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Intel Slashes Prices On Mobile Chips
pb writes "Infoworld reports that Intel is slashing prices on its mobile chips. Gee, this wouldn't have anything to do with Transmeta, would it?"
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are these chips genuinely in the same market?
transmeta is more for devices, is it not? whereas Intel's processors are more for laptops? or am I off here?
I am, therefore you think.
Since Transmeta isn't yet being used in any laptops, but AMD is, I think AMD needs to take the blame. Of course when Transmeta's chips start to get used I expect to see some Transmeta caused price cuts.
The still lack the low power consumtion, and they still run to hot. But this will probably be all they need to do to have the mass public look past Transmeta.
There are absolutely no comments whatsoever about the Crusoe in the Infoworld article.
:)
Why is that?
This story seems to take Intel's side a little too much. Don't tell them about the *cheaper* alternative that uses less power and emits less heat than AMD and Intel differentiated.
Just wondering...
i dont think so, intel is releasing some new chips soon (i think) so they usually lower prices first also i am concerned that transmeta chips wont scale proply, does anyone know if they are working on faster chips >700mhz?
Those People Who Are Crazy Enough To Think That They Can Change The World Probable Can
While we were listening to the Transmeta press conference here at the office the other day, a collegue of mine made a comment about this. Intel has the ability to cut prices and cut below transmeta prices. Sadly enough this will determine wether or not a new chip company can succeed. Can ANY new company succeed with this type of threat?
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
A few times each year, Intel and AMD announce price cuts. This is typical marketing for both companies. They announce price cuts on all but their highest speed/most expensive processors. This is not news, just the typical PR we see every few months.
Intel have a huge market share across *all* sectors of the processor market. There have been signs of the Goths knocking at the door for some time. They have fallen out (a bit) with Microsoft by endorsing Linux, and AMD stole a march on them with the Athlon. Perhaps they are now going the way of all great empires, being out-evolved and out manoevered by creatures which are smaller, faster and more relevant to today and the future. Like Transmeta, like AMD, like VIA (and friends). Or maybe not.
Stephen Hawking has written another book. It's about time as well.
In the article it states that the prices took effect on January 16th. Unless they were able to break the security and secrecy of Transmeta, I don't think they knew. I'm sure some of you will argue that this was Intel getting ready for Transmeta, but I don't think they are too worried yet. I'm sure that AMD gives them a bigger scare.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
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- Run around the office so your boss won't notice you leaving to get cheese.
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- Hit you. Hard. When you're not looking.
All this and more can be yours. Available for the low low cost of your soul and options on any cheese that it retrieves that we might want.Intel. Making computing cheesier
Well...that is a good start. I keep waiting for laptops to start whoreing themselves out like desktops and this is a good start. Why can't I get a decent laptop for under a grand ????? It doesn't have to be a PIII screamer. I would be happy with a PII 300 - 400 with 64 megs of ram, 4 gig hd, cd..etc..
You can get an average PC for under $800...why not an average laptop for under a grand.
The thing that cranks me is that they stop selling the older chips when the new faster ones come out. Why not sell a laptop, cheap, with an older slower chip... I know it's all about making money.. but it still hacks me off.
Perhaps Transmeta is an issue, but believe me, these price cuts have been in the works for a while and were planned to happen when Intel introduced it's SpeedStep technology. Intel always cuts prices on old stuff around the time it intros new stuff.
It does look like Transmeta found out the SpeedStep announcement date and scheduled their event the day before to preempt coverage of SpeedStep. That worked quite well, IMHO.
--LP
Up to this point no intel OEM customer has announced plans to use transmeta chips (other then SIII, who are not a intel mobile customer anyway). The lack of Customer announcements at transmeta's unvailing seemed very wierd and the argument that Transmeta gave was lame, in my view "we wanted to announce the chip first.." jeez, that's not the way things are done in this market, you have to announce support of third parties when introducing a chip, otherwize the technical press and the rest will think that something is wrong. And they do. hence the "S3 saves transmeta" headline I saw (don't remember if it was ZDnet or News.com).
Transmeta is herting intel in one of it's most lucrative markets, Intel makes a lot of profit on each mobile product, you can bet that it's going to fight back. How ethical that fight is going to be? hmmm..
This all may seem paranoid to you guys, so let's say it all together...
"only the paranoid survive"
It seems that it is possible that intel is pushing behind the scenes to influence other companies not to unvail transmeta based products, this is not something that hasn't happened before in this industry, so I guess it could be happening now. But maybe it isn't.
Intel was well aware of transmeta's plans for some time (hence the unvailing of powerstep PIII mobiles a day before the transmeta anouncement),
--------------------------------
I think Intel is realizing that they are in a hole that they can't seem to dig themselves out of. They used to be the leader in chips for the longest time. Now you see another chip maker, AMD (who has been around since the early 386s), starting to take away some of Intel's fame. Intel has suffered huge loses, and now another chip has emerged which has the potential of burning Intel even more.
Personally, I'd be scared too.
People should definately follow this new chip and in the mean time laugh at Intel's pathetic attempts to catch up. Lately, AMD has been not just one, but quite a few steps ahead.
And if Transmeta is as good as they say it is, Intel isn't going to have a prayer
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
From the article:
In an unusually deep round of cuts, the chip vendor slashed the price of its 500-MHz Mobile Pentium III processor by 54 percent, from $530 to $245, according to information on Intel's Web site. Prices of 450-MHz and 400-MHz versions of the chip also fell sharply, by as much as 46 percent.
And later on...
The price cuts could translate into savings of as much as $100 on the price of a typical Pentium III notebook PC, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research, in Scottsdale, Ariz. Celeron notebook prices may also come down slightly, though probably not by as much.
Can anybody explain me how by cutting the price on a component by $200 the price of the whole goes down by $100?
Hmmmm....
Nevermind the fact that you need a new version of Windows and Linux...
Okay, maybe I'm showing ignorance here, but as far as I understood the Transmeta releases and the reviews, you would not need a new Windows/Linux version, since to the software, the transmate chip looks just the same as theIntel x86 it xpects to be running on?
This is why competition is a good thing :-)
You're wrong. Or misinformed. Or both.
:-)
TM3210 chips are in production as we speak.
Yes, Intel could slash prices a day before Crusoe, but would it matter at all? (maybe they would lose some money, but thats all).
You do not need a new version of Windows or Linux.
And obviously you don't know a lot about cache, do you? (hint: cache ram).
Crusoe is an emulator on steroids
1. AMD has just announced a range of price-cuts across the board which bring its processors typically $70 - $100 below the price of Intel's new prices.
2. Intel has reacted!
3. AMD have made some noises about their low power (ok not compared to Transmeta) chips.
Did you know that the Transmeta media sponsor ZD's parent company is a major shareholder in Transmeta ?
Now that explains the unwarranted hype.
transmeta chips are alwredy in production at IBM fabs. This is scaring intel more then AMD. Amd has limited production capabilities and have a history of fabrication yield problems, that they are only now STARTING to come out from. IBM basicly has almost unlimited fabrication resources relative to AMD.
--------------------------------
Transmeta is nowhere near production of their chips
Erm - you can buy them now! The lower spec one is already rolling off the end of the production line.
. Nevermind the fact that you need a new version of Windows and Linux
Erm - you don't
what happens if your computer runs out of disk space for the Crusue recompiled x86 code cache
Erm - what disk cache? Jezz, are you trolling or are you really this clueless! The native code cache is in memory. But anyway - do you know anything about what a cache is? You don't "run out of space in a cache", when the cache is full to just overwrite parts of it.
Please - learn to read
that was an obvious troll, Jesus moderators are stupid.
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Do you really think that one of the richest corporations in the world does not spend a lot of time and money finding out what each and everyone of their potential rivals are up to.
Transmeta are either incredible genius's or Intel's intel is completely useless if Intel did not have a pretty good idea of what was being planned.
For all of that, its probably to do with AMD who are getting all the press and quite a few of the sales lately.
Transmeta will get theirs later. I hope their tech is as good as it seems, and that they can continually improve it.
I DO like an ecology. Monoculture is just so boring and inefficient.
I wish.
Anyone know when the Transmeta boards are coming.
Transmeta still has (technologically) the big advantage in mobile computing because of the extremely low power draw of its chips. No one would use a celeron in a web pad or palm-type device when they can use a Crusoe that draws a fraction of the power. (Yes, I know Transmeta claims not to be going after palmtops and cell phones right now, but who knows they may just have to take what they can get.)
Although Transmeta may have peaked their interest, I thin, they're far more worried about AMD.
If the desktop processor market is a fair indicator, AMD is undercutting Intel quite severely on price. I checked the Athlon 600 vs. P3 600 and Athlon is only about 2/3 the price ($216 vs $339 for the PIII on Pricewatch).
Intel is losing ground with the recent announcements of HP and Gateway to use the Athlon chip. It makes lots of sense that Intel would move to strengthen their market share in the mobile market where AMD has yet to produce a chip to comnpare with the mobile P3's (the mobile K6's may have nice high MHz numbers but performance does lag).
Could just be the regular price reductions though.
Dave
Slightly salty flavour. Pleasantly slimy texture. At it's best when warm.
Since you are all ass licking fags, what does shit taste like?Not particularly lovely, as, I suppose, you probably suspected. The attraction of it comes from it's supposed "nastiness", though, so that's hardly a major drawback...
And I'm not a "fag", just a boringly average sexually active young heterosexual male. Please take your irrelevant homophobia elsewhere. While you're at it, you might also think of trying to broaden your horizons. Try new things. Get yourself a girl/boyfriend!
Go out occasionally, have fun, have sex - who knows, you might even enjoy it. Perhaps when you've done so, you won't be so offensively immature.
i do
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The Crusoe processor doesn't use the hard disk for its translated code cache.
From The Technology Behind the Cruesoe Processors: It simply doesn't make sense to use the hard disk for the translation cache. Consider:
Transmeta announced the unveiling date back at fall comdex( november). Linus announced it during his keynote.
One thing I have learned after 12+years in this business is that Intel never drops prices just to be friendly. They (intel) only drop prices when shifting products or when someone actually comes up with a competing product. That meant many fewer price reductions in years past. Many more cuts in '99. With AMD finally getting a (kickass) product launched with volume production, they scared the crap out of intel. Then consider the i820 fiasco and you can see intel executives peeing their expensive suits at their predicament. Now they are being seriously threatened by Transmeta on the low end where most of the significant processor growth is expected for the next 5-10 years. I think the SpeedStep introduction was a factor, but I also think the price drop was a bit steep to be just an internal response and making room in their product line.
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-We all know those darn Intel CPU's only cost $8 each to make. But we're stupid enough to pay $500 for them and Intel Knows it.
-The man, Intel is da slum lord! And we have nowhere else to live. So we pay!
-The man, Intel ownz all da stores in my neighborhood. So I buy from them cuz thats awl I gots.
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He's also a friendly guy. He doesn't know how much we like him. But 5 years from now. He will be the most popular pimp in da hood.
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I'm also wondering where I can get a Cruso motherboard...
Oh, and rumor has it that AMD has a 64 bit chip in planning that will compete directly with the Itanium. It has been speculated that Transmeta is also planning to do something in that arena as well.
They must be sweating bullets over at Intel.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Crusoe is a Palm-Pilot killer. Actually it will empower Windows CE if it takes off.
And Gimpux, or whatever they end up trademarking that special version of Linux to run on it.
Why was the parent moderated? Some moderators are so stupid.
What the parent was saying was that Intel can not expect compete with Transmeta in terms of power consumption and eventually performance. Intel has to underclock their mobile chips because of heat concerns and therefore a current Intel desktop is always faster than a current Intel mobile laptop but Transmeta does not deal with these concerns.
If Intel wants to stay in the mobile market then they had to make some kind of move by either a) making a new chip in a real hurry or b) lower prices. Intel could never make a new chip in time so they had to lower prices.
Real men dump cores! Read my journal, I am neat.
The Register released a story on AMD's new chips being developed in Dresden.. This is from www.register.co.uk --- ....This differs from another version we have now on board, which is that the cache-on-chip die is going to become the SpeedStep killer, very soon. A source tells us that AMD has now so far reduced the voltage on the parts that the Texas-based chip company can beat Transmeta, hands down. Transmeta is selling two versions of its Intel mobile Pentium III killer, although prices for the part are hard to get. Sources tell The Register that behind the scenes, there are very low thermal K6-III microprocessors using copper interconnect technology being developed and perfected at AMD's Dresden part, in Germany. When the Dresden part ramps up, we are given to understand, AMD will be able to ramp up any number of K6-IIIs for mobiles. There are back room boys in an area of the fab in Dresden, working on mobile communications, we understand from our visit there last August. Some of them might even work for Motorola. ---
Anyone care to point out the difference for us newbies who get moderation points?
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Their stock is overvalued, and they have to keep their earnings up. If they cut prices, they cut earnings, and, they cut their stock price.
If not Transmeta, then it will be AMD that does Intel in. And if Transmeta can do just 10% better than AMD, businesswise, they should have a very bright future ahead of them.
Cause he's right... nobody reads around here do they? sheesh...
God forbid anyone post an opinion opposing most of the /. readers.
Read the press release. Read it twice if you have to.
Damn straight!
It would multitask very poorly because the amount of code would easily exceed whatever fixed cache size they would need for translating code into their native chip format. It would be good for single tasking OSes like the Palm, but not as a Linux box where many CPU intensive tasks are going on at once.
The InfoWorld article refers to Intel's quarterly price cuts. You will note that computer manufacturers are also announcing lower prices, reflecting the drop in prices. This is nothing new--it happens in the second week of every quarter.
But since the question has been raised, how concerned is Intel about Transmeta? Probably not that much. Remember that Intel owns the microprocessor business--not just the chips, but also the technology required to make the chips. They have extensive R&D projects with companies like Applied Materials (and a major client of mine) that affect all sorts of things. And remember that Intel is extremely aggressive about protecting its patent rights. Much of Transmeta's press conference palavar about not worrying about Intel and patent issues is so much PR--if IBM is planning on using Intel-developed technology to produce the Transmeta chips you will see mention of a "cross-licensing agreement" in the trade press. (Remember that IBM will actually manufacture the chips for Transmeta.)
There is another factor to consider: producing cutting edge chips in volume requires massive capital investment. If Transmeta can't sign up a lot of business they may not be able to produce enough chips to bring the unit costs down low enough....
At the moment Intel is continuing to cruise right along, printing money. AMD? An annoyance. Transmeta? A set of spects and a press conference. Down the road Transmeta might be reason for Indel to be concerned--but a threat? The moo-ha-ha department? No. We're way too early for that.
Now I know some people get all huffy when the word "Amiga" gets mentioned in an otherwise x86 conversation, but I gotta know... What the heck happened to all those rumors about Transmeta making the new Amiga processor?
/. topic bar it really brightens my day.
It would be neat, just requires a code moduole, and it could be Classic Amiga downward compatible as well as PPC Amiga compatible. Anyone hear anything about them lately?
I've gotta say when I see that checkered boing ball in the
--AROS is an Open Source AmigaOS clone, and source compatible with AmigaOS! Try the x86 build at http://www.aros.org
Two pro-Intel damage-control threads started the same day as Transmeta's press release and the day after. The first is the idea that it will be years before these processors will reach the desktop. We've heard too many times that "these powerful new server processors will take years to arrive on the desktop", so the line has been changed to,"these mobile processors consume 10% the electricity so they will take years to arrive in mobile devices and decades to arrive on the desktop". S3/Diamond and IBM announced the same day, so forget that madeover servers-not-desktop line. This spin gives Intel time to liquidate before all new computers come out with Transmeta processors in 90 days. Compaq was sly, dumping Intel a few days before Transmeta press release, supposedly for AMD, but really so they can switch to Transmeta everything. The other Intel damage control line is the timely announcement of Motorola's alcohol fuel cell replacement for batteries, mooting the power consumption issue for mobile, or so it would seem. More time to liquidate Intel inventory!
Xilinx, Los Alamos National Laboratory Team Up On Space-Based Reconfigurable Data Processing
Jan. 26, 2000--Xilinx, Inc. and Los Alamos National Laboratory today announced a cooperative program aimed at the development of high performance **reconfigurable data processors** for space-based systems. [Business Wire]
Rhombic Corporation Commences Commercial Development of Diamond Devices and Computer Chips
Jan. 26, 2000-- Rhombic Corporation is pleased to announce that the commercial development of diamond circuits and computer chips has begun. [Business Wire]