4 ms·

AMD are doing a pretty stunning job recently.

DCKing 8y ago
AMD is not trying to "disrupt Intel's model", it's trying to outcompete them on mostly the same model. I have no idea what "disrupting Intel's model" would actually mean. But I would be fine if Intel is just outcompeted at their own game, and this already seems to be happening.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  ARM is doing well on most fronts.
- ethbro 8y ago
  Disrupting the model would prolly look more like Transmeta or Cavium.
  - DCKing 8y ago
    Although I think Intel derives substantial value from x86 lockin, I don't think "doing things like Intel but with a different CPU architecture" really qualifies as a disruption of Intel's model. I'd say disruption of Intel's model would mean different ways of selling CPUs, fast storage or other silicon. All I see is Intel's competitors trying to mimic Intel to some extent because the enterprise market is the most lucrative. AMD, Qualcomm, Cavium and IBM all consider Intel a main and direct competitor. So I'd be interested if anyone has an idea on disrupting Intel's way of doing business.
    - dragontamer 8y ago
      Note that Power9 and ARM both support for relaxed atomics, which would be a substantial difference from x86's stronger cache coherence policies. That would likely make "properly coded" Power9 or ARM synchronization to be more scalable. Possibly a major advantage as 32-cores and higher are beginning to hit mainstream (or at least, high-end mainstream)
    - ethbro 8y ago
      To that point, cloud is probably the biggest disruption. It may run on Intel now, but once "runs on AWS/GCP/Azure" becomes more important than running on an ISA, there's no reason compute couldn't transition much faster.
paulie_a 8y ago
Amd has had better chips at a lower price point since always. You can get a 8 year year old octocore that still destroys anything Intel has put out recently. Intel relies on inertia. Amd consistently beats them on actual performance at a lower price. I remember my 386 dx 2 had better performance than an Intel 486. And let's not forget the p4 issues with their garbage ram. Plus they backdoor their chips with stupid insecure crap
- uhhhhhhh 8y ago
  Performance per watt/cost vs performance AMD has not been consistently beating them. There is a reason multiple companies continue to get intel after reviewing AMD's current offerings every few years (I'm in one of them to remain nameless) I absolutely don't believe an 8 year old AMD octacore will "destroy" anything intel has. Sure I imagine a single highly specific and biased test could give AMD the advantage in that one instance, but overall performance AMD has been behind since the pentium M/core2 with only a few products that initially compete or win, only to fall behind again.
- ethbro 8y ago
  K10 v Nehalem? Bulldozer v Sandy Bridge? We may be remembering a different history, but Intel has had single threaded performance locked up for awhile. AMD prices aggressively and glues more cores together, but hyperbole isn't doing your point any favors.
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    I personally don't give a shit about single thread performance. That is a metric that is meaningless. And Sandy bridge was pretty awful.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  I'm not sure where you get this impression, but Intel held the performance crown over AMD since releasing the Core architecture. In fact, things were looking pretty dire for AMD during the Phenom days when their highest-tier offering could only match mid-tier Intel chips in performance, so they had to compete solely on price. [1] AMD's stock price during this era was the lowest it's been since like 1980. It's only with Ryzen that AMD reached performance parity with Intel once again. [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-890fx,2613-7.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-...

AMD is not trying to "disrupt Intel's model", it's trying to outcompete them on mostly the same model. I have no idea what "disrupting Intel's model" would actually mean. But I would be fine if Intel is just outcompeted at their own game, and this already seems to be happening.

lallysingh 8y ago
ARM is doing well on most fronts.
ethbro 8y ago
Disrupting the model would prolly look more like Transmeta or Cavium.
- DCKing 8y ago
  Although I think Intel derives substantial value from x86 lockin, I don't think "doing things like Intel but with a different CPU architecture" really qualifies as a disruption of Intel's model. I'd say disruption of Intel's model would mean different ways of selling CPUs, fast storage or other silicon. All I see is Intel's competitors trying to mimic Intel to some extent because the enterprise market is the most lucrative. AMD, Qualcomm, Cavium and IBM all consider Intel a main and direct competitor. So I'd be interested if anyone has an idea on disrupting Intel's way of doing business.
  - dragontamer 8y ago
    Note that Power9 and ARM both support for relaxed atomics, which would be a substantial difference from x86's stronger cache coherence policies. That would likely make "properly coded" Power9 or ARM synchronization to be more scalable. Possibly a major advantage as 32-cores and higher are beginning to hit mainstream (or at least, high-end mainstream)
  - ethbro 8y ago
    To that point, cloud is probably the biggest disruption. It may run on Intel now, but once "runs on AWS/GCP/Azure" becomes more important than running on an ISA, there's no reason compute couldn't transition much faster.

paulie_a 8y ago

Amd has had better chips at a lower price point since always. You can get a 8 year year old octocore that still destroys anything Intel has put out recently. Intel relies on inertia. Amd consistently beats them on actual performance at a lower price. I remember my 386 dx 2 had better performance than an Intel 486. And let's not forget the p4 issues with their garbage ram. Plus they backdoor their chips with stupid insecure crap

uhhhhhhh 8y ago
Performance per watt/cost vs performance AMD has not been consistently beating them. There is a reason multiple companies continue to get intel after reviewing AMD's current offerings every few years (I'm in one of them to remain nameless) I absolutely don't believe an 8 year old AMD octacore will "destroy" anything intel has. Sure I imagine a single highly specific and biased test could give AMD the advantage in that one instance, but overall performance AMD has been behind since the pentium M/core2 with only a few products that initially compete or win, only to fall behind again.
ethbro 8y ago
K10 v Nehalem? Bulldozer v Sandy Bridge? We may be remembering a different history, but Intel has had single threaded performance locked up for awhile. AMD prices aggressively and glues more cores together, but hyperbole isn't doing your point any favors.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  I personally don't give a shit about single thread performance. That is a metric that is meaningless. And Sandy bridge was pretty awful.
mywittyname 8y ago
I'm not sure where you get this impression, but Intel held the performance crown over AMD since releasing the Core architecture. In fact, things were looking pretty dire for AMD during the Phenom days when their highest-tier offering could only match mid-tier Intel chips in performance, so they had to compete solely on price. [1] AMD's stock price during this era was the lowest it's been since like 1980. It's only with Ryzen that AMD reached performance parity with Intel once again. [1] https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-890fx,2613-7.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-...