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The conspiracy theorist in me suspects that Intel must be applying heavy-handed pressure to OEMs to keep them in line long enough for Intel to release a better
by henriquez 6y ago
The conspiracy theorist in me suspects that Intel must be applying heavy-handed pressure to OEMs to keep them in line long enough for Intel to release a better architecture in a couple of years.
The realist in me says that AMD has had major supply issues delivering the 7nm Zen3 chips in any appreciable quantity while Intel literally prints 14nm chips like it's going out of style.
Given that you can spec a comparable Ryzen vs. Intel system on Dell's site I'm thinking Dell is just prioritizing their marketing focus on the systems where they can move the most volume. Else they'd be shooting themselves in the foot with "SOLD OUT" notices and backlogs.
- BoysenberryPi 6y agoI believe the real answer is between column A and column B. It would not surprise me to learn that Intel has exclusive product agreements with certain manufacturers top shelf products like the Thinkpad X1, Surface Pro, and the Dell XPS. Long before the shortage, people have been wondering why they can't buy any of these products with a Ryzen CPU. A Ryzen Thinkpad X1 would be an instant purchase for me personally. However, there is no denying that AMD is having supply issues and is arguably mismanaging the supply they do have with their constant paper launches.
- basilgohar 6y agoI believe the column A, column B description is apt. For sure AMD is struggling with supply-chain issues, but despite that, they are still managing to lead and stay afloat in terms of tech and mindshare. These unfair practices by OEMs and Intel serve to exacerbate that problem and will make it harder for AMD to gather greater marketshare as well as mindshare which they could have otherwise reaped when supplies are greater. It's a double-whammy misfortune for AMD in that case, which they don't need as their tech really is advancing past Intel in many ways.
- reader_mode 6y agoAre there any USB 4 Ryzen laptops ? If there are it must be a very recent thing. AMD has only been viable in laptops for a short while and with limited availability - I suspect they are going to start to show up in premium laptops once they start becoming more common place - just look at the delays between desktop and laptop releases - it's obvious laptops are not a priority for AMD
- basilgohar 6y agoThis is not the impression of many review sites – a lot of the premium Ryzen laptop offerings from certain OEMs (not the big ones) like Asus and others out of Asia are amongst the top performers and have excellent features. The issue at hand is that other, bigger OEMs are not putting AMD hardware into their best designs and thus yielding less than stellar performance or features. There are still cases of high-end Ryzen mobile CPUs being put into single-channel configurations!
- reader_mode 6y agoI've looked at G15 Ryzen - it's USB 3.2 and sould out - so no USB 4.0 and limited availability like I said. I don't have any inside scoops into this industry but it could easily be that they are putting the new/untested parts in to lower tier products and reserving top tier ones for the tested configuration with a partner they know can deliver. Put it simply - X1 with AMD would probably sell out in a week, then they would be stuck with people waiting for that one over Intel, and they would cross Intel who still supplies them the majority of chips - sounds like a lose-lose to me. I'd like to get a top tier AMD ultra portable for sure (eg. a Surface Pro) but AMD seems completely owhervelmed by demand in all areas and they prioirtise laptops the lowest (from their own release timelines and previous statements)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bostonsre 6y agoYea, would love a ThinkPad with amd and 32gb of memory (looks like they now can go to 32gb, but think they were all soldered 16gb last time I checked). Not quite as pretty as a Mac, but probably they best laptop keyboard I've used.
- basilgohar 6y agoIf there's no supply, then simply don't offer the product. However, Alienware, a Dell property, doing as described in this article, is not surprising at all. Dell got in big trouble for their behind-the-scenes favoritism of Intel [0]. The offerings of Ryzen laptops tells a similar story, even before the supply shortages of late. They are only now escaping their shells, but large OEMs still give the best specs to Intel-powered laptops. Better offerings come from the smaller vendors. [0] https://fortune.com/2007/02/15/suit-intel-paid-dell-up-to-1-billion-a-year-not-to-use-amd-chips/ https://fortune.com/2007/02/15/suit-intel-paid-dell-up-to-1-...
- ginko 6y ago> The conspiracy theorist in me suspects that Intel must be applying heavy-handed pressure to OEMs to keep them in line long enough for Intel to release a better architecture in a couple of years. But what kind of pressure can Intel even apply? Intel CPUs are more expensive and have sub-par performance? Why would any OEM favor them?
- virtue3 6y agoIntel had(has?) a practice of giving OEMs a discount if they only sell Intel chips.
- basilgohar 6y agoSee my sibling comment. Intel has applied incentives to OEMs before to give them preferential treatment. Dell got caught, but it's likely it's happened with others based on the same pattern existing elsewhere.
- dnautics 6y ago"we will not sell you any of these chips unless you agree to exclusivity with our chips for dual channel DDR"
- ginko 6y agoThey have an inferior product. Dell could just call their bluff and go AMD exclusive.
- tedunangst 6y agoAnd sell how many systems before running out of inventory?
- felipelemos 6y agoThe public perception is still that Intel is superior. If you don't have Intel products available or with a competitive price, you will lose market share. Remember that most people are tech illiterate (or not savy enough) to know/care about technical details more than they trust marketing and brands.
- photoGrant 6y agoIntel have heavily ramped up their consumer facing marketing push. There’s credence to the crumbs
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoPeople keep calling such suspicion "conspiracy theory" as if it's rare of unlikely. Intel in particular has been fined multiple times for this exact practice. Maybe they are back at it- if I were the regulator, I would at least take a look at the issue. https://www.extremetech.com/computing/184323-intel-stuck-with-1-45-billion-fine-in-europe-for-unfair-and-damaging-practices-against-amd https://www.extremetech.com/computing/184323-intel-stuck-wit...
- radicalbyte 6y agoI don't think that this is the reason this time. I have a Ryzen 5950x system and like many other owners I suffer from poor stability. My machine crashes several times a week with CPU errors. This seems to be the result of poor BIOSes from AMD and their partners, more so than fab faults - reddit is full of people who still have issues after their 3rd RMA. I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole if I was Dell.
- emodendroket 6y agoI have a 5800X and I hadn’t even heard of it. But the supply chain thing seems plausible — it’s still hard to get your hands on Zen 3.
- lunfard00 6y agolucky me never had issues with my 5950x (windows, x570 taichi). That being said, TDP 105w is bs.
- Lev1a 6y agoOh nooooo, your new top-of-the-line processor has a lower TDP than average-good processors from a few years ago! How absolutely horrible. /s, in case that wasn't blatantly obvious.
- lunfard00 6y agoThat is not the issue, the issue is that AMD advertise 2700x and 5950x with the same TDP, so at the very least that should means that they both work fine when using the same cooling solution, which is not the case. Using my previous cooler 5950x was throttling at 100 Celsius.
- dnautics 6y agoIt's not a conspiracy theory to suggest something that companies do all the time, and that intel regularly has and will probably continue to do. #2 does not explain the single channel DDR thing.
- faeriechangling 6y agoUsing the phrase "conspiracy theory" to simply describe theories about conspiracies is pretty common nowadays, the phrase doesn't have an inherently perojative connotation. Just because it's true does not mean it is not a conspiracy theory. Study showing the phrase "conspiracy theory" doesn't alter people's judgements of a situation: https://psmag.com/news/has-conspiracy-theory-lost-its-negative-connotations https://psmag.com/news/has-conspiracy-theory-lost-its-negati...
- lupire 6y agoThat study is interesting, but us an extremely synthetic testing environment, where everything in the experiment group was called a "consipiracy theory" in a synthetic research prompt, not measuring how peopld respond to actual usage of the term. "Being in a study" may have as large an effect on the result as "attitude toward the term "conspiracy theory".
- dnautics 6y agoif you wanted the non-perjorative form you would say simply "conspiracy" without the word "theory".
- henriquez 6y ago> #2 does not explain the single channel DDR thing. Dell has done that on Intel systems for as far as I can remember. Buy the cheapest machine they sell and it's par for the course. This isn't something they do to nerf AMD performance, it's something they do to hit a particular price point, and they always have.
- Spooky23 6y agoIntel provides backend rebates to channels or even large commercial end users (usually if you use Intel ssd) for exclusivity. AMD does the same — I’m sure HP has favored pricing. As someone who bought large numbers of devices in the last year, I would say that the AMD devices had more supply chain issues than any other devices, from thin clients to desktops to laptops. That may not mean it’s an AMD thing, those issues may well be due to the OEM as many devices/components are constrained.
- LegitShady 6y agoMy bet is they're giving dell a much better price and dell makes more money off those systems making it an incentive instead of pressure. Intel fabbing their own chips gives them a lot more room for profit than amd in the end price - basically you could give the equivalent of half tsmc's cut to an OEM and still make more money than amd per chip.
- Asmod4n 6y agoIn the past, Intel simply paid your marketing campaign when you advertised its products. Remember how every manufactor had fullpage advertisements of Intel PCs in every magazine you could buy?