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Intel's disruption is now complete

jamesallworth.medium.com

581–590 of 638 posts

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#581
post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. AMD didn't throw enough away when they moved X86 to 64bits. They also didn't add enough registers. Variable length CISC is fine. They should steal the bit manipulation instructions from ARMv8 and the vector extensions from RISC-V. They won't.

I think they did a fine job considering all the constraints. The ISA was created in 1999, but the first widely used 64-bit OS (vista) didn't release until 7 years later. In truth, I doubt 64-bit systems became more than half of all systems until a couple years after the release of Window 7 in 2009 (a full decade later). Every transistor used for x86_64 that couldn't also be used for x86 was a competitive liability (i…

I agree that they did a fine job given the constraints at the time. But by getting rid of x87, ... they would have used less size, power, R&D. SSE was circa 1999 and they could have just supported that.

They being AMD. The counterargument being that if AMD had been too aggressive, Intel could have done something more conservative. However, then there's the cross licensing agreement ... Arggh.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's more dependent on a firm's monopoly power than scale or wealth. If you're in a competitive market you're forced to innovate. If you're a monopolist you can just sit there and extract wealth. Which Intel was for a while. By the way, your little theory has support and a name, it's the resource curse in political economics.

Countries with lots of minerals in Africa/ South America can tell you stories about the resource curse.

this is a common trope - but Canada has lots and seems ok.

Also the USA is the poster child for this; it's arguable that without the California gold rush there would be no USA as this is what is thought to have capitalised the federal government sufficiently to impose order on the west and fight the south.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#583
post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I've linked to many times on HN: The Iron Law of Bureaucracy > Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": > First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricu…

That sounds like an ironclad law. But is there empirical evidence for it? And a rational explanation behind it? I mean it's very strict as a rule: "in EVERY case the second group ... ". Strong claims like that require strong evidence and a theory of WHY that would (always) be the outcome. I'm thinking of society as large. That is an organization too. Are we doomed by bureaucracy?

When management becomes separated from both the people at the coalface (the people actually doing the jobs the organisation needs to do) and the founders/president/CEO, then behaviour changes. In most organisations, this is at 3 layers of management (not including the actual workers and the top management layer, so 5 layers deep for the whole organisation). After this point, presentation and political acumen outweigh all other factors for the middle management layer, because all other factors can always be "spun" to look good, or blamed on a scapegoat, etc. - there's no direct link between what the middle-manager did and what the result was, so presentation matters more.

Once that happens, the organisation will promote people who do politics well. It's only a matter of time before the entire organisation is focused on internal politics (apart from the people actually doing the work, who become pawns in political moves). As the organisation grows and the layers expand and more layers of management become disconnected, it gets worse.

In a company, eventually the company will get disrupted and die off. In a government that's not a thing, and it'll just keep expanding and playing politics. This gets worse for government departments headed by a politician, because the politician is very focused on getting something they can boast about to their electorate in the few years they have in the department. And they're usually very familiar with the kinds of political games being played.

Source: We studied this in my MBA, it's a known thing. If I still had my textbooks I could dig out a reference.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you said I should waste my money on a CPU upgrade that would make no difference in 1440p gaming. That's money I can't spend on a better GPU, which would make a difference in 1440p gaming.

You realize you're mentioning a 2600 right? Which will place a tremendous limit on 1440p gaming? My suggestion over the included build is spending $10 more on the build and getting a 10600K. Silicon Lottery has found 100% of 10600ks will do 4.7 Ghz sustained all core . Even at that number it will easily out perform a 3600 in a meaningful way. Over 70% of them do 4.9 Ghz which where it starts to reach i9 levels of per…

A 2600 + RTX 3070 will outperform a 10600k + 5700XT in 1440p gaming. You're way overestimating how much a 2600 would bottleneck the GPU.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#585
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel's current design are 1-3 years late depending on which roadmap and sector you are counting. Caused by their 10nm delay. Intel had Tigerlake / WillowCove Design but they cant ship it. They also have Golden Cove. If you have put the design they were suppose to be using now, on a IPC basis Intel might still be in the lead.

What takes time to bring a chip to market? As in the question, if you know exactly what needed to be designed (in concept), how long would it take you to have a fab turning out units? Is it the work to figure out how to lay down the component blocks on the die and all the circuit routing? Is it figuring out how to assemble the power-efficient components from the Arm library? Does that take years? Is it the instructio…

>But sounds like there's no way Intel or others can just "leapfrog" even if they knew what needed to be done and could abandon their prior choices.

At best It take one year to build a Fab. It takes another one just to plan to built it. That is assuming you get the regulation approval with zero delay.

Building a Fab means absolutely nothing if you cant get the process to yield. Look at Samsung Foundry in the past 3- 5 years.

Intel's Leapfrog chances was their Intel Custom Foundry. Had they not mess that one up they would have a Fighting chance. Even if they had a Design that Leapfrog Apple's M1 today, it would still be let down by their 10nm SuperFin Process.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your praise of war comes off quite naive. Perhaps you figure "war" or violence as viable solutions despite being a much more connected world where diplomacy and fairness can be judges more democratically. Such talk of war is neccesary is an utterance of someone born on the right side of the fence and quite clearly no clue as what they are talking about.

Take this from an extremely liberal and war-abhorring person: If your argument is that a country should not take steps to secure it's supply chains in the event of a war because , then you are the naive one.

That's why diplomacy works for the vast majority of countries. War is expensive and the costs are always more than anyone ,regardless of how sophisticated they believe themselves, could possibly imagine.

Take that from someone who lost a large chunk of his family currently in an African - shithole as the US president aptly put it- country. I'm on HN because this is the most peaceful time in recent memory. Do me the favour, at the very least, to put a handle on your dillusions grandeur. In our connected world diplomacy should be the only way to resolve national conflicts.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Term limits are a terrible idea. They reduce the power and expertise of elected representatives in favor of the permanent government, civil service and lobbyists. On top of that they encourage corrupt behavior as you know you’re not getting elected so there is no reason not to beyond the threat of legal consequences. > Disentangling Accountability and Competence in Elections: Evidence from U.S. Term Limits > We explo…

A: Power corrupts - is not a joke. Reelection doesn't prevent corruption at all. It's a complete non-factor. B: Elected officials are supposed to be the overseeing representatives, rather than functional executives.(think board vs C-suite). Elected executive is overall a poor idea.

The person you're responding to provided a published study from Harvard as their evidence. What's your evidence he's wrong?

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#589
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so our eggs are not all in one basket, but in two. One claimed as rebel territory by the CCP and one still technically at war with a nuclear-armed hermit kingdom.

Fortunately ASML is in the Netherlands.

So possibly a couple meters under even current sea level ? ;-)

(Continuing the sky-is-falling theme. :) )

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an ironclad law. But is there empirical evidence for it? And a rational explanation behind it? I mean it's very strict as a rule: "in EVERY case the second group ... ". Strong claims like that require strong evidence and a theory of WHY that would (always) be the outcome. I'm thinking of society as large. That is an organization too. Are we doomed by bureaucracy?

When management becomes separated from both the people at the coalface (the people actually doing the jobs the organisation needs to do) and the founders/president/CEO, then behaviour changes. In most organisations, this is at 3 layers of management (not including the actual workers and the top management layer, so 5 layers deep for the whole organisation). After this point, presentation and political acumen outweigh…

Would be interested in hearin' more ...
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