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I whole-heartedly welcome AMD's new offerings and have completely switched to buying servers with AMD CPUs, but I have to disagree with the characterization of

by 1e-9 7y ago

I whole-heartedly welcome AMD's new offerings and have completely switched to buying servers with AMD CPUs, but I have to disagree with the characterization of "ruthless milking" by intel. There was no instituted monopoly here. Others were free to compete, but they failed. Intel's high prices motivated AMD to create something better and now they have. If anything, the high pricing was a screwup on intel's part and good for the consumer. Intel could have better protected their lead by charging less (but not as less as now) to discourage competition. I'm glad they didn't, even though it cost me for the last few years. Now that there is a valid competitor again, maybe we will see better conformance to Moore's Law. Edit: To clarify, I will not argue that intel has a clean record of competitiveness. My point is that they didn't "ruthlessly milk" the consumer with high prices. Instead, they stuck a knife in their own back by charging excessively high prices without sufficiently innovating. This created an opportunity for AMD and motivated them to create something better.

pixl97 7y ago
>There was no instituted monopoly here You're talking about the Intel that was used for monopoly practices, right?
charleslmunger 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v._Intel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....
the_duke 7y ago
> Others were free to compete, but they failed. Intel engaged in a lot of anti-competitive practices, lost a civil lawsuit over it and was fined 1bn by the EU. [1] They almost killed AMD in the process. Every company this size with a quasi-monopoly (in a certain segment) will squeeze the market and try to buy or push out competition any way they can get away with. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Litigation_and_regulatory_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Litigation_and_regulator...
msbarnett 7y ago
> Others were free to compete, but they failed. This is...not accurate. Extensive cross-licensing agreements between AMD and Intel formed over the years are the only thing that permit AMD to compete. New competitors are effectively locked out of the x86-64 market entirely at this point. There is a decided lack of freedom to compete in this market at the moment. Intel has also been found to have illegally engaged in anticompetitive measures on a number of occasions in order to lock AMD out of competing in many market segments.
- ColanR 7y ago
  So maybe it's time to create a successor to x86-64. Nobody is preventing that from happening.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    Depending on what qualifies, ARM is there today, or will be soon if Apple has anything to say about it.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Apple's not really in the server market, though.
  - imtringued 7y ago
    There is a lack of viable non x86-64 hardware. Most ARM server vendors have shutdown before they even released their hardware.
    - rbanffy 7y ago
      Sadly, POWER is going to get hurt in this Intel vs AMD price war. POWER 9 was until recently competitive in price/performance with high-end Xeons but, sadly, IBM would need to cut prices and that's something they are not going to do.
  - 1e-9 7y ago

by 1e-9 7y ago

pixl97 7y ago

>There was no instituted monopoly here You're talking about the Intel that was used for monopoly practices, right?

charleslmunger 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v._Intel_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....

the_duke 7y ago

> Others were free to compete, but they failed. Intel engaged in a lot of anti-competitive practices, lost a civil lawsuit over it and was fined 1bn by the EU. [1] They almost killed AMD in the process. Every company this size with a quasi-monopoly (in a certain segment) will squeeze the market and try to buy or push out competition any way they can get away with. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Litigation_and_regulatory_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Litigation_and_regulator...

msbarnett 7y ago

> Others were free to compete, but they failed. This is...not accurate. Extensive cross-licensing agreements between AMD and Intel formed over the years are the only thing that permit AMD to compete. New competitors are effectively locked out of the x86-64 market entirely at this point. There is a decided lack of freedom to compete in this market at the moment. Intel has also been found to have illegally engaged in anticompetitive measures on a number of occasions in order to lock AMD out of competing in many market segments.

ColanR 7y ago
So maybe it's time to create a successor to x86-64. Nobody is preventing that from happening.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  Depending on what qualifies, ARM is there today, or will be soon if Apple has anything to say about it.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Apple's not really in the server market, though.
- imtringued 7y ago
  There is a lack of viable non x86-64 hardware. Most ARM server vendors have shutdown before they even released their hardware.
  - rbanffy 7y ago
    Sadly, POWER is going to get hurt in this Intel vs AMD price war. POWER 9 was until recently competitive in price/performance with high-end Xeons but, sadly, IBM would need to cut prices and that's something they are not going to do.
- 1e-9 7y ago