The Dual-Core War - Is Intel in Trouble? 411
michaelMSFT writes "Cooltechzone has a column stating that Intel has already lost the dual-core war against AMD. From the article: 'From the performance numbers published on numerous online publications, Intel has lost the Dual-Core War. The only competing factor that Intel has right now is the possibility to keep their prices low enough to attract those with strict budget...I would like to forward a special note to Intel: Please make sure your next generation of processors aren't as atrocious as the Prescott, as AMD is making you look pretty silly right now.'"
Intel 0-2 (Score:5, Interesting)
What does that mean for the future? Absolutely nothing. Until and unless the world switches to 64-bit or dual-core computing in droves, Intel still has time to catch up where it matters.
IBM is playing it smart, however. It's investing in consumer electronics with the Cell. That is growing faster than the desktop or server market.
Even if AMD is beating Intel, it has nothing in the consumer electronics domain.
Lost? Yeah right. (Score:2, Interesting)
Intel may have the poorer performing product but they will still win where it counts: profit.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I Disagree (Score:4, Interesting)
The best thing that could possibly come from this is lower prices for the consumer. I personally ditched intel years ago as a poor college student who desperately needed a computer but couldn't afford the high prices of the wInTel boxes everywhere. AMD has shown consistently that they can make products as good or better than Intel for less money, and pass the savings on to consumers.
Intel has grown to large for their own good, and often get to caught up in marketing and buracracy to do any actual innovation.
If AMD sticks to their guns, the next few years should turn out some very strong advances for the home and business users.
Side note, I'm out of college and making good money now, and I still won't throw down the scrint for an intel machine.
Any dual core vs dual cpu benchmarks? (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone?
Dual core with Linux? (Score:2, Interesting)
I see 2.6.12rc3 has "full support", but what does that mean to me?
Even worse -- AMD can't buy Intel's dual cores (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23018 [theinquirer.net]
I agree that the costs of the AMDs are exorbitant right now as they migrate their production, but if and when they get their fabs worked out, prices could really drop and even things up on that level.
I guess the real concern, though, and some have already noted it -- so what? Until I see an AMD dual core CPU option on Dell.com's various stores, Intel isn't going to be hurtin'.
IronChefMorimoto
Yonah (Score:3, Interesting)
It is all about the Memory! (Score:5, Interesting)
Opterons are way ahead here with their built-in memory controller and dedicated memory banks for each CPU. Intel's SMP folks really need to pull a rabbit out of their hat and right quick. The last cluster (256 CPUs) I built used dual Xeons because they were still slightly faster on our applications over similarly priced Opterons in spite of the degraded SMP performance. Next time around, I doubt that will be the case.
Re:Better Review Over At... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Better Review Over At... (Score:5, Interesting)
What I'm seeing is AMD is going to begin kicking ass in the enterprise space for enterprise rack servers and blade configurations, a traditional domain where Intel has ruled. And as for dual-core on the desktop, I don't think the market is really there for that level of performance yet... not many desktop apps can take advantage of those features, just like x64 is just future-proofing your destop for the time being.
So the immediate price difference between AMD and Intel offering doesn't tell the whole story. Intel is going to get hit where it hurts the most -- enterprise markets.
Second chance (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Better Review Over At... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I Disagree (Score:2, Interesting)
In short high risk project. But given Intel has it's back to the wall, maybe they will give one of their design groups a green light to expriment, like they did with Centrino.
If they get this right an Async processor can run quite a bit faster.
Does anyone know if Async processors are expected to use more or less power than equivalent regular processor ?
Re:I Disagree (Score:1, Interesting)
As for difficult to test... not really, or at least I don't see why it would be worse than clocked chips. Have a test signal, put a stream of data into the chip, then see what comes out. Async should work the same as sync in that case...
Bored with hardware? (Score:5, Interesting)
These days you'd find me hard pressed to get excited about anything hardware related. I have a fast system with lots of ram and a decent GPU, and thats all folks.
Much prefer to pay a raging teen money to build the damn thing for me.
Do people find themselves as they get older more interested in software design, algorithms, and licensing debates?
Hardware just doesn't do it for me anymore.
I say this all the time, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, AMD's current domination has been in no small part in my mind because of the rock-solid stability of the NForce chipsets. The Pentium's early stability can be attributed to the fact that Intel built their own chipsets as well, so there was a consistency a-la Mac, and AMD was reliant upon 3rd parties who were not quite as awesome as Nvidia.
I'm delighted constantly by AMD, and I'm specifically delighted by the Venice-core processor, which because it runs at 30W at full load will allow me to make a very quiet computer that is also state-of-the-art. This doesn't necessarily apply to the dual-core thing, except that conciousness of factors other than sheer eardrum puncturing performance has been one of the hallmarks of AMD's career.
Re:And Furthermore... (Score:5, Interesting)
Intel's problem is that they're tied to the inefficient Netburst architechture for the time being, and it's really just hit a complete brick wall. The move back the the P6 architechture of the Pentium M is in the works, but that's going to take time.
In the meantime, AMD has the K8 which absolutely brutalizes Netburst in performance per clockcycle, and which, at this point, also seems to have plenty of headroom left.
The biggest problem Intel has is that, in the processor business, you can only be so agile. Yes, they've hacked in x86-64 and dual core support to Netburst, but their implementations are just that - hacks and bandaids. The result is what we're seeing now - AMD with a highly efficient and what's looking to be scalable (at this point) architechture, while Intel is limping along with Netburst that's really been on its last legs since Prescott was introduced 14 months ago.
The Pentium M shows some promise, and is probably Intel's best processor design to date, but has problems of its own (ie: its relatively weak FPU performance compared to K8 and Netburst both). It's entirely possible that Intel will come up with something in the long run that will straighten them out, but as it stands now, I wouldn't expect it in any time frame less than 18 months from now. The first dual core Xeons will likely be Prescott-based, and suffer all the same fundamental flaws Intel has been fighting for the past few years. By that time, AMD may have already had a chance to entrench itself in data centers, which would be a huge loss for Intel. That's why this is big news.
Re:Democratization of tech (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to believe that too, but nearly 25 years after the introduction of the PC, mainframes continue to sell.
It may be true for chip makers that the winner will be the one who can produce a processor that works over the widest range of applications, but at the system level you can't ignore ergonomics and suitability.
A small hand-held consumer computer will never replace a general purpose machine like the PC. The size of the human hand, the need for a large display and other factors aren't going to change.
Brand Equity (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I Disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
I've got that CPU. I've got supposedly 'similar' intel chips. P4 2.0-2.6 ghz. AMD 2200+, 2000+, 3000+, and a AMD64 3400+.
At any equivalent marking, the AMD is ALWAYS competive.
And in many applications, the AMD wipes the table with Intel.
Not too mention, the price is signifcantly better.
More than likely, if you aren't trolling, there is some other bottleneck in your laptop. Are you sure its a Athlon 2200+, and not a Semperon, or Duron?
Are you sure that your chipset is of reasonable quality?
The only complaint I have with the AMD side of the garden is that you can find some really crappy chipsets out there. Not AMD's fault, but it seems to be slightly more prevalent for AMD.
The Battle is not based on Dual Core alone. (Score:3, Interesting)
AMD, Cyrix, Via and others have had processors that were as good is Intel's for a few years, but Intel has beat them severely with the advertising. I, for one, do not believe that AMD, Cyrix, or VIA have a process to make a lower cost processor than Intel's process, yet AMD has always had lower cost. Now that AMD has started having processors with some technical superiority (and lower cost) the engineers are beginning to have more influence on managers and customers to convince them that suppliers other than Intel may be a better choice, and "Intel Inside" is a bygone logo.
Intel is at the point where their lead in microprocessors for PC's may be eroding, and "Intel Inside" is no longer a good enough reason for buying their parts.
Intel may be down, but don't even think about counting them out,(that's a boxing term for non USA people). The company makes a lot more components than just processors.
Re:Better Review Over At... (Score:4, Interesting)
AMD best bang for buck, supports Free BIOS (Score:1, Interesting)
Agreed. AMD cpus are the superior choice. They provide a far better bang for the buck than Intel. Another reason to choose AMD over Intel is because AMD is providing valuable info to Free BIOS hackers, info that Intel is refusing to provide. One of the most important struggles that is coming upon the Free Software community now is whether we will be able to get a working Free BIOS or not. Whether the entertainment cartel will succeed in locking up our computers and turning them into entertainment devices instead, via Digital Restrictions Management with the help of Intel, IBM and Microsoft through "trusted computing" [gnu.org].
AMD has decided to help Free Software hackers and the Free BIOS [fsf.org] effort. Intel has decided against the Free Software community. Please decide carefully which company to support with your money, whether cpus, network cards, or other hardware Intel or other anti-Free BIOS companies manufacture or distribute. There are alternatives by supportive companies in most every piece of hardware. Unless/until Intel decides to support Free BIOS efforts, avoid buying Intel under any circumstance.
Unless Intel changes their position on Free BIOS, any money spent on Intel hardware is money spent against the Free Software community, and against all computer owners because of DRM and a lack of a Free BIOS which would prevent lock-in.
Re:It is all about the memory...controller (Score:4, Interesting)
Intel is going to start losing across the board very soon. Maybe in the next 12 months. At some point, Dell will have to jump ship to AMD in the server market at least. Xeon systems just cannot compete on performance, and Itaniums cannout compete on price.
I am a bit of an Intel fan. The deep pipelines in the P4 actually suit a lot of the code we run. Unlike common experience, our performance jump from P3 -> P4 was significantly BIGGER than proportianal to MHz. That 3-year old performance boost is still there in the Xeon, but the Opteron is closing very fast. I really hope that Intel roles out a Xeon rev with a on-board memory controller or at least builds a northbridge with two memory controllers and two memory banks...it doesn't take a PhD in Computer Engineering to see they are trying to push the Mississippi through a garden hose.
Re:Do you remember Cyrix? (Score:3, Interesting)
We'll know this is true when we find... (Score:3, Interesting)
True story. The early PDP-11/73 chips actually did that. The microcode for the '73 was so efficient that they had heaps of microcode space left, and used it. You could run the world's fastest 68000 or Z80 (by a very wide margin) if you didn't like being a PDP-11. I imagine that a very embarrassed Motorola and Zilog might have had something to do with DEC's prompt removal of the extra microcode from the second and successive batches.