FTC Introduces New Orders For Intel; No Bundling 155
eldavojohn writes "Today a decision was handed down (PDF) from the FTC that underlined new guidelines for Intel in the highly anticipated investigation. Biggest result: the practices Intel employed, like bundling prices to get manufacturers like Dell to block sales of competitors' chips, must stop. No word yet on whether or not Intel will face monetary fines from the FTC like they did in Europe over the same monopolistic practices."
FTC (Score:5, Insightful)
If that's really the case, why aren't you putting a stop to carrier lock-in for cellphones? Some of those agreements are WAY more anti-competitive than any Intel contract ever was.
Re: (Score:2)
These rules are not what you do but the scale that you do it.
The Carrier Lock-in agreements are often because the carrier will subsidize the cost of your phone and if you leave early you need to pay off the rest of your phone. Also say the iPhone while a popular phone isn't doing much to stop people from choosing Android Phones. Even at AT&T. What is with Intel is it would be more like AT&T couldn't sell any Android Phones. As an AT&T Customer you can choose what type of phone you want. If
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then why doesn't my monthly bill go down when my 2-year contract is up? If I'm paying for part of the phone every month for 2 years, when the phone is paid off, my bill should go down.
Why this hasn't been investigated by the FTC yet I don't understand.
Re: (Score:2)
take a fully paid for phone to t-mobile. The plan is $10 off of a subsidized plan.
Re: (Score:2)
T-Mobile has very weak coverage in my area
Re: (Score:2)
Then why doesn't my monthly bill go down when my 2-year contract is up? If I'm paying for part of the phone every month for 2 years, when the phone is paid off, my bill should go down.
Because you're not on T-Mobile. Their non contract rates are cheaper.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not on T-Mobile because their coverage is a joke. There are massive swaths of upstate NY with no voice coverage, let alone data. Basically, if you go more than 15-20 minutes off an interstate, you're hosed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not true. AT&T has some degree of voice & data coverage over the majority of the state, they're just missing in the remote areas of the Adirondacks & Catskills.
T-Mobile, OTOH, doesn't even have voice coverage for much of the Finger Lakes & Southern Tier.
Re: (Score:2)
T-Mobile, OTOH, doesn't even have voice coverage for much of the Finger Lakes & Southern Tier.
And in my experience, I can make voice and data connections on T-Mobile when my friends can't even receive a call with ATT.
Not to mention the non existent ATT 3G in urban areas were "data" means 30kbs.
ATT coverage is good for you in the locations you travel. That's good for you. Just don't make blanket statements that it is good everywhere and better than T-Mobile.
Coverage is variable on all carriers.
Re: (Score:2)
T-Mobile will unlock phones you buy from them after 90 days, so you can take them to any carrier you want.
Re: (Score:2)
Carrier lock-in for cellphones mostly comes from:
1. Incompatible hardware used on different networks, so that a phone for certain carriers won't work for certain other carriers -- that's clearly FCC, not FTC, ju
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not just the lock-in, it's the entire cellular industry. It's a disaster. In foreign countries, phone service is MUCH cheaper, and MUCH higher quality. People in Finland get better cellular reception in remote, unpopulated parts of the country than we do in our cities. And they get it for less money, and without all the stupid fees added on for every little thing.
Regulation in the USA is a disaster. They're giving Intel grief over things done 10 years ago, even though no one is complaining about t
Re: (Score:2)
Thats different.
What Intel did would be like if Nokia did a deal with AT&T where AT&T would get a discount on Nokia handsets on the condition that they didnt sell handsets from Nokia competitors.
please don't stop here (Score:2)
Can we have a similar ruling for Apple and AT&T please?
cable tv and the cable box also cable card is a jo (Score:2)
cable tv and the cable box also cable card is a joke. No VOD, SDV needs a box to work.
You should be able to buy the box and not be foreced to rent it or rent a cable card and get VOD, PPV and all the other stuff that rented box get's.
Re: (Score:2)
Can we have a similar ruling for Apple and AT&T please?
Apple is preventing AT&T from selling other phones?
This settlement is a joke. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is a good technical description of the actual terms:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4205889/Intel-not-fined--agrees-to-restrictions-in-FTC-deal [eetimes.com]
Read it. All it does is require that Intel stop engaging in the monopolistic practices that it has been using for the last 10 years. So their punishment is that they have to obey the law for the next 5 years. They pay no fine. They don't admit that they did anything wrong.
The best part is at the very end of the article. This is where the juicy details are always buried.
Two million dollars to monitor a company a size of Intel for 10 years? Pathetic.
Despite the hype that the press will put out, this is a complete win for Intel. No fine. No one in the company is held responsible. No admission of guilt.
You have been getting ripped off for 10 years by Intel/Dell/HP in the form of higher prices and decreased innovation. Remember it was AMD that created the x86 64 bit architecture, not Intel. When Intel was paying bribes to Dell none of that money was going into R&D. The EETimes article makes it clear that Intel was modifying it's architecture to make AMD look bad, not to make any real world code run faster.
Your will not get a dime in compensation for the higher prices you have been paying. When you see figures that Dell paid $500 million in fines, or Intel paid AMD $1.2 billion to settle a court case, they are paying with money they stole from you, the consumer.
This settlement is a joke. Non of the people who profited will be held accountable or loose any real money. Consumers had untold billions of dollars stolen from them and the crooks got away clean. Welcome to our so-called capitalistic market driven economy, sucker.
Re: (Score:2)
If the FTC wanted to punish the executives, it would ban them from playing golf for the next 5 years too.
Re: (Score:2)
The cases were never about the consumer. We, the consumer, never see any money given back to us. Even if representatives of Evil Corporation used their connections to literally steal money from your bank account, you probably wouldn't see it again. You'd file a lawsuit, just like the ten thousand other people it happened to, it would get turned into a class action, and you'd get two dollars off your next purchase of widgets from Evil Corporation. Evil Corporation would have to pay 80% of their gains, an
Re: (Score:2)
I've never understood the belief that discounts are the only benefit to consumers.
I'm quite happy getting a better product for the same price sometimes, or a new product with new features for the same price.
There's often a price-point at which production just isn't profitable anymore (and this is why you don't see very many small hard drives for sale once the larger models come out), and that's fine. The remedy here is to try and keep Intel from screwing us over any worse without being punitive.
Nvidia chipset biz (Score:2)
Personally, I'm much more interested in the extent to which this decision will allow nVidia to make motherboard chipsets for current (post-Socket 775) and future Intel CPUs. Intel needs some competition in that space, and the market needs some chipsets for Core i(3-5-7-?) CPUs that have serious integrated graphics capability. I'd love to see, for instance, a motherboard that uses Socket 1156 processors with an integrated-into-chipset GT 240-class GPU in ITX form factor. That would be rockin for an HTPC/comp
So Intel cant bundle (Score:2)
But Microsoft can? Doesn't seem fair to me.
FTC lacks the authority to fine (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No more garbage intel GPUs for computers?
It would seem that way, at least to a certain degree. If Intel can't make their prices lower than everyone else via some back-alley 'bundling' then we're not likely to see the same market penetration. Beyond Intel being the inexpensive alternative to far superior chips from Nvidia and ATI, there's no reason to buy an Intel GPU, unless you're some kind of masochist that likes slow tech. x.x
Re:So what does it mean for us? (Score:5, Insightful)
This order just prevents them from trimming PCIe so as to make their GPU the only thing with a fast enough connection to the CPU that it isn't a total joke.
Re: (Score:2)
Intel CPU != Intel chipset
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs have the GPU directly on die.
From http://www.intel.com/products/processor/corei3/index.htm [intel.com] :
This processor comes equipped with Intel HD Graphics, an advanced video engine that delivers smooth, high-quality HD video playback, and advanced 3D capabilities, providing an ideal graphics solution for everyday computing.
From http://www.intel.com/products/processor/corei5/index.htm [intel.com] :
Intel® HD Graphics on Intel® Core i5-600 processor series
Re: (Score:2)
Other than, of course, the fact that an intel GPU comes on the die of every intel CPU sold, atoms excepted(for now).
What are you talking about?
Re:So what does it mean for us? (Score:5, Informative)
he's talking about 2011/2012 when intel and AMD start packaging CPU's and GPU's in a single die on a regular basis, right now it's part of arrandale (the 32 nm i5's). I'm presuming he's just misinformed that this doesn't happen now on everything. Or he's making a bad joke about how people don't know the difference between a CPU and the whole computer case.
For AMD this is part of their 'the future is fusion' marketing. I can't recall what Intel has called it. Basically rather than a processor core you get a GPU core. So an 8 core, or 4 core machine can really be a collection of CPU and GPU cores. In the short term this isn't likely to impact a lot of /. readers on their home systems, since you can power, and cool about 1200 mm^2 of chips, split between cpu and GPU but if you want cheap, or cool 'fusion' is a good strategy. It's not like most computer actually need or want a decent (hot) GPU anyway.
As a game development guy I'm strongly opposed to intel gpu's in home users machines. They buy crap and then don't know why stuff doesn't work. But the business desktop is a whole other matter.
Re: (Score:2)
Rather than using the built-in GPU core for graphics, it seems like it could be useful for other calculations. This is basically a return to the old "vector processors", just with different names. A lot like Cell architecture, really.
Re: (Score:2)
Right, that's in the future. Every CPU in existence does not "come" with a GPU integrated on die, not for a year or two.
Re: (Score:2)
Well power reduction is a business desktop sort of problem. Most people are better served with a discrete GPU that will actually run the 3d crap in windows or starcraft than they are with a reduction of 100W of power consumption.
It's not that they're fundamentally bad chips, just that they're wrong for the market they're putting them in. No more than diesel engines in everyday cars. They have a place, and an important one, just not in the vehicle I drive to work everyday.
Re: (Score:2)
See my post directly above for references. The Core i3 and Core i5 series chips have the GPU integrated directly with the CPU.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Other than, of course, the fact that an intel GPU comes on the die of every intel CPU sold, atoms excepted(for now).
BULLSHIT. Intel do seem to be planning to go down that road but right now the only intel chips with a GPU on the cpu are the dual core i series chips and the pine trail atoms.
The quad-core and 6-core nahelm chips don't have any support for shared memory graphics at all afaict so you have to combine them with a graphics card/chip that has it's own memory (which most likely for a desktop means a
Re: (Score:2)
If Intel can't make their prices lower than everyone else via some back-alley 'bundling' then we're not likely to see the same market penetration.
In most markets Intel don't have to worry about 'making their prices lower than everyone else' because there is no-one else who can compete with them. AMD are only really competitive at the low end, precisely because Intel haven't dropped prices low enough to push AMD out of the market.
In addition, while it may have changed now AMD have farmed off their fabs to a third-party, Intel have traditionally had far more production capacity than AMD so there was no way that AMD could take much more of the CPU marke
Re: (Score:2)
really? whats competative at the $300 point with AMD Phenom II X6 1090T from Intel? No really, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115225 [newegg.com] is probably the best at stock speeds and it's only a 2.8ghz quad core(yes yes hyper-threading, but it doesn't work as well as real cores last I heard) 130W, and uses more expensive motherboards than the AMD.
A $300 cpu isn't really "low end", more like upper mid range. Sure the i7-980X will beat the pants off the 1090T, but you can buy 3 1090T's for th
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
really? whats competative at the $300 point with AMD Phenom II X6 1090T from Intel?
The benchmarks I've seen show even an i5 being competitive with a Phenom II X6, let alone an i7. And if you're really looking for the best possible mult-threaded performance -- which is the only reason for buying a 6-core CPU -- why would you settle for second best?
Do you seriously think that AMD would be selling their top of the range CPUs for $300 if they didn't have to in order to compete with Intel's?
Re:So what does it mean for us? (Score:4, Informative)
The benchmarks I've seen show even an i5 being competitive with a Phenom II X6
I am backing up my assertions. [cpubenchmark.net]
Intel does not have any i5 that is even close in performance with the higher end 1090T, which is what the poster you were replying to said he was talking about. Read that? Not Even Close.
The lower end 1055T (which you are talking about) also beats the best performing i5, the 760, and it is cheaper than Intels chip too.
On top of that, the OEM special-edition 1035T, even cheaper than the 1055T, also outperforms all the i5's.
The only thing the i5 does better than the AMD 6 core offerings is better single threaded integer performance (and thats only the best most expensive i5), but is worse at single threaded floating point. For multi-threaded tasks it gets literally destroyed by AMD's 6-core offerings.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you look at the anandtech benchmarks?
Applications like video encoding and offline 3D rendering show the real strengths of the Phenom II X6. And thanks to Turbo Core, you don't give up any performance in less threaded applications compared to a Phenom II X4. The 1090T can easily trump the Core i7 860 and the 1055T can do even better against the Core i5 750.
Yes the gaming benchmarks are in favor of Intel slightly, but how much of that is due to most games being 2-3 threads max, and them being optimized for Intel, or how much is the AMD chip really being slower. I'm willing to bet that the 1090T is about as good as and equivalent Intel when coupled with a 5670 or gtx260, and 8GB ram, but yet will crush that same Intel chip when I go to encode my dvd rip to h264... hmm looks like AMD wins in my book, along with the socket
Re: (Score:2)
I would take that bet having owned both systems. The i930, which is the likely the best sub-$300 CPU from intel, easily overclocks to 4.2GHz, while the AMD doesn't even come close. Any game using a reasonable graphics card (295, 470, 480) on most games will favor the i7 greatly over the AMD solution.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sorry rockoon, but a 1090T overclocked to 4GHz on air cooling won't out perform my i930 running at 4.5GHz on air cooling.
I spoke because I had first hand experience with both machines. While you are obviously an AMD zealot, I actually tested both myself and found that not only did the i930 perform better than the 1090T in most of my personal applications at stock speeds, but the i930 overclocked better as well giving it an even further advantage. If that wasn't enough, the i930, according to anandtech
i5 pci-e lanes suck only 16 2.0 + dmi (Score:2)
so if you want usb 3.0 / sata 6 or any other add it it's cut video to x8 or use switch chips that still shear the x16 bus.
Re: (Score:2)
And if you're really looking for the best possible mult-threaded performance -- which is the only reason for buying a 6-core CPU -- why would you settle for second best?
I just got a box from NewEgg today with the first AMD chip I've bought in a decade. 12 core CPU + motherboard for a thousand bucks, 80W typical, 115W TDP with hw virt.
I'm expecting much rockage.
Re: (Score:2)
For any sort of multi-threaded performance, AMD easily wins at every price point.
Of course a $1000 CPU (6-core i7 980 extreme edition) beats a $200 CPU (6-core AMD 1055T). But when you start looking at AMD's server chips, which are in the same price range as that i7 980 extreme ripoff, you are looking at getting a 12 core chip that easily destroys Intel's 6-core chip in multi-threaded applications, and has far greater i/o bandwidth too.
I'm sure that Intel will eventually start takin
Re: (Score:2)
really? whats competative at the $300 point with AMD Phenom II X6 1090T from Intel? No really, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115225 [newegg.com] [newegg.com] is probably the best at stock speeds and it's only a 2.8ghz quad core
And yet the i7-920 (which is only a 2.66GHz quad-core) seems to hold it's own quite well against the Phenom II X6. http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/146?vs=47 [anandtech.com] . It seems the amd is generally winning in video encoding while the intel is winning in most other stuff (u
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if they still do, but Fry's had a sale with a MSI motherboard, and i930. With that combination, you could get a stable 4.2GHz overclock, semi-stable 4.5GHz overlock, for $289.
Re: (Score:2)
AMD is not competitive with Intel in the low end. AMD utterly defeats Intel in the low end, the only thing keeping Intel in the low end market is brand recognition. AMD is competitive with Intel will into the mid range market and even the start of the high end market (if you don't place much value on energy efficiency). Price/performance AMD curb stomps every Intel processor except the i7 920. But AMD does not compete, at all, above that performance point.
Re: (Score:2)
AMD is competitive with Intel will into the mid range market and even the start of the high end market (if you don't place much value on energy efficiency).
The 32nm and 45nm Intel chips are all no more than 95W TDP up to 2.93GHz 6-core, and after that they are 130W, which is pretty much the same as the 125W for the 6-core AMD.
Price/performance AMD curb stomps every Intel processor except the i7 920. But AMD does not compete, at all, above that performance point.
The quad-core i5-750 beats the six-core 1090T in quite a few benchmarks for $100 less for the Intel chip. With the i5-760 only $15 more for 133MHz faster stock clock, it'll likely be even better. And, motherboards with the 1156 socket start at $70, so you can get CPU and motherboard from Intel for less than the CPU alone from AMD, and w
Re: (Score:2)
Are you trying to support my assertion that Intels only advantage in the mid range is efficiency in regards to power consumption? or contradict it? I really can not tell if you misunderstood me or I am misunderstanding you.
You just picked Intel's best price/performance CPU of the generation and compared it to arguably AMD's worst CPU of the generation in price/performance.
You also failed to note that the benchmarks that the 750 beats the 1090 on are all minimally parallel and the AMD PhII 955/965 falls in t
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, for me, I'd just LOVE to buy AMD. But I've had exceptionally poor luck with AMD chipsets in the past, and this is an area where Intel typically excels. Only a couple of years ago, if you bought a 3rd tier motherboard (Gigabyte, Asus, DFI, etc) - if it was an Intel chip, it was an Intel chipset. If it was an AMD chip, it was nVidia or SiS or anyone cheap.
Nowadays, sure you can get AMD chipsets. But I've been burned too many times and the amount of information on the AMD chips and chipsets seems mor
Hardware based VNC (Score:2)
There's one single argument in favour of Intel GPUs in the workplace :
They interact better with the Q series of Intel chipsets and are better supported by the "Intel AMT [wikipedia.org]".
For those too lazy to read the Wikipedia article : AMT consist of a small system which is always accessible over the network even when the rest of the PC is off.
This small system can be used to do remote administration.
At its most basic form, it can be used to turn the machine on/off or choose from which medium to boot.
It can also do conso
no bad it's locked to shit video that makes it use (Score:2)
no bad it's locked to shit video that makes it useless next to the MS VNC and other VNC apps.
also for CAD work, VIDEO / PRO PHOTO work.
What About Loopholes? (Score:2)
Co-op or cooperative advertising is a widespread practice. Basically a manufacturer covers all or much of the advertising cost for an ad that promotes the manufacturers' product(s).
Remember those Dell ads featuring "Intel Inside"?
(you should be hearing a few notes in your head about now...)
Is Intel now prohibited from paying anything towards vendor-specific ads?
If not, the DOJ hasn't gone far enough and left a major loophole.
Re: (Score:2)
Does this mean an AMD Dell is on the horizon? Oh my.
Probably not. Dell already used AMDs at some point in the past and canceled the line due to poor sales.
While I always build my own computers, this could herald a huge increase in funding for AMD's research.
It could and also it could not. This ruling doesn't obligate any OEM to stop exclusively using Intel chips in their computers.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oops, nm it seems they have gotten back together after Dell canceled a line of AMD computers back in 2006.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Probably not. Dell already used AMDs at some point in the past and canceled the line due to poor sales.
You mean because of the big under the table payment from Intel that they have been using as a slush fund so they can hit their numbers?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
At least back when I last looked, the convention seemed to be that the model numbers ending in "1" were AMDs, while the ones ending in "0" were intels, ie. the Inspiron 530 was a basic consumer desktop tower. The Inspiron 531 was the otherwise similar model; but AMD based.
Re:Does this mean an AMD Dell is on the horizon? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you ever stop to think that the reason for that is exactly what the FTC just tried to stop? That they had an agreement with Intel to "lock up" the higher end market?
Re: (Score:2)
Possibly [zdnet.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Dell is selling AMD CPUs right now. They have for ages. What are you talking about?
apple systems with amd cpus comeing soon? (Score:2)
apple systems with amd cpus coming soon??
as they can make a nice low mini system with good on board video and give room for a $1000 mini tower as well.
Re:Non-issue. Intel will just re-word their contra (Score:5, Insightful)
You obviously aren't familiar with the business practices that led to this ruling. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) like dell, hp, acer, lenovo, etc. get wholesale prices negotiated directly with Intel. It was suggested that if one of these OEMs was rumored to be in talks to offer an AMD proc system Intel would send a rep to advise them that they could no longer offer them preferred OEM pricing and the OEM would need to find a third party supplier to purchase their Intel chips in the future. Basically making the OEM buy their chips at retail prices. If you are looking at 20-30% increase in the cost of your primary component in an already tight margin product or shuttle your plans it's not hard to make that decision.
You also probably weren't aware of just how right your statement about the Itanium vs x64 was either. The Itanium was Intel's attempt to lock AMD out of the "clone" market because AMD didn't have a cross license to use the Itanium architecture. If the Itanium had succeeded there would no longer be a choice of processor for Intel based systems. Fortunately the Pentium 4 was a dog and ran very hot and consumed massive amounts of electricity. AMD meanwhile didn't rest on their laurels and came up with the x64 extensions which gave new life to the x86 line. Developers liked the x64 extensions because they didn't have to rewrite their code from scratch so it caught on quickly and Intel eventually licensed the x64 extensions from AMD.
Re:Obviously (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it so obvious that I'm not familiar with it?
Here's the "inside" scoop, as I used to work for a large OEM who used Intel processors. We would work on an AMD solution, and let Intel see it, and then give us a better deal (which would allow us to cancel the AMD project...until next year). If you are correct, just talking to AMD would get us thrown off the Intel bus (pun intended).
Mod parent down -1, INCORRECT! (OK, since you realized how correct I was about Itanium, we'll let it slide)
Re: (Score:2)
I used to work for a large OEM who used Intel processors.
As it happens I did as well and I am aware of the tactics you speak of. I am also aware of many other predatory practices Intel uses to strong arm it's OEMs but couldn't prove so I shall keep them to myself. Needless to say OEMs must work with the devil they know and that was one way they used Intel's tactics against itself.
Re: (Score:2)
Intel didn't do most of the things AMD accused Intel of doing, and lots of people have misinterpreted legal dealmaking as illegal dealmaking.
So unless you do have documented proof, I'm afraid we have to doubt you know of anything illegal that Intel did.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"If the Itanium had succeeded there would no longer be a choice of processor for Intel based systems."
It's been a long time since the x86 could be called "Intel based". Intel and AMD have been sharing instruction-set extensions for a couple of decades.
Re: (Score:2)
So you're saying Intel, being the owner of the merchandise, cannot rightfully decide for how much and under what terms they're sold?
That's right. If you have a monopoly in a market, your right to set pricing terms are significantly restricted by the law.
The very prospect of this tactic being effective pretty much proves they have a monopoly. In any actual "free market", a threat to raise prices would result in the customer switching vendors. In the x86 market, there is no other vendor that can guarantee enough supply for big OEMs, so the threat is viable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That would be fine, because then Intel would no longer be obstructing other vendors from entering the market.
The point of antitrust laws is to keep a monopoly from leveraging their advantaged position to keep others from ever challenging the monopoly. Obviously, exiting the market altogether is not a tactic that would exclude other players. There might be a temporary price spike, but that would just draw more 3rd parties into the CPU market, and the prices would then return to normal.
Re: (Score:2)
Any "property rights" Intel has in CPUs are a fiction created by the government patent office. Likewise, antitrust laws are a fiction created by the government. It's all the same thing, but it defines how the system currently works.
The current laws on the books do not conform to your Randian property utopia. If you don't like the rules, lobby to get them changed.
Re: (Score:2)
You consider it a utopia to think that a person deciding what to do with his own physical property is a utopia? I'm talking about real physical
Re: (Score:2)
If you eliminated patents, you'd have a point.
Until then, Intel enjoys a monopoly, and it's not fair to let them set arbitrary prices on their physical chips, because nobody else can make them without Intel's blessing.
Intel's physical property exists only because of government meddling. Until that's changed, it's just as well that the government further meddle to mitigate the damage they've already done.
Uh, no (Score:2)
". The Itanium was Intel's attempt to lock AMD out of the "clone" market because AMD didn't have a cross license to use the Itanium architecture."
Itanium had nothing to do with AMD and everything to do with the belief at Intel's own leadership that X86 was an evolutionary dead end. Only after customers balked and fled to Opteron in the enterprise did Intel look at how to wring more life from X86. Intel overestimated both Itanium's performance and the willingness of the enterprise to undergo a wrenching plat
Re: (Score:2)
itanums biggest issue was that it ran 32-bit x86 code slow. Sadly, the world have built up such a inertia of 32-bit x86 code (especially by way of win32 ties) that anything short of a computing cataclysm (or a media corp funded inquisition) will be able to produce a quick upgrade as seen during the microcomputers.
then again, it may well be that for home computing, until we hit some kind of full sensory VR, there is little real need for a big upgrade. As such the most adaptable of markets have gone away, lea
Re: (Score:2)
"take this exclusive deal or no intel CPUs for you"
"take this deal or all you get is last model celerons and atoms."
"Take this deal or we delay sending you the newest chips until launch, and you will be 3-6 months be hind your competition in getting something to market"
Take your pick of the above, all which would have destroyed Dell back in the day of P3s.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
From TFA:
The agency said Intel forced computer makers into exclusive deals and blocked rivals from making their chips work with Intel’s.
Forced? How'd they do that?
Easy: Let's say Dell sells 50 million machine a year, and they are using 100% Intel chips. AMD wants to supply some of their business, and makes a bid to sell Dell as many processors as they can make (let's say 20 million). Dell wants to take the deal, and buy the remaining 30 million processors from Intel, but Intel informs them that if they do any business with AMD, Intel no longer supply processors for them (or will supply them at a much higher price than previously). Dell, faced with the choice of l
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Plenty of companies sell AMD computers. The thing is they are usually their lower end line. The reason is that AMD just can't compete with Intel's products in terms of price, performance, and power usage on the higher end. Even now they don't have anything that is a solid Core 2 competitor, and Intel has moved on to the Core i lineup.
AMD's real problem seems to be that they only do budget well, and Intel does that ok too. You get in to midrange and up and it is all Intel all the time.
Part of the problem is that when AMD did have competitive high-end parts (Athlon/Thunderbird/64) Intel was using these practices to keep OEMs from offering them. You could not buy an AMD-based computer from the likes of Dell, HP, or Gateway until after Intel caught up and surpassed what AMD was offering in the consumer market (the Opteron was competitive for a longer time, and may still be, I haven't really looked into that area lately). But you're right, AMD currently isn't really competing at the upper mi
Re: (Score:2)
Part of the problem is that when AMD did have competitive high-end parts (Athlon/Thunderbird/64) Intel was using these practices to keep OEMs from offering them.
If those chips were really that competitive the OEMs wouldn't have cared about losing their deals with Intel and would have been selling exclusively those AMD chips. But apparently the OEMs had a differing opinion on how well they would have sold since they stuck with Intel.
Re: (Score:2)
Dell's argument was that AMD could not supply enough processors, which was true.
Now if Dell had said that they would be happy to sell those processors if AMD could make enough then AMD could have received funding to build the fabs that they needed.
If Dell had done that though they would have had to pay 30% more for Intel processors than they were at the time and Intel could supply enough for Dells demands.
Oh and Intel pays pretty well for advertising, all those Dell ads that push Intel are partially paid fo
Well AMD had a different problem back then (Score:2)
That was chipsets. AMD didn't really make their own chipsets. They had one, but it was not that good and didn't support many features (like higher speed AGP). So you had to turn to VIA for chipsets. Those were, to put it charitably, a fucking disaster. I remember getting an Athlon 700, fighting with it for a couple weeks before finally determining that was to way to make a GeForce work on the VIA chip. Took it back, got a P3 and had no issues.
It was an even bigger issue for OEMs because you could single sou
Re: (Score:2)
Part of the problem is that when AMD did have competitive high-end parts (Athlon/Thunderbird/64) Intel was using these practices to keep OEMs from offering them.
But if I remember correctly, AMD was selling every CPU they could produce at that time? And anyone who knew anything about computers -- i.e. those who'd be buying high-end systems -- was saying 'buy AMD, Intel sucks'.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The point being that X should be the same for all the customers
There is no statutory or regulatory rules that says you can't give certain customers better prices. Companies do it all the time and face no legal issues by doing so.
If it is not it only means that they are making you pay Intel because you sell many AMDs.
If one was selling so many AMDs why would they care about losing their deal with Intel? If it was really as lucrative to sell AMD chips as people like to claim it would have been everyone would have just been exclusively using or heavily selling on AMD chips.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Is LightPeak faster than PCIe?
Re: (Score:2)
PCI-E was released in 2004, 6 years from now would give it a 12 year lifespan. PCI was released in 1993, and it's still commonly found on motherboards 17 years later. ISA was released in 1981, was superseded by PCI 12 years later, and was commonly found on motherboards for several years after that.
A 12 year lifetime for expansion slots is pretty standard, if something better does come along nothing's stopping anyone from supplying motherboards with both slots, just like PCI-E/PCI motherboards today, and PC
Re: (Score:2)
And, curiously enough, can still be found today [adek.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately there seems to be a massive loophole in the requirement. Other than a requirement that they mustn't break the spec deliberately to cripple performance there are no restrictions on the performance of the interface. So by my reading of the requirements they could supply a single x1 channel and be within the rules.
Re: (Score:2)
Honestly the PCIe cards are not even tapping on the door of the halfway mark for potential PCIe Bandwidth. I fail to see why keeping a good standard for the next 6 years is a down side.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It makes absolutely no difference to AMD because they haven't been investigated for anti trust issues and currently have such a low percentage of the overall market for PC chips that they are unlikely to ever get investigated.
The rules change for the abusive monopolists, not for their illegally stifled competitors
Re: (Score:2)
It's OK; we know that nobody here reads TFA anyway.
Re: (Score:2)