Upside interviews Jerry Sanders of AMD

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Upside interviews Jerry Sanders of AMD

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Thursday March 21, 2002 @05:01AM from the stuff-to-read dept.

An Anonymous reader writes "Titled The Last Man Standing, this Upside interview offered an inside view of the bloody war between the two CPU makers from Sanders' point of view. He also talks about upcoming Hammer, flash memory, Transmeta and telecomm bubbles. Somehow I get a feeling that both companies are living under the heavy cloud of Microsoft. Pretty lengthy, but an interesting reading.""

14 of 198 comments (clear)

Did anyone else read the name as 'Jerry Springer'? by InterruptDescriptorT · 2002-03-21 05:20 · Score: 4, Funny

Today on Jerry: 'Caught Cheating'!

Audience: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
Jerry: OK, settle down! Welcome to the show! Today we're talking to computer users who are secretly using better processors on the side!
Audience: Ooooh!
Jerry: Let's meet Dan-0411. Dan says that's his work machine has a PIII in it, but there's something going on. Dan-0411?
Dan-0411: Yeah. PIII, I've been using an Athlon in a laptop on the side, and it's over, Intel boy! She divides better than you any day!
PIII chip: You (expletive)! (lashes out at Dan, throwing a punch)
Audience: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Dan-0411. Get it? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

--
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Competition is good by larien · 2002-03-21 05:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

...and I think AMD has shown this. As he says, "they changed because competition made them change. So I'm proud of that. " Up until the K7 (Athlon) came out, AMD and the now dead Cyrix chips were good, budget chips but they never matched the Pentiums in raw performance, at least where it counted for gamers, in floating point. Since the Athlon came out, Intel have had a fight on their hands which they're winning in some quarters (mainly the server arena), and losing in others.
Intel have the bucks to hand out deals to keep Dell etc sweet and market others into submission, but while AMD keep producing good value chips, they will still have a market amongst those who know better (generally the geeks of the world :) ).
I hope AMD keep going, but I hope they never crush Intel entirely, otherwise they may fall into the trap of becoming complacent and progress will slow.
1. Re:Competition is good by BrookHarty · 2002-03-21 05:41 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I went with AMD when I saw the benchmarks from average users. The K6 had problems, and made me stay with P2/P3s. Comparing pricing and performance, AMD is better on most accounts. My AMD 1800 is faster than a P4 2ghz in all areas but the 400mhz bus.
  
  Just check out Mad Onion 3dmark 2001 and looks at the scores, AMD is leading the way on the top machines!
  
  I might have to get a dual AMD MP machine thou, the prices are coming down, and with newer chipsets for AMD, will make it even faster. 333mhz bus?
Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by gphat · 2002-03-21 05:31 · Score: 4, Funny

A quote on why Intel is building multple 300mm fabs: "Because their die is so goddamned big".

Hah! When's the last time you heard a suit say that in a public interview?!?!?
1. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by scotch · 2002-03-21 05:38 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  A quote on why Intel is building multple 300mm fabs: "Because their die is so goddamned big".
  Hah! When's the last time you heard a suit say that in a public interview?!?!?
  
  Just the other day, when the CEO of TSR, makers of Dungeons and Dragons, was speaking about why a bigger box would be needed for the next version of the popular game.
  
  --
  XML causes global warming.
2. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by BasharTeg · 2002-03-21 05:54 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Yes, Sanders is the bomb. He's an old school SOB who will tell you what he thinks of Intel's "fucking Pentium 4" in an interview. Would you have the balls to say that if you were in his shoes ?
  
  This man has lead one of the greatest corporate fights in the history of this nation. AMD has had every reason to fail, as Cyrix, Transmedia, IDT (or whatever the WinChip guys were called), etc. Over the years the Intel blowhards have tried to put AMD in the same boat as those failed manufacturers. Most of them are still denying the fact that they called the K7 vaporware, and denied that it would rock the processor industry. Where are you naysayers now ? Would you have a 2 gHz Pentium 4 available if it weren't for AMD and the K7 ? Take the date of the Pentium III 450, add 50mhz for every 6 months since it came out, and tell me if you've reached 2.0 gHz yet, because that's what you would have had if the K7 wasn't there.
  
  I'm not one of these fools who just roots for whoever is the underdog in any particular fight (Microsoft vs Linux, Intel vs AMD, etc). I find such lemming behavior offensive. Not that you shouldn't like them, but there should be a reason. We owe the past 3 years of breakneck processor development to AMD, both directly through their own products, and indirectly by forcing Intel to work for their money.
  
  I don't even have to mention the pricing. Those of you out there who had to choose between a Pentium and a K5, you know how much Intel was overcharging.
  
  Am I anti-Intel ? No. If Intel came out with a better product at a reasonable price, I would buy it. The Itanium is absolutely awesome from an architecural perspective. I am a consumer, I select the best product at the best price (in theory that's how consumers work, heh). AMD currently offers a product that beats Pentium 4s at equal clock speeds, and even at far higher clock speeds the P4 doesn't stand a chance. The P4 is awesome for applications specificly optimized for SSE2, but for everything else it's just empty mhz. The Athlon is faster, cheaper, and runs at a LOWER clock speed to achieve that performance. As long as that is true, AMD will have my support.
3. Re:Too bad he as to leave, cuz he's cool! by BasharTeg · 2002-03-21 06:32 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Running equal performance at a lower clock speed shows better design and engineering. If you're actually a student of Computer Science, that means something.
  
  If you're the kind of guy that reads http://www.sandpile.org/ you know what I'm talking about. If you're just a consumer reading about Quake 3 framerates on Tom's Hardware, I guess it doesn't matter. (No offense)
Wow. Now if MS had competition like that... by revscat · 2002-03-21 05:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

At the close of the interview, Sanders says:

Intel tries to shove down an [engineer's] throat a RAM bus solution that they don't want. Slot A, nobody wanted, and AMD said, "You don't need that. We'll put a flip chip in a package." That's the K6. And [Intel] had to change. They didn't change on their own; they changed because competition made them change. So I'm proud of that.

In other words, Intel came up with some new technology they wanted to throw out there, and competition made them change their ways, in the process giving the consumer cheaper, better products. Kinda makes me wonder what would have happened if MS had a serious moneyed competitor. I can't help but believe that we'd all have HAL staring at us from the phones on our desks.

I have come to believe the following: No matter how technologically superior your product may be, if you compete directly with Microsoft you will lose (i.e. you will make less money, and have less market share). Why this is true for OS's and not for microprocessors I'm not sure.
1. Re:Wow. Now if MS had competition like that... by GungaDan · 2002-03-21 05:45 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "Why this is true for OS's and not for microprocessors I'm not sure."
  Because it's much harder to invent onerous licensing schemes for tangible slabs of silicone.
  
  --
  Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
I remember... by kigrwik · 2002-03-21 05:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

When the K6 (K6-II, I believe) beat the Pentium-du-jour in some benchmarks, I first couldn't believe it (who had really heard of AMD at that time ?) then I thought
"OMG, there's gonna be blood spilled, and cheaper processors ! W00t !".

I'm glad today that competition drives both AMD and Intel to excel, and I enjoy watching their strategic moves: Athlon vs P[34], Hammer vs Itanium, it's like a boxing match from which the customer can only profit.

AMD vs Intel is a textbook example of healthy competition.

--
-- don't discount flying pigs until you have good air defense
History revised by MobyDisk · 2002-03-21 05:54 · Score: 5, Informative

This article is pretty good if you want to see a management level rewrite of history. Mr. Sanswers leaves out a few interesting details, like how AMD's turning point at the K6 came from buying out NexGen and rebranding their NX86 chip. It is hard to make AMD look like a small company battling a giant when they were buying out smaller companies, filing thousands of patents per year, and knowingly violating IP agreements hoping Intel would settle.

Nonetheless, it all worked. And I'm very glad it did.
Jeez. Bill is efverywhere! by jvmatthe · 2002-03-21 05:55 · Score: 3, Interesting

Here is an interview with the CEO of AMD. Big company and an important chap -- you'd think he would get into the keywords for this document. Yet:
<meta NAME="keywords" CONTENT="UpsideToday, Upside magazine, Internet business, ebusiness, b2b, b-to-b, stock quotes, ipo, stock market, technology, high tech, venture capital, vc, e-commerce, funding, investing, ceo, Bill Gates">
(That's my emphasis.) Just check the page source!

--
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
AMD in Xbox 2 by tbreffni · 2002-03-21 06:53 · Score: 5, Informative

According to The Register, Microsoft is designing the new Xbox 2 around an AMD processor. It seems that Microsoft is trying it's best to help AMD against Intel, as the interview with Jerry mentions Microsoft helping AMD out with their 64bit Processor. Any thoughts on this?
Re:Meaningless MS rant by HamNRye · 2002-03-21 08:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

Microsoft is playing both ends against the middle.

I have a feeling that the future of processors is that Windows support whosoever supports windows exclusively, and If Linux runs better on your kit, the advantage goes to your competitor.

M$ is now helping AMD to compete, because AMD is not helping Linux.

Besides, isn't there something very hypocritical in his disdain for Intel and the big marketing budget, and his love of Microsoft and their big marketing budget. I would have to remind him that anyone powerful enough to help you is also powerful enough to hurt you proportionately.

This is the same reason that Microsoft keeps Intel on a short leash by playing footsie with their competitors. BG is still upset about some things said and done by Intel. (And incedentally, Intel is mad at MS for....)

Help or hurt, Microsoft never has nobler motives in buisness. When they are helping you, you may just be getting fattened up for the kill. The fact that your entire company relies on access to and support for Windows leaves you with an Outlook attachment pointed at your head just waiting to go off.

AMD will find MS and Intel back in bed together before long, so long as the door isn't locking them out too well.

~Hammy
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