Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#41

Post by zozbot234 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 12:48 PM UTC

s5ma6n wrote: post #37

andrewstuart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is that AMD doesn't invest enough in the software. Nvidia's Linux support absolutely puts AMD to shame. The biggest lesson in hardware is that "it's the software support, stupid". Too many hardware manufacturers think they are selling hardware alone. They are selling hardware AND the software that makes it work. A computer is useless without software support. Witness the vast array of essentially use…

This is exactly true. Especially on CUDA and the deep learning front. Basically, only option is NVIDIA as the competition has almost nonexistent software framework (maybe OpenCL).

CUDA is a vendor lock-in scheme. Use OpenCL or Vulkan instead (yes, Vulkan includes support for compute, not just graphics!). AMD supports both, in addition to tools like HIP to help you port legacy CUDA code.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#42

Post by BubRoss » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 12:48 PM UTC

kelnage wrote: post #29

andrewstuart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is that AMD doesn't invest enough in the software. Nvidia's Linux support absolutely puts AMD to shame. The biggest lesson in hardware is that "it's the software support, stupid". Too many hardware manufacturers think they are selling hardware alone. They are selling hardware AND the software that makes it work. A computer is useless without software support. Witness the vast array of essentially use…

I'm pretty sure neither manufacturer is really that worried about their Linux support. And, as far as my experience has gone with them both on Linux, they have both had their good years and their bad.

They are absolutely worried about Linux support. All high end computer graphics in large companies are done using Linux.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#43

Post by Beltiras » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 12:48 PM UTC

Still bleeding profusely on the server side of things. AMD still has a 4X on performance and a considerable energy savings to boot.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#44

Post by DoofusOfDeath » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 12:49 PM UTC

ahartmetz wrote: post #38

andrewstuart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is that AMD doesn't invest enough in the software. Nvidia's Linux support absolutely puts AMD to shame. The biggest lesson in hardware is that "it's the software support, stupid". Too many hardware manufacturers think they are selling hardware alone. They are selling hardware AND the software that makes it work. A computer is useless without software support. Witness the vast array of essentially use…

AMD's Linux support is terrific now. Nvidia is much more of a hassle and also impeding progress by insisting on their own window system - driver interface for Wayland.

> AMD's Linux support ist terrific now.

I think you have a typo, which unfortunately is half way between "is" and "isn't". Or your sentence is partially German.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#45

Post by mpol » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

Grangar wrote: post #34

zecg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing out on a host of vulnerabilities.

At risk of missing sarcasm, a large reason all these vulnerabilities in Intel are found is their market share. Same as when OSX was considered "unhackable" - it just wasn't worth the effort. AMD is likely just as bad, but it's not uncovered (yet). Supporting the underdog is a good idea nonetheless, but not for this reason per se.

Or it is the other way around. Intel had cut corners to be able to make the fastest processors, and that is how they got their marketshare. They have been called out on it in the last two years and updates have made their processors slower. Also AMD improved massively with Zen.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#46

Post by alimbada » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 12:59 PM UTC

Grangar wrote: post #34

zecg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing out on a host of vulnerabilities.

At risk of missing sarcasm, a large reason all these vulnerabilities in Intel are found is their market share. Same as when OSX was considered "unhackable" - it just wasn't worth the effort. AMD is likely just as bad, but it's not uncovered (yet). Supporting the underdog is a good idea nonetheless, but not for this reason per se.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Operating system architectures can vary a lot. CPU architecture between Intel and AMD can't vary much since they both target x86. Every vulnerability found with Intel CPUs can and has been tested for against AMD CPUs which is something you simply cannot do with operating systems, and AMD CPUs have been found not to have the same vulnerabilities.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#47

Post by coldpie » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 12:59 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #32

andrewstuart wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem is that AMD doesn't invest enough in the software. Nvidia's Linux support absolutely puts AMD to shame. The biggest lesson in hardware is that "it's the software support, stupid". Too many hardware manufacturers think they are selling hardware alone. They are selling hardware AND the software that makes it work. A computer is useless without software support. Witness the vast array of essentially use…

Nvidia's Linux support? AMD actually has open source drivers these days, just like Intel, Nvidia just gives you a binary module, which means in order to make use of that hardware you have to taint your kernel and aren't free to update it if the in-kernel ABI changes. It's basically on par with the vendors of all those "useless ARM devices out there", none of them with "usable Linux support".

AMD is finally approaching parity in the past year or two, but Nvidia is still ahead in terms of day-to-day usability. It sucks that they're closed, but if you just want to install a driver and have your system work, Nvidia is ahead.

Look at this mess: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg#AMD Do you want AMDGPU, AMDGPU PRO, ATI, or Catalyst? How do you choose? Let's assume you want open source and recent, so probably AMDGPU. OK that's relatively straightforward, but now let's say you want Vulkan support. That's over here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Vulkan#Installation and golly wouldn't you know it there are three choices, vulkan-radeon, amdvlk, and vulkan-amdgpu-pro. How do those relate to the radeon and amdgpu drivers mentioned earlier? Arrrrrrrrrrgh.

Meanwhile on nvidia, you install "nvidia" and you're done.

I've been working in gaming on Linux profesionally for ten years. If I were buying a new GPU today, I would pick nvidia.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#48

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:00 PM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #27

Jonnax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess so but for a lot of buyers they're not even considering AMD. They're just using it as a stick to beat Intel with for a better deal.

The real problem is that AMD doesn't invest enough in the software. Nvidia's Linux support absolutely puts AMD to shame. The biggest lesson in hardware is that "it's the software support, stupid". Too many hardware manufacturers think they are selling hardware alone. They are selling hardware AND the software that makes it work. A computer is useless without software support. Witness the vast array of essentially use…

I'm sorry but NVidia Linux support is really bad. I administer a few dozen machines and am really looking forward to tossing the NVidia cards into the dumpster where they belong.

NVidia Linux support has always been bad, we just didn't realize it because AMD's used to be worse. Luckily this has changed over the past few years and now we can spec in AMD or perhaps Intel's rumored Xe graphics card.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#49

Post by ahartmetz » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:03 PM UTC

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #44

ahartmetz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AMD's Linux support is terrific now. Nvidia is much more of a hassle and also impeding progress by insisting on their own window system - driver interface for Wayland.

> AMD's Linux support ist terrific now. I think you have a typo, which unfortunately is half way between "is" and "isn't". Or your sentence is partially German.

Fixed. I'm German and this typo happens occasionally.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#50

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

Much more significant IMO is the rumours of heavy discounting for Intel server chips and the wide variety of laptops of AMD laptops exhibited at Computex 2019. AMD doesn't have significant market share in servers or laptops yet, but those are signs that it may be coming...