Slashdot Mirror


A New AMD Licensing Deal Could Create More x86 Rivals For Intel (pcworld.com)

angry tapir quotes a report from PCWorld: AMD has announced a plan to license the design of its top-of-the-line server processor to a newly formed Chinese company, creating a brand-new rival for Intel. AMD is licensing its x86 processor and system-on-chip technology to a company called THATIC (Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. Ltd.), a joint venture between AMD and a consortium of public and private Chinese companies. AMD is providing all the technology needed for THATIC to make a server chip, including the CPUs, interconnects and controllers. THATIC will be able to make variants of the x86 chips for different types of servers. AMD is much smaller than Intel, and licensing offers it an easy way to expand the installed base of AMD technology. The resource-strapped company will also generate licensing revenue in the process, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research.

67 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. Poetic by flatulus · · Score: 1

    ... that AMD would be licensing Zen to a company in the country where Zen (buddhism) was founded.

    1. Re:Poetic by Zanadou · · Score: 1

      ...in the country where Zen...

      No, that would be Japan.

      ...(buddhism)...

      No, that would be India.

    2. Re:Poetic by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      Buddhism originated in India, but Zen was founded in China (although Zen is the Japanese name for it), not Japan which didn't bring it over until several hundred years later, although there were other schools of Buddhism in Japan prior to the introduction and spread of Zen.

    3. Re:Poetic by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      Not the OP, not my pun.

  2. Theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The resource-strapped company will also generate licensing revenue in the process... until it suddenly doesn't.

    1. Re:Theft by serbanp · · Score: 2

      Yeah, AMD's leadership seems to be too stupid these days to learn anything from Qualcomm's plight...

    2. Re: Theft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ... or any of a hundred other companies. It's funny how after three years the Chinese company dissolves the joint venture, yet continues to make the same product. From chips, to cars (ask Chevrolet), to "Mig" Fighter Jets, I'm not sure I've ever heard of one of these JVs that actually worked out for the non-Chinese party. At this point, even though I don't like victim blaming, you deserve to get hosed when you supply the intellectual property into one of these deals.

    3. Re: Theft by bhcompy · · Score: 2

      Well, the positive is that this technology goes obsolete pretty quickly, though maybe a little slower in recent years than the previous 20

    4. Re: Theft by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      Or rather let the more competent companies like Qualcomm make money for them.

      Oddly though, anyone remember PowerPC and RISC from two decades ago? IBM let Motorola and others make chips and it left IBM to die on the micro computer market outside of the Nintendo WII

    5. Re: Theft by Lord+Kano · · Score: 2

      They ran into technical problems that prevented them from matching pace with Intel and when Apple made the switch, what incentive did they have to continue down that road?

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    6. Re: Theft by jmauro · · Score: 2

      The PowerPC\Power ISA merged when the POWER4 was released in 2001, so the intent was always for the PowerPC variant to die off at that point. If Apple continued down the PowerPC route instead of the switch to x86/x64 they'd likely be using one the POWER chips instead of a custom PowerPC.

      The resulting POWER ISA is still going strong and IBM currently licenses the design to a number of different companies including Tundra Semiconductor, HCL Enterprise, Culturecom, P.A. Semi, Sony, Honeywell, Toshiba and Cray.

    7. Re: Theft by jmauro · · Score: 2

      It was less technical reasons and more that they were arguing with IBM over chip pricing/manufacturing quantities and Intel swooped in and made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

    8. Re:Theft by PRMan · · Score: 1

      Maybe that's the plan. Level the playing field by gutting Intel's high-end market.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    9. Re: Theft by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      IBM did not bother creating a mobile chipset for the G5, which by the way was a cut down POWER4 variant and thus already some "big iron" hardware for the desktops. It could have gone on including in laptops, but such stuff costs billions and Unix workstations were dead, OS/2 and NT on PPC were dead. Meanwhile x86 are lowish power / high peformance and used on most laptops, desktops, servers not just mac pro and imac.
      Also IBM went to making 5GHz speed demons :)
      They'd have had to throw out that line of work, or to make a separate line of low power / high performance designs, only for Apple and perhaps consoles. So I guess IBM might gave done it, but for a zillion dollars.
      A beefed up, overclocked small CPU, they also did that for the consoles (PS3, X360). It was a bad CPU, later thr Wii U CPU did about the same job at less than half clock speed. I'm sure you can make a nicely usable small Macbook with such level of performance but this wouldn't compete with Core 2 Duo and later.

    10. Re: Theft by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

      It was less technical reasons and more that they were arguing with IBM over chip pricing/manufacturing quantities and Intel swooped in and made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

      Steve Jobs did not want Apple to be held under pressure or hostage by anyone neither Microsoft nor IBM/Motorola. Apple for years had an x86 version of MacOS classic and naturally MacOSX as NextStep was native to both platforms from the gecko.

      Also Intel had better manufactoring which is how they are beating AMD as with lower NM sized chips and Intel made LWISC computers and risc inside later pentiums. Basically the x86 instructions get converted to RISC internally in a wrapper. So Intel could offer the same performance and give apple more comptability with Windows which in 2005 was very important as less macOSX apps were around 10 years ago.

  3. Aren't these munitions? by dilvish_the_damned · · Score: 2

    Historically top of the line desktop processor tech is considered munitions and not exportable to places like China. What changed?

    --
    I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
    1. Re: Aren't these munitions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They probably contributed to Hillary's campaign fund.

    2. Re:Aren't these munitions? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Historically top of the line desktop processor tech is considered munitions and not exportable to places like China. What changed?

      It's an AMD processor.

    3. Re:Aren't these munitions? by aliquis · · Score: 3, Informative

      Historically top of the line desktop processor tech is considered munitions and not exportable to places like China. What changed?

      US government living in the past?
      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
      "US govt bans Intel from selling chips to China's supercomputer boffins
      Xeon, Xeon Phi processors slapped on trade block list"

      Like: "AMD chips? Hah! Nah they can have those! It's not like they are competitive enough anyway!" - "What could possibly go wrong?!"

    4. Re: Aren't these munitions? by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      Nimrod, their designs aren't the problem; it's their [outdated] process tech.

    5. Re: Aren't these munitions? by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Slashdot users dont know that. They used to, once upon a time...

      Slashdot now thinks that Intel is a cpu design company that also happens to make semiconductors, rather than a semiconductor company that also happens to design cpu's.

      Intels process was about 2 years ahead of everybody, but they couldn't keep it up.. the tick tock is over with and they are now laying off because they see the writing on the wall, which is that their process lead ends this year with almost no hope of getting it back and maybe they will even fall behind now.

      GloFlo and Toshiba have reached parity, and TSMC will be the new leader when their Fab 15 starts running off 10nm chips before Intel can.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
  4. Re: Yeah but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Intel chips are obsolete.. AMD's fused cpu/gpu architecture with hbm/hbm2, HSA, asynch shaders new generation gpu's, etc..etc..etc.. is going to bleed Intel big time..

    Intel was able to put a lot of money to make its chips fast.. but for a high price.. which morons always payed the huge profit slice.. Now AMD can make faster chips for a fraction of the price.. now that AMD has 14 nm, 16 nm, and son 7nm chip foundry technology..

    I bought at $1.78, and I will retire in 5 years with the profit I already started making.. while my Intel stock has always been around the $20.00 to for the first time lately $30.00... A very lack laster performance compared to APPLE, Qualcom, etc..

    Now it is amd turn.. I'l sit and relax seing my AMD go 10x plus over the next years...

    Todays AMD is not the AMD from yesterday.. noe it has all the teeth, while bully Intel is years behind AMD's latest architectures..

    Intel is just a cpu company, it was never able to build a high end gpu because it does not have high end gpu technology..remember Intels Larrabbee gpu fiasco..?

    AMD has a lot of new surprises to come..

  5. Re: Yeah but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Holy crap an AMD stockpump on slashdot?

  6. Re: Yeah but... by spire3661 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "AMD has a lot of new surprises to come.."

    I have been hearing this since Bulldozer. AMD consistently over-promises and under-delivers. Until AMD actually ships this stuff, its vapor and not much more. I would like to see AMD succeed, but they actually have to get a compelling product out the door first.

    "Intel is just a cpu company'
    ,br> And SSDs, NICs, wireless solutions, chipsets. They also make barebone PCs called NUCs.

    --
    Good-bye
  7. Re:x86 is still relevant? by nnull · · Score: 2

    I'm definitely not doing much of those tasks on ARM CPU's. X86 isn't going away any time soon. ARM simply sucks for many tasks still. And when I looked for a cheap PC to do simple tasks, I still looked for an Intel, not an ARM computer.

  8. End of Days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Giving away the secret sauce for few hundred million to a quasi state Chinese venture who will eventually rob you blind seems like a desperate gasp of a long has been trying to stay afloat.

  9. Re:Dying business by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

    Youre kidding. Its a huge server platform. Intel did drop the ball on mobile and should have been out on the market early on that one. But, somehow, they let it get away from them.

  10. Re:Dying business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I didn't read the article, so maybe I'm missing something, but isn't x86 more or less obsolete? To my knowledge, servers abandoned it before PCs, and I haven't seen anything that was 32-bit sold in a store in ages.

    Aren't you the clever one, intentionally misinterpreting the "x86" shorthand reference to Intel-derived processors to mean only the 32-bit incarnations of that same architecture rather than the contextually-obvious reference to the entire sprawling Intel x86 & AMD64 family, as opposed to, say, PowerPC or ARM or what-have you. Have a cookie and go play in traffic. :)

  11. Re:Is the x86 platform.... by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Intel has an x86 smartphone CPU. x86 is a huge server platform. PCs are not going anywhere, people are just replacing their PCs every 7 rather than 3 years. This creates the illusion that the PC market is shrinking. its not. Smartphones are hellish when you want to do any real work. Not many want to do their taxes on a smartphone.

  12. Re:Dying business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    x86 does not mean 32 bit. 64 bit procs are still x86 architecture.

  13. wave goodbye to AMD by WindBourne · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously, that will be the end of AMD in no time flat.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    1. Re:wave goodbye to AMD by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      LOL if announcing they have 1.5 BILLION in SoCs already called for in the game console market (which just FYI gives them a complete monopoly, as Sony,MSFT and Nintendo will ALL be running AMD APUs exclusively) along with a new deal that will most likely give them a big fat chunk of the growing Chinese server market, not to mention all the critics singing the praises of the new Fury GPUs...if THAT is "failing"? Can I have some of what you are smoking?

      Hell having a lock on the console market alone will pretty much hand them the PC gaming market (as every console port will already be optimized for their chips), their new APUs are already VERY attractive price wise and Zen is reported to be at least 40% faster than the fastest current chips in their line up which will make them attractive for laptops, and with this deal they will not only get a good chunk of the server market in China but will also have a second company paying for the R&D...AMD is about to be in a VERY good place and their CEO should be commended for cutting such beneficial deals.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    2. Re:wave goodbye to AMD by aliquis · · Score: 1

      + Intel graphics license.
      + New power-efficient same process as Nvidia chip (same process before too but ..)
      + Depending on how you view it almost as small process as Intel for processors + hopefully a better price / performance at at least as good performance as the regular desktop range of Intel chips.
      (+ all the GameWorks hate online? + Pretty nice and competitive "open-source" Linux drivers.)

    3. Re:wave goodbye to AMD by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      AMD has had a console monopoly for the past three or so years anyway (their chips power the current versions of the Wii, Xbox and Playstation), and I haven't exactly seen an uptick of games being optimised on the PC for AMD graphics hardware...

      So if AMD have had a full monopoly in the console arena for the past 3 years or so, and had most of the console arena for the previous generation as well (Xbox 360 and Wii - PS3 had an Nvidia chip), why are they still struggling today, when apparently the console monopoly should be doing grand things for them?

    4. Re:wave goodbye to AMD by PRMan · · Score: 1

      Because nVidia has spent millions making sure that the top PC titles MUST use their new, exclusive features. Just look at Arkham Knight on console vs PC to see what that looks like.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    5. Re:wave goodbye to AMD by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      AMD has had a console monopoly for the past three or so years anyway (their chips power the current versions of the Wii, Xbox and Playstation), and I haven't exactly seen an uptick of games being optimised on the PC for AMD graphics hardware...

      So if AMD have had a full monopoly in the console arena for the past 3 years or so, and had most of the console arena for the previous generation as well (Xbox 360 and Wii - PS3 had an Nvidia chip), why are they still struggling today, when apparently the console monopoly should be doing grand things for them?

      If it was a big deal, you may consider why Intel skipped out on it.

      No, the reason AMD has the "monopoly" is because Intel got screwed by Microsoft on the original Xbox, and more than likely Intel intentionally directed Sony/Microsoft to AMD as a way for them to get some cashflow.

      Remember, Intel doesn't want AMD to die, so they're passing customers to AMD when they can, and I'm sure Microsoft/Sony are giving AMD a steady source of operational income while Intel probably has tons of plans on how to rescue AMD without visibly rescuing AMD.

    6. Re:wave goodbye to AMD by Blaskowicz · · Score: 1

      There is a fair improvement on DirectX 12 games, alas tied to that Windows 10 crap but the story might be similar with Vulkan. Also perhaps works with some recent DX11 games and/or drivers.
      AMD GCN since the now old 7970 / 280X has had some good support for async computing which used to be just wasted silicon. Now they're partly catching up the nvidia GPUs, although still fairly more power hungry. Right now you could get a Radeon Nano (not too power hungry) with a 1080p 144Hz screen and that'd be about the best PC gaming you can get (with an Intel CPU, i3 6100 being fairly great...) but that's fairly expensive for a toy.

    7. Re:wave goodbye to AMD by Agripa · · Score: 1

      AMD is dying anyway at least as far as x86 whether they help the Chinese or not. I thought their bid for heterogeneous processing would save them but apparently there is not enough market demand for such a thing.

  14. Re:Hmm by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A lot of people prefer PCs. Its user base is not shrinking.l the problem is people are replacing PCs far less often than they used to. This creates the illusion that its shrinking. Its not. But its enough of a problem to create a hit on the bottom line of the CPU companies.

  15. The timing of this seems bad by jenningsthecat · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With Intel laying people off and vowing to concentrate on the server market, wouldn't AMD be better off going after what's left of the desktop market? It's shrinking to be sure, but I think there's still a lot of meat on those bones, especially now that Intel won't be vying so hard for market share in that space. It would probably be a safer bet than handing over their IP to the Chinese.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:The timing of this seems bad by edxwelch · · Score: 1

      They were running out of money fast, so they really had no choice. AMD has been losing money every quarter for the last year and that doesn't look to change until Polaris and Zen are released. Also, Intel is as strong as ever in "what's left of the desktop market". Even when Zen reaches the market it'll be competive, but still slower than Intel's offering.

    2. Re:The timing of this seems bad by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

      They were running out of money fast, so they really had no choice. AMD has been losing money every quarter for the last year and that doesn't look to change until Polaris and Zen are released. Also, Intel is as strong as ever in "what's left of the desktop market". Even when Zen reaches the market it'll be competive, but still slower than Intel's offering.

      Good to know. Why was this downmodded?

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  16. Re:Dying business by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

    embedded - Arduino 101 is powered by an Intel Quark.

  17. They mean the 64-bit technology. by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2

    Often x86 is used to mean any processor with an ISA descended from the original 8086, including modern 64-bit CPUs. So they mean AMD is licensing their x86-64 (or x64 or AMD64, whichever way you like to put it) technology which is not as powerful as Intel's, but is still fully current in terms of ISA. They specifically mention AMD's "Zen" processor which is the new 64-bit architecture expected to release this year.

    1. Re:They mean the 64-bit technology. by werepants · · Score: 1

      So they mean AMD is licensing their x86-64 (or x64 or AMD64, whichever way you like to put it) technology which is not as powerful as Intel's, but is still fully current in terms of ISA.

      Not sure where you're getting the idea that AMD's instruction set would be "not as powerful" considering they licensed their x86-64 tech to Intel in the first place.

    2. Re:They mean the 64-bit technology. by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

      Their tech is not as powerful, the actual chip. They aren't just licensing the ISA, they are licensing the chip design.

    3. Re:They mean the 64-bit technology. by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      It's not the instruction set, it's the implementation. Intel gets better instructions-per-clock than AMD.

      --
      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
  18. Re: Yeah but... by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    I just said this a second ago and I'll say it again: AMD's designs aren't the problem; it's their (or Global Foundry's, rather) uncompetitive process tech.

  19. Re: Dying business by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    but isn't x86 more or less obsolete?

    Pretty much, which is why Apple's giving up on x86 and transitioning to the PowerPC architecture.

  20. Re:x86 is still relevant? by armanox · · Score: 1

    My tablet has an Intel Atom in it. I hardly use it though.

    --
    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  21. Re: Yeah but... by spire3661 · · Score: 1

    Have you ever heard of Intel NUCs? My current HTPC is an Haswell (14nm) Intel NUC running OpenElec/Kodi off a SD card ($5). It cost $129+$20 for RAM. No hard drive but it has room for one if needed. It streams from my NAS and uses about 6-10 watts under normal viewing. Its integrated into an all-aluminum housing with a nice finish and includes the power supply.

    I did build a AMD AM1 platform system in the Antec ISK 110 case, but it definitely cost significantly more than the NUC. Also the NUC has a built in IR receiver.

    You really have no idea what you are talking about...

    --
    Good-bye
  22. Re:About access to China market by armanox · · Score: 1

    I don't see AMD eating into the Chinese MIPS market (though I'd love to see more MIPS devices Stateside).

    --
    I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
  23. Re: Yeah but... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    The issue with Intel in low-price market segments is that they insist on artificial segmentation. When I built my NAS, you simply could not buy an Atom motherboard with more than two SATA connections. AMD was happy to sell E-350s with as many as motherboard makers wanted to put on them. Intel has slowly relaxed this, but they still put other artificial limitations (such as no hardware virtualisation support) on their low-price chips that mean that you can't get the slow-and-cheap Intel chip that does what you want, letting AMD undercut them: you'd have to buy a much faster (and more expensive) Intel chip than you need to get the other features.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  24. Re: Yeah but... by spire3661 · · Score: 1
    --
    Good-bye
  25. Re: Yeah but... by spire3661 · · Score: 1

    http://ark.intel.com/products/... The only virt this doesnt support is VT-d. I have spent the last few years exploring Intel's bottom line of processors, from NUCs to tablets, they are solid. Times have changed. Like i said above, i built a machine out of AMD's newest low power platform (AM1), i wasnt impressed relative to intel.

    --
    Good-bye
  26. Re: Yeah but... by Rockoon · · Score: 1

    Are you sure that Intels market segmentation isnt the result of poor yields?

    If something is broken on a lot of chips when they are made, you gotta figure out how to sell them anyways.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  27. Re: Yeah but... by Rockoon · · Score: 1

    And because AMD is fabless, they might be able to score some time at TSMC's 10nm fab when it opens this year (2016.) Intel will not be able to (unless both TSMC and Intel disregard unofficial industry rules, something Intel would want but TSMC would view as suicide.)

    Intel has admitted that it wont have 10nm up and running until next year (2017). and has denied speculation that it wont be until late next year at the earliest. They managed to turn their 2 year lead into at best 6 months behind, and they cant even keep their current fabs running 24/7 these days (leading to 11% layoffs) because GloFlo and TSMC are killing them on everything but desktop cpu's.

    Intel is suddenly not in a good position. They better pull a rabbit out of their research divisions ass.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  28. Re:Dying business by Rockoon · · Score: 1

    Intel did drop the ball on mobile and should have been out on the market early on that one. But, somehow, they let it get away from them.

    They forgot who they were competing with. ARM and AMD arent their competition. TSMC, GloFlo, Toshiba, etc are their competition.

    All of these companies will have equal (2) or better (1) fabs this year.

    (2) GloFlo and Toshiba are already running off 14nm chips.
    (1) TSMC opens up a 10nm fab this year.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  29. Hmm by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    I wonder what their rates are for allowing a backdoor? Probably cheaper than Intel's.

  30. Re: Yeah but... by Billly+Gates · · Score: 1

    And because AMD is fabless, they might be able to score some time at TSMC's 10nm fab when it opens this year (2016.) Intel will not be able to (unless both TSMC and Intel disregard unofficial industry rules, something Intel would want but TSMC would view as suicide.)

    Intel has admitted that it wont have 10nm up and running until next year (2017). and has denied speculation that it wont be until late next year at the earliest. They managed to turn their 2 year lead into at best 6 months behind, and they cant even keep their current fabs running 24/7 these days (leading to 11% layoffs) because GloFlo and TSMC are killing them on everything but desktop cpu's.

    Intel is suddenly not in a good position. They better pull a rabbit out of their research divisions ass.

    That is the problem AMD did not expect. You are Qualcomm or global foundaries. AMD asks you to make 5 million chips for a cheap profit margin as competition from INtel is so fierce and winning on price for OEM's on their cheapest lines is the only win. Then Apple and Samsung knock on your door and ask to make 50 million chips and will PAY YOU MORE. Hmm which would you chose for your lines?

    The answer is to tell AMD to shove it you care only about mobile product lines and until you pay me more and give me more quantities I will simply give my latest .14 nm and 10nm to Apple and Samsung. Bye ... oh and I have htis aging obsolete 5 year old plant in China somewhere that is .28nm maybe you can use that etc.

  31. Re:Hmm by laffer1 · · Score: 1

    Intel gave up on desktops. They started the death spiral. Laptops won't get faster, just GPU bumps.

    Look at numbers for Haswell vs anything since. It's not much. Microsoft's windows 10 move further hurt them because people can sit on PCs longer. Microsoft had to save themselves.

    Intel needs to blow out performance on PCs to get upgrades started again and for that to matter, we need a new killer app for PCs that require real CPU power. Something that can't be done on a tablet right now. Something that isn't easily offloaded onto cloud computing.

    I'm just hoping AMD doesn't give up on gamers or desktops. I need FX or core i7 CPUs for what I do and I realize it's not common, but there are CAD users, programmers, engineers, etc that need CPU performance. They killed workstations because of PC speeding up and now they want to kill PCs... what are we supposed to use?

    Yeah, they can't sell to grandma anymore and I'm going to have to pay a lot again like I did when I first started using computers, but I still need a fast PC and a laptop CPU won't cut it.

    And for the record, I also have multiple PCs. My wife is also a programmer and a gamer. She has a 6 core intel haswell-e desktop and used to buy Mac Pros . I've got a core i7 4770 with 32GB of RAM, 3 SSDs and 2 hard drives. I've also got lowend servers running for building software and running websites. I know I'm not the norm, but there are segments like me out there.

  32. Re:Is the x86 platform.... by PrincipoAzzurro · · Score: 1

    A great deal of people have no idea how to use PC. That's why apps are broadening. They are taking the functionality to where the users are. These masses are not "missing out" on, say, using a practical spreadsheet on a PC, because they don't know how to use spreadsheets anyway. (And about half of Americans, at least, cannot do algebra. Source=first 31 years of my life.)

  33. Re:x86 is still relevant? by PRMan · · Score: 1

    Mine too. I use it all the time when I don't need to type too much.

    --
    Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  34. "front door attack" by karstdiver · · Score: 2

    China is investing, with zero expectation on ROI, in semiconductors under the guise of National Security according to the US Dept of Commerce. See http://electronicspurchasingst...

  35. Re: Yeah but... by Rockoon · · Score: 1

    Then Apple and Samsung knock on your door and ask to make 50 million chips and will PAY YOU MORE.

    Amazing how you are bewildered by economics. A better product of course demands a higher price. Your bewilderment is evident in that you think only TSMC can demand a higher price, when in reality anyone paying TSMC that higher price can also demand a higher price on the other end.

    You guys are such uneducated simpletons.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
  36. Re: Yeah but... by Agripa · · Score: 1

    Something broken like ECC support?

    No, their market segmentation is very deliberate and shrewd and has been so since the 875P chipset which was the last or close to the last non-Xeon design to support ECC.

  37. Business as usual by golodh · · Score: 1
    AMD is simply monetising its Intellectual Property. It owes this to its shareholders because this generates revenues Today and dividends Tomorrow, and that's all that matters.

    Speculation on the possibility of deminishing returns in future cannot and should not drive this policy decision decision.

    Anyone who doesn't wholeheartedly applaud this decision on any but financial grounds (has AMD obtained a a good price for its licenses ?) has left the Path of True Capitalism. Be told.