The AMD Execution Thread [2007 - 2017]

Reread the article I posted:

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/21/b...erence/Times Topics/Subjects/C/Computer Chips

adjusted for inflation, the cost of the price lowered 486 would be ~$450 for 1993 in a time when Pentiums were shipping in large volume. I'd say 486 constitutes average to less than average performance those days. The situation was even worse a few years earlier.

Intel explictly said it lowered the price of its 486's in that article due to AMD's competition. It didn't need ot do anything to its Pentiums. Now that AMD's Phenom II is well within striking distance of high end Core2Quads and i7's, it feels the need to attract budget conscious customers with a value oriented part. Even if you don't believe the i7 920 is a direct consequence, you'll have to atleast admit that Core2's are as cheap as they are because AMD has a directly competitive part.

You'll also note that it took Intel about 5 years to refresh its 386 design to the 486. Compare that to the last 3 years when we've seen back to back increases of about 40% in performance from the same company. These designs (Core2 and i7) were in the design queue during the time AMD had dominant performance it's definitely a sign that Intel felt the pressure in a big way.

 

AMD isn't mentioned anywhere in that article.

Edit: Actually, they are. I guess I really should read the articles.

 

Yes...

AMD wasn't even making 486's for the vast majority of the 486 lifetime. AMD didn't even release their first 386 clone until 2 years after Intel launched the 486
. And considering at the time you couldn't even buy a 486 system for less than 10,000 USD (when Intel launched and for many years after). 386's were still an arm and a leg until AMD released their 386 clone for significantly less (but still more than todays average CPUs when adjusted for inflation).

Pentium 66's even not adjusted for inflation initially debuted for about 400+ USD each. Pentium 90's were more and Pentium 100's were just not affordable by most of the general public.

Imagine that 10,000 USD 486 (bottom of the barrel/lowest speed grade - BTW) system adjusted for inflation. Say 1989 compared to today. And then compare that to an Intel i920 system.

Even 286's at the time were priced out of reach of many people. And most were still having to make do with 8088's.

Heck my first 286 was purchased in 1991 shortly after the 386 AMD clone was released. And 2 years after the Intel 486, not to mention the Intel 386. And it still cost over 1000 USD. Which adjusted for inflation would be a lot more in todays terms. And that's about a decade after the 286 was first launched. All for an el-cheapo budget generic parts 286 computer. Not even a name brand.

If I had bought it a year or two earlier the price would have been close to double that.

Regards,
SB

 

From the NYTimes article dated from the end of 1993 posted above:

It intro'd for a lot more than $400; those prices reflect at least a 14% discount from launch and aren't adjusted for inflation!

Remember what the first 486's looked like back then too?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped.../200px-Byte_magazine_September_1989_cover.png

That's easily the size of a business copier heh. Atleast you were getting your money's worth size wise...

 

AMD's 386DX-40 is probably the cheapest processor I ever bought. It was then priced about an E8500 now. Back then it beat intel's 486SX-25 on both price and performance. and those were low-end CPU's

 

Thanks for that mate. I "thought" it was higher but lowballed it to be safe. Obviously I haven't had a chance to read the article yet...

But it still makes my point (and yours) that until AMD (and a bit later, Cyrix) were somewhat competitive, Intel CPUs were HUGELY more expensive than they are today.

Basically, when adjusted for inflation the highest priced Intel Extreme You Gotta Be Kidding me processor is still generally cheaper than the bottom of the barrel CPU in a new line.

It also reminds me of one of the main reasons MS was able to beat out many competitors. They priced their products significantly cheaper than the competition.

Imagine if OS/2 was still around. Adjusted for inflation it'd probably cost you over 1000 USD to buy it. Word Perfect also wasn't cheap. Many people bought Word because it was far cheaper. Unfortunately for those comapanies, they felt they had a superior product and didn't need to compete on price, and didn't bother adjusting price until they were in a losing situation.

And even after all that, the price for windows products hasn't risen significantly since those days when they actually did have significant competition. I wonder if Intel would do the same if AMD were to suddenly fold...

Regards,
SB

 

That's an interesting point about Microsoft. Once its competitors were gone, it'd probably cost any start up quite a lot to achieve the same scale and efficiency that MSFT had achieved and that barrier would be hard to overcome in addition to Microsoft's dictating all the standards. There's also keeping good will with customers. So yeah, if AMD folded, we will likely see much longer development cycles, but it's possible prices might stay the same on lower end parts to keep new potential competitors from getting a foot in the door and avoid a potential revolt from customers. We would however see the end of parts like i7 920 and the pricing on any new parts will more resemble the stratospheric numbers from the Pentium era.

(Wordperfect... now that brings back memories. I had the those F1-F12 key color coded notes for function shortcuts that were mandatory for getting anything done. Always had F11 on to see the code it was inserting into my writing and it was more precise to work with than Word. Those late nights of writing papers in high school using ver. WP 5.1 on my 486DX33... good times!)

 

Hehe, same here. I really didn't consider Word as a "real" alternative for myself until Word '97. And even then I generally preferred Word Perfect. Word had really horrible support for tables at the time and I used to use those extensively. Word Perfect also had far more comprehensive formatting options as well as the little code bar at the bottom where you could actually see the order in which formatting was being applied.

But by that time the writing was already on the wall. Even though Word Perfect (IMO) was still better, they had lost so much market share in the office place to Word that even after deep price cuts they could no longer compete effectively.

Regards,
SB

 

Its not Charlie. But it is inquirer. Hard to say if its true or not. 6 core chips 5 months ahead of schedule?

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/961/1051961/amd-looking-government-stimulus-money

 

That could give AMD a needed boost in the server market. I'm struggling to find a need for a 6 core in consumer machines when 4 cores are barely used at the moment.

Still that's quite an achievement if they can actually get it out 5 months ahead of schedule.

Regards,
SB

 

Our customers are currently heavily investing in virtualization where intels 6 core xeons barely edge out the 4 core opterons. the opterons handily beat the xeons when it comes to SAP. a 6 core opteron would be 20% faster than a comparable xeon in a 4 slot 64GB environment.

 

I thought the i7 based Xeon's had finally matched or exceeded the Opterons in almost all server categories.

Is Opteron still doing better at virtualization then?

I've been tinkering with the idea of going with virtualization with headless displays rather than upgrading all computers for my next home build. Would make it easier for me to deploy enough "computers" such that when having PnP role playing sessions each person can have their individual display in addition to the LCD embedded in the table.

Beats passing notes around. Although also a lot more expensive if you use a traditional computer/laptop for this.

Anyway, was thinking of a high efficiency i7 based Xeon for this but if Opterons are still doing better at virtualization that would be a cheaper solution.

Regards,
SB

 

6-core Xeon available now==Dunnington. And that's a Penryn, not a Nehalem. So that comparison is...shall we say less than relevant, albeit convenient?

 

Intel losing market in Q1 2009

http://vr-zone.com/forums/426276/intel-losing-market-in-q1.html

 

opposite of the trend (last 4 months) on the steam hardware survey. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/processormfg/

AMD also has a much higher marketshare there (33%) down from 35 in December.

the item combines sales and market share.

Amazing how the author finds one connects to the other.

 

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543_15944~131177,00.html

AMD reorganizing itself, eliminating the "ATI-wing" among others, some speculate they would drop ATI-brand completely, but I don't see anything suggesting that

 

Just like Charlie said, ATI is taking over...

 

could you point me to that post/link whatever?

 

Charlie from you know where

 

Word dr. Jones.