. They are not writing code, making cad drawings, or playing quake 'til 3AM or their eyes fall out (which ever comes first). They, like most America, has what it needs - something to surf the webwith, something to do their taxes on, and something to play solitare with (since everyone knows you can't use a real deck of cards anymore).
They will not purchase an Anthalon.
From the business side...
Businesses just finished dumping money into Y2K compliance for every single system. In most cases, desktops which posed a possible threat to Y2K compliance were chucked, and computers were upgraded. Businesses spent the capital on absolutely everyhing. Here's a hint - only tech industries need the latest and the greatest machinery, and they probably don't really either.
What I'm saying once again, is that expect not too too many Anthalons to be bought for corporations (or at least not as many as AMD would LIKE to be bought).
What does this really mean? Hardware has fast outgrown itself - dangerously. While I hate marketing -especially intels, intel has recognized this and has worked to establish a desire to still upgrade (don't get on the internet, get into it). At best, people with early pentiums and late 486s will buy it and donate their old ones to good will (oh yeah and avid gamers will chuck theirs too, and try to sell their old crap on ebay - since they have to have the latest and greatest pc).
What I'm talking here is at best trickle down economics for PCs. The ones who loose are the chip manufacturers - hands down.
So, if AMD is banking everyting on the Anthalon, kiss them goodbye. If intel thinks that their going to continue to get a better market share - guess again. If a tech recession is going to happen, this is where it will start.
Re:They lost already (Score:1)
Not necessarily. I think the average consumer measures performance. Granted, it's on a purely MHz-rated scale, but they do. They may not know that an Athlon is faster clock for clock than PIII (in fact it's likely they don't know). I don't see the FUD-factor as being all that strong here. Whoever has the most MHz will be seen by most consumers as being the fastest.
Re:Hard to see how Intel can downplay Athlon (Score:1)
Re:Sad. But expected. (Score:1)
The situation is a little different with corporations, though. But I think that companies have seen that AMD's chips are reliable and less expensive than Intel's. And now, the chips are more powerful than the PIII family, and are being produced in quantity. The only problem I see, which is not a small one, is the fact that many major OEMs aren't building Athlon systems (for example Dell). This might hurt Athlon sales in the corporate market.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:They lost already (Score:2)
This is the major problem AMD faces.
Re:monopolistic tactics (Score:1)
Intel has been getting away with being the ``good cop" of the Wintel alliance for years, but they can be just as sleezy & cut throat as their Redmond ally. The book _Inside_Intel_ documents a number of these practices, which apparently consists of -- but is not limited to -- screw your competition, screw your partners, & screw your employees.
Then again, name me one major high tech company that doesn't practice these kinds of treatment; _Inside_Intel_ is equally harsh on AMD.
Geoff
Real battle - our ability to choose (Score:2)
Marketing is more important than product in many ways. What good is having a better product if no one knows about it or buys it? Combine that with M$ tactics that they are using on AMD and if something doesn't happen the only ones buying Athlons will be the geeks. AMD needs some good marketing...if they can even afford it. All their eggs are on one basket. Athlon fails, AMD fails. You know what happens when AMD fails, complacency. For those who point out the Alphas. They are immaterial because they don't run windows 95/98 and cost too much. That will change only when linux wins on the desktop. Oops wasn't I supposed to say if. :) Paul
FUD or no FUD... (Score:1)
Well, try as I might, Command and Conquer would not run reliably on my system. If I chose sound, the mouse wouldn't work. If I disabled sound, the mouse would work, but I wouldn't be able to hear if I was being attacked. This was a royal pain in the butt. Anyone who's played Command and Conquer will agree that sound is a somewhat important and/or helpful thing to have in this game.
After many frustrating attempts to get it to work, and several messages to Westwood support, I gave up. A couple weeks later, Westwood added a section in their Command and Conquer FAQ describing my problem, and stated that it was an issue only with those people that owned a system with an AMD CPU.
Now, a lot of you are probably saying "so what, it's just a game". Well, yeah, it is just a game, but my point is it's just one program out of many that "could" have a similar problem. The end result now, is that I have not bought any other CPU since then, aside from one made by Intel.
Note, Intel may have a good reason for using FUD tactics against AMD now, but that still won't make any difference to me. My problems with that one game have done enough damage to my impression of AMD, that it will still take some time before I take the plunge and buy another of their CPUs.
Re:Complete apathy, for good reason! (Score:1)
Re:my honest question is: (Score:1)
Quite so!
I recall seeing an announcement for the K6-IIIp 380 MHz a while back, but never saw much in the way of notebooks, except for a smattering of the "lower end" sumo size and weight variety...
I really was hoping for something nice from AMD in that arena.
Now that Celeron's and PII's are gobbling up the low end desktop away from the K6, the Athlon has but a short window to shine like the star it is before the magical marketing bean 1000 MHz Intel chips eat everyone's lunch. AMD has suffered so many loss making quarters that it's doubtful they can stand many more rounds in the ring with the 800 lb gorilla.
Advertising... (Score:1)
ATHLON: The fastest CPU in the world.
Between that and all the writeups that are being done, it sounds like publicity to me...
Of course, I haven't watched TV since the Athlon came out so, I don't know, maybe Intel has the edge in TV ads.
Re:my honest question is: (Score:1)
The Register mentioned it in a piece recently here [theregister.co.uk].
Re:They lost already (Score:1)
I've been trying to convince the pointy haired managment in our company to go with ATHLON for months. To them Intel for CPUs is like Rolex for watches they won't look at facts and listen to reson. FUD is God.
There is also another factor. Even though Intel is clearly behind, their chips are still decent. Meaning the difference is not easly noticable by the uninformed masses. Therefore it will take time, time which AMD doesn't really have.
Re:Sad. But expected. (Score:1)
Re:To be expected (Score:1)
First off, Britain is not really terribly socialist. But that's really neither here nor there. What's really more relevant is your list of inventions, and how you seem to have missed my point.
Yes, the computer, the steam engine, anesthetics, and many other useful inventions have come out of Britain. But that was effectively prehistoric as far as the current pace of technological advance, particularly with regard to microcomputers, which is what we're talking about, right!?!
The computer may have been invented in Britain. But where is all the current activity taking place? In this 'rampant capitalist' country. Where are Intel, AMD, Sun, and for that matter, Cicso, Lucent, and other companies where the current rash of improvements and innovations being made? Smack-dab in the middle of the a capitalist economy!
Of course, you're right, Linux was not created in the US
It is only in a successful capitalist free market like that in the United States where we have this fascinating ecology of technological companies and opportunities, because it is in an environment like this that people have easy access to talent (note the massive influx of technology talent from elsewhere to the US) and capital (look at the sheer amount of venture capital in the markets right now). Most of the interesting stuff that's taking place is taking place here.
That was my point. This ecology of tech companies flourishes because of the freedom of the market. The marketing and such that you appear to disdain so greatly is part of that ecology. So far, it's been a really successful environment
Also, out of curiousity, I guess you're a big fan of intellectual property law, then, eh? I personally feel that people should be free to innovate on other's ideas
By that logic, only Britain should have computers, steam engines, jets, anesthetics, etc., right? They thought of it first!
Re:What Intel Really Fears (Score:1)
Well, that several thousands $$$ is an investment in a multi-purpose entertainment device.
Umm.. it's just a tv with a nice picture. I thought my PC was a multi-purpose entertainment device. I can play music on it, games, surf the web, watch tv, watch a movie, and even do real work! And it costs less than an HDTV. (although the picture is a few inches smaller)
Need advice on AMD distributors (Score:1)
I'm going to have to buy a prebuilt system. I want it to be a K7. The problem is that the better known companies like Compaq and Gateway 2000 have dumped AMD products for Intel (correct me if I'm mistaken). Can anyone suggest a reliable manufacturer of prebuilt K7 systems?
Thanks.
Hard to see how Intel can downplay Athlon (Score:1)
But they've got a lot of cash to spread FUD with, so I'm sure they'll try. In some ways this can backfire, in that people wonder WHY they are so worried about Athlon - and then check it out.
Re:AMD, Intel...who cares? (Score:1)
To be expected (Score:2)
However, it's cheaper to throw mud at your opponent and try to grab their sales. A price-war helps with this, too.
It's classic economics. Short-term gains look better than long-term progress.
What do I think? (Score:1)
Re:Well that got totally hosed... (Score:2)
Last time I spent real money on hardware, I did that exact thing: I bought a box with an AMD processor. Unfortunately for AMD, I am nowhere near starved for cycles yet so I have no reason to buy an Athlon anytime soon.
--
another source (Score:5)
http://www.tomshardware.com/blurb/index.html
I haven't read the Ars Technica article yet, but the tomshardware.com focuses on the idea that intel is strong-amring the tiawan board makers into not making boards for the athlon, lest intel withdraw their support for the company. Worth the read.
Re:Motherboards (Score:1)
I'm probably going to be moderated down for repetition, but isn't a Slot B Athlon in the works for SMP machines?
Intel makes me sick (Score:2)
Re:another source (Score:1)
Re:Complete apathy, for good reason! (Score:1)
Growth.... (Score:4)
I am of the opinion that Intel somewhat gave AMD a nice market share in the low-end/low-profit business last year just to keep the regulators of their back. They are pretty shrewd. Plus, when they started taking heat, they simply settled out of court instead of losing face like Microsoft in a drawn out court battle.
Re:AsusTek definately running scared from Intel (Score:2)
Athlon no threat to Intel dominance (the Register) (Score:4)
But it's well worth reading yesterday's opinion piece Athlon no threat to Intel World dominance [theregister.co.uk], and today's follow-up story [theregister.co.uk] to get one's feet back on the ground.
Intel's market share is overwhelming. Albeit sadly, that isn't going to change any time soon. (With or without the "Itanic" :g )
Re:my honest question is: (Score:2)
Past vs Present... (Score:1)
That was then this is now. Don't hold a grudge because your AMD chip back in '95 didn't work right. It was a great argument against AMD then, but it just sounds bitter now.
If I ever get to play with an Athlon and can confirm these amazing benchmarks firsthand and can see it run stably; I'm there. This is a new chip created honestly with ingenuity not thinnly vailed theft.
To sum up my rambling, the Athlon marks a new era for AMD. Give 'em anohter chance, I'm going to.
Nobody likes the overdog (Score:2)
One thing Intel is not is running scared. They have a cash cow of a business, and they are diversifying to find more ways to make money (anybody notice the way they are buying up networking equipment companies?). They have a ton of cash, almost no debt, and a ton of market share. They can afford to stumble every now and then (the Pentium floating point bug comes to mind).
What I don't get is all the INTEL SUCKS rhetoric flying around. Intel got to the top by running a smart business and making very good processors. Instead of bashing Intel for no longer being #1, why not be happy about the fact that they've got some serious competition, which will maybe drive R&D a little harder, and drive down processor prices from both companies?
Intel vs. AMD = Windows vs. Linux? (Score:1)
The way that Intel and AMD are fighting this out is alot like the way Micrsoft is fighting the Linux community. What Intel is doiong is using their reputation as a well known chip maker to try to push out a product that in some cases (If not many) is far Superier than their own Chip. However AMD is not really fighting. They are Relying on people that 'Care/Know' (ie. people that read
People Run Microsoft products not because they have to, But because they don't know any better. And truely, people that Run Linux (mostly)Don't do it because they hate Microsoft/Bill Gates/Etc, but because they researched and know it is a better product and more reliable.. [Please don't bust my chops for that statemeant.. I know it is opinion...
What I'm trying to get at here, is that, AMD is playing it cool.. And I feel that because of this, they know they have a Damn good product... And becuase of the History of they way the Computer market works, I think Intel is going to Mudsling themselves into a position where they are no longer respect as the "FPU Kinds..."
So in conclusion, I feel that INTEL is going to Put themselves in a rut because of AMD; just like the Linux community has the potential to put microsoft in a rut.
Anyone see what I'm saying?
-- Miker
Re:waiting for dresden to go online (Score:1)
Besides, Fab30 is online. I fully believe that AMD has the capability to start shipping a 1GHz
At any rate, Intel, just like Microsoft, is not going away any time soon. They are still going to be a major player for a couple years to come at least, even though they are getting their butt kicked right now.
Re:Untrue: AMD uses OpenPIC standard (Score:1)
If you see one, let me know. I'd love to buy one. Dual k6-3 would be awesome.
Isn't this what Mark Twain talked about? (Score:2)
I'm not saying a lot of this isn't true -- but damn it, business is business. If you can't stand a little heat in the business world (hell if you can't stand competition period) then you don't belong -- go back to doing something that you *can* do, like picking daisies or berries or something that doesn't recquire any form of mental stress.
Just don't complain about a company that has huge amounts of extremely loyal customers playing "dirty" when you are only a small pebble in a large field. Go out and start your own company that will defeat Intel, if that's what you really desire. Intel's doing MAN's work, making money. Doing that takes being a real man that makes real man decisions...
In my personal opinion, I'd like to get an AMD Athlon, just 'cause I'm curious about it's architecture and would like to see how good it runs.
Competition is good for Consumer (Score:1)
Siva
Re:Intel vs. AMD = Windows vs. Linux? (Score:1)
People who worked on Linux just had to give their spare time, but AMD needs to make money from their work, and they need to make a LOT of it. How many billions of dollars did that Fab in Germany cost them? How much do they have to pay their engineers per year? How much on misc. R&D?
You're comparing apples and oranges here.
Re:What you mean finally (Score:2)
>never included multiprocessor support in their >x86 designs
*sigh*
This again.
Yes, the K6 (and the M2) have multi-processor support. No, it's not the same standard as intel (for which they would have had to pay royalties), and noone ever made a chipset to support it. But the support is there on the chips (Cyrix & AMD even used the same standard, but I forget what it was called)
Competition is a GOOD thing!! (Score:1)
If Intel and Windows Didn't have competition, we probably would be stuck in the age of the 486 and DOS. Thankfully, competition weeds out the crap (like Moderation) and keeps the developers on their toes.
Don't knock the competition AMD is getting. Hopefully it will be good for the consumer in the long run. Look at how our processor line competion has benefitted us (G3, G4, Athlon, Pentium III, k6-2, et cetera), in a relatively short period of time.
Re:Need advice on AMD distributors (Score:2)
A correction... (Score:4)
Actually, the word you're looking for is pipelined. Pipelining is the technique of dividing the processing work into several stages, so that you can decrease the size of a clock cycle (increase the MHz). The term superscalar refers to how wide the processor is, as to opposed how deep (pipelined = depth, superscalar = width). As in, if I can fetch and execute 4 instructions per cycle, then it's order-4 superscalar. If an instruction takes 10 cycles to execute, then the pipeline is 10 stages deep (actually, this is a simplification since superscalar CPUs typically have multiple, diversified execution units, and different execution units have different number of pipe stages) The width is pretty much independent of the pipeline depth.
So, say we have an order-two superscalar CPU (as a plain Pentium MMX is). Then you might have something like this (note this is not the actual Pentium, but a generalization):
Stage 1 - Instruction Fetch
Stage 2 - Instruction Decode 1
Stage 3 - Instruction Decode 2
--
Integer 1 | Floating Point 1
Integer 2 | Floating Point 2
---------- | Floating Point 3
--
Stage 4 - Writeback Results
In the example integer operations take one less cycle than floating point. The above processor is two wide (ie Stages 1 thru 3 deal with two instructions at a time), so is order-2 superscalar. The pipeline depth would probably be considered to be 7 (3 fetch/decode + 3 FP execute + 1 writeback)
You may be right about the K-6 pipe depth, I don't know offhand how many pipe stages it has. The P6 family (Pentium Pro, PII, PIII) is pipelined to the hilt, so you are correct in that Intel's chips are heavily pipelined. I just looked it up (I have a draft chapter about the P6 of my prof's book, the chapter was written by the P6 architects), and the diagram they give has 8 stages in the front-end (instruction fetch/decode), 3 on the back-end (instn retirement), and varying amounts in the middle (3 for basic ops, 6+ for multi-cycle ops, 5 or 9+ for various memory ops). So 14 is probably around a minimum as far as pipeline depth goes. I've heard Willamette is far deeper.
As far as how superscalar-ness effects the manufacturing, becoming more superscalar is unlikely to be helpful. It actually increases the compexity of the CPU by a large amount, and thus will require more silicon area. More area generally leads to lower yields -> more manufacturing difficulty.
It's more likely that AMD simply was inexperienced with manufacturing in the past, and had some bumps to get over. Their new fab, and the move to
One other quick note:
On the one hand, it happens to be true that the recent trend toward graphics cards with GPUs takes a good deal of the advantage off of the Athlon's superior floating point performance
True to an extent, but there are still a lot of FP calculations involved in games and other apps, that aren't handled by the transformation engine of the GPU. So floating-point performance is still very important.
Re:Growth.... (Score:3)
Coppermine doesn't suck, but... (Score:1)
AMD has been swinging for years, but they finally made contact with the Athlon, and Intel wasn't able to make the counterpunch. We salute the new champ, because AMD wins in price and performance...
Like, whatever, and stuff. (Score:2)
First, AMD didn't steal their designs. They had a licensing deal with intel for all designs based around the original x86 core (this was all chips through and including the 486). The K5 is a 486 with some serious tweaking (which is why it paled next to a real Pentium but did very well against a 486. The K6 was NextGen's chip, rightfully used because (surprise) AMD bought NextGen.
Second, I owned a 486dx4-100 (AMD) and a K6-233. Neither have given me stability problems. Of course, C&C had a patch out already when I played it on the dx4, so that was probably fixed between the two.
Re:What Intel Really Fears (Score:2)
You're right about that, but I think you are forgetting one thing - your television isn't very good when it comes to surfing the internet or for wordprocessing - the resolution simply isn't good enough - for this to happen, HDTV is needed...
Sony vs Microsoft (Score:3)
Of course Microsoft (market cap. $450B) could always buy Sony ($60B) if they do end up owning the infotainment business...
Makes me wonder what an MS-AIBO would do when it crapped out...
Re:Good. You don't deserve an Alpha. (Score:2)
The only way I'm going to run another Alpha is to buy one from Compaq with Tru64 on it.
I give Linux another year before Alpha gets to the level x86 is at now.
Re:What do I think? (Score:1)
Re:To be expected EXACTLY!!! (Score:1)
MY 2 bits
Motherboards (Score:1)
Like I said, I might be completely misguided here...
Comments Welcome!
bp
Intel does nothing immoral? Read this: (Score:3)
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grappler
Athlon Motherboards (Score:1)
Does anyone know if anyone is putting out an Athlon MB with ATA/66 connectors on it? I've looked around, but haven't found one yet. For some reason I haven't been able to boot to my ATA/66 drive with a Promise ULTRA66 card. They couldn't figure it out either. So, I figure I'll just buy a new MB with ATA/66 onboard. Since I'm definitely interested in the Athlon, I thought I'd look for an Athlon board while I'm at it. Anyone seen what I'm looking for?
Re:Just the Facts (Score:1)
No. The Alpha was targeted for a completely different audience (top-end servers and labs).
VIA, IBM, Cyrix: they just make bad products - more bugs and compatibility problems than Intel's or AMD's solutions. Also, incompatibility with a lot of software (anyone with a Cyrix processor must have run a "Cyrix patch" of somesort), the "Power Rating" (translates to "I can't produce high Mhz CPU's that run cool) and their poor(est)FPU performance just killed Cyrix. Nothing else involved.
Strong arm (Score:1)
I don't like strong-arm, quasi-legal, neo-soviet business tactics.
Neither do I, but I like the Strong ARM
Re:Intel vs. AMD = Windows vs. Linux? (Score:1)
Many of us choose Linux over Windows only because it is just more stable/robust and they don't care much about the availability of the souce code - as long as it works well.
For me, I can't care less about performance as long as they are in the same order of magnitude (big-O anyone? =)
This said, if NT were at least as stable as Linux many people wouldn't have jumped ship, because stability is their NUMBER-ONE priority.
My point? Intel's chips are at least runs as stable as AMD's. Have you ever heard of app crashes because you have an Intel chip?
I just can't see how the main reason why we prefer Linux to Windows apply to the AMD vs Intel war.
Re:Real battle - our ability to choose (Score:2)
The big issue is for AMD. They have to keep a product superior to Intel, which they are, but Intel is nudging up there. They need to keep it significantly higher and at a reasonably price to get enough buyers. And remember, this is an old architecture Intel is using, which performs close to AMD's new one. Sure, AMD's can be clocked far higher, but Intel has to release a new architecture at some point. Usually when an architecure is released, the next is well in developement. Maybe Intel lagged because they put to many people on IA-64.. but either case Intel should have an outstanding architecture if they've been hard at work on it. Last I heard its schedualed for 2001 (pitiful)... but gives AMD further pressure.
Re:AsusTek definately running scared from Intel (Score:2)
Re:To be expected EXACTLY!!! (Score:2)
Just the Facts (Score:2)
It seemed like only a matter of time before something like this happened, and Intel probably knew this too.
The actual item of interest is what Intel chooses to do about this. Naturally, they can't conceed defeat without serious economic results (unfortunately, Money seems to drive the market more than performance).
As I see it, Intel is scrambling to produce a product that will compete with the K7 and K7 based systems. However being extremely rushed, they are making mistakes (on both processors and chipsets).
This is all to be expected. It's obvious that Intel is worried. and I guess spreading FUD is one course of action that can be used to counter this threat.
whether we (as in SlashDot Readers) agree with this or not is a separate issue with whether or not it works to save Intel from economic failure.
Personally, I can't stand companies who do this. However, there is not much I can do about it. When it comes down to it, consumers are the ultimate judge to who wins or loses, since they shell out the cash to buy the products. This is definately nothing new to Intel. They've been appealing to the average ignorant consumer by spreading FUD and marketing fluf for years now, and it's worked for them (look at how they've beat down other chips and systems producers i.e. VIA, Alpha, IBM, cyrix just to name a few) in the past.
Again, I hate it when companies do this, but: one, can you blame them and two there's nothing I know that can be done (if you know something please tell me!).
-Too Lazy to create an account
Re:What do I think? (Score:2)
Re:AMD, Intel...who cares? (Score:2)
Alphas are better when you get into complex multi-threaded applications. Most of the power gets wasted on a workstation, unless you're doing some very intense graphical work. It is much simpler to get maximum performance out of an x86 box, fire up q3test.
Alphas definitely scale better than Intel boxen. AMD has yet to get its Athlon Ultra out to the market, so SMP support is not there. Even on a top-of-the-line system, Intel only has 8-way Xeon boxen. Compaq has 14-way 21264 boxen, before it even goes to the TruCluster boxen.
Our company was looking at upgrading our aging AlphaServer 4100, so I have done quite a bit of research on Compaq's new offerings, as well as many Intel boxen.
What you mean finally (Score:2)
Hmm.. I got quite a big experience with both AMD and Intel based machines. Intel's are mostly Celeron's frankly -> i.e. in the same price range with K6, K6-2, K6-III.
Well, in almost every case AMD "old" chips are snappier and, well, more "pleasant" to use than Intel's. That's purely MHO, of course. But benchmark (compilation etc..) times are with me mostly. Not that I would trust them
Especially, it's noticable when you have your software compiled with K6 optimization - K6 and Pii are quite different architectures. K6 is more advanced as far as I can understand them.
Frankly, my dream machine (x86) for every task for today would be dual K6-III, but sadly there's no such MB's.
Of course some difference comes with 3d games. Yet again - your videocard means more here than your CPU.
And anyway I don't play them.
Intel doesn't have a leg to stand on... (Score:2)
AMD has released a superior product, no questions asked. As soon as the Athlon was released, thousands of testers went out and compared it to the existing Pentium III processors, and the Athlon kicked butt in every test, not only beating Intel in equivalent MHz rating, but often beating out superior MHz Pentium chips.
So Intel got scared. The Athlon was much, much more than they expected. Intel was used to being able to charge more than AMD did for their chips, because Intel chips were "the fastest". Not anymore. Now that AMD has AT LEAST equally fast chips on the market, Intel realized that people might buy faster chips for less money. There goes market share!
This is where Intel really looks silly. They pulled out all the stops, started there
The sad part here is that Intel's reaction is to try to choke AMD out of business. For the first time consumers are wildly impressed with AMD's product, and AMD hasn't fumbled of their own accord. So Intel, having no recourse, hits the motherboard manufacturers. Unfortunately, AMD has few motherboard manufacturers in its camp. So the motherboard manufacturers are all holding their collective breaths, waiting to see if the Athlon catches on before they irk Intel by producing a board. (Note: Asus unofficially has the K7M motherboard produced, but you will find no mention of it on their website.)
This is a sad situation for we capitalists. I, for one, want to invest in an AMD K7 chip. They're fast, reliable, and kick-ass. But Intel has made my life difficult. Shame on them.
Re:Past vs Present... (Score:2)
AMD RIP? biggest losers = PC makers/buyers (Score:3)
If something unforseen happened that threatened to throw AMD into chapter 11 I'd bet dollars to donuts that you would see Compaq, IBM and HP get together and jointly invest $1 billion or so in return for an equity stake. Intel sells about $20 or $25 billion of CPUs per year and Compaq/IBM/HP probably account for at least $5 billion worth of that. If AMD went under how much do you think Intel would charge them then? Beyond the monetary fallout would be the shift in power in favour of Intel. As much as I'd like to watch Mike Dell finally discover that Intel doesn't have friends just interests, we don't need another M$.
We HAVE to be able to run non-Wintel boxes (Score:2)
-B
Decreased scrap rate (Score:2)
Uh, Corporate customers buy from Dell not Xxera (Score:2)
A quick look at http://www.zdnet.com/computershopper/ (not where i shop but where lots of "tyical" customers shop) shows the following brands of PIII Xenon Workstations: Compaq, HP, IBM, MidWestMicro and SGI
and for servers: Compaq, Dell, HP, IBM, MidWestMicro and Vision Computers.
for Athelon Workstations the list is a bit different: 1st ACS Computers, Amtron, Axis Systems, Cyber Max, Micro Trends, MidwestMicro, Multiwave Technology, Royal Computer and Xxera.
And there is no listing of Athelon Servers.
Well that got totally hosed... (Score:5)
AMD is important from an idealogical standpoint. I have two Linux boxes at home that have zero Intel or Microsoft components in them. And I like that very much. Every time I use those machines, I'm reminded that I voted for choice with my dollars, and that keeps me voting (like the $3500 ballot I cast when I bought the parts for my K7/600 system a couple weeks ago).
I don't like serialized CPUs. I don't like strong-arm, quasi-legal, neo-soviet business tactics. I don't like to be told what I want. I don't like paying a mint for CPUs just so I can fund some mindless "Our CPU makes the Internet better" campaign.
You like giving Micros~1 the finger? Well Intel ain't much better than them. So give them the finger too and get AMD and Via and Linux all together. If you do, you're casting your vote for freedom, choice, quality, advancing technology and lower prices.
P.S. The "major motherboard manufacturer" the Ars article mentioned is Asus and the mobo in question is called the K7M. Gamer's Depot has a review [gamersdepot.com], as do many other sites. See AMD Zone [amdzone.com] for more news about all things AMD. And slota.com has a complete list [slota.com] of all the Slot A motherboards. Which makes it an interesting comparision to AMD's list [amd.com].
-B
Re:I beg to differ (Score:2)
He is your average brand-conscious american, I guess. AMD doesn't have any disco-dancing mascots so the only thing that stuck in his mind was the "Intel-Inside" and bunny people marketing ads. Guess which PC he bought? (hint: he was gouged for roughly $400 )
"well, this one is 500 Mhz and has an Intel processor sir, this other one is not an Intel and is only rated at 400 Mhz" (god I almost killed that fat jerk salesman)
Down with SMP says Intel, too. (Score:3)
I'd swear I've seen this same behavior in the software world too, but I just can't think of who it was...
They lost already (Score:4)
I don't know if it's because I've followed the OS wars more closely than the hardware wars, but it seems to me like there's less impact to be had on the public with FUD. After all, the average buyer will only care about three things:
Price
Performance
A good household name they can recognise
It's not like the Intel chips have anything like fancy shmoozy GUI's or little singing paperclips. Right now, Celeron and Athlon are names people are beginning to recognise. Most people figure that they can go for a cheaper chipset if it's more or less the same quality, because they don't need high-performance machines, just something that can play Quake III reliably well.
Let's face it: Intel is seriously losing ground, and their last hope is to milk for all they're worth the people who want that silly "Intel Inside" sticker because they figure it means quality.
Cause otherwise, they lost already.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Why not just... (Score:2)
A nice Alpha will run circles around both of these chips anyday. Now that Compaq is putting resources towards Alpha Linux, I think it will have even more of a footprint in the market.
(Then again, this only works if you dont consider cost to be an issue)
Sad. But expected. (Score:3)
Then comes Athlon. A serious ass-whipper of a product. But the only real advertising AMD has going is word of mouth. And all along, Intel has built a pride reputation. Intel Inside actually MEANT something, and while the quality of commercials has certainly degraded (Better on the internet my A$$), the reputation for making the best of the best still stands among the largely unwashed and ininformed.
Only for once, Intel has real competition. And they've responded twofold, first releasing an Athlon killer, and now through marketing. That's twice as much as M$ ever did.
It's still despicable. I respect them for responding to competition with a better product, but FUD just sucks. However, it's the way the business world works. You might not win with JUST marketing or JUST with a better product, but hell, you'll do better with both.
Re:Company Bashing (Score:2)
People like to bash companies when they're abusing their position. Only successful companies have a superior position to abuse from. People like to bash evil companies that also happen to be successful.
Microsoft is evil, as evinced by their actions. People like to bash them. Apparently, when Intel has competition, they act the same way, and are therefore evil. We just didn't know it before because of their x86 monopoly. (Sometimes monopolies are okay, when the entrance barrier is high, which it was in the past. Now it's lower, and Intel is starting to feel the effects.) Remember, Intel's products *are* overpriced. That was AMD's biggest gripe against them in the first place.
Releasing benchmarks is always better than offering no real information at all besides "I'm better". That just turns into a shouting match. However, if no one can set up a fair test platform that can approximately reproduce said benchmarks, then the benchmarks are just as bad, and should be responded to with accurate benchmarks.
Intel should be condemned for making it harder for their customers to find the right information. Say that your new processor is 20% faster than a PIII/whatever, instead, and remind them that you're Intel, or something, but don't lie to them.
Intel is trying to hold onto its monopoly, and not in a graceful fashion. They aren't used to real competition. Sound like Microsoft yet?
---
pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
It's their job (Score:3)
Company Bashing (Score:4)
First, the very idea that Intel could prevent every single one of the 150+ motherboard manufacturers from building an Athlon board is silly. A good portion of these motherboard manufacturers don't even use Intel parts (other than the CPU) on their boards making them completely independent from Intel. The high costs and lack of availability have more to do with demand and costs of building and producing the motherboards.
Second, I'd like to say that Intel is doing nothing immoral. They have a product which is no longer the fastest but they want to maintain public perception that it is. There's nothing wrong with this. They didn't pull an Apple and put out junk benchmarks that show their CPU 8x faster than the Athlon. In fact, as far as I could tell from their little search engine, their web site has no mention at all of the Athlon.
Third, marketing an inferior product heavily to drown out AMD is not evil. If the consumer is stupid enough not to do research when it comes to buying a very expensive little piece of hardware, then so be it, but Intel shouldn't be condemned for doing what every single other company on the planet would do in their place.
Sure, the underdog is always rooted for (at least in the US), but this sort of article posted to slashdot makes it sound like Intel is some sorta evil minion of satan using Microsoft-like business practices. Frankly, as far as I can tell, Intel is just trying to keep itself associated with quality & speed until the Itanium launch.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong...
--
Re:Company Bashing (Score:2)
There is a fine line between accepted FUD practices and breaking the law, however. If they are strong-arming a few of the larger board makers like ASUS, that is totally illegal. THAT is EXACTLY a microsoft like practice, and part of the reason for the case against them. Of course it is hard to prove this, and no one has any concrete evidence that I've seen. To me it's almost a given that this is going on however, given "the way things are". Another possibility is that ASUS and others are practicing "self-censorship", ie, they know the possible ramifications if they go all out in support of Athlon motherboards, thus they keep the operation small and quiet. These companies don't exist without intel. That would only change if AMD had a large market share, probably on the lines of at least 30%. AMD has nothing near that right now.
I cheer for AMD because they need to do good in order for us to have good competition in the processor market. I buy their products because they are generally cheaper and yet still deliver the goods. I don't like paying a premium for a brand name. Brand name recognition means nothing to me, I don't care if a company was the best 10 years ago or even yesterday, I want what will deliver the goods today at the lowest price. You *might* be able to argue that the celeron is a better deal, but hey, I got my k6-2-350 for 50 bucks about 4 months ago. I'm a poor college student.
Of course most people don't think this way, if it were, advertising and FUD would be irrelavent. Thats why it's up to people who understand to tell the masses the way things are.
The smoking gun... (Score:5)
What I don't get is, if that indeed happened, why has none of them just come out and said so? Honestly, this isn't as stupid as it looks. Let's count the reasons why not:
1. The Athlon is a superior product. Yes, a 133MHz bus Coppermine on an i820 mobo is just about at parity as far as performance/MHz goes. (Benchmarks I've seen--a lot of sites had prerelease i820s they used for testing (with only 2 RIMM slots filled of course)--put the CMines faster at office type stuff, the Athlons whipping up on FPU benchmarks and rendering type stuff, and the two about even on Q3ish stuff, which at this point is not yet optimized for the Athlons new FPU pipeline and expanded 3DNow set.) But the only reason AMD's pausing at 700 or 750 MHz for now is because they're ramping up their
2. People know this. Certainly if there are enough people who know what they're doing and want speed for mobo manufacturers to build high quality boards specially for overclocking, and even dual Celeron boards, then there's more than enough market to justify making Athlon boards.
3. AMD is not having any production problems. While this may surprise the ignorant among us who just assumed that AMD was a bunch of blubbering idiots for not being able to keep the K6's up to MHz with PIIs, it's really no surprise at all. See, the K6 design just wasn't very superscalar. For those who don't know what that particular buzzword means, it refers to how many stages the pipeline is divided into. More stages means the processor does less things in each clock cycle, which means you can fit more cycles in a second. The downside is higher latency when a prediction misses, but as it turned out, branch prediction is good enough that deep pipelines/high MHz works better than low latency/low MHz. So anyways, the K6 designers guessed the wrong solution to that one, and ended up with a 6 stage pipeline in comparison to the P6's 13 (IIRC) stages. Hence, the fact that AMD was able to stay within one or two speed bins of Intel for all that time is actually a testament to the high quality of their manufacturing capabilities. As for that huge shortage this February...well, consider the fact that up until a couple months ago, AMD had exactly one fab, and a small one at that. Intel has eight. How much would you like to bet that, at one fab or another, Intel has problems just as severe as the AMD ones all the time, but you just never hear about it because they can shift production to another plant? Of course, now that AMD has a second fab, and, not only that, but a huge state of the art one, the all-eggs-in-one-basket problem is pretty much solved as well.
4. Intel has screwed the mobo manufacturers over big time. This i820 thing is a huge huge huge debacle, and it's all Intel's fault. Furthermore, no one in the industry can be happy that Intel insisted on switching over to RDRAM well before its time, either. Fact is, with proper economies of scale (that is, if the mobo manufacturers would just make the damn things), an Athlon motherboard and RAM could sell for about half the price of an i820 with RDRAM. Why anyone would be scared of burning bridges with Intel after what Intel's just done to them is beyond me.
5. Intel's under major antitrust scrutiny. I mean, if they were bullying mobo companies into shelving, overpricing, or undermarketing their Athlon boards, why on earth wouldn't one of them just pick up the phone and call the FTC? Or better yet, The Wall Street Journal?? And yet they appear to think they're in a better bargaining position if they just keep it to themselves and maybe grumble off a few anonymous leaks to hardware fan sites on the web?? Huh???
So what's going on here? I honestly don't know. On paper, and in the benchmark labs, and on the roadmaps, AMD has Intel blown out of the water for quite some time. On the one hand, it happens to be true that the recent trend toward graphics cards with GPUs takes a good deal of the advantage off of the Athlon's superior floating point performance, but you'd be pretty hard pressed to say that, from a theoretical perspective, things look anything but shitty for Intel. Except that, possibly due to nothing more than some well placed, and presumably illegal, intimidation (and not just directed at the mobo people; witness Dell and Gateway, the sort of names average people think of when they think of fast high quality computers, not offering any Athlon systems), things look just fine for them.
It's a pretty scary thought that this sort of thing could still go on right after the MS trial. But I just don't have any other explanation.
AsusTek definately running scared from Intel (Score:2)
Given the quality of Asus boards I personally planned on buying one regardless, however now I hear they will be openly marketing them themselves, so perhaps there is hope for Asus yet.
Microsoft buying Sony (Score:3)
Far from it - Intel has two powerful weapons (Score:4)
Computer technology is so complex, and is so often hidden in a black box that you cannot open, that marketing propaganda is far more powerful then it is in most industries. Do car commercials really convince anyone that Brand X is better then Brand Y? Nope. But "Intel Inside" has left a lasting impression on the average PC buyer. I know people who work in retail. When they go to sell a PC, everyone goes for the cheaper model with the faster clock rate, right up until they hear that it doesn't have Intel inside. Then they say, "I don't want any of this AM-whatever stuff, give me the Intel Inside thingy."
Marketing works in this industry. Quality and volume of marketing is a direct function of money put into it. And guess who has the most cash? That's right, Intel.
Moving on to installed base, AKA existing market share. Basically, the more market you have, the more market you gain. Part of it is network effects, part of it is economy of scale. Because Intel owns so much of the CPU market, they continue to own so much of the CPU market. AMD is doing their damndest to chip away at that wall, but it is rather like the sea breaking upon the shore -- it takes a loooong time to gain any ground.
Oh, to be fair, there are other factors. Intel has very deep pockets, so they can afford more research, higher pay for better workers, and the old fashioned "throw dollars at it until the problem is solved" approach. And, unlike a popular software monopoly I know and hate, Intel's stuff actually works pretty well in many cases.
But "sundling" is right. [slashdot.org] AMD has bet the farm on Athlon. The other x86-clones have already fallen to the irresistible march of Chipzilla [intel.com]. If Athlon fails, so will AMD's CPU offerings. That leaves a single player to control the future of the most popular computer architecture in use.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Chipzilla is far from dead.
Re:Need advice on AMD distributors (Score:2)
The problems with the motherboards were quite true. The main one being, none existed. A few came out, and they're ok. I'd recomend reading Tom's Hardware Guide, because this is one of the few things I'd actually trust him on. Get the board you like better and that's recomended by other users.
But then, if you want a pre-built, don't worry and just make sure to have a nice warrenty. When little things go wrong, they're just nicer to have.
wattage determines heat. (Score:2)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
What Intel Really Fears (Score:4)
What they are concerned about is Playstation II. If Sony can actually mass-produce the Emotion Engine, it is going to give Intel (and other chip makers) serious headaches.
What does the average consumer want? A cheap, easy-to-set-up all-in-one word processor/game console/internet application. Playstation II fits the bill. There's no OS to hassle with, no IRQ's and memory conflicts. Just turn it on and it goes. It's what the iMac dreams to be.
AMD may have come out with a superior desktop processor just at the point when it doesn't matter anymore.
--
The stakes are bigger (Score:5)
Re:Sad. But expected. (Score:2)
Considering that the released athlons are arguably a better proccessor than any of intels released stuff, and definately a better price/performace ratio, intel won't win this one by FUDing. Its not like an OS, your (x86) software will run with either chip, it just might run better with one or the other.