5 ms·

“Fanboyism” needs to stop for AMD and Intel. It’s clouding facts and objectivity. These days people have a hard on for AMD as if it’s some kind of a religious m

“Fanboyism” needs to stop for AMD and Intel. It’s clouding facts and objectivity. These days people have a hard on for AMD as if it’s some kind of a religious messiah saving them from doom. It bothers me and I don’t really understand. There are some really vile comments about Intel and unreasonable praise for AMD - simply because it’s the “underdog”. What is this? Some kind of a sport that one is rooting for the “underdog”. It’s a multi billion dollar corporation.

ghusbands 7y ago
The post you're replying to fairly clearly states that security issues in Intel chips are pushing them to buy AMD, next. It doesn't look at all like "fanboyism".
- spectramax 7y ago
  I’m just talking about the general theme of AMD/Intel discussions on HN. There is a heavy bias for AMD, not just on HN but everywhere on the internet. Just go to Anandtech forums. I should clarify that my frustration isn’t about what the OP said. It’s a general observation.
  - cosmiccatnap 7y ago
    Its not a bias it's just true. Intel has chips that are objectively underperformannt and less secure based on everything we know currently. There are no good reasons anyone should pick an Intel chip for their desktop system for the foreseeable future.
    - spectramax 7y ago
      We are talking about server chips? Can you point to some comparisons?
      - kllrnohj 7y ago
        > We are talking about server chips? What gave you that idea? This thread was clearly about someone building a local PC. There's no reason to assume that'd be a server chip? But even in the server world go look up any comparison of Epyc Rome vs. Intel Xeon and you'll still struggle to find a reason to go Intel. The Epyc 7742 is in a league of its own at this point.
        spectramax 7y ago
        I’m trying to get a point across for favoritism of AMD beyond objective measures. This entire post is about Intel security flaw where we just had one discovered for AMD yesterday! But people are not as vile about AMD but become hostile when it comes to Intel. Why? There are some toxic people defending both sides with passion. I’m baffled. If this isn’t “Fanboys”, what is? Regarding comparisons, I’m yet to see a conclusive source that points at AMD > Intel for server workloads - benchmarking these things is complex. Power, efficiency, workload types, etc matter. So it’s not as simple as saying “Hey, AMD won”. I’m disappointed at the hostility for pointing out fanboyism on HN. It’s present whether one denies it or not. Edit: Holyshit. I won’t be responding anymore. This has become an unproductive discussion simply for pointing out the bias in supporting the “underdog”. I have no way to prove this but I stand by my observations and what my eyes see - given Apples and Apples comparison for metric X or security flaw X, people have a deep bias for supporting the “underdog”. I saw this first hand back in 2006 when Intel was the “underdog”. This is a fact and no amount of massaging on HN or the Internet forums will change that. I’m again disappointed in the HN community’s response.
        bayindirh 7y ago
        It sounds like I'm trying to debunk you, but I just want to answer your questions. I work as an HPC administrator and I just want to tell a single thing: We were unable to buy first generation EPYC processors because almost all of the production run is bought by Google, Amazon and Dropbox. They weren't offered by many vendors as general availability servers because it wasn't possible. It's a bit late here so, I cannot do much research but I'll leave this Phoronix article [0] about RocksDB performance. Phoronix Test Suite sounds a bit cheesy but, as far as I can see, it's becoming a reputable benchmark suite. I was troubleshooting a server from a big manufacturer and, its official live CD has this thing installed to see how system performs. Also our fellow HPC centers says that EPYC is not vaporware in terms of performance. [0]: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-amd-rocksdb&num=2 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-am...
  - amiga-workbench 7y ago
    Intel have a history of anti-competitive practices and high prices. We're all just enjoying seeing them get the kicking they deserve. The schadenfreude isn't coming from nowhere.
    - spectramax 7y ago
      Yea but you do realize that it’s a legislative issue? We need better controls for anti-competitive behavior. You can just flip the sides, if AMD controlled 85% market share, the shareholders would demand the same unless we have laws preventing anti-competitive behavior. That said, I do acknowledge the business leadership at Intel and their toxic attempts to prevent competition.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
        Why would we legislate it when the underdog is winning? This is the market fixing itself without help.
        spectramax 7y ago
        You're twisting my entire argument around. I did not say anything about the market fixing itself. Intel did a lot of things to prevent the market from fixing itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Litigation_and_regulatory_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Litigation_and_regulator... Legislation has nothing to do with "underdog" or marketshare. It has to do with anti-competitive practices regardless of the party. The same laws would apply to Intel or AMD regardless of their market share.
  - BoorishBears 7y ago
    You’re a hundred percent right and I’ve noted it before, but this is exactly what happens if you call it out (your post gets buried) because there’s a nice mix of people who are emotionally attached to AMD and see AMD as their best bud who's showing Intel what’s what and not a profit driven company that would squeeze them exactly as much as they could afford if they were in a better position... and people who bought AMD stock, but none of Intel or anything much else, because they see the CPU market as a 0 sum game. AMD was a darling of first time investors on a certain platform and they don't diversify. It’s not that their constant wall of pro-AMD stock noise is going to affect the stock price, but it also becomes a bit of an emotional thing for them. All the AMD posts here end up looking a lot more like Reddit than Hacker News
    - spectramax 7y ago
      I am pointing it out as an observation but apparently it feels like I've poked the hornet's nest. So much hostility for criticizing HN.
      - BoorishBears 7y ago
        It’s not (just) HN, it’s AMD. HN is not exactly the source of truth for anything technical, but generally people are either in the ballpark on technical comments, or (more likely) get corrected by someone who is. On AMD posts that doesn’t happen and it just becomes a low quality cesspool of “I just bought a gaming PC and chose AMD”, “Intel is on life support right now omg”, and a few poorly supported rationalizations of the post's topic. And when you call it out these people assume you’re defending Intel (because to them it’s a holy war)
bayindirh 7y ago
Mine is not about "Fanboyism". I'm going to upgrade my system after 7 years and will go for a multi-core performance system for parallel software development. I consider AMD for its new Infinity Fabric and multi-core performance. I also use performance counters a lot to optimize my code and improve my understanding of modern processors even further. This will be my 5th build and I've built 2 AMD and 3 Intel systems for long-term use in a span of ~20 years. I think it's logical to go for a high-performance system with lower attack count/surface to reduce the chance of getting performance-crippling uCode or Kernel patches in the future. I was probably a fanboy while overclocking my 1433MHz 1700+ to 2.2GHz with ABIT ultra mother boards. These days and mindset has long gone, at least for me. OTOH, I have more than enough cutting edge hardware from major vendors to manage and play with. So, I'm not hungry for anything really.
- spectramax 7y ago
  I’m sorry, I was alluding to the general trend, not specifically inclined to your message although it appears so. Bad wording on my part.
  - bayindirh 7y ago
    No problem. We're discussing stuff here. I also didn't want to sound angry or aggressive. I'm sorry if I did (English is not my native language). I also did root for AMD when I was younger however, in a more down-to-earth fashion. AMD was providing 90% of the performance of a comparable Intel system and, Intel was so dominating that AMD was at the brink of collapse. I rooted for AMD because I wanted them to survive. I wanted competition. I wanted to see more interesting ideas from more vendors. I also reacted to that infamous "AMD's thermal management doesn't work" video from Tom's Hardware because my and my friends' AMD systems' thermal management features were working fine. I rooted for AMD because they were more dynamic when compared to Intel. They allowed overclocking, experimenting. They had more chipset choices and some of these chipsets did interesting things that Intel was not daring to try. Intel was a company wearing suits even in weekends, while AMD was going to work putting on jeans and, it was exciting for young enthusiasts. AMD still has this in its gene though. They were kind and open enough to revise their GPU silicon to enable truly open source drivers sans HDCP. Their company culture is different and I root for the underdogs sometimes because, I root for competition.

ghusbands 7y ago

The post you're replying to fairly clearly states that security issues in Intel chips are pushing them to buy AMD, next. It doesn't look at all like "fanboyism".

spectramax 7y ago
I’m just talking about the general theme of AMD/Intel discussions on HN. There is a heavy bias for AMD, not just on HN but everywhere on the internet. Just go to Anandtech forums. I should clarify that my frustration isn’t about what the OP said. It’s a general observation.
- cosmiccatnap 7y ago
  Its not a bias it's just true. Intel has chips that are objectively underperformannt and less secure based on everything we know currently. There are no good reasons anyone should pick an Intel chip for their desktop system for the foreseeable future.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    We are talking about server chips? Can you point to some comparisons?
    - kllrnohj 7y ago
      > We are talking about server chips? What gave you that idea? This thread was clearly about someone building a local PC. There's no reason to assume that'd be a server chip? But even in the server world go look up any comparison of Epyc Rome vs. Intel Xeon and you'll still struggle to find a reason to go Intel. The Epyc 7742 is in a league of its own at this point.
      - spectramax 7y ago
        I’m trying to get a point across for favoritism of AMD beyond objective measures. This entire post is about Intel security flaw where we just had one discovered for AMD yesterday! But people are not as vile about AMD but become hostile when it comes to Intel. Why? There are some toxic people defending both sides with passion. I’m baffled. If this isn’t “Fanboys”, what is? Regarding comparisons, I’m yet to see a conclusive source that points at AMD > Intel for server workloads - benchmarking these things is complex. Power, efficiency, workload types, etc matter. So it’s not as simple as saying “Hey, AMD won”. I’m disappointed at the hostility for pointing out fanboyism on HN. It’s present whether one denies it or not. Edit: Holyshit. I won’t be responding anymore. This has become an unproductive discussion simply for pointing out the bias in supporting the “underdog”. I have no way to prove this but I stand by my observations and what my eyes see - given Apples and Apples comparison for metric X or security flaw X, people have a deep bias for supporting the “underdog”. I saw this first hand back in 2006 when Intel was the “underdog”. This is a fact and no amount of massaging on HN or the Internet forums will change that. I’m again disappointed in the HN community’s response.
        bayindirh 7y ago
        It sounds like I'm trying to debunk you, but I just want to answer your questions. I work as an HPC administrator and I just want to tell a single thing: We were unable to buy first generation EPYC processors because almost all of the production run is bought by Google, Amazon and Dropbox. They weren't offered by many vendors as general availability servers because it wasn't possible. It's a bit late here so, I cannot do much research but I'll leave this Phoronix article [0] about RocksDB performance. Phoronix Test Suite sounds a bit cheesy but, as far as I can see, it's becoming a reputable benchmark suite. I was troubleshooting a server from a big manufacturer and, its official live CD has this thing installed to see how system performs. Also our fellow HPC centers says that EPYC is not vaporware in terms of performance. [0]: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-amd-rocksdb&num=2 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-am...
- amiga-workbench 7y ago
  Intel have a history of anti-competitive practices and high prices. We're all just enjoying seeing them get the kicking they deserve. The schadenfreude isn't coming from nowhere.
  - spectramax 7y ago
    Yea but you do realize that it’s a legislative issue? We need better controls for anti-competitive behavior. You can just flip the sides, if AMD controlled 85% market share, the shareholders would demand the same unless we have laws preventing anti-competitive behavior. That said, I do acknowledge the business leadership at Intel and their toxic attempts to prevent competition.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      Why would we legislate it when the underdog is winning? This is the market fixing itself without help.
      - spectramax 7y ago
        You're twisting my entire argument around. I did not say anything about the market fixing itself. Intel did a lot of things to prevent the market from fixing itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Litigation_and_regulatory_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Litigation_and_regulator... Legislation has nothing to do with "underdog" or marketshare. It has to do with anti-competitive practices regardless of the party. The same laws would apply to Intel or AMD regardless of their market share.
- BoorishBears 7y ago
  You’re a hundred percent right and I’ve noted it before, but this is exactly what happens if you call it out (your post gets buried) because there’s a nice mix of people who are emotionally attached to AMD and see AMD as their best bud who's showing Intel what’s what and not a profit driven company that would squeeze them exactly as much as they could afford if they were in a better position... and people who bought AMD stock, but none of Intel or anything much else, because they see the CPU market as a 0 sum game. AMD was a darling of first time investors on a certain platform and they don't diversify. It’s not that their constant wall of pro-AMD stock noise is going to affect the stock price, but it also becomes a bit of an emotional thing for them. All the AMD posts here end up looking a lot more like Reddit than Hacker News
  - spectramax 7y ago
    I am pointing it out as an observation but apparently it feels like I've poked the hornet's nest. So much hostility for criticizing HN.
    - BoorishBears 7y ago
      It’s not (just) HN, it’s AMD. HN is not exactly the source of truth for anything technical, but generally people are either in the ballpark on technical comments, or (more likely) get corrected by someone who is. On AMD posts that doesn’t happen and it just becomes a low quality cesspool of “I just bought a gaming PC and chose AMD”, “Intel is on life support right now omg”, and a few poorly supported rationalizations of the post's topic. And when you call it out these people assume you’re defending Intel (because to them it’s a holy war)

bayindirh 7y ago

Mine is not about "Fanboyism". I'm going to upgrade my system after 7 years and will go for a multi-core performance system for parallel software development. I consider AMD for its new Infinity Fabric and multi-core performance. I also use performance counters a lot to optimize my code and improve my understanding of modern processors even further. This will be my 5th build and I've built 2 AMD and 3 Intel systems for long-term use in a span of ~20 years. I think it's logical to go for a high-performance system with lower attack count/surface to reduce the chance of getting performance-crippling uCode or Kernel patches in the future. I was probably a fanboy while overclocking my 1433MHz 1700+ to 2.2GHz with ABIT ultra mother boards. These days and mindset has long gone, at least for me. OTOH, I have more than enough cutting edge hardware from major vendors to manage and play with. So, I'm not hungry for anything really.

spectramax 7y ago
I’m sorry, I was alluding to the general trend, not specifically inclined to your message although it appears so. Bad wording on my part.
- bayindirh 7y ago
  No problem. We're discussing stuff here. I also didn't want to sound angry or aggressive. I'm sorry if I did (English is not my native language). I also did root for AMD when I was younger however, in a more down-to-earth fashion. AMD was providing 90% of the performance of a comparable Intel system and, Intel was so dominating that AMD was at the brink of collapse. I rooted for AMD because I wanted them to survive. I wanted competition. I wanted to see more interesting ideas from more vendors. I also reacted to that infamous "AMD's thermal management doesn't work" video from Tom's Hardware because my and my friends' AMD systems' thermal management features were working fine. I rooted for AMD because they were more dynamic when compared to Intel. They allowed overclocking, experimenting. They had more chipset choices and some of these chipsets did interesting things that Intel was not daring to try. Intel was a company wearing suits even in weekends, while AMD was going to work putting on jeans and, it was exciting for young enthusiasts. AMD still has this in its gene though. They were kind and open enough to revise their GPU silicon to enable truly open source drivers sans HDCP. Their company culture is different and I root for the underdogs sometimes because, I root for competition.