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Intel shells out $1.25 billion to settle all AMD litigation

by Darren Murph posted Nov 12th 2009 at 10:38AM

Intel sure sells a lot of chips, but man -- it sure blows a lot of that profit on lawyers. Just months after it got nailed with a $1.45 billion fine from the EU in an AMD antitrust case, nearly two years after AMD hit Intel with another antitrust probe and nearly 1.5 years after the FTC sparked up an investigation of its own, Intel has finally decided to pony up in order to rid itself of one of those back-riding monkeys. In an admittedly brief joint announcement released simultaneously by both firms today, Intel has agreed to cough up a whopping $1.25 billion in order to settle "all antitrust and IP disputes" with AMD. In fact, the pair went so far as to say the following:

"While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development."

Aside from AMD's coffers filling up with cash, the agreement also gives both firms patent rights from a new 5-year cross license agreement. Of course, we're betting that this isn't the end of this exceptionally bitter rivalry, and we highly doubt Intel wrote a check this large while grinning from ear-to-ear. That said, we're eager to see what AMD does with its newfound cheddar, and if we had our druthers, we'd sit back and watch it invest heavily into beating Intel to the punch with its next few platforms.

New York attorney general files antitrust lawsuit against Intel

by Nilay Patel posted Nov 4th 2009 at 12:09PM

No matter how it tries, Intel just can't shake those pesky antitrust monkeys off its back: the attorney general of New York today filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the chipmaker, saying it unfairly prevented AMD from competing under state and federal law. That's pretty much what the EU just fined Intel $1.45b for in May and exactly what AMD itself is suing Intel for in Delaware, so we're guessing things are a little busy for Chipzilla's lawyers right now -- and it's just going to get worse, as the smart money says this is all just a precursor to the Federal Trade Commission dropping the hammer sometime soon. Hey, maybe this would be a good time to for Intel to distract everyone with some USB 3.0 chipsets?

AMD's Neo to hit nettops, all-in-one PCs soon

by Darren Murph posted Jul 19th 2009 at 6:18AM

AMD's Neo ultra-portable platform was seen as something that just might rival Intel's mighty Atom in the oversaturated netbook space when it debuted back in January, but up until now, the system has remained largely in the background. Indeed, it has only found its way into a select few machines, none of which have managed to gain any sort of traction beside the sea of Atom-based alternatives. Now, however, it seems as if the chips -- which were originally engineered for ultraslim, thin-and-light laptops -- may find themselves shoved into an array of nettops and all-in-one PCs. Here lately, a slew of underpowered SFF-type desktops and PC-in-a-monitor type units have found favor with bargain hunters, and Bob Grim, the outfit's director of client marketing, isn't looking to miss a golden opportunity. To quote:

"We've known all along that this type of technology would really work well in multiple platforms and multiple types of form factors. These CPUs perform better than the Atom processor, and the graphics are superior. These things... can play Blu-rays, they can play games."

There's still no word on who exactly plans on equipping their future machines with this here platform, but considering just how tired we are of Intel's sluggish N270 and N280, we'll take all the competition we can get.

ASUS U50VG announced, naming scheme remains impenetrable

by Vladislav Savov posted Jul 10th 2009 at 10:31AM

Coming in today with no fewer than five new laptops -- the U50VG, K50AB, K70AB, K50IJ and F52Q -- the king of market segmentation is clearly still in good form. Announced in Italy today, the main attraction for Intel fans is the U50VG, which sports a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T6500 chip alongside 4GB of memory, 250GB storage, and a Geforce G 105M for a price of €943 or $1,320. A backlit chiclet keyboard, WiFi and a 16:9 display stretching to 15.6-inches fill out the spec sheet. The AMD-based AB variants are 15.6 (€793 / $1,107) and 17.3-inches (€868 / $1,212) respectively -- their main attraction being an ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570 purring inside -- whereas the latter two models are targeted at the budget-conscious crowd. Click through for exhaustive specs and info on each model.

[Via Slashgear]

Packard Bell imedia lineup gets an Acer-inspired refresh

by Vladislav Savov posted Jul 3rd 2009 at 4:47AM

Packard Bell recently overhauled its logo in an effort to keep up with the times, but are its offerings up to the same task? The new imedia lineup immediately recalls the recently announced M-series desktops from Acer, and that's no accident. The innards are remarkably similar too, with the top models sporting Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom II X4 processors, a 1.5GB GeForce GT230, HDMI out, Blu-Ray combo drive and a maximum of 8GB DDR3 memory and 1TB of storage. While none of the specs are on the blistering edge of innovation, there's plenty of power there and keen pricing could make them an attractive proposition. The entry-level Celeron-based units start at £299 ($490) in the UK.

AMD's RS880 integrated graphics chip could make netbooks usable

by Darren Murph posted Jul 2nd 2009 at 8:52AM

Tired of hearing that your next favorite netbook / nettop is hamstrung with one of those woefully underpowered GMA950 graphics chipsets? Eager to see what all AMD is going to do about it? If The Inquirer is to be believed, an up and coming integrated chipset should elevate the multimedia prowess of low-end machines, as the RS880 would actually be based around the new Radeon HD 4200 core. In theory, at least, this chip would be around 15 percent faster than similar alternatives out there now, giving future netbooks just enough power to churn through 720p video without st, st, stuttering. Needless to say, the suits are refusing to comment on the matter, but we're definitely holding out hope for this one.

eMachines intros ET1300-02, ET1810-01 and ET1810-03 desktop PCs

by Darren Murph posted Jul 1st 2009 at 10:47AM

Just a few short weeks after eMachines outed its EL1300 line of SFF PCs, the company is hitting us up again with a new trio of full-size desktops. The ET1300-02, ET1810-01 and ET1810-03 are all encased within a luminous white mini-tower and ship with a matching LCD monitor, speakers and a keyboard. As for specs, the $449.99 ET1300-02 checks in with an AMD Athlon X2 4850e (2.5GHz) CPU, Vista Home Premium, NVIDIA's GeForce G100 (512MB), 3GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB hard drive, 18x SuperMulti DVD burner, multicard reader, HDMI / DVI / VGA outputs and an 18-inch E182H display. The $369.99 ET1810-03 steps to a 2.2GHz Pentium E2210 CPU, GeForce 7500 integrated graphics and just a single VGA port, while the $299.99 ET1810-01 cranks it down to a 1.6GHz Celeron 420 and 2GB of DDR2 RAM. The trio should be filtering out to respected retailers as we speak.

AMD 'breaks free', creates site dedicated to Intel's antitrust ruling

by Ross Miller posted May 18th 2009 at 9:36PM

We knew AMD would be celebrating its victory over Intel and its record $1.45 billion fine doled out by EU over violation of antitrust rules, but we figured that just meant a very fancy cake and maybe a trip to the local zoo. Nay, we were mistaken, as the chip maker has gone all out in creating an entire website dedicated to its victory. "AMD Break Free" is pretty amazing in its thoroughness, and you'll find all kinds of court documents, press releases, explanations of antitrust laws, and even a news feed to follow further developments. Of course, Intel's appeal is a sure sign this case will be drag on for a very long time, possibly even become overturned, and none of this apparent gloating is gonna help one bit in getting the company back into the top ten rankings for chip manufacturers.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Intel fined record $1.45 billion in AMD antitrust case

by Thomas Ricker posted May 13th 2009 at 5:32AM

The verdict is in and it's huge. As expected, the EU is fining Intel a record €1.06 billion or $1.45 billion (Billion!) dollars due to violations of antitrust rules in Europe. The record fine surpasses that of the €497 million fine originally levied against Microsoft. The EU ruled that Intel illegally used hidden rebates to squeeze rivals out of the marketplace for CPUs. In a statement issued by European Union Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, the EC said,

Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years.

Intel was ordered to cease the illegal practices immediately and has three months from the notification of the decision to pay up. Of course, Intel will appeal and this will drag the litigation on for years as did Microsoft. Regardless, we'll bet that AMD, who raised the complaint against Intel back in 2000, will be celebrating come dawn in Sunnyvale.

Update: Intel has issued a formal response to the ruling saying that the commission "is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace," and that its practices have caused, "absolutely zero harm to consumers." Oh, and it will <gasp> appeal the decision. Hurrah for corporate lawyers!

[Via Canada.com]

EU expected to rule against Intel in AMD antitrust case: Microsoft points, afraid to laugh

by Thomas Ricker posted May 11th 2009 at 3:57AM

There are many tried and true methods for beating your competition in the free-market. Product innovation seems to work as does a proprietary ecosystem of peripherals, media, and services that keep customers locked-in for life. Or you can take Intel's approach: pay computer makers and retailers "to postpone or cancel" products containing CPUs from AMD, Intel's chief rival. That's the allegation it faces in the EU which, according to Reuters, has completed its antitrust investigation and is preparing to announce its decision on Wednesday. According to Reuters' sources, the European Commission will fine Intel for the violations discovered over the last eight years and order changes to Intel's business practices. It remains to be seen if the related fine exceeds the $655 million levied against Microsoft in 2004. But given the EU's distaste for anti-competitive practices, we're not expecting Intel to get off easy -- self-proclaimed "rock star" status or not.

Maingear freshens up F131 gaming desktop

by Darren Murph posted May 7th 2009 at 2:32PM

Maingear's latest gaming desktop doesn't arrive with any 3D goggles or fairy dust, but it does boast a nice sheet of specifications and a surely polarizing motif. The relaunched F131 offers gamers quite a lot of options, providing a choice between AMD's Phenom II or Intel's Core i7 and even the ability to shove a trio of ATI Radeon 4890 graphics cards in there for triple-digit frame rates. Deep-pocketed consumers can also get 8TB of HDD space, acoustic dampening technology for whisper quiet operation, Maingear's M.A.R.C. custom laser etching and upwards of 12GB of DDR3 RAM. The newly decorated F131 is up for order now starting at $1,299, but it doesn't take long to push that figure well beyond the two grand mark.

Windows 7's virtual XP has intangible system requirements

by Tim Stevens posted Apr 29th 2009 at 8:11AM

Microsoft tickled our meta-OS fancies last week by talking up the virtualized version of Windows XP included with Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate Edition. However, the company has now revealed that ponying up for one of the top tiers of the OS will not be the only requirement. 2GB of RAM will be needed, which isn't such a big deal, but more troubling is the requirement of a CPU that sports chip-level virtualization support. Both AMD and Intel have been quick to add features to support enterprises turning to virtualized hosting environments, but rather annoyingly neither of those companies make it particularly easy to tell which of their chips provide such support. On the AMD side it looks like the tech was introduced with the Athlon 64 and has continued in most newer chips, while Intel's waters are a little muddier, with all Core i7 processors being suitably endowed, but only some of its Pentium, Core 2, and Atom chips made the grade. How to know if you're included? We'd expect an upgrade advisor from Microsoft to hit the internets any time now.

Update: Christopher commented to let us know of a little app that'll tell you right now whether you're in our out of the faux-OS party. That's great, because we hate hasty last-minute upgrades.

IBM, Samsung, Globalfoundries, and more looking to beat Intel to 28nm market

by Ross Miller posted Apr 17th 2009 at 5:42AM

Sure, Intel's one-upping AMD in the 32nm department, but IBM and its merry band of Technology Alliance members -- including Samsung, STMicroelectronics, and AMD chipmakers Globalfoundries -- are looking to ramp up the competition and develop even smaller, low power 28nm processors before Intel gets a chance to size down. The group additionally promises migration plans for companies who've got 32nm on their roadmap and want to maybe shrink a few of the later, already planned models. Early risk production for the 28nm chips are planned for second half 2010, which means it's very unlikely we'll be seeing them in consumer gadgets until at least 2011.

When netbook processors compete, everyone wins

by Tim Stevens posted Apr 14th 2009 at 7:23AM

You know the drill: the Atom is the king of all netbooks, with a domain stretching as far as the eye can see. But, upstarts like the Via Nano and AMD's Athlon Neo are encroaching on Intel's domain, and Crave took the time to pit examples of the three against each other in a series of benchmarks to see which should rule the land. Rather sadly for us, each of the three tests had a different winner, with the Atom N280 excelling in multi-tasking, the Nano U2250 best for iTunes encoding, and the Neo MV-40 quickest under a Jalbum-based benchmark. So you know what that means: everyone gets a prize, nobody has to go home crying, and you should just go ahead and buy whichever netbook you like best already.

Update: It's actually unclear which proc won which test, as the table at the source shows one thing, but the text swaps the Neo and Nano around. But, again, there's not much between these three.

Intel threatens AMD with termination of x86 license within 60 days

by Nilay Patel posted Mar 16th 2009 at 1:14PM

Intel's been making noise about AMD's Globalfoundries manufacturing spinoff potentially violating the two companies' patent cross-licensing agreement for a while now, and it looks like things are escalating: AMD's latest SEC filing says that Intel's formally threatened to terminate the license if AMD doesn't make it better within 60 days. It's not clear exactly what Intel wants here -- we doubt anyone thinks AMD is going to undo the spinoff -- so we'll see what happens next, but we've got a feeling Intel's trying to put the boot down while AMD's on the ground.

[Thanks, Chris]

Read - Reuters
Read - AMD SEC filing