Intel - a short discussion on "feeding the beast"

[intel4eva]

I think we've all read Baron's "I will NEVER feed the beast" type comments ad nauseum, referring of course to buying Intel products. I respect the fact that he's principled, but here's what's tickling my curiosity. Is it a love for AMD or a hatred for Intel that gets him up in the morning? Because here's the thing.

Intel's processors have been superior in pretty much every market for years now. The Bulldozer hail mary was a disaster on the scale of the Hindenburg. Needless to say, as a gamer I enjoy Intel's products very much, especially their CPUs (other products such as Intel NICs are awesome too).

Baron thinks he's hurting Intel by boycotting them. But I'll tell you something. The biggest fear Intel has is AMD's disappearance. If Intel was the only one left, it would without a doubt be dismantled by the goverment and forced to split into different companies. And that would take away their biggest advantage: the monolithic nature of how they do business: massive, exclusive, expensive fabs, INSANE economies of scale, the ability to buy the BEST engineering talent in the world, the ability to gamble on new technologies, and ultimately to do what Walmart does: achieve a synergy between all the things they sell.

So dear Baron, I thank you. One day the golden age of the CPU may be over when AMD finally kicks the bucket. But until then, thanks to people like you that buy shitty processors for too much money just on principle, Intel will be able to keep being Intel, and the state of the art will continue to get pushed. I can buy awesome stuff for not too much money from Intel because you'll accept far less value from AMD.

Thoughts?

 

[jimmysmitty]

Honestly this feels like it is just going to flaimbate insanley. Its going to push whats not needed.

But I will let a mod decide if it should be closed or not.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

Why would the government force intel to split into 2 companies if amd disappear. For a monopoly? they still wont have a monopoly, there are plenty of other CPU manufacturers out there, even X86 ones, like VIA. AMD still have some good budget phenom II quad cores and A8 cpu's, its not all about the high end market.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Why would the government force intel to split into 2 companies if amd disappear. For a monopoly? they still wont have a monopoly, there are plenty of other CPU manufacturers out there, even X86 ones, like VIA. AMD still have some good budget phenom II quad cores and A8 cpu's, its not all about the high end market.

VIA does not hold a current x86 license. They haven't for some time. They use ARM.

And it would be considered a unintentional monopoly and they will be split. Remember Bell-Atlantic? Probably not. At one time, they held pretty much every phone in the US. They were split and out of it came Sprint, AT&T and Verizon (Verizon had a different name at the time).

If AMD went belly up, Intel would gain near 100% of the X86 market which is the majority of CPUs sold. The US government would split Intel up.

 

[rds1220]

I
So dear Baron, I thank you. One day the golden age of the CPU may be over when AMD finally kicks the bucket. But until then, thanks to people like you that buy shitty processors for too much money just on principle, Intel will be able to keep being Intel, and the state of the art will continue to get pushed. I can buy awesome stuff for not too much money from Intel because you'll accept far less value from AMD.

Thoughts?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_aB3f99fUM

 

[Chad Boga]

VIA does not hold a current x86 license. They haven't for some time.

Are you sure?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/12/via-quadcore-processor-combines-low-cost-and-low-power-with-ada/

http://www.linleygroup.com/newsletters/newsletter_detail.php?num=4712

And it would be considered a unintentional monopoly and they will be split. Remember Bell-Atlantic? Probably not. At one time, they held pretty much every phone in the US. They were split and out of it came Sprint, AT&T and Verizon (Verizon had a different name at the time).

If AMD went belly up, Intel would gain near 100% of the X86 market which is the majority of CPUs sold. The US government would split Intel up.

If Microsoft weren't split up 10 years ago, why would the US govt split up Intel now?

Intel can't afford to do just anything it wants, if AMD goes belly up, but it is far from certain that the US govt is going to cripple one of its economic superstar companies, especially not if ARM gains any meaningful traction on the desktop.

I think we've all read Baron's "I will NEVER feed the beast" type comments ad nauseum, referring of course to buying Intel products. I respect the fact that he's principled, but here's what's tickling my curiosity. Is it a love for AMD or a hatred for Intel that gets him up in the morning?

It is quite bizarre isn't it?

There are no "Beasts" selling automobiles or TV's or Camera's or Operating systems or a million and one other items, but there is a "Beast" selling CPU's. :lol:

So dear Baron, I thank you. One day the golden age of the CPU may be over when AMD finally kicks the bucket. But until then, thanks to people like you that buy shitty processors for too much money just on principle, Intel will be able to keep being Intel, and the state of the art will continue to get pushed. I can buy awesome stuff for not too much money from Intel because you'll accept far less value from AMD.

Thoughts?

I largely concur with your last statement.

 

[rds1220]

If Microsoft weren't split up 10 years ago, why would the US govt split up Intel now?

Because Microsoft isn't really a monoply. There's Linux and Apple OS's to compete with them.

 

[jimmysmitty]

Thanks for that Chad. I had thought VIA had left the X86 and did not have a current license to use.

 

[gnomio]

No one gets discount from being a dedicated fanboy. We all pay the same price.

Intel, Amd, ibm if its bang for buck i will buy it.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

VIA does not hold a current x86 license. They haven't for some time. They use ARM.

And it would be considered a unintentional monopoly and they will be split. Remember Bell-Atlantic? Probably not. At one time, they held pretty much every phone in the US. They were split and out of it came Sprint, AT&T and Verizon (Verizon had a different name at the time).

If AMD went belly up, Intel would gain near 100% of the X86 market which is the majority of CPUs sold. The US government would split Intel up.

IIRC that was Bell Atlantic, before Verizon decided to dump the last vestige of their "Baby Bell" heritage due to AT&T started buying up a lot of the Baby Bells. Bell South is now AT&T..

IMO, most likely scenario would be the gov't forcing Intel to spin off its fabs as a foundry, or else split between mobile, DT and server.

And I agree this thread seems to be flame bait - my bet is that it won't be around long..

 

[noob2222]

The issue with fanboys is if you support intel, you are backed by 90% of the morons out there. If you support AMD, you have to fight with 90% of the morons out there.

As far as a monopoly, I can't find the exact figure, but its somewhere around 92% market share to be considered monopoly for government action. Via does not own 8% (their x86 liscence is from cyrix). But this is where Intel got in trouble: If a company has a dominant position, then there is "a special responsibility not to allow its conduct to impair competition on the common market."

 

[fazers_on_stun]

And it would be considered a unintentional monopoly and they will be split. Remember Bell-Atlantic? Probably not. At one time, they held pretty much every phone in the US. They were split and out of it came Sprint, AT&T and Verizon (Verizon had a different name at the time).

Actually it went like this :

Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs)Ameritech — (acquired by SBC in 1999, now part of the AT&T Inc.)
Bell Atlantic — (acquired GTE in 2000 and changed its name to Verizon)
BellSouth — (acquired by AT&T Inc. in 2006)
NYNEX — (acquired by Bell Atlantic in 1996, now part of Verizon)
Pacific Telesis — (acquired by SBC in 1997, now part of the AT&T Inc.)
Southwestern Bell — (changed its name to SBC in 1995; acquired AT&T Corp. in 2005 and changed its name to AT&T Inc.)
U S West — (acquired by Qwest in 2000; acquired by CenturyLink in 2011)

 

[fazers_on_stun]

The issue with fanboys is if you support intel, you are backed by 90% of the morons out there. If you support AMD, you have to fight with 90% of the morons out there.

Personally I'd guess that behavior such as putting up strawman arguments instead of debating the facts, getting angry and either 'bailing' or threatening users, denying both the runmours before the CPU release and the undeniable facts in the reviews after the release, and the continuous mantra "wait until next stepping/CPU version/OS release/BIOS patch/Linux benchmarks/..." to be the probable cause of fights with other users.

 

[intel4eva]

Whoa, VIA has an X86 license? Are they producing anything modern with it?

 

[Chad Boga]

Actually it went like this :

Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs)Ameritech — (acquired by SBC in 1999, now part of the AT&T Inc.)
Bell Atlantic — (acquired GTE in 2000 and changed its name to Verizon)
BellSouth — (acquired by AT&T Inc. in 2006)
NYNEX — (acquired by Bell Atlantic in 1996, now part of Verizon)
Pacific Telesis — (acquired by SBC in 1997, now part of the AT&T Inc.)
Southwestern Bell — (changed its name to SBC in 1995; acquired AT&T Corp. in 2005 and changed its name to AT&T Inc.)
U S West — (acquired by Qwest in 2000; acquired by CenturyLink in 2011)

It looks like you have inadvertently attributed JimmySmitty's comments to me.

No big deal, but for the sake of clarity I thought I would point it out.

Because Microsoft isn't really a monoply. There's Linux and Apple OS's to compete with them.

One could argue that with the rise of smartphones and tablets, that ARM is more of a competitor to Intel than Linux and Apple were to Microsoft, back in the day, and even now.

 

[noob2222]

Personally I'd guess that behavior such as putting up strawman arguments instead of debating the facts, getting angry and either 'bailing' or threatening users, denying both the runmours before the CPU release and the undeniable facts in the reviews after the release, and the continuous mantra "wait until next stepping/CPU version/OS release/BIOS patch/Linux benchmarks/..." to be the probable cause of fights with other users.

Then again the "undeniable facts" are pretty much exactly where I susptected, and also exactly as expected, all the Intel support only latches on to the worst of the worst benches and anything else is just a lie.

 

[Chad Boga]

Then again the "undeniable facts" are pretty much exactly where I susptected, and also exactly as expected, all the Intel support only latches on to the worst of the worst benches and anything else is just a lie.

Really?

You seemed outraged here at the suggestion that BD would have 20% less IPC than SB.

With Intel having better IPC, that means it will win on every program that has 5 threads, and quite possibly even more than that.

Which means that Intel will be a higher performer on at least 90% of desktop applications.

It takes a special kind of logic to say that being ahead on 10% of applications makes BD a compelling buy, especially if you are silly enough to believe they will maintain the pricing they are rumoured to launch at.

It takes even more special logic to assume every program will react the same. Just because some random "but our multiple, well informed sources claim" say IPC is lower than SB doesn't mean that its automatically 20% or more.
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[Mousemonkey]

IIRC that was Bell Atlantic, before Verizon decided to dump the last vestige of their "Baby Bell" heritage due to AT&T started buying up a lot of the Baby Bells. Bell South is now AT&T..

IMO, most likely scenario would be the gov't forcing Intel to spin off its fabs as a foundry, or else split between mobile, DT and server.

And I agree this thread seems to be flame bait - my bet is that it won't be around long..

Pointless thread is pointless.

[:thegreatgrapeape:7]