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Tom on the Athlon (And an Intel Conspiracy?)
ninjaz writes "Tom from Tom's Hardware has published his first Athlon Motherboard Reviews, where he states "I know for a fact that Asus has designed a highly excellent Athlon-motherboard" , which Asus has mysteriously deciding against selling. This amidst rumors of Intel threats of artificial BX chipset shortages. "
You conspiracy nuts are gonna love this one. It does look fishy.
Actually, there are a couple other of ways you can put pressure on competitors which the government considers illegal. One of the most well known ones is called "predatory pricing," a situation in which a manufacturer with deep pockets sells its goods at a loss for the sake of driving a competitor out of the market. That's essentially what Netscape accused Microsoft of when IE was first released (MS responded that they were simply making the product a part of the OS, which begs the question: why make a version for Mac?). To make matters worse, Microsoft is also accused of the coercive kind of behavior you describe, by forbidding OEMs to include Netscape on their machines.
:)
Bucket58 is right, though. If Intel were just keeping hands-off and letting the two processors fight it out, there'd be nothing to say. The allegation is that they're going to make life hard for MoBo makers who support the K7 by saying that there's a "shortage" of a critical component of the board, and favoring compliant companies with lower prices.
Oh, by the way, Skelly: "Now write that 100 times by morning, or I'll cut your balls off." What a great movie.
Fishy (puppet@dial.pipex.com) wrote:
>Tom's little site has been printing rubbish for a long time.
>Sorry, but no-one has believed a word of it for a long time, theres no point making headines from his rubbish.
Who are you speaking for Fishy Muppet? Seems to
me your in a crowd of one! Tom's site is all but little,
and I can think of several other clone sites where
if it's real rubbish your after then there is plenty
of it to choose from.
I'm not ready to believe this just on Tom's say-so, but it does seem odd that so few major mobo manufacturers seem to be turning out Slot-A boards to take advantage of the demand for what looks to be a truly superior CPU.
I've always had good luck with AMD CPUs (not being a demanding gamer, I always found them quite satisfactory) and the only Intel CPU I ever bought (486 DX-4 100) was bad.
I was going to at least consider a PIII for my next upgrade, but if this rumour turns out to be remotely true, I'll stick with AMD. If Intel can't get by on the excellence of its product and service to its customers, I don't want to deal with them...I'll take an honest second-rater any day over a company that feels it necessary to use every trick in the book, clean or dirty, to maintain its overwhelming market share... [which is not to say that the Athlon is a second rate product...I suspect the main problem with it will be lack of easy availability...]
I Agree to a degree. Here is what I see. I am some Motherboard manufacturer and the majority of my profits are from Motherboards using Intel chipsets. Intel may suddenly have a shortage because I want to profit from the "Superior" AMD chip. The issues: Can I make a stable board for the AMD chip in time to offset the possible shortage? Will there be enough AMD chips out there so poeple will buy my board? Say I assume yes to both then: Will AMD continue to produce quality and quantity for "x" number of years? If they (AMD) fail then can I establish a relationship with Intel again that would be as profitable as it was before the breakup? You get my point. If I were the only motherboard manufacture I would have the power. But with multiple motherboard manufacturers in the marketplace can I afford to take a risk of losing marketshare?
Now here is the "beauty" of being an 800 pound gorilla. I don't have to do hardly anything to elicit this response. All that is required is that I have done it a few times before as an example for everyone else. Fear should take care of the rest.
The story may be accurate. I have a question to others who may know, Has shortages in key components to Motherboard manufacturers occured in the past about the time a competitor released an adequate competing product? I am not being sarcastic, I don't know the history.
I am actually running both NT and Linux currently on my DUAL Intel box. However I have recently started running NT in a vmware session under Linux, and the vmware session takes lots of system resources, in particular CPU. One of My DUAL CPU's is always at about 95% (they sway the task back and forth) when running this so I am looking at gettin ga more powerful machine. Thus the Athelon. If they have quads at a reasonable price, I may get a quad 600.
Eventually I am going to have FreeBSD and Solaris in vmware, and may at times want to run several virtual machines at once. Each OS has it's +/-.
Vmware however is more than emulation it is actually a computer within a computer. The guest OS uses its own drivers, for the most part. For example when I did NT dial up networking in the vmware session Linux ppp module was never loaded and Linux did not have access to the internet, yet NT did, and NT was the guest OS. This is good, cause it means that I can use NT drivers or Linux drivers without ever haveing to reboot the parent OS. When they improve there sound and add bidirectional parallel port interface, I'll be able to use my web cam without rebooting. Until support for my device makes its way into the kernel fully. I am estatic(sp?) about vmware. I will be buying it next month. This allows me to run al those win apps, without having to boot back and forth between window and Linux. Truthefull, the main thing I like about my Linux box is my X setup. Window maker I like the look of the windows, and the config tool, kfm, makes browsing dir's easy, and gnomepanel, I like the pager and the clock. I just can't get this look and feel in NT.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Sad, sad little man.
You should be able to get dual Athlon's inside of 8 months, according to a source of mine that wishes to remain un-named:P. In my mind if you're running a decent OS (NT if its set up correctly, or preferable Linux) there is absolutly no reason EVER to buy a single CPU system again. Thats why my next system is going to be a dual Athlon. I personally have always been one to support the underdog, don't ask why.
--Ok. I'm hearing a lot of "oh, but tom's hwg sucks... don't listen to it, blah blah". That's great and everything, but there is something much more important going on. We ALL know that the Athlon is a better performer than anything intel has. Many reviews exist, and prove this point. Abit, Asus and others are NOT SUPPORTING AMD at all. Who cares what Tom's HWG says, or what your opinion of that is. As consumers, do we WANT most of the major board manufacturers to not support the best performer out there? Maybe it would be different if it were a different platform.. (take alpha for instance ;)). But AMD has all the positives and none of the negatives. Heck, they even win on price. All of you out there who care about the spirit of competition.. e-mail these board manufacturers. Tell them what you think. Tell them you want the best performance, and that you don't care about the 'intel inside' crap. I know it sounds all 'doomsday-ish'... but if we let intel control the market, things like the P-III ID code and inflated processor prices are going to stay. Do you guys remember what it used to be like before AMD and Cyrix jumped into the game? $1000+ for a good high-speed processor? Only after some fierce competition, did intel decide to release a low-cost, good performer, the Celeron. We need to fight this, and unlike the problem with Microsoft products, consumers are taking NO risks by switching brands. After all... my software, and my company's software, and my friends' software will run fine on an AMD. Lets make it happen.--T
There is nothing that says that intel has to do business with any particular board maker. This is not the first time that this rumor has reared it's gruesome head.
Monica Lewinsky? Real news? Get real.
Im not sure on this, but I think predatory pricing is described as when you sell something at cost (less than its real value) to force someone out of business. Selling for more than the real value is not that way because you are only asking for a little more than what you paid in labor and materials to make it in the first place.
>
You touch on a relevant point here, but in the wrong way. Companies are not moral or immoral, they are amoral by design (as is all of economics, a point which every economist will remind you of as justification for their Machiavellian opinions.) In order to induce a company to take something that ostensibly represents a "moral" stance, one must make it economically feasible for them to do so. And here ends the catechism.
we've been trained as kids to do this, why should things change now.
BTW: www.m-w.com bookmark it, memorize it, use it when unsure.
It's "rampant", 'Rampent' sounds like some pagan absolution ritual
On topic opinion: Intel is in business to make money. You figure the rest out.
+&x
2nd Comment!! YAy! But anyway, what's the dilly with this? I've heard that Intel is threatening to increase prices on their chipsets if the motherboard suppliers support the AMD stuff??
...Tom "I know more about Quake3 than ID" , or is that Tom "Everyone else is on the take from 3dfx/Nvidia/etc..."
The guy hardly seems like the poster boy for rational thought.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
A monopoly is a monopoly is a monopoly. It's time for the Federal Trade Commission to reopen a lawsuit against Intel. Doesn't Motorola or IBM make chipsets aswell? There has to be alternatives.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
AMD create a better chip than Intel, and Intel respond by fighting dirty. Typical.
Raven.
The site gets updated like once a yr. and there's not enough technical stuff. Not a personal thing, just a lame site. Check the "Overclocking Guide" if you doubt me.
"My life's work has been to prompt others... and be forgotten." --Cyrano de Bergerac
I know that K7 mobo exsists too a local hardwawre shop was sent a pre release one. It seems obvious something fishy is going down, I have emailed Asus and let them know I'm not happy with there poor stand. Intel have you not heard of karma, it will take you down so so hard very soon indeed.
That's the Freedom CPU, and it's located at . However the site seems to be down at the moment.
*sigh*
www.f-cpu.tux.org
Once upon a time he had all pages listed at the bottom of every page to where you could click to the one you wanted to go to. He got rid of that so you have to drudge through every single page(& add).
Ok, all you people that like to bash Tom's site should either put up or shut up. I've seen lots of posts so far claiming one thing or the other about him and his site. The ones I definately agree with are things like hard to read and slow. As for bashing his english skills, you people are flaming a guy from GERMANY about his english language skills.
As for how non-technical he is, why not actually POST a url of a better site? I haven't seen that here yet. I'm not saying his site is the greatest since I haven't reviewed lots of other technical sites. I do believe he does a good job at reviewing hardware for gaming systems and deserves credit for being honest enough to say when he doesn't know something.
Do really dense people warp space more than others?
This is also how irresponsible "journalists" (read: anybody with an HTML editor can make claims of being a journalist these days) like Blatt Grudge get taken down a few dozen notches.
I've send an email to ASUSTeK asking if anyone there can clarify/confirm/deny this story. When/if I get a reply, be sure it'll end up here.
"Cake or death!" (E. Izzard)
--
"This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along."
(and my grammar was slightly better in the email, too. s/send/sent/ *blush*)
"Cake or death!" (E. Izzard)
--
"This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along."
www.anandtech.com
... I've never had doubts about it. I have always liked AMD, and they seem to have produced a truly superior design this go round. What with Merced-delays, they may be able to make a dent in Intel.
..is a fairly respected site. I use it on occasion. Anand seems pretty dedicated, as well as being humble and level headed. (traits many claim that Tom lacks)
As for the K7
That is, if they can get motherboard manufacturers to cooperate...
--Lenny
Interesting. When I was picking components to use in LHS computers, Tom's site was one of my most valuable resources. I found that the information there was generally pretty close to what I found myself when I evaluated things myself.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
His reviews of the K6-2 and K6-3 were not complimentary, especially slamming the slow floating point units (and noting that a Pentium 233 MMX did floating point faster than a K6-2/333). If he's on the take from AMD, it's a new phenomenon.
_E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
Tom has proven himself dumber and more blind to the facts over and over again in the past few months, just look at what he had to say about the PGC technology introduced by metabyte, and look at their reply(at the bottom)...
and a polopony is a polopony and a horse is a horse...
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
You say $100 dollars a processor like that's cheap. In reality, that's very expensive. The cost of physically manufacturing a PIII is around $50-$60. The Athlon is about the same. The K6 series is more in the $40-$50 range. There are also designs like the winchip that are made to be cheap. We're talking around $30. Like software, what you're paying for is the development cost (only for hardware those costs are much higher). If you had a processor that cost $100 to make and you sold it for $110 you would NOT make a profit.
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
HotRail is doing 4 way and 8 way SMP for the athlon.
http://www.hotrail.com/products/index.htm
just imagine...
If Intel creates a chip shortage for its motherboards, that would only accelerates the adoption AMD more as people would turn to them to fill the gap!
What exactly "blows" about it? It doesn't support any fancy new features like DDR ram or anything, but it was never intended to. It was designed simply to ensure that the Athlon had a chipset for its release. It does support UDMA 66, making it more full featured than intel's current top of the line chipset (the BX). It certainly doesn't have any speed problems. The AGP problems which plagued super 7 chipsets are non-existent in the Irongate. Why do you say it "blows"? And AMD plans to build on it to add new features (such as SMP, DDR ram, AGP 4x, etc.). It seems like a fine chipset to me.
I am not an idiot. Please use my name to email me.
"That's right, I'm quoting myself."
-Upsilon
On principle, I always avoid buying from monopolistic companies if I can help it. When a monopoly wields power over me against my will, I do not quietly accept it. Corporations should not be kings, and we should not be their subjects.
I am planning to buy a K7 so the board will be just a consequence. I prefer AMD's price/performance so Intel has no bearing.
When I first read the article, I admit I was stirred up by the suggested practice. I don't like the idea of supporting sleazeballs, but then I realized my choice was based on excellence rather than a lack of it.
You can turn endless cirlces trying to find the truth behind a rummor --but why bother when you already have a choice that stands above the confusion?
I plan to write the mobo makers who have no current plans to support the K7 to let them know also.
They may not have moral obligations, but as they (corporations) are entities formed under the law (a law that was specifically engineered to allow for their existence), you better believe that they must act according to the law. IFF they don't, they get spanked sooner or later by DOJ. Or, if they have enough money to grease the sphincters of certain state attorneys general (*cough* Dell....*cough* Texas...) said attorneys general drop off the anti-trust lawsuits.
When I move to Mars, I'm not going to have any of this collusive corrupt back-door action bullshit. It really annoys me. The law will make sense, and people will follow it because it makes sense.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Everyone seems to be missing the point. The goal posts have shifted. ... http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/99/aug/0809/mu11.h tm
... read Intel offered us a good price or first in line for the Merced if we ditched AMD. Where is the FTC when you need them.
.. when I told my mom I could build a better system together for less than she was quoted by Dell, she said that she had read that Dell computers were the best, so she was going to get one..
... if there are no motherboards, or not too many motherboard choices, there is likely to be less support for the K7 ( I agree, athlon is a silly name).
Go to the following article on Forbes digital..
It tells of how at the last hour, Gateway decided not to ship K7 based machines, for "purely commercial reasons"....
When people buy computers these days, more often than not, they buy the box, ie Dell, IBM, HP etc etc, largely because that is where the buck stops, and the after sales support begins.
Only the geeks actually care about what is in the box...
Getting support from the big players is like getting endorsement in the sports equipment business, and Intel is trying to sign up exclusive aggreements with as many stars as possible to lock out AMD.
Intel knows this, Linux proponents know this, which is why it is important to get the big players in the box market to support/provide boxes with your products in them.
In the past, AMD shot itself in the foot, by not being able to meet demand for chips... Now that they have that, the quality and the speed problems sorted out, INTEl is shooting them....
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
Not to fan the conspiracy flames but it's kind of wierd that the companies they list by name are the same ones that have Slot-A boards? Then again maybe I'm just paranoid.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
-- H. L. Mencken
If you have problems with Tom's, or are just looking for another look at hardware, you can read any of the following sites: http://www.anandtech.com http://www.hardocp.com http://www.sharkyextreme.com http://www.cpureview.com http://www.firingsquad.com I read all of these regulary, and find that if one site doesn't have what I'm looking for another one will. There are dozens of good hardware sites out there, you don't need to limit yourself to just one. These are only a sampling of my favorites. Also, yes the Athlon will be SMP capable, and since it uses the Alpha bus should be able to do 4x or 8x systems far better than XEON.
---
Ars Technica seem to have just the right level of information, mixed in with some self-deprecatory humour sadly lacking on Tom's site.
:)
Don't get me wrong, I still read Tom's every now and then, but since he got all corporate, the articles have become unnecessarily wieldy, technical and bogged down with ads. Ars is clean, and informative without resorting to statistical overload (I mean, how many *game* video benchmarks do your have to perform...and why include the ones which were obviously CPU limited???)
Anand is alright, I just can't take a 16 yr old kid that seriously, but he's too verbose and tries to be a bit too worldy wise sometimes...in a few years though, he'll really kick ass I think. Bright kid
Daniel.
Who cares? ;).
Coppermine CPU- still not rated as fast as the K7, right? If so, it'll be close.
AGP 4x- so do the AMD boards- did you read the article?
Elimination of ISA- I don't want that (but one is fine). I still run my NIC's off ISA, as well as most of my soundcards. The precious 4 or 5 PCI slots in almost all mutlimedia machines I build are quickly used up. Fine if you're starting new, but I LIKE reusing my parts during an upgrade. I've got 6 systems using 4 year old ISA SB16's and ISA 10BaseT NICs...
Memory- ya, they finally and just submitted to the fact that Rambus was too expensive and flakey yet, so they HAD to go PC133- as VIA and others said last year. How much ya wanna bet the Rambus spec will change enough by the time it's stable that the VC820 Rambus slots won't use them anyway (ok, unlikely, but screw Rambus
Kinda like Moe, but just a little more Kool
You say:
>How many mobos would Asus need to sell to make a
>new design profitable?
Asus has already SUNK the money to design the board; it would be unprofitable NOT to sell it. There is obviously some reason WHY they aren't selling the board and Intel is the prime suspect.
And furthermore, you say:
>...and can AMD guarantee a large enough
>production run?
We'll see. Banks have a tendancy to invest in businesses with products that are in high demand. Athlon appears to me to be such a product.
Now, I will add something:
The Athlon, with the EV6 bus design, is just starting out at the beginning of it's capable operating range; the Pentium is topping out. The only thing keeping the Athlon out of the 200Mhz bus speed and above is the lack of affordable memory that will operate at such high speeds. Athlon is going to drive faster memory architecture development. Athlon is going to be the processor of choice for the forseable future (1.5 - 2years) until the Merced or McKinley chips debut. Athlon is likely to take over the multiprocessor marketshare of Intel due to it's better multiprocessor capabilities (point to point topology). These are all very good reasons, for the one company that has the most to lose, to play dirty.
In the future, don't hobble the racehorse!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
I agree with that attackin Id wasn't wery bright,
BUT he did apologise didn't he?
I don't say that an apology makes everything good
again, but it helps.
I can come to think of a NUMBER of sites that NEVER
admitts anything.
How do you think Tom is subjective? In what way?
Towards AMD or against 3dfx?
Martin Widmark
Linköping Sweden
Everybody knows that we are the evil boys, making noise with deadly toys.
I feel it neccessary to reply to myself and point out I was KIDDING!! I just wanted to illustrate how easy it is to invent a mildly plausible conspiracy given a limited scope of information.
"Old man yells at systemd"
nuff said.
I got the impression that Tom was actually NOT stating that there IS dirty play from Intel. I recall him writing something to the effect of (this is not a direct quote) "Either Intel is free of sin or plays dirty ... ... I will not rest until I've gotten to the bottom of this". In other words, he is admitting to the possibility that Intel is not involved in foul play. Granted, his speculating on the subject is bound to be taken as direct accusations by many readers who are not careful or just otherwise want to jump to conclusions. That, however, is more a problem of the individual reader than Tom. Just my opinion of course.
Oh hadn't you heard? Those benchmarks were FAKE.
0 08
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990819S0
Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, Benchmarks. . . political party platforms.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I hope this is a message to all you lassez-faire assholes out there. Here we have a CLEAR CUT case of a BETTER product, getting trounced by a larger, competitor that just happens to have more cash and influence.
Sure, Intel is a business, and their business is to make themselves and their stockholders rich. But it's at the expense of a better world for the rest of us, so if all you're interested in is money, then go to www.forbesdot.org, and post your libertarian nonsense there. For the rest of us, who are interested in technology, and advancing the state of the art, we'll keep bashing intel here.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Sorry , did the Anonymous Coward say something? I answer I could find 200 people within 2 seconds who agree with. F
>Money speaks much louder than whining True, but sometimes whining (not the best word) gets other people's money talking too.
--"In dreams begin responsibilities" - Delmore Schwartz
I think you mis-read the article you posted about. It says that AMD had it in their performance guide that it was optimized and they compaired the optimized versus the un-optimized.
Maybe you should go back and re-read the article. Because it also says that other test firms say the Athlon generally outperforms the P3.
BTW: you should always take numbers/stats/etc given by the company selling the product with a grain of salt and look to independent testers.
--
?
I'll echo the rest of the crowd. Tom's site is slow, hard to read, full of arrogant attitude, and occassionally he posts inaccurate misinformation and unproven rumors as if they were factual. I liked Tom's site a few years ago, but in the last year he seems to spend more time flaming people and talking about prime vacation spots than posting useful hardware info. This is an interesting story, but I'm unimpressed with the fact that most people seem to taken this unproven rumor as fact despite the unreliable source. I like Anand's. http://www.anandtech.com/ Thresh's Firing Squad does very good hardware reviews, but they don't do as many as I would like. http://www.firingsquad.com SharkyExtreme is good - although they, too, have a tendancy to print rumors ahead of facts. http://www.sharkyextreme.com Agn3D's hardware site has pretty good hardware reviews - although not, IMO, the quality of those sites listed above. http://www.agnhardware.com Then there's plenty of smaller sites that don't update as regularly that still contain useful hardware information... lostcircuits, jeff's hardware site. There's plenty of links to these sites and more at Anand's site.
Intel doesn't want to destroy AMD...
i kesback.htm )
Think, what would happen then? Well AMD would go for sale, and Intel can't buy them ( FTC! ).
So maybe Motorola or IBM would buy them ( AMD is to valuable to simply vanish ) and what would happen then? Intel's worst nightmare, another company with good chips and lots of finacial backing.
Or am I missing something? It is the only reason I can think of why AMD still exists as a lone company ( The idea comes from Kalaran at http://www.jc-news.com/pc/absorb/kalaran/intelstr
Thanks for the word
Martin Widmark
Everybody knows that we are the evil boys, making noise with deadly toys.
I think you folks are not realizing this fact: the Intel 440BX chipset is a VERY old design by 1999 standards. After all, we saw it first way back in April 1998 on the original Intel SE440BX motherboard, which is a LONG time ago given the pace motherboard technology advances?
You are forgetting that Intel is about to release the new "Vancouver" (VC820) motherboard with the i820 "Camino" chipset. The VC820 motherboard will sport things such as support for the "Coppermine" PIII CPU (with 256 KB of CPU-speed L2 cache), AGP 4X support, the final elimination of ISA slots and most importantly, support for both PC133 and Rambus RDRAM DIMM's.
The latest I've heard is that the VC820 motherboard will be released on September 23, 1999; this means by Christmas, most high-end systems will be using this motherboard or equivalents from other motherboard manufacturers.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
It shouldn't stick, but that's a risk Intel has decided it must run. If they weren't a monopoly we'd all be saying that Intel has just hit the end of their rope --what with Pentium design now clearly maxed out, Merced bathed in flop-sweat, Rambus busted and the failure of their video chipset division, PC 133 escaping their grasp, and to cap it off the emergence of K7 Athlon. A superior in their core market! Intel has simultaneously run out of both carrots and sticks! So they must invent one. Now we've had a glut in world supplies in chip and memory parts so strong as to cause complete collapse in prices, and to intensify if not actually cause economic meltdown in Asia. So I cannot believe this fairy-tale shortage, and I'm surprised that it's reported without heavy skepticism by any news organ. No, it's pure fantasy that there's suddenly this big problem. Ghengiz Khan or the Soviet army must have resurrected and carried these factories away in an unreported bout of rape and pillage. Mothra ate them --yeah that was it! Intel is lying and hoping we're all too stupid or too in love with their success story to call them on it. So the present chapter of that story includes overt monopoly abuses. They know that there will be repercussions but they also know that there is a good chance that they can strangle AMD for good before the law stops them. What --would the Feds actually order the breakup of the sole remaining US producer of commodity cpus? Dangerous. Military and Congre$$ would be stuggle to outdo each other in raising hell. AMD has bet the farm on a breakthrough, and they've won it, but Intel can steal it all away if they stop enough motherboard makers and OEMS from marketing the superior solution. legal niceties aside, Intel has much to lose if they fail to act, now, and everything to gain. So they've bet the farm, too. Very well!
Send in the lawyers, Ms. Reno, Mr. Klein, it's deposition time.
why?
Regardless of what Intel does to motherboard manufacturers, AMD is still going to rock with the Athlon. There are other motherboard manufacturers out there cranking out boards other than just Asus. Just for an example, Biostar-USA has one right on their site - http://www.biostar-usa.com - look for yourself. I run a Biostar motherboard at home, we run them here at my place of employment for servers - they haven't given us any trouble. Plus, I'd just like to know where our good buddy Tom got his information for all the claims he made in that article. Has anyone been able to verify some of his claims?
Personally, I'm going to relax. AMD's Athlon will still come out in full force, motherboards are already available, the chips probably are too if you know where to look. Everyone should just chill about the whole situation and laugh and cheer as Intel slips behind the awesome power of Athlon.
This is how rumours get started, and propagated. There has been NO evidence to support an Intel conspiracy, nor did Tom provide any! Granted, through its contracts, Intel has a strong hold on the motherboard manufactureres, but this has nothing to do with efforts to crush the K7 (I won't say athlon... sounds silly.) Shame on you, tom, for spreading rumors without proof. And shame on you, Rob, for focusing on tom's obviously baseless accusations. The reviews are more than enough for an acceptable story. No need to resort to sleaze-journalism tactics in order to increase readership. (BTW : If you didn't write the summary, and just posted what was sent to you, knock the finger-waving down a notch. Sorry... ;))
A while back, I heard about an open source project which aimed to design a microprocessor. I think it had some imput by Carmack of ID Software. Anyone know what happened to it? I'm assuming it was freezed because it lacked the funding and support. Maybe AMD could really kick intel by opening up their processor specs in some sort of open source license. Yes, I know, it would be quite a silly economic idea for AMD - but maybe a smaller manufacturer could give it a go?
First, before we all go screaming "Death to Intel" it would behoove us to confirm that Intel actually has done something wrong (which, at first blush, it sounds like they did). Independent confirmation (e.g. another manufacturer who was pressured in the same way coming forward) would be nice.
Second, if this is confirmed and Intel is playing dirty (which wouldn't surprise anyone I don't think), we as Linux users have alot of other excellent hardware alternatives, including (but not limited to) the Dec Alpha, Sparc, and Power PC platforms. If this really upsets you, use one of the non-intel alternatives to run your OS, and let Intel know exactly why you've done so. Money speaks much louder than whining -- if unethical behavior has a negative impact on a company's bottom line, you can be reasonably sure that the behavior will change.
On the other hand, Intel has (probably correctly) surmised that any outrage we may feel will be quickly buried beneath the euphoria and hype as we all run out to get our hands on the latest Merced, whenever it's released. In a society bent on rampent consumerism, political, ethical, and moral concerns vanish beneath the glitz of a new toy claiming our attention in the next 30 second spot.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Tom's little site has been printing rubbish for a long time.
Sorry, but no-one has believed a word of it for a long time, theres no point making headines from his rubbish.
F
But seriously, are we going to see an era of processor brand specific PC clone motherboards? Kind of defeats the whole purpose of being able to mix and match.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
This is also how legitimate news stories get broken (witness the Monica Lewdinsky affair and the Drudge Report): by airing rumours and investigating them. If it's but a rumour, it gets shot down. If not, then perhaps some other /.er has info they can post about it. So relax and watch the discussion commence.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
If your going to complain about other peoples ignorance...
Tom may be on track but I'll never know. I gave up trying to read his article because I got tired of reading a few paragraphs of text and then having to click and wait for another screen full of ads and frames to load to read the next page. Never finished reading his original Athlon review for the same reason.
is his comment about the missing Asus MB. Intel may or may not be leaning on MB manufacturers, but if they're not, why did Asus decide to not release a MB after taking the trouble to produce one? Tom tends to throw his personal opinions in with his reviews which may or may not be good journalism but he does know his stuff and I find the personal touch a welcome break from straight technical data, though he has gone a bit too far in the past. His little battle with Brian Hook was uncalled-for. As pure speculation, I would not be at all surprised if Intel WERE doing as Tom suggested. They are well behind AMD right now and have made a few mistakes recently. If they can even delay the mass-release of the Athlon to the consumer market, they will have that much more time to get their next cool chip out the door and be in that much better of a position to thwart AMD. It's pretty widely known that Intel is doing all they can to drive AMD out of business. Whether they would resort to monopolistic practices to do so is a matter of opinion. There are other monopolies out there that have acted in this manner in the past, and I know I don't need to name names.
http://www.arstechnica.com
-Ed
I hope this guy is smoking something because I want a K7 reeeeaaaalll badly *drools*.. ooh.. kayy seven.. hmm, nice, ppur-purty,. gimme. ;)
HEY MAN THE SOCK-MONKEY COMMERCIALS RULE!!!!!!! I'M A SOCK MONKEY, YOUR A SOCK MONKEY, INTEL IS A BUNCH OF SOCK-MONKEYS AND DONT YOU FORGET IT. OR US SOCK MONKEYS WILL COME TO YOU HOUSE IN GLITTERY SUITS AND STICH THE BANNANA SHAPED MERCED UP YOUR BUNG HOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SOCK MONKEY ! SOCK MONKEY ! SOCK MONKEY ! SOCK MONKEY ! man i love that term...
Come off it you dont get where Intel's gotten by being nice & pricipled, you get there through every tactic you can get away with. If you let Intel get away with it they'd succed in it, after all business is war. Of course the're leaning on OEMs, they'd be mad not to - its call comparative advantage...lol.
Uh, if he said it before about the end of 97~beginning of98 it would have been a big deal. But tom has lost nearly all (if not all) his credibility in a slow drain, ending for most with his q3 "I am god" rantings. If just about any other tech guru/rumormill site had posted this, maybe I'd give a shit.
I agree with you totally. The site is a little more readable, though, if you use an ad-blocker like interMute.
Excellent analysis. I was about to say the same thing. Please moderate this post up to 5, Insightful
can I get a DUAL AMD processor system thou?
Only 'flamers' flame!
What if /Tom/ is on the take from AMD? From the tone of the story, that'd make sense. See? Conspiracies arn't that hard to propagate .. ;)
"Old man yells at systemd"
...rite
wow and i got fourth!@
Everybody, lets scare Intel. If I have to see one more commercial with men in silvery suits dancing because their processor is so gosh darn fun, or commercial that tells me my 'processor makes the internet faster', I'm gunna cry. The word on the street is that the Merced is going to do your laundry and pay your bills for you too.
The K7 has scored very very well in benchmarking so far (all reviews I've seen have beaten out the P3, and MSI/FIC/Giga's MBoards are apparently just as fast as AMDs referance board), so it looks like AMD has done exactly what it said it was going to do - increase FP performance. If I were in the market, I'd buy a K7 when they came out. Not only because they look like they're the head of the pack right now, but I really believe AMD deserves a pat on the back. From the looks of it, they assesed their weaknesses, and fixed them.
"Old man yells at systemd"
They made a special DLL for Athlon because the existing 3DNow! optimizations weren't that good at all. Also I believe that it had to do with additional commands in 3DNow! that were in Athlon. That DLL can't slow Intel ships down because it's used with Ahlon. Could you explain how this is 'dirty' to you?
..... that anti-Intel FUD is alive and well in Tom's hardware.
I received a reply from ASUSTek's sales team this morning as follows:
"It'll be released by the end of the month."
No more, no less. "Nuff zed," as you might say.
"Cake or death!" (E. Izzard)
--
"This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along."
There is an update to Tom's Hardware Guide detailing the latest developments re: the ASUSTeK board.
"Cake or death!" (E. Izzard)
--
"This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along."
If I was a motherboard manufacturer and Intel told me that there would be a difficulty in getting the product in the next fews months, what would that make me do?
I think I would be looking to depend more on the Athlon chipsets, where there would be no shortage.
The only way an announced shortage of Intel chipsets would get me to drop the Athlon motherboard, would be if Intel said something to me like, "Look, just between you and me, I can ensure that you'll have all the chipsets you'll need if you just won't ship your Athlon motherboards"
misinformation.
Tom's an arrogant whiner with very little actual computer knowledge. His site has always been mediocre at best, but now you get that same lame computer news with a healthy dose of attitude, over-inflated ego and conspiracy theories.
Isn't this the same guy who was telling id how they wrote their engines? The same one that discredits every other computer tech page on the web? The same one who writes in such broken English that it's sometimes hard to follow his articles? The same one who personally attacks anyone who uses facts and reason to prove him wrong? The same one who will climb so far up a chip manufacturer's ass he can't see the light of day?
I'll go elsewhere for my computer news, thanks.
---
aaron barnes
part-time dork
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aaron barnes
part-time dork
"I like cheese. Yum."
Any doubts about my next CPU purchase are resolved. It'll be an AMD.
:)
I HATE evil bastards like Intel and Micro$not. It's so unnessesary for them to be evil. Neither one lacks talented employees. Both are completely capable of success without evil! They should fire their most execs and all marketroids. Or kill them to prevent further evil elsewhere
License: By reading this you are agreeing that you agree with me.
Why not have a number of journalists repeatedly ask Intel the question:
Would you publicly commit to not treating Asus any differently if they released an Athlon motherboard?
(This way, if the rumor is true, Intel has to back down publicly or admit that while its business practices are "ethical", they included treating Asus differently if they do the 'wrong' thing. If the rumor is false, Intel won't have any problem making such a public commitment, right?)
Just a thought.
--LP