I think you'd be hard pressed to convince US politicians of either party to go full on trustbusters on Intel. Especially as they'll claim they're not a monopoly.
Careful. The Irony Police will give you a Fixed Penalty Irony notice for falsely claiming things are ironic when they're not. Ironically they often give Fixed Penalty Irony notices to people for falsely claiming things are ironic when they actually are ironic.
Last time slashdot covered AMD's mobile offerings they didn't seem all that compelling. Basically if I was going to buy a Windows laptop I'd pretty much have to buy an Intel one.
The CPU performance of a Ryzen 5 2500U is better than a i7-7600U but worse than a i7-8550U or an i5-8250U
The GPU performance of an Ryzen 5 2500U/Vega 8 is worse than a i5-8250U/Geforce MX150 but it's faster than integrated Intel HD620 in an i7-8550U
The power consumption is clearly worse than a either an Intel IGP or even the GeForce MX150. E.g.
We noted that the Acer Swift 3 with a Core i7-8250U 8th Gen CPU and GeForce MX150 pulled about 9 Watts at idle and 13 - 16 Watts under the light duty load of our HD video loop test. The HP Envy x360 15z with Ryzen 5 Mobile pulled about the same 9 Watts at idle and with similar panel brightness, but under the load of video playback with VLC, pulled 20 Watts with peaks to 30 Watts in spots. We also quickly tested CPU utilization whether running VLC or the Windows 10 video player, and saw Ryzen 5 2500U CPU utilization oscillated at a low 4 - 12 percent. So, it appears at least with respect to VLC and video playback, that Ryzen Mobile with Vega 8 graphics is more power-hungry or perhaps has a bit more driver maturity to undergo to be fully optimized.
Generally PC laptops have two major customer groups
1) People who don't care about GPU performance but do care about battery life, price, power consumption etc
2) People who do care about GPU performance.
People from group 1) are going to get a machine with an Intel CPU and use the integrated GPU.
People from group 2) are going to get a machine with an Intel CPU and a discrete GPU. And not a GeForce MX150 either - more like a Geforce 1050 Ti.
In which case where does the Ryzen 2500U/Vega 8 combo fit in? It doesn't have enough GPU performance for groups 2). It's not low power enough for group 1).
If they'd managed to build something which had more performance than a MX150 they'd be fine. If they could beat Intel IGPs for power they'd be fine. But something with less performance than a MX150 and more power usage too isn't going to do well.
Now maybe some of this could be fixed with a driver update. Still based on current performance we're going to see these machines being sold a deep discount. And if they're not commercially successful, why would AMD spend time optimising drivers?
It's a shame really. AMD Ryzen CPUs on the desktop are actually pretty competitive with Intel. It's a shame the mobile stuff has failed to find the right market niche.
It's a shame really - when AMD bought ATI I thought it would give them more options than Intel have given that Intel and NVidia are separate companies that get on like cats in a sack.
If AMD ever says this we're fucked, because it will mean Intel will have a monopoly on desktop/server CPUs. And all the signs are that means desktop and server CPUs will stagnate.
In that case ARM might help a bit, but Intel are way ahead of ARM in single core performance. So they'd be able to rest of their laurels until there's a competitive ARM implementation.
I guess that means some people have a reputation for buying overpriced stuff. Android is just as guilty as is Apple
Android is an OS Google give away for free. You can buy Android devices from a wide range of manufacturers. macOS/iOS is single sourced which means if you're hooked on their ecosystem you must buy from Apple. And Apple don't make low end devices. E.g. no netbook class machines. I got my Mum a Zenphone 5 for 4000 TWD, ie about $US 135. The cheapest iPhone is ~$350.
Now you may say "But I don't want a cheap machine, they're underpowered". Well good for you. But the problem iOS/macOS users have that Android/Windows/Linux ones do not is that you can't legally run Apple OSs on low end devices because Apple won't sell them.
So once you commit to the Apple ecosystem you're also committing to buying only high end devices and only buying them from Apple.
This is not a problem Android/Windows/Linux users have.
For the same price as a replacement for my Macbook I could either get two comparable Windows machines - e.g. Asus Zenbooks, or one really high end gaming laptop, or about 8 really low end netbook class machines.
But if I want to build iOS apps I need a Mac, and I can only buy from Apple.
They won't now but 'We're going to concentrate on the embedded market' is the traditional way for companies to stop competing in the desktop/server markets where they need to do an expensive microarchitecture respin every couple of years to stay competitive.
E.g. it's what MIPS said when they stop trying to compete in the workstation market.
Apple do have a reputation for selling overpriced stuff.
E.g. the replacement for to buy machine with the same Ram (16GB) and half the SSD size(512GB instead of 1024GB) of my 2012 Macbook Pro would cost $1,899.00. Even though the original machine was around $1100 and buying 16GB of Ram and a 1TB SSD from Crucial only cost about $400. So rather than paying $1100 up front to Apple and $400 to a third party when the machine gets a bit slow I need to pay $1900 up front and can't upgrade. That's a hefty price increase. And you can't upgrade the Ram because it's soldered and even the SSD which is socketed is proprietary and only available from Apple. Great.
Now, to be clear, I can think of at least two types of people for whom a 16GB iPhone is a reasonable choice. There are the utilitarian non-shutterbugs: They're getting a smartphone because their flip phone finally bit the dust, and they like the convenience of browsing the Web, reading email and using a few key apps -- Facebook, Google Maps, Candy Crush, Pandora and the like. But they don't care about Instagram, and they don't expect to carry around a few zillion MP3 files.
The second group is anyone with limited or bad credit. If your carrier won't allow you to pay off the phone in 24 monthly installments of $17 to $21, then the 25 percent increase in price from the 16GB to the 64GB model could well be a bridge too far. It's 16GB -- or hello, Android. (And, if you're on such a tight budget, the $12 to $30 a year for a good iCloud backup plan may be out of reach as well.)
Actually kids would have been OK with 16GB. However Apple decided to offer only 32GB, admittedly at a lower price than 16GB used to be or 128GB.
Oh I agree 1000%. It's not a freebie, it's Intel living up to the implicit contract to provide a CPU with the performance it was benchmarked when I bought it and not allow user mode stuff to read kernel memory.
In the UK you could make an argument that a processor with that bug was 'not fit for purpose'. Of course it's in the US that a class action suit has the highest chance of success and outside the US Intel will probably follow the US lead.
It'll be interesting to watch. Then again all my Intel chips are soldered to laptop motherboards. And rather elderly laptops at that - it's not like I'm going to convince Intel to convince Asus and Apple to recall motherboards that are out of warranty and do BGA rework to replace the CPUs.
However if I had machines with socketed CPUs and I was in the US I'd join a class action suit. Mind you Intel will presumably claim KPTI and its equivalents on Windows and macOS fix the security problem and any change in performance doesn't violate any sort of contractual agreement. Which they may or may not get away with. I think they probably will.
To be fair if you run WIndows applications compiled for ARM instead of x86 you wouldn't get 'performance crippling emulation' either. Of course it's a lot easier to build a Windows application which already builds for x86 and x64 for ARM than it is to port it to Linux.
I've got Android phones, a Macbook Pro, an iPad and a couple of Windows laptops. I build software for all of them though iOS is the most important commercially, just like Win32 used to be.
I can tell you that the brain-damaged behaviour usually starts long before they start playing the game - and conversely, that the top players (even the forwards) are skillful and intelligent. (Basically, the ability to be thuggish on the field attracts thugs, but thugs seldom if ever move out of the bottom rung sports teams. Paradoxically a lot of top cricketers are thugs when off the field.)
It reminds me of the old joke "Rugby is a game for animals played by gentlemen. Football is a game for gentlemen played by animals"
I'm not religious but I'd agree with Churchill that it is only because 'Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science' that Western Europe didn't go the way of Constantinople.
And these drones are part of those 'strong arms of science'.
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
I liked the old T Mobile $30 plan. It was unlimited data but was throttled after 5GB. You got unlimited texts, which is kind of handy. Only 100 minutes of talk time but I could live with that because I used VOIP.
Actually I don't need much data - there's normally WIfi where I stay so I only need it when I'm out. I'm actually OK with 1GB data.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like an update for Yosemite. However I'm very unlikely to get one.
I think you'd be hard pressed to convince US politicians of either party to go full on trustbusters on Intel. Especially as they'll claim they're not a monopoly.
Though they're definitely turning into one
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/m...
Careful. The Irony Police will give you a Fixed Penalty Irony notice for falsely claiming things are ironic when they're not. Ironically they often give Fixed Penalty Irony notices to people for falsely claiming things are ironic when they actually are ironic.
Last time slashdot covered AMD's mobile offerings they didn't seem all that compelling. Basically if I was going to buy a Windows laptop I'd pretty much have to buy an Intel one.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...
The CPU performance of a Ryzen 5 2500U is better than a i7-7600U but worse than a i7-8550U or an i5-8250U
The GPU performance of an Ryzen 5 2500U/Vega 8 is worse than a i5-8250U/Geforce MX150 but it's faster than integrated Intel HD620 in an i7-8550U
The power consumption is clearly worse than a either an Intel IGP or even the GeForce MX150. E.g.
We noted that the Acer Swift 3 with a Core i7-8250U 8th Gen CPU and GeForce MX150 pulled about 9 Watts at idle and 13 - 16 Watts under the light duty load of our HD video loop test. The HP Envy x360 15z with Ryzen 5 Mobile pulled about the same 9 Watts at idle and with similar panel brightness, but under the load of video playback with VLC, pulled 20 Watts with peaks to 30 Watts in spots. We also quickly tested CPU utilization whether running VLC or the Windows 10 video player, and saw Ryzen 5 2500U CPU utilization oscillated at a low 4 - 12 percent. So, it appears at least with respect to VLC and video playback, that Ryzen Mobile with Vega 8 graphics is more power-hungry or perhaps has a bit more driver maturity to undergo to be fully optimized.
Generally PC laptops have two major customer groups
1) People who don't care about GPU performance but do care about battery life, price, power consumption etc
2) People who do care about GPU performance.
People from group 1) are going to get a machine with an Intel CPU and use the integrated GPU.
People from group 2) are going to get a machine with an Intel CPU and a discrete GPU. And not a GeForce MX150 either - more like a Geforce 1050 Ti.
In which case where does the Ryzen 2500U/Vega 8 combo fit in? It doesn't have enough GPU performance for groups 2). It's not low power enough for group 1).
If they'd managed to build something which had more performance than a MX150 they'd be fine. If they could beat Intel IGPs for power they'd be fine. But something with less performance than a MX150 and more power usage too isn't going to do well.
Now maybe some of this could be fixed with a driver update. Still based on current performance we're going to see these machines being sold a deep discount. And if they're not commercially successful, why would AMD spend time optimising drivers?
It's a shame really. AMD Ryzen CPUs on the desktop are actually pretty competitive with Intel. It's a shame the mobile stuff has failed to find the right market niche.
It's a shame really - when AMD bought ATI I thought it would give them more options than Intel have given that Intel and NVidia are separate companies that get on like cats in a sack.
Don't knock low power mobile. A lot more people buy laptops with integrated graphics than a typical gaming rig.
And Intel are making pretty good money in that market - look at the prices on these chips. It's $300 to $500 for an i7.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Also having a different kernel mapping scheme on Intel and AMD opens up the possibility of Intel only and/or AMD only kernel mode bugs.
Then again it seems like not all AMD systems are bricked so the patch does seem to have an AMD only kernel mode bug.
Of course Microsoft being Microsoft it's a bit hard to work out what they did.
Yup.
If AMD ever says this we're fucked, because it will mean Intel will have a monopoly on desktop/server CPUs. And all the signs are that means desktop and server CPUs will stagnate.
In that case ARM might help a bit, but Intel are way ahead of ARM in single core performance. So they'd be able to rest of their laurels until there's a competitive ARM implementation.
I guess that means some people have a reputation for buying overpriced stuff. Android is just as guilty as is Apple
Android is an OS Google give away for free. You can buy Android devices from a wide range of manufacturers. macOS/iOS is single sourced which means if you're hooked on their ecosystem you must buy from Apple. And Apple don't make low end devices. E.g. no netbook class machines. I got my Mum a Zenphone 5 for 4000 TWD, ie about $US 135. The cheapest iPhone is ~$350.
Now you may say "But I don't want a cheap machine, they're underpowered". Well good for you. But the problem iOS/macOS users have that Android/Windows/Linux ones do not is that you can't legally run Apple OSs on low end devices because Apple won't sell them.
So once you commit to the Apple ecosystem you're also committing to buying only high end devices and only buying them from Apple.
This is not a problem Android/Windows/Linux users have.
For the same price as a replacement for my Macbook I could either get two comparable Windows machines - e.g. Asus Zenbooks, or one really high end gaming laptop, or about 8 really low end netbook class machines.
But if I want to build iOS apps I need a Mac, and I can only buy from Apple.
They won't now but 'We're going to concentrate on the embedded market' is the traditional way for companies to stop competing in the desktop/server markets where they need to do an expensive microarchitecture respin every couple of years to stay competitive.
E.g. it's what MIPS said when they stop trying to compete in the workstation market.
No dude. They'll give you, and more importantly, me a free i7.
Apple do have a reputation for selling overpriced stuff.
E.g. the replacement for to buy machine with the same Ram (16GB) and half the SSD size(512GB instead of 1024GB) of my 2012 Macbook Pro would cost $1,899.00. Even though the original machine was around $1100 and buying 16GB of Ram and a 1TB SSD from Crucial only cost about $400. So rather than paying $1100 up front to Apple and $400 to a third party when the machine gets a bit slow I need to pay $1900 up front and can't upgrade. That's a hefty price increase. And you can't upgrade the Ram because it's soldered and even the SSD which is socketed is proprietary and only available from Apple. Great.
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy...
Still if you look at iPhones they do do a kids one, the SE
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy...
Oh wait, that's still $349 for the 32GB version
It used to be $399 for the 16GB version but people like CNet complained
https://www.cnet.com/news/ipho...
Now, to be clear, I can think of at least two types of people for whom a 16GB iPhone is a reasonable choice. There are the utilitarian non-shutterbugs: They're getting a smartphone because their flip phone finally bit the dust, and they like the convenience of browsing the Web, reading email and using a few key apps -- Facebook, Google Maps, Candy Crush, Pandora and the like. But they don't care about Instagram, and they don't expect to carry around a few zillion MP3 files.
The second group is anyone with limited or bad credit. If your carrier won't allow you to pay off the phone in 24 monthly installments of $17 to $21, then the 25 percent increase in price from the 16GB to the 64GB model could well be a bridge too far. It's 16GB -- or hello, Android. (And, if you're on such a tight budget, the $12 to $30 a year for a good iCloud backup plan may be out of reach as well.)
Actually kids would have been OK with 16GB. However Apple decided to offer only 32GB, admittedly at a lower price than 16GB used to be or 128GB.
Admittedly I haven't bought any of them since the Athlon XP but it's clear that when AMD is competitive Intel produces better chips.
And hopefully the current Intel problems with Meltdown will give them a shot in the arm.
The only problem AMD currently have is that they are not really competitive with Intel for low power mobile chips.
The worst case is that AMD announce they're concentrating on the embedded market like MIPS.
Also it would be good to see Via do some chips which are aimed at the mainstream laptop market.
Some people are seeing >50% performance loss. Take a look at this graph: https://www.epicgames.com/fort...
Clearly they are going to need to spend some serious cash on upgrading their servers. The thread is full of players who can't connect.
Interesting. I reckon they'd have a case against Intel
Oh I agree 1000%. It's not a freebie, it's Intel living up to the implicit contract to provide a CPU with the performance it was benchmarked when I bought it and not allow user mode stuff to read kernel memory.
In the UK you could make an argument that a processor with that bug was 'not fit for purpose'. Of course it's in the US that a class action suit has the highest chance of success and outside the US Intel will probably follow the US lead.
It'll be interesting to watch. Then again all my Intel chips are soldered to laptop motherboards. And rather elderly laptops at that - it's not like I'm going to convince Intel to convince Asus and Apple to recall motherboards that are out of warranty and do BGA rework to replace the CPUs.
However if I had machines with socketed CPUs and I was in the US I'd join a class action suit. Mind you Intel will presumably claim KPTI and its equivalents on Windows and macOS fix the security problem and any change in performance doesn't violate any sort of contractual agreement. Which they may or may not get away with. I think they probably will.
Yeah, that pissed a lot of people off.
Free i5s and i7s! I want to believe!
Asus still make 11.6" systems and a few 10.1" convertibles
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
But yeah, the answer is to buy an ultrabook
E.g from here
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
I'd get one of these
https://www.newegg.com/Product...
To be fair if you run WIndows applications compiled for ARM instead of x86 you wouldn't get 'performance crippling emulation' either. Of course it's a lot easier to build a Windows application which already builds for x86 and x64 for ARM than it is to port it to Linux.
It needs cmpxchg16b in 64 bit mode too
https://answers.microsoft.com/...
Which means it doesn't have a 8TB address space limit. On the other hand it also means it won't run on the original AMD Opterons
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.c...
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.c...
HIV probably evolved from similar T cell targeting retroviruses in chimps.
Of course the viruses that survive in humans target human cells. Lots of mutations can't do that and they don't survive.
I've got Android phones, a Macbook Pro, an iPad and a couple of Windows laptops. I build software for all of them though iOS is the most important commercially, just like Win32 used to be.
I can tell you that the brain-damaged behaviour usually starts long before they start playing the game - and conversely, that the top players (even the forwards) are skillful and intelligent. (Basically, the ability to be thuggish on the field attracts thugs, but thugs seldom if ever move out of the bottom rung sports teams. Paradoxically a lot of top cricketers are thugs when off the field.)
It reminds me of the old joke "Rugby is a game for animals played by gentlemen. Football is a game for gentlemen played by animals"
See also Roy of the Roasters
Windows 8 and later require SSE2 too
https://support.microsoft.com/...
Windows XP and 7 don't.
I'm not religious but I'd agree with Churchill that it is only because 'Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science' that Western Europe didn't go the way of Constantinople.
And these drones are part of those 'strong arms of science'.
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
* Winston Churchill, The River War
I liked the old T Mobile $30 plan. It was unlimited data but was throttled after 5GB. You got unlimited texts, which is kind of handy. Only 100 minutes of talk time but I could live with that because I used VOIP.
Actually I don't need much data - there's normally WIfi where I stay so I only need it when I'm out. I'm actually OK with 1GB data.
I guess the Mint SIM is the way to go.