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Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

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Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#51

Post by alimbada »

vbezhenar wrote: post #16

Now it's an interesting battle. I want to build new workstation, probably in 2020. I was going to go to Threadripper route, but now I have a choice and that's awesome.

It's only a choice if you're willing to settle for:

- a long list of security vulnerabilities which, when fully patched and recommended features (including HyperThreading) are disabled, results in a huge loss in performance(~25% in some reports)

- lower power efficiency due to still using 14nm process

- platform uncertainty, i.e. will upgrading mean buying a new motherboard?

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#52

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #48
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 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.

> 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.

I assume you're joking, but if not please don't junk them! I'm sure lots of people on HN would gladly pay for (at least) shipping.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#53

Post by selectodude »

coldpie wrote: post #47
zozbot234 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

Also their OpenGL performance is abysmal. On windows isn’t not the biggest deal since everything is DX but on Linux?

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#54

Post by onli »

coldpie wrote: post #47
zozbot234 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

I think you might be blinded by prior experiences (yes, that sounds illogical). The choice you have with AMD now is not bad for users, they get a working good and free driver with their distro out of the box. And people like you, who work in gaming under Linux and might use a more custom distro, can figure out which one is the best driver in your specific situation (it's AMDGPU always anyway).

I'd never buy a Nvidia card for Linux now. I wouldn't have done so three years ago, but now? That'd be a huge step backwards.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#55

Post by gruez »

snagglegaggle wrote: post #25
tyri_kai_psomi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta hand it to this place, it's one of the few places I visit where 200-300 dollars is considered penny pinching. The other is the country club.

Computers at this level are durable goods and ostensibly help you take an income, so it's not too strange.

Only if you need this much computing power. The typical webdev can probably get away with a quad core AMD/Intel cpu for <$200. Very few people actually need 12+ cores.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#56

Post by howdydoo »

tyri_kai_psomi wrote: post #26
snagglegaggle wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers at this level are durable goods and ostensibly help you take an income, so it's not too strange.

Mass market computers and components being described as a durable good...HN surprises again!

I built a PC seven years ago (i7-3770K). It's lasted through multiple apartments and multiple jobs. I do all my dev work and gaming on it, and it's even able to run Slack. How much longer does something need to last before it's considered durable?

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#57

Post by madrix999 »

mpol wrote: post #45
Grangar wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More like this, intel has cut a lot of corners for a long time in their x86 processors, mostly to have better performance, which ended up with all these vulnerabilites we keep hearing about every couple of months. They're just now suffering the consequences of all the shady things they've done to try and establish a monopoly in the CPU market

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#58

Post by chapium »

wbhart wrote: post #19
jmpman wrote: post #9

How much of Intel’s demise is due to their layoffs from 4 years ago? Did they cut too deep and mess up the secret sauce?

I'm no Intel fanboy, but I think it is too early to speak of Intel's demise. They are still making a lot of money. I mean, AMD only has single digit penetration into the datacentre market, for example, and Intel is still compelling on mobile. And I suspect the real answer is they set their targets too ambitiously with their new node. Their 10nm was simply too big a jump with too many unproven technologies, with too m…

Just look at what happened to amd around 2010. Intel can punch back. Hard.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#59

Post by lunchables »

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…

>Nvidia's Linux support absolutely puts AMD to shame.

Huh? AMD "just works". NVIDIA requires a dance of (Fedora) DKMS kernel modules and binary blobs. What am I missing? I buy AMD just because it's been frictionless to get working, I don't mind if theres a small performance penalty I pay for it.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#60

Post by coldpie »

onli wrote: post #54
coldpie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

I think you might be blinded by prior experiences (yes, that sounds illogical). The choice you have with AMD now is not bad for users, they get a working good and free driver with their distro out of the box. And people like you, who work in gaming under Linux and might use a more custom distro, can figure out which one is the best driver in your specific situation (it's AMDGPU always anyway). I'd never buy a Nvidia…

It's possible. The last time I bought an AMD GPU for my personal use was in 2009 or 2010. But I really do work with this stuff every day. In our QA lab, the AMD machines have far more problems than the Nvidia machines do. Valve's VR software works much less consistently; installing modern versions of the drivers on Ubuntu is a huge pain, you have to use 3rd party repos maintained by some random guy; missing features and driver bugs are much more common on AMD (though not unheard of on Nvidia either).

AMD is definitely getting better, and being open source is an enormous point in its favor, but it's still just less usable day-to-day for an end user. I hope this changes.

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