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The Near Future of Intel
wh0pper wrote to mention a Design Technica story about the near-term future of Intel. They've been getting beaten in the press pretty soundly by AMD of late, and at the Intel Developer's Forum they did their best to convince attendees they were on the comeback trail. From the article: "It wouldn't be IDF if there wasn't a solid performance message. This time, Intel clearly had AMD in their sights. By a series of their products' massive performance improvements, Intel hit the ball back into AMD's court. With Microsoft's Vista operating system coming out at the same time, Intel showed how they have the higher performing solution. Clearly, we won't know until final systems ship. But Intel presented their case strongly, suggesting they can match AMD, if not beat them."
Think of putting that network up for a hacking challenge on the web and having it totally violated in even less time than it took you to setup... Phew!! Good thing Intel isnt inside an Apple... ohhh shit. [ducks]
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
...and I, for one, am quite glad. The closer the two competitors are, the better products each releases. This will keep AMD from coasting the way Intel did in the nineties.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
hopefully this means AMD will revert to trying to compete on price and so i can afford to get a modern setup ;)
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Intel intel, he's our man
if he cant do it, I BET AMD CAN!
How is this news? Intel's BRAND NEW processor can outperform a 1+ year old AMD X2?
Hey did you know that I can slap a buncha logic chips together and create a faster processor than ENIAC? DEAR GOD SOMEONE GIVE ME A MEDAL!
So if you have not RTFA then don't worry your not missing anything!
Clearly, we won't know until final systems ship.
Need we discuss this any further?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I RTFA and it is severly lacking on substance.1 6
Here is Anand's updated benchmarks.
http://anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=27
I can't help but wonder if Vista won't be making any mysterious and unnecessary getCPUid() calls....
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
Arbitrary thoughts and unfounded speculation is how we roll :-)
AccountKiller
Typical quote:What? What are you talking about? Are you suggesting manufacturers will ship games on flash chips? And what the hell do laptops have to do with anything?
Nothing I've heard about intel's plans to use flash technology would improve any system performace other then boot time.
My pics.
I wouldn't place any faith in his prediction.
Competition => Innovation
Innovation => Faster/Better Chips
Faster/Better Chips => Faster/Better Comps
Faster/Better Comps => Giant Robots
And I for one want a giant robot.
I'm pretty sure processor development isn't just a matter of how determined the people involved are. Some parts of it depend on the building of new fab equipment. Some depend on the discovery of new ways to design things. Some depend on serious advances in physics.
The reason chip companies sometimes hold back on new product is because they can't always be certain of the exact time at which breakthroughs in these other areas will be made. Their companies depend on having a solid, reliable revenue stream, so they have to use release schedules to smooth out the apparent advances in chip speed. If they didn't do this, we'd all be sitting around, hoping against hope that this month would be the month the new chips come out, and worried about buying in case they come out tomorrow.
Which is more or less how Apple worked for a long time, because IBM wasn't able to smooth out its development curve. It wasn't pleasant.
Anyway. Overall chip development does not just scale depending on the moods of the employees at chip companies. Intel went off-track by being overconfident at one point, sure, but that was a five year thing involving a bad choice of roadmap. The idea that AMB is sitting on their laurels after a year is ridiculous.
The page showed me an AMD ad with this article. Was enough for me to know "near term future of intel" :)
May Peace Prevail On Earth
Heh, I guess this is another example of slideware, vaporware through slides, presentations, articles...
You should get a username AC, may I suggest "PatheticTroll" or perhaps "BadTrollGuy".
Let me guess - they demonstrated how Intel's top end chips can handle 10 way conference calls with Skype, while AMD's only handle 5?
When I went to the webpage and saw Enderle name on the article I rolled my eyes. I read the damn article anyways and came to the same conclusion. Enderle like Dvorak gets paid good money to spout rubbish and drivel. Its a shame most people actually read these tabloid hacks. Save yourself 5 minutes of your life indeed.
While AMD has clearly have a better processor now, it looks very complacent now. Especially when they should be looking at being more menacing by aggressive Research.
... AMD please move on. We acknowledge you have won. But the next battle is starting this week.
Alas nothing of that sort is happening. Still resting on the glory of the on-die memory controller, the core is now 7 years old!
Every other chip company is doing interesting things.
1. Sun Niagra T1 is amazing
2. IBM Cell rocks!
3. Intel Itanic may have failed, but was no doubt interesting.
Well
TFA was more a speculation on will apple utilize the Intel "toolbox" more stylishly than other WinTel companies. I'd better consult the Magic 8 Ball to answer this one.
In the near future, most Intel corp employees will be logging off and shutting down before having a relaxing weekend following a hard week's productive work. A variety of leisure activities may be pursued, but a spokesman refused to confirm rumours of beer drinking.
Ah...may be not that near future.
But Intel presented their case strongly, suggesting they can match AMD, if not beat them.
My, how times have changed.
But Intel presented their case strongly, suggesting they can match AMD, if not beat them. Im waiting to see an independent head to head comparison. That Intel can beat AMD using 2 computers they set up is not a shock. Its possible to do all sorts of low underhanded tricks to make one computer run better than another.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
Boy, sure is a good thing AMD has decided to stand still and not come up with any further technology advances on their side.
Oh...they haven't?
I'd say AMD got trounced in the press by Intel yesterday. Is AMD going to compete on Microsoft's and Intel's Origami/UMPC platform?
Have you not seen any price lists in the last few days? The Conroe part as previewed is expected to be at/around $500USD. The FX-60 from AMD is over $1000USD, not that you can't get an Athlon64 X2 4800+ for just over $600USD, prices will surely drop by then but Conroe does look to be a bit faster.
Language such as "Intel presented their case strongly, suggesting they can match AMD, if not beat them" is the language of someone who's accepted a position of defeat. You couldn't have come up with a more hopeless phrase if you were a Democrat.
AMD is the clear winner? Do you even know what the rumored prices are for Conroe? Here: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29504 $529 for the 2.67 GHz chip. Even if the FX-60 price drops by half (right now it's just over $1000), Intel will still have them beat in performance/price. AMD is the clear winner? More like, you're clearly a fucking idiot AMD fanboy.
There seems to be agreement this article is a bit weak. Some very important things to note.
"By a series of their products' massive performance improvements, Intel hit the ball back into AMD's court."
These are products that are not out yet. Benchmarks look good, but you are comparing a product on the shelves (that's been there a while) with one that is not OK.
And by the time they come out, AMD will likely have moved on to. This is a fast paced space, so 6 month time gaps matter when doing comparisons. Product matchups in the actual market are what matter.
AMD's M2 platform looks good. The performance / watt issue matters a lot, and it will be interesting to see how that develops. Both companies are clearly chasing the power/watt area, so should be a lot of fun. The notebook space especially which is currently dominated by intel will be fun.
"Intel showed how they have the higher performing solution." This should read intel MAY have a higher performing solution sometime in the future.
I'm tired of the big announcements of victory on non-shipping parts. ATI with crossfire (lunched twice). The hype around the P4 "netburst" architecture. The itanium hype of course. PS2 movie like visuals (still a nice platform, but please).
Fun to watch, great it's a great race.
I can't ever go back to Intel. Too expensive. I'm done with them.
So let me get this straight... Intel could have left the AMD chip at the factory clock settings and thrashed it by a mile or it could have OVERCLOCKED it to give it an advantage against Intel's upcoming chip. This leads me to believe that you are just another retard who doesn't know what OVERCLOCK means. OVERCLOCKING from Wikipedia:
The 2.8 ghz AMD processor speed level is where AMD will be at when Intel's latest gen Core processor comes out. Even then, that would be AMD's highest end part compared to Intel's middle-high end. A true test would have been to pit a 3.0ghz or higher Intel processor and overclocked AMD or not, the Intel processor would have wiped the floor.
Your comment is the reason why the moderation system sucks here. You are clueless and yet you get modded up.
Independent lab testing proves Pirate Monkeys will beat Robot Ninjas 97.6 % of the time.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If memory serves correctly, the last time AMD was fairly absent in the processor market and "resting on it's laurels", they rocked the world with the XP-class processor
....again.
Anyone who has been keeping tabs on AMD knows they are in the process of expanding their manufacturing capability/capacity.
I think AMD is playing the part of "lion in the weeds"......
Rip Van Winkel here. I haven't paid any attention to the processor wars lately, but what the heck happened to make AMD and Intel swap positions? I thought only in Bizarro world would people be wondering if AMD would rest on its laurels while Intel was trying to come up with a plan to unseat them from their throne.
AMD may have had the upper hand on processor designs for the last few years, and even Intel is practically admitting that by switching their mainline core architecture to the Pentium M derivative (which is a PIII derivative). But Intel has had them beat in one area and probably will for a very long time: production capacity. Intel's fabs can crank out processors in a day that matches AMD's production in a year (exaggeration, but run with it). There is NO way that AMD could meet the demands of the business world in sheer scale of orders. If Intel closed up shop, computer CPUs would triple or quadrupal in price overnight due to scarcity. Fabs take YEARS to build, and can take even more years to full ramp up to full production while shaking out the process bugs. Intel has a LOT of experience with this due to the shear number of fabs that they own and operate.
Competition is good, for everyone. Give props where they are due though. Intel is turning around after making a very bad roadmap choice many years ago, and I think it will only benifit consumers in the long run. AMD had very good designs and will probably have some more good ones in the future. But don't pick on or the other exclusively and wish for the other to disappear. That would lead to a VERY bad situation for everyone, even you.
Space for rent, inquire within
1) Floating point performance wars - Before AMD came out with the K6 processor, Intel had the floating point crown and neither AMD nor Cyrix could compete. Although AMD and Cyrix had inexpensive intel-compatible processors, most people used their cpu's for low-end desktops.
2) That all changed when AMD released the K6 processor with an excellent floating point unit. Then the war became a Mhz slugfest between AMD and Intel in which Cyrix was marginalized. Intel reached the 1000Mhz mark first with the P3 but AMD wasn't far behind with the Athlon.
3) AMD changed their approach with the Athlon focusing on P3 crushing performance regardless of the actual clock speed. Intel kept the Mhz focus with the P4.
4) AMD released the hugely successful 64-bit Athlon that dominated the P4 even though the 64-bit Athlon operated at a much slower clock speed. Intel lost much market share in the desktop and server market to the new 64-bit Athlon and the new 64-bit Opteron processors.
5) Intel finally realized that the educated consumer didn't care about raw Mhz anymore, they switched to their own performance number rating scheme.
6) The latest oil crisis hits the world and consumers become more energy conscious. Many computer enthusiast websites point out how much energy Intel processors demand and how little AMD processors demand in comparison. Intel and AMD respond by making their processors more energy efficient and cooler running.
7) Dual-core processors are released from both companies trying to squeeze more performance out of their aging cores. The Intel processors can't scale as well with multiple cores due to the already high energy and cooling demands of their processor cores. AMD gains further ground in this area.
And that's where we are today. AMD has seriously damaged Intel's marketshare with some excellent products. Intel is feverishly working on new products to get that marketshare back. The benefit is that we will see very good products from the 2 companies over the next 12 to 24 months.
ConsultingFair.com
It's expensive to continually upgrade fab facilities, marketing material, etc. Sitting on a successful product with inflated prices is a serious profit maker. AMD is simply reaping the rewards for kicking the hell out of the P4. Congrats to them. I don't blame them a bit. They've been skating on razor thin margins for quite awhile. I hope that AMD has addressed the majority of their production issues in the last year (they're gonna need it).
OTOH, Intel has been fattening (and has expanded into MANY other markets) and until recently hasn't had to really work to keep a nice lead on AMD in the processor market. So, now they will have to turn around processors faster than AMD (which is likely why they just switched to 65nm processing before moving into Merom processors). That's just business.
It shapes up as a nice fight (finally). I can't wait. I want a dual core CPU for around $100. Maybe then I'll get off of my 3000+XP processor. Yes, the consumer wins in a competitive market (FWIW, I've never built an Intel system... but I've built a LOT of AMD ones (and one Cyrix)). I only hope that AMD has enough designs stable and in reserve to keep ahead of Intel for another 5 years. AMD is still the serious underdog here.
Hmmn, this has me all excited at the prospect of having a 2 major processor vendors. Look at all the good the Ati and nVidia rivalry has caused. I can only hope the same applies here. On that note the last decent workstation processor Intel has made was the Pentium 3.
-Chris
"Intel showed how they have the higher performing solution. "
An attempt at humor. I'm sure they'd never stoop to this level.
There wasn't anything new in the article to justify a story on Slashdot. Yes, Intel held their IDF but they do that every year. Yes, Intel has AMD in their sights. Yes, Intel is focused on performance. Prototype tablet machines. That's all the same every year, too. Flash memory to run apps from. Not new and not even interesting. Where's the NEWS???
Intel has some very talented engineers. The P4 fiasco was not due to incompetant engineers. It was due to management making a bad decision to let marketing drive their products, slaving their engineers to the desires of the marketing department (in this case fat Mhz numbers). It looks like they've finally turned around and gone back to the natural order of things, namely, let the engineers cook up hot products and make the marketers figure out how to sell it.
In the end, we as consumers win. We have more viable choices. Competition will force prices down, bringing ever greater levels of performance down into the affordable and budget ranges. And moving to competition to performance-per-watt means hopefully in the near future we'll be able to ditch screaming windtunnel machines for something more livable, without having to resort to exotic cooling solutions and 2 kilogram copper heatpipe monstrosities.
So knowing that Intel will release this fabulous new chip in 3-6 months, why would anyone buy a P4 based computer from Dell now? Why would anyone buy a dead-end P4 from anyone that can't be upgraded to the new architecture?
If you have an immediate need, it seems like an AMD chip is the one to buy today. In six months, that may change, but for today it's pretty clear.
There's a reason Intel has never before released processor details this far before availability. Their next quarter sales are very soft and just became softer.
I think what AMD has done deserves some form of brand loyalty. Intel was giving us trash and charging us through the ass for it. AMD forced Intel to get better, and this technology race only benefits the consumer. For that, AMD will always get the nod with me unless Intel does something spectaculary better. I think AMD should be rewarded for slugging it out while Intel pounded them until they produced what they have out there today.
Intel chips are still far inferior to AMD chips. They cost more to make for a given performance rate, offer poor performance to clock cycle ratio, and were also slow to embrace 64-bit technology, which is useful for server owners. The "Mhz" speed is an issue, as it is better to deliver more efficent performance at lower clock rates as it consumes less power and causes less heat. Intel may be stuck in a hole with this one though, as they have strayed down their own path too long from their common ground with AMD. They really need to reimagine their chips and chipsets but it will be difficult at this point.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
Why isn't that mentioned here? did I miss something? The Pentium M seems clearly ahead Turion processors in an overall evaluation? why Mobile processors aren't mentioned in this discussion?
From the init. parent post article, a quote:
a rticleid=794&cid=1%5Burl%5D :)
"They've been getting beaten in the press pretty soundly by AMD of late"
Have they?
* See here with the CONROE chip utterly smoking the finest AMD has to offer:
[url]http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?
(So much for that I guess...)
APK
Think of being able to set up a secure network in 3-1/2 minutes after you have plugged in the hardware. The key here is secure; many of us can set up a network quickly, but often the result isnt particularly secure. This creates problems, including getting the movie companies to allow us to rip movies and use them around the home.
;)
Gee, mentioning media company DRM protection as the first "problem" with not being able to secure your home network? How much more obvious can they make it that M$ funded this crap article? Or at least some how someone got compensated for this! Because this is got to be one of the LAST things most people I know would consider a problem with their network!! Screw the movie industry, we just want our home file and print sharing to work with out the nextdoor neighboor getting in through WiFi!!
Also, in the case of DRM issues that the last sentence suggests, this is only "secure" in the sense that big business has taken away the keys for the computer from YOU the owner. They then allow you to do certain things, but only as they see fit. I for one DO NOT find this to be an acceptable security scheme! I own MY computer and every 0 and 1 in it is MINE!
"Advances in physics" does not mean "changes in the laws of physics." It means advances in the field of study called physics.
What would an advance in the laws of physics even be? Is it better if the apple doesn't fall? Worse?
The problem being that often times "previews" if you will or company supplied benchmark equipment can be skewed. Just look at the numbers apple always throws out for performance comparisons. They always end up slightly less when other people do their own benchmarks. Let's also not forget that amd has their AM2 platform due out this summer. IMHO I think amd has been doing a lot of work into developing hardware that will work and work awesomely with DDR2 support. There has to be a lot of looking and reviewing options for the future as well as doing R&D work. So, I still think it's AMD FTW. Or at least that's how I feel about my AMD X2 4400+
Of all the things I've lost. I miss my keys the most.
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