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Why AMD Is Still In The Race
Steve Kerrison writes "Despite a woeful inability to provide some of its most loyal customers with stock, and a range of CPUs that, currently, loses out to Intel's Core 2 processors in both price and performance (and who would I be not to mention the diminishing AMD fanboy numbers?), AMD's still got enough tricks up its sleeve to retaliate against Intel in due course. HEXUS.net has an opinion piece on why AMD isn't up the creek. From the article: AMD has been showing off its 65nm wafers for a few months now, which means the Rev G core is on its way. Even if the DDR2 memory controller which arrived with the Rev F only had a small performance benefit, Rev G has a few more improvements than just the die shrink. The latter will enable higher clock speeds and a lower price, plus allow AMD to compete on an equal playing field to Intel, which has been manufacturing 65nm processors since the Pentium XE 955 at the end of 2005."
AMD is in the race to stay alive as a company but they are not in the race to have the top CPU of 2006/2007, which is what really matters.
With their aquisition of ATI, I am much more worried about chipset instability. Anyone else remember the bad old days with the horrible via chipsets and mystery conflicts with nvidia hardware?
Then the finger pointing starts, and we're stuck in the middle. I'm upgrading for the first time in 3 years, hopefully I can wait all this mess out. It'll be an AMD chip though. If I had to pick, I'd go with whatever platform Nvidia supports in the future. Their commitment to driver quality deserves to be rewarded and won my loyalty - and interestingly enough, I have never purchased another ATI product after their little opengl driver fiasco.
Why doesn't AMD have a chipset, anyway?
..don't panic
You mean that just because they haven't been King of the Hill for a few months now that they're still in the game? Wow! Who'da thunkit?
This guy's the limit!
AMD is only behind this one generation, a company doesn't just throw in the towel after their competitor comes up with a better product... AMD is working right now to come up with their own response. Plus I don't think the stock holders would be happy if AMD came out with a press release "Good Game Intel, you win, we are dissolving the company"
As any race like that between AMD and Intel goes, there is an ebb and tide that goes on between them. It wasn't until just recently that AMD's opteron, X2 and FX lines of chips were top of the class when it came to their prospective markets. However now with Core 2 Duo out, and Core Quadro just coming down the chute, Intel has gained significant ground on AMD. That's the way this industry works, one comes out ahead for a while, and then the competitor surges ahead. I wouldn't be surprised to see AMD back in the lead in a year or two with their new 65nm process and 4-way chip
"A woeful inability to provide some of its most loyal customers with stock" can only mean that demand for AMD chips still exceeds supply. Otherwise, they would be happy to deliver.
Otherwise, yes, Core 2 Duo is superior at the moment. I wonder if this will last when AMD goes to 65 nm.
C - the footgun of programming languages
AMD is only in the race if they can continue to innovate like they did with the AMD64 dual cores, while also increasing production. Seriously, can anyone get their top processors? I've read that even reviewers have been unable to get their top FX64 chips. ... 5 years isn't that far away in chip manufacturing terms.
Even if AMD goes back to their old copy-Intel ways, the value they have brought to the average is immeasurable. Intel would still be stuck on their old single core processor, instead of making plans for 80 core chips that top out at 1 TeraFlop in 5 years. AMD pushed them to get there. AMD needs to focus on creating something far better, and they need to do so quickly
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
And please include a 'value' analysis in your report on 'ass mastering' because the lower range Athlon 64's are much closer to my price range than the lowest priced Conroe. You know, there's a vast market out there for people who just want CPUs that run a word processor and connect them to the internet. Vast.
No way. Intel made a comeback? You mean that whenever one side comes out with a newer chip, they are beating the other side? This completely blows my mind. Completely.
Look, give AMD time to react. I don't think many people have considered them out of the running even for a second. And don't forget about the AMD/IBM alliance. IBM's research (and that is a lot of $$$ & research) backs AMD.
I find your opinion article to be largely unecessary and fear mongering -- who said AMD was in trouble in the first place?
My work here is dung.
Last I heard they regained the lead in performance/price in the low-end segment with their latest price cuts.
It might not be where the glory is, but it certainly is where the (OEM) money is.
You think that now -- check out this: Terra Soft, Sony to Build World's First Cell Cluster, powered by YDL and a stack of PS3's! (Submission rejected in favor of more Debian hairsplitting and inane Ask Slashdot's...)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
"A woeful inability to provide some of its most loyal customers with stock" can only mean that demand for AMD chips still exceeds supply. Otherwise, they would be happy to deliver.
Yes but buyers can only wait so long, and if enough buyers are forced to go elsewhere then the demand will vanish too.
Having something in demand is desirable but in the long term you have to eventually meet demand for a majority of customers or perish.
I don't think AMD is anywhere near perishing of course, but the supply of these chips seems tight enough that it's not a healthy level of demand at the moment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I got a new system right after Core 2 Duo came out. I really liked what the Core 2 Duo offerred, but compatible motherboards and ram are more expensive than going with (Socket 939) AMD. Go anywhere and price:
A. mid-range Intel Core 2 Duo, 1GB DDR2 RAM, and a decent motherboard
B. mid-range AMD Athlon X64, 1GB DDR RAM, and a decent motherboard
Odds are very good that you will save $50+ going with AMD. That may not seem like much, but if you skimp just a little across a whole system you can save $200+. If you want to go SLI then it gets a little trickier. I have had bad experiences with ATI, so I go with nVidia. There are VERY FEW Intel nVidia SLI boards (in fact, maybe like 5 at the max), so there is not much choice there. There are a lot of ATI SLI boards, though. AMD has nothing but nVidia SLI, so there is a large range of options. Also, the increased bandwidth of DDR2 vs DDR doesn't get you any performance boost at all right now; maybe it will in the future. I would have loved to go with Core 2 Duo, but I felt that AMD's platform just had more options.
If AMD falls too far behind, Intel gets greedy and jacks up its prices and/or slows its performance curve. Then AMD becomes a challenger again.
Of course, that requires AMD to stay in business...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Dude, dell now sells AMD, they must be the best!!!
seriously whats up? I was looking to get a nice top of the line Dell system with Red Hat for our work server for months, but they offered nothing with the (then) top performing Athlon 64.
Only after Intel surpasses the best offerings from AMD, does Dell finally open up to AMD.
basically once I (most?) didn't care if they offer AMD anymore do they then cave in.
(Bought the Intel server from DELL finally, but it was only when it surpassed the AMD's in Performance/$ of the competition.)
a range of CPUs that, currently, loses out to Intel's Core 2 processors in both price and performance
No, AMD have a range of CPUs that lose in terms of performance only, however AMD's prices have been adjusted so they aren't losing in terms of performance/price. Barely, admittedly.
And in terms of price only, AMD are winning there. The cheapest Core 2 Duo, the E6300, is $180. The X2 3800+ is $150. Beneath that are tonnes of single core Athlon 64s and Semprons that make Intel's cheap P4 offerings look lame. If you are spending under $150 on the CPU on your system, then AMD is your best choice still. That probably accounts for the vast majority of computer sales.
Intel win out when it comes to the high end, because AMD don't have a competitor there. Of course, if you like buying >$500 CPUs then I'm very happy for you, and you will enjoy the vast performance of an E6800 and know it beats everything else out there. Personally I think it is a poor investment to buy cutting edge.
Kentsfield vs. 4x4 will be six of one, half a dozen of the other. We'll find out halfway through November.
It's amusing how people think that AMD are going to die because for a year Intel finally will have a better product. For these people AMD has been dying for years and years, yet AMD has only got better and stronger, in markets that matter such as servers. AMD have a superior platform, and that matters here. Who cares about a slightly faster FPU when you can plug in a SIMD co-processor that is 10 - 100x faster? The future? No, they're already available.
I think the 65 nm process is key here. It doesn't really surprise me that Intel can create faster and cooler CPUs on 65 nm than AMD can on 90 nm.
Just the decrease in size alone will give AMD's processors a boost, and might well propell them past Intel again; at least from what I've seen, the FX (90 nm) already consumes less than the Core 2 Duo (65 nm) in power save mode, whereas the advantage that the Core 2 Duo has in performance mode is nothing that a die shrink wouldn't overcome.
And that's at the high end. At the low end, I see Intel still selling 32-bit CPUs, where AMD's offerings are 64-bit enabled. I recently helped somebody pick a laptop, and I noticed the biggest differences between Intel-based and AMD-based systems in the applicable price range were slightly better game performance for Intel and 64-bit support for AMD. I recommended AMD, because (1) the laptop wasn't for gaming anyway, and (2) I expect AMD64 (especially the extra registers that come with it) to eventually offer better performance; and at least you can run 64-bit software on it. These benefits aren't so obvious now, but I expect they will be.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
And who would I be not the mention the avant-garde grammar in that first sentence? Do try to re-read your work before you post it Steve, otherwise Slashdot will end up as illiterate as Hexus.
For tech firms like Intel, AMD, Nvidia and ATI, there are two main ways of promoting your products:
#1 To create the fastest product. It makes people talk about it and therefore a lot of people end up buying that particular product, just lower-end.
#2 Media exposure. It's simple and we all know it works, but it's also expensive.
Some of you may disagree about #1, but think about it for a second. A majority of all reviews online and offline first and foremost cover the high-end products even though only a few of us can afford it. This is why the market offers products like Crossfire, SLI, FX and Extreme.
Full Tilt
I recently had to make some hardware recommendations for some friends. While I realise that Intel has better bang for the buck processor-wise, it's not true when you start to consider the motherboard. Intel motherboards are wicked expensive, and less stable than their AMD counterpart.
The last Intel processor I had was a Celeron 700, years ago. I've been an AMD man for a while now. I was considering advocating, if you will, the new Intel chips until I got motherboard sticker shock.
In then end, I'd go with an AM2 motherboard and whatever processor you can afford. You're still going to need DDR2 ram, but AM2 looks to have some staying power and it accomidates the whole gambit of processor options.
One reason I am think of going back to Intel is the the good support for their graphic chipsets in xorg.
Interesting... are the 30fps in Day of Defeat Source also measured with the NVIDIA Geforce 7300 GS PCIe?
I'm asking because I currently get similar framerates in DOD Source from a ATI Radeon 9600pro. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on map. Resolution is 1280x1024. CPU/Ram is a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GByte RAM (single core, but AFAIK DOD Source does not support multiple processors anyway).
So if the cheap Geforce 7300 GS can do 30fps in DOD Source, I might get the faster but still affordable 7300 GT for my next PC. It is widely available with passive cooling, which would suit me as the cheap fans most vendors use are really annoying
C - the footgun of programming languages
No one is buying AMD processors any more. There too popular to find!
If I were in the mood (and financial position) to dash out and purchase a new system right now, I'd consider both offerings carefully but probably still go with AMD. The difference between the performance offered by a new AM2 and an Intel Core Duo would still not make that big a difference given that I'm upgrading from a midrange Athlon XP. More to the point, a certain amount of consumer loyalty isn't fanboyism. AMD's treated me very well since the original Athlons came out, and I have no intention of turning my back on that - particularly since a growing body of evidence suggests that their platform is more forward-thinking and less prone to regurgitation of the same product with minor tweaks, more cores, and mounds of expensive cache being thrown at an inefficient design just to make it performance-competitive. Time will tell, but Intel hasn't done anything to persuade me yet; after living through the last seven years seeing AMD upstage the Pentium III with the Athlon, the Pentium 4 with the Athlon XP, and the Prescotts with the Athlon64, you'll understand my skepticism if I don't immediately believe that the Core 2 Duo is manifestly superior in every way, and always will be, forever and ever, amen.
It all sounds a bit desperate. Translation of the whole piece is probably "AMD won't give us any more samples unless we say something nice about them and this is the best we can manage at this stage".
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
The opinion piece compares the cost of the Athlon proc to the Core 2:
Let's take Dell for example - one of AMD's big wins of the last year, and the one everyone is saying looks stupid now Intel is back. As a business customer, you can either buy the Dimension E521 for £499 + VAT (with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+), or the E520 for £50 more (with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6300). They're both dual-core, and the performance difference is essentially irrelevant to a business customer. But if you're buying 100 of them, you'd save £5,000 by going for the E521. That's a fairly easy decision for a financial director to make.
It's not always about the power, but rather the sock to the wallet, and when finances factor into decisions, a cheaper previous generation proc for a competitor will always win out over the current generation of the leading vendor. I would tend to agree with this assessment. Business decisions are most often made based on cost, not performance, and in IT, it seems more the case that long term consequences are not the predominant factor considered prior to making final decisions. it's always about the money...
Just another nameless binary in a crowd of 1's and 0's
Brand names hardly matter anymore.
Industrial parts are bought by specification, not by brand name. A product design engineer might call for an M8x50 bolt, a 4.7K ohm 0.25 watt resistor, a quarter-turn ball valve with 22mm. compression fittings, an NPN transistor with a gain of 50 in a TO3 package or a 15x40mm. ball-bearing. Several manufacturers may make items that fit the specifications the engineer requires. Only the purchasing department really care where a part actually comes from. When required in small quantities (to build prototypes, for example), common industrial parts are almost always supplied through catalogues; the company's purchasing department will usually buy directly from the supplier when sufficient quantities are required to deal directly, but often the supplier is the same one who supplied the catalogue.
Computer components, of course, fit the definition of industrial parts made to conform to specifications. Of course, only part of the specification is fixed: a graphics card must have the right connectors to fit the motherboard and the monitor, but there is considerable leeway in performance and price. A machine used mostly for running OO.o and Firefox needn't have as fancy a graphics card as one used for CAD or gaming. The Internet has enabled the collation of component specifications on a wider scale even than most catalogues can manage, thereby allowing anyone to choose from several interchangeable alternatives. When coupled with independent reviews, this gives ordinary people a very powerful tool for weighing up the alternatives.
Unless you can offer your customers something that your competitors can't, there's no reason for them to be loyal to a brand anymore.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
If someone was a "fanboy" up until the point that the competition got better, I don't think they qualify as a Fanboy. Right now if I were to build a system I'd use a Core2Duo no doubt. I always go for the best price/performance ratio that's still reasonably fast. Right now that's Intel, so I would go with them. If AMD edges ahead again with some (as far as I can tell unannounced) new technology, then I'll use AMD again. I think people are too quick to label other people "fanboys".
On the other hand, some of the near incoherent posts above me do point to some bad cases of fanboyism.
I read the internet for the articles.
Hope AMD can capitalize on what...getting away with an inferior product. Spoken like a true fanboy. Right now Intel has the better product and that won't change if a lawsuit is smacked down on them. Whether or not they had shady business deals is seperate from the fact that the consumer would be better in picking an Intel product. I may be a bit trollish here but your comment isn't insightful...it's the cry of a sad, sad AMD fanboy who doesn't want to see the big bad Intel back on top. AMD can capitalize on whatever it wants once it has a better chip.
i couldn't RTFA because the adverts gave me a fit
hexus is the SHITTEST site on the face of the planet yet slashdot continually link to them?!
not for old memory- but they made one model
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRAM
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
How in the world does a sentence like this get past the editor?
"I did buy a budget card, but I find it interesting the latest generation can't even keep up with ATI's 9000 series."
:p
A GeForce 7300 GS has 6.5GB/s of memory bandwidth onboard. That is your main bottle neck on modern cards. My GeForce 6800, which has 12 hungry pipelines, has 22.3GB/s of bandwidth onboard. The only time I run into issues with it is when I run out of RAM onboard for textures (forcing me down to AGP's much slower speed), or when rendering complex scenes (the GF 7 series executes some shaders 50-100% faster than Gefore 6 series). My average FPS in WoW at 1600x1050 is around 55.
If I were you, I would've bought the 7600 GT -- that's got 23GB/s of bandwidth. The 7800 series goes over 40GB/s! (The main deciding facter that made me spend 50$ more to get the 6800 vs. the 6600 GT was the extra 7 GB/s of fillrate, which is more than that dinky 7300 has). Budget cards are often garbage if you take a look at the numbers, unsuitable for gaming due to the non-existant bandwidth. An ATI 9500 has more fill rate than a Geforce 7300 GS
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
NVIDIA is still superior in Linux over ATI in terms of drivers.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Indirectly Intel helped create this AMD shortage.
Here are the causes
1. By hyping Core 2 so early, it eroded confidence in Netburst, now no one wants a P4. (so the choice is Core 2 or Athlon x2)
2. Intel cannot produce enough Conroe's. So those who cannot get Core 2 look at Athlons.
3. AMD had to cut prices in half to match Core 2 (because Intel actually priced Core 2 a little too cheap*) it created more demand than AMD could handle until 65nm and all the Chartered product comes into the channel.
4. Intel started kissing up to Apple instead of Dell, forcing Dell into the AMD camp.
Yes, maybe AMD should have turned Dell away, but the real truth is that there is a shortage of everything but the netburst chips! Because Intel made/makes so many P4's the market will be this way for a few more months.
* if Intel had priced Core 2 duo's 25% higher, it would have helped them clear out the netburst chips. It seems they were more interesed in stopping AMD than they were in making a profit.
I still don't like the ids Intel put on the chip. For that alone i'd prefer AMD.
Have you read my journal today?
Intel is still using a single shared memory controller. Opterons have a memory controller in every cpu. 2+ cpu (physical, not dual core) configs are still faster with Opteron due to the higher memory bandwidth.
Sure, 1 dual core Conroe has more memory bandwidth than 1 dual core Athlon64. But when you go to 2 sockets, the AMD numbers double while the Intel numbers stay the same. It only goes more and more in AMD's favor the more cpus you add.
Intel is currently using their manufacturing process(es) to increase/extend their performance (and performance per watt) lead. Currently Intel is using 65nm and have been for a year or so, with plans to move to 45nm sometime in late 2007/early 2008. AMD is still on 90nm, with 65nm starting late 2006, with mass production in 2007.
AMD's 90nm chips are *PRETTY CLOSE* in performance/heat dissipation to Intel's 65nm chips, and they completely destroy Intel's 90nm chips in both performance and performance per watt.
With there being a physical limit to how small you can engrave transistors on silicon, Intel is just rushing to that point way faster than AMD. So whenever Intel hits a sticking point on process technology advancement, AMD will still have 1-2 generations of process technology improvement (since they're "behind" manufacturing-process wise).
Basically what this says to me is that AMD's design(s) are still far superior, and they still have a LOT of headroom if they can extract the same performance gains from die-shrinks as Intel has.
Here's the AMD page on fab locations - it looks like the last one came online in 2005, I didn't see much about what new ones might be in the works.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's statistics. A certain percentage of potential CPU buyers only want the product that gets the best benchmark at any cost. Another percentage want the best CPU power for the money. Another percentage try to minimize cost and accept a minimum level of performance. Other percentages make brand motivated decisions if their financial/horsepower needs are not limiting factors, otherwise they'd be in the first three group. A large percentage make a decision based on market availability (essentially random).
The brand motivated choice component is especially significant in a market where the products are largely interchangable. From an end-user standpoint (not enthusiasts, system builders, or commercial/industrial users), Core 2 and A64 are equivalent products. Like two brands of shampoo.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
you are assuming that die size will be the only thing that will improve CPU performance in the future. Since AMD is "behind" Intel manufacturing process wise, it is a safe bet that Intel have more headroom and resources available to research on other technologies that will help improve performance. Now if they use that to their advantage or not is another question but being ahead in the die size is certainly an advantage and not a disadvantage the way you percieve it to be.
In the business world, you used an AMD 8131 and 8111. End of story. And later, the 8151.
It was rock solid, gave you two PCI-X busses (later AGP/PCIe with 8151), what more could you want?
Well, you couldn't do SLI, so that's when NForce Pros started appearing in conjunction with the 8131s.
Anyway. VIA was always the budget option. You avoid VIA if you wanted stability and performance. For intel OR amd.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
760MP - For the Athlon MPs. Bitching chipset, loved it.
8131/8111 - For the early Opterons. Dual PCI-X busses and all sorts of other goodies.
8151/8111 - You need AGP? Okay, so you used this.
They don't have a native PCIe chipset, although typically you say an NForce MCP or Radeon XPress attached to a free HT lane doing that job.
That's the beauty of AMD64 and HT, you can mix and match NBs and SBs (although it doesn't really make sense to call them that, it's an Intel-ism, NBs are like periphial bus hubs, and SBs are like legacy/media device hubs).
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
So your comparison is based on beta drivers, running on a beta, unreleased OS. Normally, I'd go on and on about how I've tested NVidia drivers under Windows XP/2000, several Linux distros, and even under BSD and had perform flawlessly. However, under the circumstances of your comparison, I'll just strongly suggest that you rethink your logic.
You say you don't need the latest?
m it=ENE&N=50001157+2010340343+1050706985&Subcategor y=&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=
Fine then, Get a Pentium 4.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Sub
If you want to compare apples to oranges, why not include Intel's more affordable chips? For $84 you can get one with 64Bit support even. For $89 you can get it with an 800MHz FSB and HT.
If you just want to surf the web and run a word processor, these will do it, and the 90nm ones aren't too bad on heat. If you want one that runs as cool as an AMD, you'll need the 65nm one, and it's a lot more.
But then again, all you want to do is run a word processor and surf the web, how much will that tax your chip anyway?
I have to say, $180 for a dual-core Conroe is a pretty good deal, very probably a smart $90 upgrade whether you were considering the AMD or P4.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
AMD still smokes the competition. For $350 dollars I Could put together a dual core, 2.5 GHZ System, (Memory, CPU, MB). Intel cannot touch that price performance ration. (Reference: DFI Ultra D, 3800+, some good 2.0 memory, and the whole bit OC's to 2.5 GHZ with very little effort.) DDR2 memory still has high latency's, isn't as cheap, and there core2 MB's are way overpriced, and not as mature.
I was under the impression that AMD's "native" quad-core design would be very hardware virtualization friendly. The fact that these chips have a very modular memory design and are not used in MCMs (multi-chip-modules), should allow for the simplest possible virtualization configuration.
I would really like to see desktop virtualization that allows fast access to my legacy windows apps (rather than my present approach of vncing to a windows box powered on all the time). The old windows box only costs electricity, but if any hardware on it fails, I really don't want to invest more money in a make-shift solution.
price out an entire system with a rev F opteron and loads of DDR2 memory. then price out an equivalent woodcrest core 2 system. they effectively cost the same. also, an AMD system requires less power (watts) since it doesn't need external northbridge chips or power-hungry FB DDR2 SDRAM.
plus AMD is rock solid performance across the board. intel hits many 10-20% better but misses in a few notable places (64-bit virtual machines in VMware are much faster on opterons than on core2s).
don't support the beast. AMD is not screwed. stick with 'em.
Something is seriously wrong with the world. I just read an article on a computer hardware site, and it was all on ONE PAGE!
So yes the Core 2 Duos beat anything AMD has right now. But it was less than a year ago that Intel found itself in the "how are we going to compete?" position with AMDs Opterons doing so well in the server markets. There was talk of Intel's possible demise or buyout even though they are the world's largest chipmaker.
So sure AMD doesn't have the top chip right now. And yes they've always been on shakier ground than Intel for a variety of reasons (one of which is Intel's business practices but such is the way of the dollar). AMD won't fall here.
No you don't, simply raise your prices until demand equals supply... Microeconomics 101.
And here in the real world, when you raise the price of your product far above the compettion you have no demand at all - demand curves do not exist in an airless vaccuum outside the classroom. There is always some kind of inflection point you cannot cross without dire results.
And there is your free graduate level class in economics for the day.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Actually your idea is mad BUT may make computers even more safe :
- One could imagine such hybrid machine with userland threads running on the Opteron (along with some kernel routine dealing with task switching). This has the advantage of being able to run x86 code, for which there's plenty.
- and every sensitive bit (drivers, kernel)on the other non-intel-compatible chip.
Linux on your Power7 and applications/games/virtualized Windows/whatever on the opteron.
Or, Windows Kernel and HAL on the Power7 and applications and userland-part of drivers on the Opteron.
Privilege escalation can be made very difficult.
Even if there are exploits in application at worst, one could escalate up to the task switching code. But the kernel resides on the other CPU running completly different code. Script kiddie detects hole in x86 application, script kiddie lauche exploit, but root-kit payload doesn't zombifie the PC because the kernel speaks different machine code.
Or, one can even imagine Cell-like processor in second socket. Opteron runs regular apps. PowerPC-like core on Cell runs kernel. Cell's vector engines runs multimedia and maths. Like folding at home GPU-edition, but on steroids.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Should I really need to evaluate the ethics of of every company I purchase from? Isn't that why we have a government?
It is not.
The government exists -- among other reasons -- to encourage/enforce everyone to act legally. So if a company was doing something that was against the law, then you would have a claim for the government to do something.
However, someone can be ethical without being unlawful, because what is "ethical" varies by community. So the government is not in any position to evaluate or regulate that, except where ethics and law overlap.
Having the government regulate behavior generally, based on what is perceived as being "ethical" in the absence of harm to others, would be a tremendous mistake.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
He did not say that he researches everything. Neither do I, btw. But when I happen to learn about disgusting behaviour by a company, I tend to boycott them. Which is not that rare, since sites like Slashdot will report most of the stuff that becomes public. Examples include:
-Blizzard because of the bnetd ligitation, URL:http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bn
-Sony because of the audio CD rootkit
-Any games vendor that uses Starforce
-in theory, SCO (not that I would have any reason to buy from them anyway)
No doubt there are dozens more with just as slimy behaviour. They can consider themselves lucky that I don't know about their misdeeds yet
C - the footgun of programming languages
Help me out. Is it okay to like a company that seems to have a solid business, charges fair prices for it's products, doesn't screw people it does business with and generally comes in pretty close to the performance leader? Or does that make me an "AMD fanboy?" I'm just going to throw that out there, I guess us "AMD fanboy's" have been quiet lately according to HEXUS. For the record, I won't do business with Intel.
[-)
What would Richard Feynman do, if he were here right now? He'd do some math and he'd follow through!
"There was talk of Intel's possible demise or buyout even though they are the world's largest chipmaker."
there was? well besides around your coffee/dinner/lunch table?
care for sources?
**and to top it off, the word I had to type in was "booboo" lol
I was an avid AMD fan but for the last year I have watched them nickel and dime their buyers with small speed bumps for tonnes of money. I know many will say thats how it is but when they keep playing games going from 2.2,2.4,2.6,2.8Ghz chips and then they release their AM2 and you think they would contiune past the 3.0Ghz but instead what did they do 2.2,2.4,2.6... what the heck is that crap??. After I saw that I SAID YOUR SCREWING US AMD AND WE ARE GONNA SCREW YOU!!.