Intel, AMD, And Reseller Success: A System Builder Weighs In

[Anthonynyc]

I have built myself countless systems starting with Intel 8088 processors, then 386, then Amd started making cheaper fast 486DV yiada yiada, K5 vs Penium, so they avoided the x86 race by going to patentable names, but the race was back and forth forever. I personally am very thankful AMD exists to keep Intel on their toes and competitively priced.
That is capitalism in a nut shell. If you allow the big guy to unfairly squash it competitors and be a sole monopoly, you are practicing anti-trust policies, and that is why EU has fined Intel. The 1.45 billion intel has to pay in fines, it would have been better to have sold chips for lower prices rather than give rebates trying to kill AMD. In the end, AMD is still here, Intel gets a black eye from EU. My last CPU was the Intel Quad Core 6600, who know what my next one will be, I am pretty happy with the speed for 2 years now!
But cheap AMD PhenonII systems do sound tempting for increase in speed and not much of an upgrade cost, cpu and motherboard only.

 

[Guest]

Anyone who buys AMD to "support them" is truly confused as to the deference between capitalism and socialism.

 

[enterco]

[citation][nom]logo[/nom]Anyone who buys AMD to "support them" is truly confused as to the deference between capitalism and socialism.[/citation]
So, do you say that the true capitalism means that we should have no competition, opposed to socialism? I tought 'capitalism means true competition, without kicks under belt'.

 

[curnel_D]

[citation][nom]dman157[/nom]BTW, just would like to remind you all, without AMD we would not have:Multi-Core (We might have this without them, but the are the first to make one for the PC)Integrated Memory ControllerHyper-Transport for Personal Computersx86-64 instruction setShader Model 4.0Advancement in technology of courseand the most important, pricing of products FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE CONSUMER!...and maybe the Xbox 360?? (Xenos GPU, 1st GPU made with unified shaders, manufactured by AMD)[/citation]

First off, intel was working on multicore hardware research long before AMD.
Second, the intigreated memory controler was patened by AMD, and I'm certain that intel would have eventually moved to it had it not been barred by patent restrictions.
Third, the x86-64 instruction set BLOWS. It ruined 64-bit computing. The most it is now is a simple hardware extention instead of true 64-bit.
And fourth, Microsoft developed shader model 4.0 with ATI's help, and was working on that before AMD ever purchased them. AMD had nothing to do with that.

You're absolutely right, we'd have a whole lot less if AMD wasnt around. And It's a damn good think they are around. But not even half of what you said is completely true.

[citation][nom]tarzan48[/nom]hey imay not be huge system builder / i have only built about 12 / but ihave always had trouble with those damn push pin mounts on the intel boards i have had them break and bend the mother board / never had any problems instaling amd / and as far as speed the average never notices the small differences also amd cpu's are very reliable and seem to run cooler[/citation]
This is a Novice's problem. The only time I've ever had problems with the pushpin design is when intel switch from socket 478 to LGA775, and that's only because I'd never used them before. When you do it for a living, you learn the tricks it takes to get them to work perfectly the 'first' time.

Is the pushpin design a good one? Hell no. It blows. But it works and allows intel to keep prices lower. Besides, I think anyone buying an enthusiest level processor would be using an aftermarket cooler with a decent retention bracket.

 

[Guest]

@logo
I take it you attended one of those schools where every kid (win or lose) gets a trophy. (no insult intended)

True capitalism is fair competition, not consumer pity. Buying the product of a losing company to "help them out" is not supporting capitalism.

Nothing fair about making a purchase, you otherwise wouldn't, just to give your favorite underdog the upper hand.

Competitive products and marketing, not pity, made AMD a competitor to INTEL and will keep them afloat. (I hope)

Unless of course you’re willing to throw a few hundred million at them (Microsoft’s’ $150 million investment in Apple 1997)

Otherwise it’s like giving a homeless person a dollar (does more for your self esteem than his situation)

 

[enterco]

[citation][nom]Curnel_D[/nom]the intigreated memory controler was patened by AMD, and I'm certain that intel would have eventually moved to it had it not been barred by patent restrictions.[/citation]
The same thing happened on the Pentium II days, Slot1/Socket478/LGA775 were not licensed to AMD.

[citation][nom]Curnel_D[/nom]Third, the x86-64 instruction set BLOWS. It ruined 64-bit computing. The most it is now is a simple hardware extention instead of true 64-bit.[/citation]
x86-64 allowed usage of larger amounts of memory on a PC, a constraint becoming more and more obvious after 2000. EPIC/IA64 the greatest fiasco of the last 50 years, according to John C. Dvorak, and probably one of the least used architectures. x86-64, first implemented by AMD, offered an easy migration from x86/32bit for servers and for pcs, enabling usage of larger amounts of memory, among other improvements. Intel was 'the second' on this. More info available on wikipedia IA64 page

 

[dark41]

As the owner of a small custom computer business in Australia, I can't relate to many of the reasons that the author states for Intel selling better than AMD. Most don't apply to us. We've built between 300-500 systems per year for the last 7 years. We don't get rebates of any kind. We only supply systems locally, so shipping is of no concern. Neither AMD nor Intel has ever set foot in our door.

But there are 2 reasons we haven't sold a single AMD system since socket 939.

1) Not a single customer has specifically asked for AMD.
2) We only deal with medium/high to high end systems, mainly with dual cores (not much call for quad cores yet as the software still hasn't caught up). Intel has for a while, and still does, own the price per performance ratio in that range. The E8400 and E8500 have been our biggest sellers for the past 2 years easily.

If either of these things change we'd be happy to sell AMD systems. The customer is always right. 🙂

 

[dman157]

[citation][nom]Curnel_D[/nom]First off, intel was working on multicore hardware research long before AMD. Second, the intigreated memory controler was patened by AMD, and I'm certain that intel would have eventually moved to it had it not been barred by patent restrictions. Third, the x86-64 instruction set BLOWS. It ruined 64-bit computing. The most it is now is a simple hardware extention instead of true 64-bit. And fourth, Microsoft developed shader model 4.0 with ATI's help, and was working on that before AMD ever purchased them. AMD had nothing to do with that. You're absolutely right, we'd have a whole lot less if AMD wasnt around. And It's a damn good think they are around. But not even half of what you said is completely true.This is a Novice's problem. The only time I've ever had problems with the pushpin design is when intel switch from socket 478 to LGA775, and that's only because I'd never used them before. When you do it for a living, you learn the tricks it takes to get them to work perfectly the 'first' time. Is the pushpin design a good one? Hell no. It blows. But it works and allows intel to keep prices lower. Besides, I think anyone buying an enthusiest level processor would be using an aftermarket cooler with a decent retention bracket.[/citation]
Someone is jealous! It doesn't matter if Intel was "researching" multi core development, because AMD was the FIRST to put them in personal computers. How can you say AMDs x86-64 instruction set sucks??? If that is true why is it the only instruction set for 64 bit in Windows. Why did Microsoft abandon Intel's IA64 instruction set and go along with AMDs instruction set. You should be thanking AMD that your PC is running 64 bit with 32 bit backwards compatibility, and you should thank them for making it better than Intel's IA64 which was horribly optimized and slow. AMDs extension may not be full native low level 64 bit, but it is in the hardware sense, and it still is 64-bit in a sense, so what is the problem? It still supports a ridiculous amount of RAM, that HDDs do not even come close to today. BTW, if AMD64 (X86-64) sucks then tell me why Intel uses it in their products instead of making their own? Why is IA64 behind x86-64 based CPUs in the server market???

Oh ya and, AMD developed unified shaders and SM4.0 with Microsoft. If AMD wasn't there to develop (not "help" like you said) with unified shaders, do you think we would have the same efficent SM 4.0 today? Nope!

I suggest you research a bit more on X86-64 before saying crap about it because x86-64 today can come very close to real 64 bit, AMD64 (x86-64) is still 64 bits, it still works with 64 bit integers instead of 32. BTW X86-64 can support up to petabytes of memory with because there actually is a version of it that is full 64 bit with a 64 bit virtual address space, but there is no need for it and because of PAE it has 44 bits of virtual address. Microsoft and other companies don't see a need for more, so they uses 44 bits which gives them a theoretical max of 16TB of virtual address space. They do this anyway because they can reserve the first have of the virtual address bits for applications, and the other half for the OS, which is what the Windows NT family does. You can research the rest, it's late...

 

[shreeharsha]

[citation][nom]logo[/nom]Anyone who buys AMD to "support them" is truly confused as to the deference between capitalism and socialism.[/citation]

I have bought AMD cpu / Ati gpu card (my new system) just to support them.

 

[Guest]

To the AMD fanboys, i seriously hope you walk the walk and talk the talk. Does anyone one of you invest in AMD and if not - why not? Since you believe in the company so much you SHOULD invest in them....then AMD would have more money to dump into the ocean...quarter after quarter.

 

[shreeharsha]

[citation][nom]Lancewood[/nom]To the AMD fanboys, i seriously hope you walk the walk and talk the talk. Does anyone one of you invest in AMD and if not - why not? Since you believe in the company so much you SHOULD invest in them....then AMD would have more money to dump into the ocean...quarter after quarter.[/citation]

If in the year 2020 AMD has a share of 75% in cpu/gpu market (can't tell), then I might buy a intel cpu/ Larrabee gpu card to support them (intel).