What does Intel have that AMD lacks?

[emmanuelxian07]

Intel sucks because whenever they release new processors, the new socket types are new too, so if I buy a computer with Sandy Bridge processor right now, I won't be able to use any other parts if I buy a new processor released after a year or so. I'll have to buy a completely new rig if I want to get the latest Intel processor. On the other hand, AMD sucks because though they always make processors to be backwards compatible, they can't beat Intel chips.

Why can't AMD build Phenom II or Athlon II processors that can beat Intel's 2 year old chips? What the f*** is it that Intel has that AMD lacks? Can someone please give me a definite answer?

 

[swimswithtrout]

Why can't AMD build Phenom II or Athlon II processors that can beat Intel's 2 year old chips? What the f*** is it that Intel has that AMD lacks? Can someone please give me a definite answer?

????????

Just a few billion $$$$$$$ to 1 advantage Intel's way, for product development, manufacturing ,and marketing.

Hopefully you aren't actually serious !!!

 

[emmanuelxian07]

????????

Just a few billion $$$$$$$ to 1 advantage Intel's way, for product development, manufacturing ,and marketing.

Hopefully you aren't actuary serious !!!

Dude, is this really the only issue?

 

[linh6496]

no sh-t son

 

[bearclaw99]

Lol, the problem here is that AMD's core technology has not changed in a looong time. Therefore they haven't required many socket changes, but on the other hand, they have fallen behind in performance

 

[swimswithtrout]

Lol, the problem here is that AMD's core technology has not changed in a looong time. Therefore they haven't required many socket changes, but on the other hand, they have fallen behind in performance

They've always lagged way behind in performance.

AMD's only selling point is price.

Intel/AMD you get what you pay for.

 

[AMW1011]

Intel sucks because whenever they release new processors, the new socket types are new too, so if I buy a computer with Sandy Bridge processor right now, I won't be able to use any other parts if I buy a new processor released after a year or so. I'll have to buy a completely new rig if I want to get the latest Intel processor. On the other hand, AMD sucks because though they always make processors to be backwards compatible, they can't beat Intel chips.

Why can't AMD build Phenom II or Athlon II processors that can beat Intel's 2 year old chips? What the f*** is it that Intel has that AMD lacks? Can someone please give me a definite answer?

What are you doing that is so demanding that you need a new processor annually? Probably nothing.

Oh and Phenom II's do beat Intel's line up from 2008, for less money.

What's the difference? Intel has more cash revenue, and AMD is trying to compete in markets and with features that Intel doesn't have (backwards compatibility for instance).

They've always lagged way behind in performance.

Don't be stupid, you damn well know that's not true.

 

[DXRick]

It takes mega bucks to turn sand (silicon) into CPUs. I am kinda surprised that AMD is still in the game and am hoping that Global Foundries will help them catch up and still be profitable.

 

[king smp]

Francois Piednoel

You got to love an Intel Performance analysist being quoted saying this

"Overclocking isn’t going away because overclocking is very important to Intel. If one of our CPUs does not overclock as well as we believe it should, we strive to make corrections until desired performance levels are met. Overclocking is a great way to see tomorrow’s performance today. I’ll say that due to sheer amount of transistors [numbering now in the billions], the many, many buses that must all be synced makes designing for overclocking a pain in the butt sometimes"

Piednoel is great
thanks for the reference, Dadiggle

 

[fisch]

Intel sucks because whenever they release new processors, the new socket types are new too, so if I buy a computer with Sandy Bridge processor right now, I won't be able to use any other parts if I buy a new processor released after a year or so. I'll have to buy a completely new rig if I want to get the latest Intel processor. On the other hand, AMD sucks because though they always make processors to be backwards compatible, they can't beat Intel chips.

Why can't AMD build Phenom II or Athlon II processors that can beat Intel's 2 year old chips? What the f*** is it that Intel has that AMD lacks? Can someone please give me a definite answer?

Yes, but on this logic, the money you spend on new motherboards adds to efficiency granted by the new architecture. Keeping with old motherboards means keeping with old lane speeds, old features, old architectures which means less efficiency and more bottlenecks with future hardware. AMD is a great for budget solutions, but your vision of them as more future proof than intel makes no sense under the premise that you can re-use old motherboards to a greater cost efficiency. AMD is simply more likely to have an expanded range of processors for old architectures for if you are unwilling to increase your performance in smaller (albeit probably less efficient) increments.

 

[jj463rd]

Well Sandy bridge has a problem right now (not the CPU though it's awesome).
So when the new LGA 1155 boards are fixed AMD's new Zambezi "Bulldozer" might become available around that time (perhaps a little later).I think it is completely unfair to make any comparisons until the release of Zambezi.It could be a flop or it could be just good or could also be awesome too.
Just wait until benchmarks are eventually available.
Could AMD hit a home run this time around? It's possible as they have several times in their past (AMD 386dx-40,Athlon,Athlon 64 (and X2,FX line).
I don't expect awesome or a hit run though but who knows.
Just wait and see.

Phenom II or Athlon II was never meant to compete with Nehalem ( a big win for Intel) but rather the Core 2 Quad/Duo line.

Without that chip set failure in the Sandy bridge platform AMD's desktop CPU line was getting too long in the tooth and they would have had to drastically lower their current CPU prices to compete (especially since the Sandybridge i3 line was scheduled to come out in late February of this year (this month)).

Now this has given them a couple of months of breathing time.

 

[gamerk316]

What's the difference? Intel has more cash revenue, and AMD is trying to compete in markets and with features that Intel doesn't have (backwards compatibility for instance).

Excuse me? If Intel didn't care about compatability, they would have droped Real mode and Virtual 8086 mode support AGES ago to save complexity, and done away with the old 16-bit layers that still exist. Every program ever written for X86 still runs, to this day, without changes because Intel has bent over backward keeping the old stuff on the processor.

But yeah, it comes down to cash. Intel can afford to constantly R&D, where AMD can only do so many major architecture re-do's. And constantly re-doing the CPU architecture means you need to change sockets, as previous modes of operation may not be supported.

And to be fair, AMD has had just as many sockets in recent years [AM2, AM2+, AM3, and now AM3+].

 

[minitron815]

My friend's Q6600 beats my Phenom II 940 if you want to travel in time...

 

[MRFS]

One of the problems is that many computers users,
particularly American computer users, have random access memories
that last a lot longer than the memories between their ears.

Case in point:

Intel to pay AMD $1.25 billion in antitrust settlement

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10396188-92.html

So, please don't rule out cut-throat business practices
from your competitive analysis equations.


I do seem to recall (a distant memory?) that AMD was
the first to market with integrated memory controllers,
and native 64-bit instructions that also ran
native 32-bit x86 instructions in hardware.


Then, there are these very recent points
published at SemiAccurate:

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2011/01/31/intels-recall-explanation-doesnt-hold-any-water/


Either my dogma ate my karma, or
my karma ran over my dogma.

PICK ONE!


MRFS

 

[bobdozer]

billion dollar recalls?

 

[MRFS]

p.s. BTW: we don't call this the "Bleeding Edge" for nuthin'!

We've got a P45 chipset still running wonderfully with a recent
Highpoint RocketRAID SAS controller: >600MB/second
and no need for any circuit re-do's:

http://www.supremelaw.org/systems/hitachi/Hitachi.C15K147.ATTO.4xRAID0.JPG


Moral of this Story: There are very good reasons
for staying 6 months or so behind that "bleeding edge" --
particularly if stability is a paramount operational objective.


MRFS

 

[descendency]

a better per core per clock architecture.

If you run any application at the same base frequency in a single threaded (nonhyper-thread) environment, Intel will win a large majority of the time by almost any benchmark that doesn't have cost of the product involved. (Performance/watt, overall performance, performance per sq inch, etc)

AMD is doing a good job of finding ways to unlevel the playing field so their chips don't look so bad, but they are a good generation (or 1.5 generations) behind Intel. I really hope they close this gap because I like AMD's products in general. I just can't ignore how much more you can do with what Intel is offering (not just desktop computers either... but laptops, cellphones, tablets, coke machines, etc). Intel is even starting to compete in markets where ARM and others were tops without much challenge.

 

[bobdozer]

god you're all going to feel stupid in 4 months time when bulldozer is released.

 

[palladin9479]

Jesus all the Intel fanboys coming out of the woodwork to proudly defend their chosen products. Intel has amazing engineers but their marketing / leadership is shady as hell, as a company I wouldn't go near them. They change sockets as often as they do to force customers to buy new mobo's which in turn means buying more chipset from Intel. They do this to encourage people to buy new computers rather then upgrade older ones, its pretty simple market strategy.

AMD's biggest market is the enthusiast crowd, to appease them AMD tries to plan ahead and use universal socket designs and more modular motherboards. AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 are essentially the same socket, the number just determines the compatibility level. And AM3 CPU can be put in a AM2+ socket because the AM3 CPU's memory controller can operate in DDR3 or DDR2 mode thus ensuring compatibility. Someone can upgrade their AM2+ rig to an AM3 CPU and then later buy a new board / memory to take more advantage rather then being forced to purchase it all at once. They did the same thing with Socket-7 back in the day, you ~could~ put a AMD K6-2 CPU into an older socket-7 mobo, it would work but you might not get the best performance. Same idea with socket-478, they used that forever. Putting a newer CPU into an older mobo was still possible even though you might not get the full potential out of it.

And frankly I'm amazed AMD is still producing CPU's that are worth while. Considering Intel's R&D budget is bigger then AMD's entire yearly income, that testifies to an amazing design team inside AMD. Either Intel is wasting tons of crash, or AMD is making solid products out of nearly nothing. As for who's more innovative, AMD was the first to come with on-die memory controllers and the ones to create x86-64. Intel had to license EMT64 ~from~ AMD, every Intel fanboy using Windows 7 x64 is actually using AMD's IP, go figure the irony. And lets not start talking about Intel + Rambus's attempt to take over the PC world by using dirty tactics to control the memory market (and everything attached to it).

 

[AMW1011]

What's the difference? Intel has more cash revenue, and AMD is trying to compete in markets and with features that Intel doesn't have (backwards compatibility for instance).

Excuse me? If Intel didn't care about compatability, they would have droped Real mode and Virtual 8086 mode support AGES ago to save complexity, and done away with the old 16-bit layers that still exist. Every program ever written for X86 still runs, to this day, without changes because Intel has bent over backward keeping the old stuff on the processor.

But yeah, it comes down to cash. Intel can afford to constantly R&D, where AMD can only do so many major architecture re-do's. And constantly re-doing the CPU architecture means you need to change sockets, as previous modes of operation may not be supported.

And to be fair, AMD has had just as many sockets in recent years [AM2, AM2+, AM3, and now AM3+].

Your not excused. Read the actual thing I am quoting before you judge the context.

Don't worry i'll remember to make fun of you when it does and it takes 8 cores to beat 4 core intel's.

And I'll be there to make fun of you for not understanding how the architecture works, and worrying about architectural details over price and performance (what really matters).

 

[king smp]

We got to thank Piednoel for Skulltrail

I got to research skulltrail
not familiar with term
right now fixing emachine netbook intel atom with bad mbr/boot sector
thank you mr hiren boot cd LOL

 

[king smp]

it comes down to
in any business there is healthy competition
in cars it is Ford vs Chevy Mercedes Benz vs BMW etc
If I was looking to build a great inexpensive mutlimedia encoding computer
then a AMD 6 core would be my best bet
if i wanted an rendering machine/3d modeler for business i would get a dual xeon
for gaming i would get a I7 or I5 or 1090t depending on budget
for a net book i would get an atom
It is a good thing that we have these choices.

 

[king smp]

actually instead of asking Intel vs AMD
we should be asking
why isnt there more chip makers?
years ago i remember ibm pc clones with all kind of weird brand chips
I remember Motorola as a major chip maker (anyone remember the Motorola 6800 series?)
it hurts us not to have more competitors out there
there is sparc and via but nothing viable in the X86 market
besides intel and amd
wonder how many backroom deals between the two of them
we never heard of....

 

[endyen]

Coding.
Intel compilers use a chip recognition protocol to turn on certain shortcuts, when intel chips are present.
A very important compiler is used to break out code for multiple processors.
Intel is also well known for it's code writing and compiling support to companies like Adobe, and benchmark makers.
Each time a new inovation comes out on an Intel chip, you see new or at least beta versions of benchmarks. You can bet that Intel staff gave support in the writing of the new code.

 

[emmanuelxian07]

actually instead of asking Intel vs AMD
we should be asking
why isnt there more chip makers?
years ago i remember ibm pc clones with all kind of weird brand chips
I remember Motorola as a major chip maker (anyone remember the Motorola 6800 series?)
it hurts us not to have more competitors out there
there is sparc and via but nothing viable in the X86 market
besides intel and amd
wonder how many backroom deals between the two of them
we never heard of....

I agree with you..