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

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#61

Post by BoorishBears » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:34 PM UTC

alimbada wrote: post #46

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.

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.

> CPU architecture between Intel and AMD can't vary much since they both target x86.

Completely and utterly false. The exploits being found exist at a point much lower than the x86 instruction set. ARM processors were also hit with speculative execution exploits.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#62

Post by pradn » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

Jonnax wrote: post #20

s5ma6n wrote: post #4

Finally, they were basically asking double price for some CPUs until there is a strong competition. This is a really good example why competition matters for the consumers. I hope similar situation happens for GPUs too. Right now NVIDIA asks for way more than the cards' worth.

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.

Even if AMD is used just as a leveraging stick against Intel, that's a win for customers.

There's the old story of talking to an Oracle salesman while drinking from an IBM coffee mug - to signal that there's other viable options and get a better deal.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#63

Post by BoorishBears » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

PedroBatista wrote: post #30

Intel's offering still looks bad compared to AMD. Before the price cuts it looked pathetic, so I guess it's an improvement.

Why is it with every AMD sales-related submission I see, the level of discourse in the comments is barely one step above name calling?

My pet theory is that there's just a ton of casual investors who have also become emotionally invested in AMD...

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#64

Post by Qub3d » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:37 PM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #53

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…

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

...Vulkan? Proton? In terms of 3D acceleration libraries and support, its never been better on linux. I actually just switched to manjaro full-time because everything I wanted to play now works on linux, too.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#65

Post by ubercow13 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:37 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…

> Nvidia's Linux support absolutely puts AMD to shame

Is this meant seriously? Is it not the exact opposite?

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#66

Post by symfoniq » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

creaturemachine wrote: post #39

zozbot234 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Computers are quite durable these days. You can easily run a useful, general-purpose OS on a computer from 10 years ago and perhaps more, even one with baseline specs. If that's not enough to be considered a 'durable good', I don't know what is.

Tell that to my 9 year old iMac with the dead GPU that I can't replace, won't start up, and is going straight into the trash. Never again, Apple.

Well, he did say "computers," not "appliances." ;-)

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#67

Post by mbfg » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

The question is how much of this is pure marketing, given Intel's supply problems, and how much is this a real product. Will Intel actually be able to match demand for these products in the short term? It's an easy marketing win if you promise half price parts but customers enmasse can't actually buy them.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#68

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

madrix999 wrote: post #57

mpol wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A more generous interpretation: Intel made decisions that favored actual measurable performance today at the expensive of theoretically known vulnerabilities that might be exploited in some hypothetical future. They gave the market what the market demanded at a cost they tolerated.

And even now, after said theoretical vulnerabilities have been reified, there is very little cause to be concerned about the vulnerabilities under discussion unless you host code for other people as a business model (or use such a service). Otherwise your biggest concern is a web browser that already has a whole host of actual and theoretical vulnerabilities of its own.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#69

Post by symfoniq » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #21

At that price point I'd rather spend a little more on AMD and get 24 cores. Because let's be honest, if you got the money to build a REALLY high end PC why are you penny pinching on the CPU? 200-300 isn't a big leap when the motherboard costs more than that difference.

If I was building new, I'd go AMD, too.

As things stand, I already have a 8-core X299 system, and the fact that I can drop an 18-core CPU into it after a BIOS update is compelling. But it seems unlikely that there is a large enough audience in this situation to juice Intel's profits or prevent them from losing more market share to AMD.

Re: Intel slashes prices in face of AMD competition

#70

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 1:55 PM UTC

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #52

bryanlarsen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, it was hyperbole. The "dumpster" is an area in the office where employees can grab surplus hardware and supplies -- it'll be picked clean pretty quick if video cards show up there...