Could this be part of the reason AMD have been struggling. I know they've had big problems with the first Phenoms but it has sort of turned around.
Its just weird to see most pre-built computers 90% Intel. My first computer has still got AMD 3200+. When I heard about them I thought Intel was the one and only. So I pushed my mum to buy an AMD based computer. Its still on 90NM I think and its still going. Barely, but its still going.
Prebuilt were like 50/50 AMD and Intel. and now its hard to find.
@kris120890 I would argue that this is just because the latest generation of intel chips outperforms AMD on almost any given benchmark. What does AMD have to compete with the i7? Thats right, nothing. This is unfortunate for AMD but surely Intel is not to blame.
Yeah and how does your basic Joe know what a core I7 is. At my local pcworld they push people to buy Intel even though a cheaper model with better specs and AMD driven had far better specs. I worked there for two weeks and we were told to tell them Intel was better even though it wasn't always the case.
@kris120890 Prebuilt where never 50/50, because big companies like Dell rarely if ever made AMD machines.
Homebuilt were 50/50 for a while. If you ask me it's because Intel kept made bonehead moves. When Pentium IV came out, Intel made a deal with Rambus such that every P4 chipset Intel made (and they made the only chipsets) only worked with Rambus RAM. Intel rapidly lost sales to Athlon and Athlon XP. It was performing well (better unless you had a P4 with an 800FSB) and didn't require the very expensive RAM. The 440BX chipset and Pentium III had owned the market, but now Intel was losing it to the Athlon and NVidia GeForce rapidly. Then AMD created Athlon 64 and their fantastic NUMA memory architecture (which many associate with hypertransport) and their performance shot way up. AMD created Athlon X2 and now there were even more reasons to do with them.
But since Core2Duo, Intel has been pretty smart, not making huge dumb moves and AMD has been unable to keep up with Intel's CPU designs. It's not even a close competition right now, AMD has had to cut their prices way down just to keep the low performance end of the market.
Meanwhile, Intel pushed for chipset integration to save costs. Intel eliminated the Northbridge, which NVidia never would have done because it's where they put their graphics accelerator, their core business. I don't think PCs would ever have reached $300 (netbooks) if you still had to have a separate CPU, GPU, northbridge and southbridge.
There have been a lot of factors, Intel's coercive activities have only been a part of it. AMD and NVidia have to take part of the responsibility on themselves.
@spin cycle "AMD and NVidia have to take part of the responsibility on themselves."
+1
But Intel has its share of guilt, and we have indeed been harmed by it.
And don't forget about the sections of the market. Intel chips perform a hell of a lot better in the performance market, but the same isn't all that true when comparing the low-end PC market.
@(Unverified) "I would argue that this is just because the latest generation of intel chips outperforms AMD on almost any given benchmark."
I'll grant you that currently the top end Intel clearly outperforms the top end AMD. Most people don't buy top end. At a given price point, AMD outperforms Intel, especially if you include the higher MB cost.
At work, I've been buying AMD based HP desktops for a few years now. It saves us more than $50 per machine over lower powered Intel based HP.
@kris120890 Apparently you didn't communicate what you mean by prebuilt? To me prebuilt means a non home-built machine. What does it mean to you?
The sales of non home-made machines were never 50/50. Not even close. AMD will even admit this as it was one of the reasons that they won their EU case.
@spin cycle Never said anything about sales did I. I was talking about the amount of computers on sale were 50% AMD powered and 50% Intel Powered. Now you are lucky to find an AMD powered Machine.
@kris120890 On sale at Dell? Gateway? No. Dell offered only one or two models with AMD, and those models were available with Intel too. The other 90% of the models were only available with Intel. Gateway embraced AMD a bit more, but still less than half their models were available with AMD.
Again, perhaps you could explain what you mean. Do you mean when you walked into a store you saw some AMD models and some Intel? Which store? Do you mean this represents a lot of stores? I dunno what stores were like in the UK (judging your nationality by your high street phraseology) but in the US for a period we did have a fair number of AMD machines in stores right around the time Core2Duo came out. Not 50%, but still perhaps 30% of the models on the floor. And home builds were probably more than 50% AMD (but already dropping, the peak was when Intel was forcing Rambus on people). But given that high end pre-built machines in stores were Intel and virtually all mail order sales were Intel, the sales were still vastly Intel.
Comparing the performance of AMD and Intel at varying price points is some what difficult. Both sides have their own benchmarks saying their processor is better at a given task. The reality is that AMD is fast at integer calculations but Intels Floating Point Unit (FPU) is superior to AMD's and that is where almost 100% of the calculations for gaming and other processor intensive things are done.
@kris120890 No, Intel is faster at integer calculations too. Look at the file compression tests, Intel smokes AMD. And compressing files doesn't use any floating point.
I do agree that it's not always easy to compare benchmarks between Intel and AMD. I do believe that at a typical consumer price point, AMD gives you more for your money.
Let's pick $100 for example. I can buy a retail AMD Phenom II X2 3.1Ghz or an retail Intel Pentium Dual-Core 2.93Ghz. Which would you buy?
When you start pushing towards AMDs upper end, then it gets a lot more questionable. There's also more to consider at this point, like MB pricing.
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Could this be part of the reason AMD have been struggling. I know they've had big problems with the first Phenoms but it has sort of turned around.
Its just weird to see most pre-built computers 90% Intel. My first computer has still got AMD 3200+. When I heard about them I thought Intel was the one and only. So I pushed my mum to buy an AMD based computer. Its still on 90NM I think and its still going. Barely, but its still going.
Prebuilt were like 50/50 AMD and Intel. and now its hard to find.
@kris120890
I mean its hard to find AMD computers.
@kris120890
I would argue that this is just because the latest generation of intel chips outperforms AMD on almost any given benchmark.
What does AMD have to compete with the i7? Thats right, nothing.
This is unfortunate for AMD but surely Intel is not to blame.
@(Unverified)
of course Intel is to blame. it's obvious that by selling a superior product at a discount rate, they "stifling competition".
/sarcasm
@(Unverified) Maybe such thing its true, AMD doesn't have anything to compete with Intel right now.
What you don't speak about is how come AMD had better performing chips than Intel and still 90% plus pre-built computers were Intel equipped.
I thing that's what got AMD in the spot they are today.
Yeah and how does your basic Joe know what a core I7 is. At my local pcworld they push people to buy Intel even though a cheaper model with better specs and AMD driven had far better specs. I worked there for two weeks and we were told to tell them Intel was better even though it wasn't always the case.
@kris120890 Prebuilt where never 50/50, because big companies like Dell rarely if ever made AMD machines.
Homebuilt were 50/50 for a while. If you ask me it's because Intel kept made bonehead moves. When Pentium IV came out, Intel made a deal with Rambus such that every P4 chipset Intel made (and they made the only chipsets) only worked with Rambus RAM. Intel rapidly lost sales to Athlon and Athlon XP. It was performing well (better unless you had a P4 with an 800FSB) and didn't require the very expensive RAM. The 440BX chipset and Pentium III had owned the market, but now Intel was losing it to the Athlon and NVidia GeForce rapidly. Then AMD created Athlon 64 and their fantastic NUMA memory architecture (which many associate with hypertransport) and their performance shot way up. AMD created Athlon X2 and now there were even more reasons to do with them.
But since Core2Duo, Intel has been pretty smart, not making huge dumb moves and AMD has been unable to keep up with Intel's CPU designs. It's not even a close competition right now, AMD has had to cut their prices way down just to keep the low performance end of the market.
Meanwhile, Intel pushed for chipset integration to save costs. Intel eliminated the Northbridge, which NVidia never would have done because it's where they put their graphics accelerator, their core business. I don't think PCs would ever have reached $300 (netbooks) if you still had to have a separate CPU, GPU, northbridge and southbridge.
There have been a lot of factors, Intel's coercive activities have only been a part of it. AMD and NVidia have to take part of the responsibility on themselves.
@spin cycle
Rambus was a huge mistake.
@spin cycle
Dell didn't sell on the high street. and yes it was 50/50. I was shopping for a new computer so I remember it well.
@spin cycle "AMD and NVidia have to take part of the responsibility on themselves."
+1
But Intel has its share of guilt, and we have indeed been harmed by it.
And don't forget about the sections of the market. Intel chips perform a hell of a lot better in the performance market, but the same isn't all that true when comparing the low-end PC market.
@(Unverified) "I would argue that this is just because the latest generation of intel chips outperforms AMD on almost any given benchmark."
I'll grant you that currently the top end Intel clearly outperforms the top end AMD. Most people don't buy top end. At a given price point, AMD outperforms Intel, especially if you include the higher MB cost.
At work, I've been buying AMD based HP desktops for a few years now. It saves us more than $50 per machine over lower powered Intel based HP.
@kris120890 Apparently you didn't communicate what you mean by prebuilt? To me prebuilt means a non home-built machine. What does it mean to you?
The sales of non home-made machines were never 50/50. Not even close. AMD will even admit this as it was one of the reasons that they won their EU case.
@spin cycle
Never said anything about sales did I. I was talking about the amount of computers on sale were 50% AMD powered and 50% Intel Powered. Now you are lucky to find an AMD powered Machine.
@kris120890 On sale at Dell? Gateway? No. Dell offered only one or two models with AMD, and those models were available with Intel too. The other 90% of the models were only available with Intel. Gateway embraced AMD a bit more, but still less than half their models were available with AMD.
Again, perhaps you could explain what you mean. Do you mean when you walked into a store you saw some AMD models and some Intel? Which store? Do you mean this represents a lot of stores? I dunno what stores were like in the UK (judging your nationality by your high street phraseology) but in the US for a period we did have a fair number of AMD machines in stores right around the time Core2Duo came out. Not 50%, but still perhaps 30% of the models on the floor. And home builds were probably more than 50% AMD (but already dropping, the peak was when Intel was forcing Rambus on people). But given that high end pre-built machines in stores were Intel and virtually all mail order sales were Intel, the sales were still vastly Intel.
@nrb
Comparing the performance of AMD and Intel at varying price points is some what difficult. Both sides have their own benchmarks saying their processor is better at a given task. The reality is that AMD is fast at integer calculations but Intels Floating Point Unit (FPU) is superior to AMD's and that is where almost 100% of the calculations for gaming and other processor intensive things are done.
@kris120890 No, Intel is faster at integer calculations too. Look at the file compression tests, Intel smokes AMD. And compressing files doesn't use any floating point.
I do agree that it's not always easy to compare benchmarks between Intel and AMD. I do believe that at a typical consumer price point, AMD gives you more for your money.
Let's pick $100 for example. I can buy a retail AMD Phenom II X2 3.1Ghz or an retail Intel Pentium Dual-Core 2.93Ghz. Which would you buy?
When you start pushing towards AMDs upper end, then it gets a lot more questionable. There's also more to consider at this point, like MB pricing.