Reddit user discloses how Intel sabotaged AMD's business in 2005

[Curufinwe_wins]

I mean we all knew Intel played super dirty in the p4-first gen core series. But their "New" CEO is a saint in comparison.

[Dietrichw]

I mean we all knew Intel played super dirty in the p4-first gen core series. But their "New" CEO is a saint in comparison.

also, it's not like they can do anything if they wanted to. In their FTC settlement they are to be monitored for anti-competitive behavior for ten years. Hard to do that stuff with a microscope on you

[Tomsen]

also, it's not like they can do anything if they wanted to. In their FTC settlement they are to be monitored for anti-competitive behavior for ten years. Hard to do that stuff with a microscope on you

You just have to do it the legal way. Different method can bring the same outcome.

[Curufinwe_wins]

also, it's not like they can do anything if they wanted to. In their FTC settlement they are to be monitored for anti-competitive behavior for ten years. Hard to do that stuff with a microscope on you

Which only makes it more sad when amd fails to compete.

[patrickjp93]

You just have to do it the legal way. Different method can bring the same outcome.

Competing is now anticompetitive? *Mind Blown*

[Dietrichw]

Which only makes it more sad when amd fails to compete.

except one condition in the settlement is that Intel can break the conditions of selling chips under cost and having special deals with OEMs if they "reasonably believe " AMD is doing the same.

A little vague

[Tomsen]

Competing is now anticompetitive? *Mind Blown*

I guess Intel was also only 'competing' back then?

Don't try to wrap your mindless head around it.

[Misanthrope]

Microsoft did this to venders who offered Linux in the past so this is not really news to me, it's standard business practice.

Companies do it, and it's relatively common. However it's still illegal so you can hardly call it a standard business practice. Only criminal enterprises like organized crime can consider breaking the law part of their day to day business practices.

[Misanthrope]

Competing is now anticompetitive? *Mind Blown*

 

Become familiar with Antitrust laws please.

[MEC-777]

Just curious, has there ever been a case or example where AMD has done anything to "get ahead" like this? 

 

There's the whole FX core count law suit going on right now, which is debatable. At least in that case, we can all see the architecture (and have been able to since they launched) and can see why they called them 8-core CPUs, regardless if you agree/disagree.

 

Intel and Nvidia's mentality seems to be aimed at exclusivity, where as AMD's mentality seems to be aimed at providing the best performance for everyone, regardless. Just something to think about. I'd rather give my money to a company that's more humble and inclusive, vs the opposite - as long as their product provides adequate/competitive performance.   

[Curufinwe_wins]

Just curious, has there ever been a case or example where AMD has done anything to "get ahead" like this?

There's the whole FX core count law suit going on right now, which is debatable. At least in that case, we can all see the architecture (and have been able to since they launched) and can see why they called them 8-core CPUs, regardless if you agree/disagree.

Intel and Nvidia's mentality seems to be aimed at exclusivity, where as AMD's mentality seems to be aimed at providing the best performance for everyone, regardless. Just something to think about. I'd rather give my money to a company that's more humble and inclusive, vs the opposite - as long as their product provides adequate/competitive performance.

Uhh no one over-hypes their products more than AMD. We all know this. If AMD was more modest, hell just down to an Intel level of expectations I'd totally be excited for Zen. As it is, I see a company totally known for insane over hype and that hype still fails to meet my desires.

Amd isn't a saint here when it comes to sharing with the world. They recognize the only claim to fame they can try to make while this far behind technically is open sourcing as much as humanly possible.

The fx series suit isn't debatable in its total intent to mislead consumers. Whether or not anything will be done now is a mute point in my opinion because AMD isn't in a position to be able to pay what it should owe for that Bullshit and it has no intent on using anything other than SMT so a lawsuit now is a gotcha not an aid to consumers.

[patrickjp93]

Uhh no one over-hypes their products more than AMD. We all know this.

Amd isn't a saint here when it comes to sharing with the world. They recognize the only claim to fame they can try to make while this far behind technically is open sourcing as much as humanly possible.

The fx series suit isn't debatable in its total intent to mislead consumers. Whether or not anything will be done now is a mute point in my opinion because AMD isn't in a position to be able to pay what it should owe for that Bullshit and it has no intent on using anything other than SMT so a lawsuit now is a gotcha not an aid to consumers.

And their open sourcing is actually behind Intel's which open sources their GPU driver. They don't have a proprietary hidden one for any platform. Sure it has a proprietary compiler and optimization suite, but it's mainly used in supercomputing anyway. AMD never actually released Mangle into the open as promised. It gave Khronos access, but that's it. AMD can't even claim open sourcing to be a point of fame.

[BuckGup]

Yeah this happens all the time in politics with big oil companies. Why don't people complain about that?

[Curufinwe_wins]

Yeah this happens all the time in politics with big oil companies. Why don't people complain about that?

Because it's all a part of the plan....

[Bsmith]

is this anything new under the sun?

 

I mean, wasn't windows "donating" money if manufactures decided to ship their OS on tablets or phones within a certain price range?

[MEC-777]

Uhh no one over-hypes their products more than AMD. We all know this. If AMD was more modest, hell just down to an Intel level of expectations I'd totally be excited for Zen. As it is, I see a company totally known for insane over hype and that hype still fails to meet my desires.

Amd isn't a saint here when it comes to sharing with the world. They recognize the only claim to fame they can try to make while this far behind technically is open sourcing as much as humanly possible.

The fx series suit isn't debatable in its total intent to mislead consumers. Whether or not anything will be done now is a mute point in my opinion because AMD isn't in a position to be able to pay what it should owe for that Bullshit and it has no intent on using anything other than SMT so a lawsuit now is a gotcha not an aid to consumers.

 

I wasn't talking about hyping products. I was talking about doing things like Intel has been accused of doing - things that actually hinder the competition on purpose, on a software or hardware level. As far as I know, AMD has never done this. 

 

The FX core count issue is irrelevant to what I'm referring to. Those CPUs have been around for years for all to see and analyze to death. We have all been able to see how they perform regardless of true core count. I can understand how some consumers have been misled by the supposed core count, but merely claiming a certain core count in no way has hindered Intel's CPUs, that's all I'm saying. The core count issue is a matter of definition.

 

AMD is no saint, I agree with that. But they're not as bad as Intel and Nvidia, IMO.  

[Atmos]

youre super late to the catch bud. even just last year intel was found guilty in court of this shit.

i hate intel with a passion, because of many reasons, but they're the only top teir manufactorer of cpus, so i have no choice but to buy them.

[zMeul]

quite interesting the timing of this "news" that's not actually nothing new

tizaki, the author, is also a mod of /r/amd, also I strongly suspect he's a member of RT+

[qwertywarrior]

i thought this was common knowledge even AMD talked about this

[Humbug]

Pretty old news.

And their open sourcing is actually behind Intel's which open sources their GPU driver. They don't have a proprietary hidden one for any platform. Sure it has a proprietary compiler and optimization suite, but it's mainly used in supercomputing anyway. AMD never actually released Mangle into the open as promised. It gave Khronos access, but that's it. AMD can't even claim open sourcing to be a point of fame.

Agreed Intel have been the leaders when it comes to FOSS. What AMD can claim is that they are a strong proponent of open industry standards, not open source software. In terms of open source drivers they are ahead of NVIDIA but that is not saying much. Even their Vulkan implementation on Linux is going to be proprietary first.

It's interesting in the Linux gaming community there are a lot of users who are willing to sacrifice a huge amount of performance by using AMD GPUs with FOSS drivers because of ideological reasons. As long as they get playable fps they willingly sacrifice performance and support for latest openGL revisions because of ideology. Because of their feelings towards the company and FOSS they won't use the NVIDIA blob. It has been engineered for high performance by a large team of skilled people but that's not considered a merit to them if the end result is closed source.

Intel isn't as bad today and I consider them fine by my standards.

Nvidia is more worthy of the spotlight for all their broad daylight douche practices.

Well these days Intel is no longer under any pressure from AMD. They don't need to do anything underhand, their products speak for themselves. Also probably more careful after past lawsuits. For Nvidia while they are market leaders their GPU performance is still on parity with AMD so they are still in a position where they need to work to maintain it, if they release one weak gen their market share will slip.

[Fetzie]

Uhh no one over-hypes their products more than AMD. We all know this. If AMD was more modest, hell just down to an Intel level of expectations I'd totally be excited for Zen. As it is, I see a company totally known for insane over hype and that hype still fails to meet my desires.

Amd isn't a saint here when it comes to sharing with the world. They recognize the only claim to fame they can try to make while this far behind technically is open sourcing as much as humanly possible.

The fx series suit isn't debatable in its total intent to mislead consumers. Whether or not anything will be done now is a mute point in my opinion because AMD isn't in a position to be able to pay what it should owe for that Bullshit and it has no intent on using anything other than SMT so a lawsuit now is a gotcha not an aid to consumers.

 

The Bulldozer architecture has been public information for half a decade. All you had to do to get it was google it. I could MAYBE see this case holding a bit of water 5 years ago, but the information is so widely known that this is just an attempt to push AMD's stock lower so that shareholders can buy it cheap before the share price goes up when this blows over and Zen is released and those shareholders can make a load of money.

[Guest Kloaked]

Yeah this happens all the time in politics with big oil companies. Why don't people complain about that?

 

People do complain about it.

 

Just because you don't see it on every headline every day doesn't mean people aren't complaining about it.

[Prysin]

Currently that's the state of NVIDIA - where they are buying and pressuring developers.

I don't get why there's no legal pressure on them - yet.

there is no crystal clear evidence....

 

Intel left a trail/loose end and got caught paying the devs.

 

Nvidia prolly keep their trails hidden a lot better and or forces their "clients" into NDA agreements with threats of huge lawsuits as punitive action for disclosing the content of the contract

[Curufinwe_wins]

The Bulldozer architecture has been public information for half a decade. All you had to do to get it was google it. I could MAYBE see this case holding a bit of water 5 years ago, but the information is so widely known that this is just an attempt to push AMD's stock lower so that shareholders can buy it cheap before the share price goes up when this blows over and Zen is released and those shareholders can make a load of money.

Reread my comment...

 

The fx series suit isn't debatable in its total intent to mislead consumers. Whether or not anything will be done now is a mute point in my opinion because AMD isn't in a position to be able to pay what it should owe for that Bullshit and it has no intent on using anything other than SMT so a lawsuit now is a gotcha not an aid to consumers.

[patrick3027]

I wonder how much, if any, of this is true.

All of it, plenty of reliable sources in the reddit thread.

 

quite interesting the timing of this "news" that's not actually nothing new

tizaki, the author, is also a mod of /r/amd, also I strongly suspect he's a member of RT+

It's not because he is the mod of /r/amd that he says something false. All of the claims are backed up by reliable sources.

Yes it's not news, but it's a neat summarisation.