AMD vs Intel - Page 2
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T.O.P.
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Hong Kong4685 Posts
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OmgIRok
Taiwan2699 Posts
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zeroimagination
18 Posts
On October 09 2009 13:06 FragKrag wrote: I believe AMD has a 6 core proc coming out in 2010 The problem with Thuban (the AMD hexa core) is that it is built on 45nm technology while Intel's "equivalent" Gulftown hexa core is 32nm. This means that the Intel will be able to clock faster due to each core taking less voltage. Though it will probably be more accessible price-wise. Not many people will have use for a low clocking hexa core especially since hardly any programs take advantage of quads at the moment. AMD's 8 core Bulldozer may bring high end redemption but it isn't due till late 2010/2011. | ||
Lemonwalrus
United States5465 Posts
On October 09 2009 13:23 Myrmidon wrote: What I want to know is what happens when transistors of reasonable cost can no longer be made smaller. There are physical limits--you can't make layers less than an atom thick. This really isn't too far on the horizon, so it's something to consider soon. I don't really know much about the subject, but I am reading a book right now that touches on it and I feel like quoting a part of it here because you/others reading this thread might find it slightly interesting. ...Moore's law, which states that computer power doubles every eighteen months, is possible because of our ability to etch smaller and smaller transistors onto silicon chips via beams of ultraviolet radiation. Although Moore's law has revolutionized the technological landscape, it cannot continue forever. The most advanced Pentium chip has a layer twenty atoms across. Within fifteen to twenty years, scientists may be calculating on layers perhaps five atoms across. At these incredibly small distances, we have to abandon Newtonian mechanics and adopt the quantum mechanics, where the Heisenberg uncertainty principle takes over. As a consequence, we no longer know precisely where the electron is. This means that short circuits will take place as electrons drift outside insulators and semiconductors instead of staying within them. Source: Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku, pp. 172-173. Not entirely revolutionary as a quick google search could have given you the same information, (also it was published in 2005 so who knows if the numbers still hold true) but it is the clearest explanation of the need for quantum computing that I have ever read. | ||
MamiyaOtaru
United States1687 Posts
There's also some outrage over nVidia disabling hardware physx processing on their GPUs when there is an ATI GPU in the system (ie no using an ATI for graphics with an nVidia card for physx like you used to be able to do. THey even disabled the old Ageia PPUs if you have an ATI card, even though they were made before nVidia bought Ageia). Not the happiest time for nVidia right now, and gives AMD something to be happy about in the face of their CPU woes with the Intel competition | ||
writer22816
United States5775 Posts
![]() ATI vs Nvidia is pretty interesting and I am a lot more familiar with that. Right now I would say that they are roughly even, although ATI has managed to release DX11 GPUs before Nvidia. | ||
Velr
Switzerland10598 Posts
Well... Glad to be wrong. | ||
MamiyaOtaru
United States1687 Posts
Argh. I have a dual core Penryn right now, and have been waiting to go to quad core until I could get a quad with a TDP that's not too much higher than my current dual. A quad core 32nm part might have done that, but all there are is dual core (no thanks, want to move on) or 6 core (don't want to move that far: it would guarantee a higher TDP). If you want quad core i7, you have to stick with Lynnfield, at 45nm (which would mean a higher TDP for me). ffuuuuu Oh well, I can just wait it out until that 4core part comes out. Fermi might be out by then, and even if I don't want it, its appearance might cause the price of AMDs GFX cards to drop a bit. Keeping track of crap like this makes me understand some of the appeal of consoles. I like pain I guess. | ||
Loser777
1931 Posts
The last time I built a PC, I could have chosen between a 9XXX Phenom and a Q6XXX(Kentsfield)/9XXX(Penryn) Quad. Ultimately, what decided it for me was not the statistics on paper, but rather the overclockability of each platform. At the time, the 9XXXs were in poor shape, very few people managed to push it past 3GHz with acceptable stability, while batches of the Q6600 were in the 3,8-4,0GHz range. I still have to say that ever since Core 2 was out AMD has never dominated the upper mid-range market for CPUs. Phenom and all of its derivatives have never really matched the performance of the Intel chips they were meant to compete against. Instead, AMD has manged to stay afloat by slashing prices and appealing to the lower-end. For me personally, I'll play the type that waits out the current manufacturing process refresh. My Q6600 rig's PSU died recently, so I'm on my Windsor A64X2 rig-it's still running hella fast. | ||
50bani
Romania480 Posts
AMD got owned by their own strategy. Sure, one can say they are understaffed and all, but I would like to reveal a few mistakes that got them on the brink. Firstly, AMD major breakthrough was in 2003 with the first Opteron they released. Opteron was targeted specifically at the server market, but the processor was later adapted to the desktop market.Since 2003, AMD has been selling us (the same) Opterons. Intel was on weed during that time and was pushing the crappy Pentium4 aggressively. No need to further discuss the suck of P4, it has been covered. So AMD got the "performance crown" as it is known, in terms of x86 processors. Many do not know this, but at that time, the so called "enterprise server" market was dominated by RISC processors, but nowadays x86 is king and will take over completely when the first large mainframe using x86 arrives. IBM is the last hurdle to overcome. AMD Opteron started all of this, and I want to stress this: AMD started by being consumer oriented and moved into the server market. Lesson to learn? The consumer market, you and I, is where the money is, and if you dominate there, you get rich and powerful, and therefore you have more money to invest in research and development. We all have laptops these days, don't we? Well, guess what, INTEL saw this one coming long ago, and they decided to work on the old Pentium3 architecture to make something more power efficient for us. AMD was late, and when they decided to get into our laptops, they put an Opteron in. In recent years, the mobile computer market has been the source of growth, and AMD simply could not compete on anything except price! If an analogy is allowed, a Hummer Truck with hybrid propulsion is still a Hummer Truck. Today, laptops outsell desktops, and little AMD still works with an architecture that was designed with other things in mind. Remember the "native quad core" bullshit in late 2006? Well, the quad core market did not exist at that time. Really, it didn't! It took off in 2008, and by that time mobiles were outselling desktops already so duals were still more profitable by a margin. AMD left their vulnerable dual cores to be eaten alive by INTEL while they were fuelling a market that didn't exist. And a final question, since moving to a smaller fabrication process helps improve power consumption, what is the last thing AMD transitioned to 45nm? Was it the mobile computer oriented Turion64? Son, I am disappoint. So AMD has literally abandoned everything consumer oriented to gain the niche that are the servers. And now this is coming back to haunt them, since the fat INTEL develops at a much higher rate and has now also produced a server oriented processor, the Nehalem. Which by coincidence runs circles around the Opteron. AMD has had plenty of time to make the right strategic decisions, but unfortunately the highly anticipated Bulldozer microarchitecture will arrive later than INTEL's next step, called Sandy Bridge, and moreover, it is another Opteron. | ||
haduken
Australia8267 Posts
On October 09 2009 14:23 MamiyaOtaru wrote: AMD vs nVidia is pretty interesting right now too, with the 58*0s out, and Fermi still many months away. nVidia is making far less money on their gtx 2** line. Older process, larger chip size, more complicated layout due to larger bus (needed for the older GDDR3). People are questioning whether they are in fact going to be making any money on them at all, and if they will/should shut down gtx 2** and ride it out until Fermi gets here. Even when it does It's likely to be a monster in terms of power use, and I'm personally not interested in it, the same way gtx has been a no go for me. I've never had an ATI card, but this looks likely to change. There's also some outrage over nVidia disabling hardware physx processing on their GPUs when there is an ATI GPU in the system (ie no using an ATI for graphics with an nVidia card for physx like you used to be able to do. THey even disabled the old Ageia PPUs if you have an ATI card, even though they were made before nVidia bought Ageia). Not the happiest time for nVidia right now, and gives AMD something to be happy about in the face of their CPU woes with the Intel competition ^ agreed. People seem to forget that AMD's greatest strength lies in areas where Intel don't compete directly. NVidia is struggling hardcore since AMD introduced 48** series chips. With the new 58** chips, AMD is in fact doing very well. When you really think about it, any one who upgrade their components will more likely get a graphic card before getting a CPU as a new CPU will impose additional requirements on MoBo etc. Intel however have a monopoly over the laptop market, I have not seen a single AMD laptop outside of budget category and I work for a computer retailer and laptop is like 70% of pc hardware market. Intel at the moment have way too much hold on the pre-build vendor machines. I still feel that we need to support AMD as a consumer since we need healthy and balanced competition in this industry. | ||
haduken
Australia8267 Posts
On October 09 2009 18:25 50bani wrote: AMD vs INTEL AMD got owned by their own strategy. Sure, one can say they are understaffed and all, but I would like to reveal a few mistakes that got them on the brink. Firstly, AMD major breakthrough was in 2003 with the first Opteron they released. Opteron was targeted specifically at the server market, but the processor was later adapted to the desktop market.Since 2003, AMD has been selling us (the same) Opterons. Intel was on weed during that time and was pushing the crappy Pentium4 aggressively. No need to further discuss the suck of P4, it has been covered. So AMD got the "performance crown" as it is known, in terms of x86 processors. Many do not know this, but at that time, the so called "enterprise server" market was dominated by RISC processors, but nowadays x86 is king and will take over completely when the first large mainframe using x86 arrives. IBM is the last hurdle to overcome. AMD Opteron started all of this, and I want to stress this: AMD started by being consumer oriented and moved into the server market. Lesson to learn? The consumer market, you and I, is where the money is, and if you dominate there, you get rich and powerful, and therefore you have more money to invest in research and development. We all have laptops these days, don't we? Well, guess what, INTEL saw this one coming long ago, and they decided to work on the old Pentium3 architecture to make something more power efficient for us. AMD was late, and when they decided to get into our laptops, they put an Opteron in. In recent years, the mobile computer market has been the source of growth, and AMD simply could not compete on anything except price! If an analogy is allowed, a Hummer Truck with hybrid propulsion is still a Hummer Truck. Today, laptops outsell desktops, and little AMD still works with an architecture that was designed with other things in mind. Remember the "native quad core" bullshit in late 2006? Well, the quad core market did not exist at that time. Really, it didn't! It took off in 2008, and by that time mobiles were outselling desktops already so duals were still more profitable by a margin. AMD left their vulnerable dual cores to be eaten alive by INTEL while they were fuelling a market that didn't exist. And a final question, since moving to a smaller fabrication process helps improve power consumption, what is the last thing AMD transitioned to 45nm? Was it the mobile computer oriented Turion64? Son, I am disappoint. So AMD has literally abandoned everything consumer oriented to gain the niche that are the servers. And now this is coming back to haunt them, since the fat INTEL develops at a much higher rate and has now also produced a server oriented processor, the Nehalem. Which by coincidence runs circles around the Opteron. AMD has had plenty of time to make the right strategic decisions, but unfortunately the highly anticipated Bulldozer microarchitecture will arrive later than INTEL's next step, called Sandy Bridge, and moreover, it is another Opteron. To be fair, AMD was cornered out of the consumer sector long before opteron, even during the Pentium suckage, they failed to make significant penetration. So It make sense for them to target a sector where lesser competition exists, it's very much like what they are doing with ATI atm with the obvious difference being that graphic cards actually sells -_-. Their biggest mistake was letting Intel get away with locking out vendors. Now days, they are just playing opportunists (The exact same words from Intel representative I met), not necessaryly a bad thing. | ||
Polyphasic
United States841 Posts
but being an econ major, i don't think healthy competition is possible in all markets. in simple things like farming, production of bulk goods, yes, because it's easy for a competitor to enter the market if already-existing suppliers suck. but in things that involve development and research, no. It takes millions of dollars for a competitor to enter the market, because the further advanced the technology is, the more it takes to get started. That is why nothing will ever be a real competitor with Microsoft for OS. It's just a matter of time before AMD gets fucked by Intel. | ||
Bliss
33 Posts
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Ecael
United States6703 Posts
On October 09 2009 19:27 Bliss wrote: amd cpus are more stable and faster, moreover they are cheaper. what more could one want? ...? Haduken I still feel that we need to support AMD as a consumer since we need healthy and balanced competition in this industry. I reached that same conclusion during a conversation with a friend the other day, the exchanges after that consists of us telling each other to get AMD and finding excuses out of it. We want all the benefits of having AMD around, we don't quite want to buy AMD most of the time :p | ||
eshlow
United States5210 Posts
On October 09 2009 18:33 haduken wrote: To be fair, AMD was cornered out of the consumer sector long before opteron, even during the Pentium suckage, they failed to make significant penetration. So It make sense for them to target a sector where lesser competition exists, it's very much like what they are doing with ATI atm with the obvious difference being that graphic cards actually sells -_-. Their biggest mistake was letting Intel get away with locking out vendors. Now days, they are just playing opportunists (The exact same words from Intel representative I met), not necessaryly a bad thing. Yeah. I haven't been keeping up much with the current trends, but AMD's Athlon back in like '00/'01/'02 and maybe even '03 was kicking the crap out of the p2 then p3 and even p4 to some extent. They just couldn't get a good foothold in the market. The complete failure of Microsoft in the OS department like windows millenium edition probably didn't help much either AMD's plan to penetrate the market. My computer I bought back in '01 has an Athlon which totally owned anything that Intel had then. But holy crap I got stuck with Window's Millenium Edition. Fail. Computer leaks memory so bad it will just freeze up within 12-24 hours of bootup even if I don't open any programs. | ||
cz
United States3249 Posts
On October 09 2009 13:19 FragKrag wrote: yeah, but sometimes there is reasoning behind it. As much as I hate to say it, AMD/ATi drivers sucked whereas nVidia drivers are generally much better. Intel has been dominating the market with it's C2 and i7 lines whereas the Phenom II came out at a horrible time ATI drivers have been as good or better than nvidia for at least 2 years | ||
cz
United States3249 Posts
On October 09 2009 13:48 LittleBallOfHate wrote: Not necessarily true, I would be willing to pay a bit extra to a company I trust and that I know the shit works. For example, I have had a terrible experience with amd in the past(Support issues/driver), so I am less likely to purchase their products even if one of their products is a bit cheaper/better. There's no difference between AMD/ATI and nvidia or intel in terms of support. First of all, for video cards (ATI/nvidia), they are almost always made by 3rd parties and so you get their support. CPUs almost never have problems but when they do I've never heard of AMD/Intel having better tech support. You either RMA or you don't. | ||
Boblion
France8043 Posts
I got one :p | ||
Boblion
France8043 Posts
On October 09 2009 14:07 T.O.P. wrote: Back in the pentium days, Intel cheated by offering rebates to manufacturers who only bought Intel processors or bought mostly Intel processors. Because of this, AMD lost market share despite having superior processors. AMD is basically screwed for life now. They own <20% of the market while Intel owns around 80%. They have a inferior design and a inferior manufacturing process. It costs less for Intel to produce a processor compared to AMD but AMD has to sell the processor for much less because it's performance is inferior. Every quarter AMD loses a lot of money and every quarter they need a bailout from some Saudi Arabian prince just to pay payroll, because of that it's shares gets diluted. AMD will just keep falling behind because it can't afford to keep up with Intel in research and development. AMD is so hopeless and it sucks cause I bought AMD stock before they merged with ATI. At least the graphics division is doing well now. Remember the K7 ![]() AMD was know as a shitty company making "budget" procs then they produced the best proc avaible ( which was also cheap and stomped the P3 performance wise ). If their new architectures are as good than the K7 was in his time they can be profitable. | ||
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