AMD Could Leap Ahead If They Want To

[Richdog]

Your arguement is flawed! . . . you have basically stated that Intel are so far ahead in the game that they could stop overclocking tommorow and would be "almost no worse off than they are today" . . . that "Overclockers are a proverbial thorn in the foot" who are "no longer necessary for brand marketing" and who are a "now near-pointless niche"

You seem to not know just how good the latest AMD processors are . . . I supect this is because you haven't used them but that would be an "assumption" on my behalf? . . . You fail to address the reason exactly why that if Intel view OverClockers as a pain in the ass why they are intending to create and market a entire series of products aimed at OverClockers . . . you fail to address the supporting muti Million (Billion) dollar industries that support the OverClocking scene (Heatsinks, Water-Cooling, exotic MotherBoards, Beyond Jedec Speed Memories, etc) . . . and basically do not seem to have the basic grasp of what the "principles" of the OverClocking scene were founded on?

You do not address any of the shady business dealings why in past Intel has had such a tremendous market share which should no longer be possible:

Intel® Settles With the FTC

You do not address the "what if" scenario of an OverClocked AMD® processor being faster and more affordable than a more expensive "Locked" Intel processor and you do not even entertain the notion that future AMD® processor could actually be better performers *and* overclockable than their
Intel® counterparts!

In terms of a Reasoning Process and a Feasibility Study you seem to have made your mind up and set your opinion in stone without really any consideration at all . . . .

Intel® do have some good engineers but for a while know the suits have been paying more attention to their shareholders and less time thinking about what their customers really want . . . most of their products are "massively" overpriced on a price-to-performance ratio but a lot of buyers are not aware of these facts . . . they either succumb to the brand name thing or just ask someone who their consider "knowledgeable" what PC they should buy and the so called "guru" who works for DELL sales for PC world says Intel®

This is all changing as slowly people are waking up from the Intel® "Consensus Trance" and actually seeing that AMD®
are actually producing really good hardware that is selling for a really good price . . . all it will take is a few tier 1 OEMS to back AMD® (which is more likely now the shady dealings have been stamped out by the ITC) and more and more OverClockers/Enthusiasts to find their way into positions of power and use their "objective" buying power to really elavate AMD® . . .


Your arguement is really weak and narrow sighted . . . you appear to has no real facts at your disposal, heaps of assumption and a general good will towards Intel no matter what they do . . . You like so many non-enthusiasts seem to be ignorant of moden hardware and instead really on branding alone, you also think that because AMD® was behind Intel® in the past they will always be behind AMD®

It almost seems to me like you are building up some kinda "justificaton" for what Intel® "may" be doing with their next gen and preventing Enthusiasts/OverClockers from "tweaking" the hardware to perform better . . . its utterly ridiculous that anyone who understands overclocking would pay a premium for special processors that allow them to overclock . . . and its all because the FatCats want more money . . . its always money and they can never have enough . . . the problem with this is as soon a a company (any company) puts its own needs/wants in front of their customers needs/wants their doomed . . .

If Intel does indeed axe overclocking and continue charging above the going rate premiums for their hardware they are going down . . . . I haven't spent a single penny on Intel for 12 months, nor any of my friends, nor any of my clients from my I.T business thats been running 10 years . . . . every single person who I have switched over to AMD® have been delighted with their system and told their friends . . . All the systems were overclocked/tweaked and all of them were very fast and excellent value for money £££ . . . I'm not just one person . . . there are lots of people like me!

Feel free to stand by Intel® no matter what stunts they pull Richdog, but if you can take anything anway from this discussion let it be this . . . what you believe is the truth and the actual truth are often world apart . . . and to get closer to knowing the truth (about anything) you need to politely discuss things with your fellow forums members and always keeping an open mind!

I'll go on the record now as saying that "if" Intel go ahead and attempt to either destroy the OverClocking culture or "tax" the OverCLocking culture then the Overclocking Culture will backlash and the effect will be more profound that you or the Intel "suits" can possible imagine!

What on Earth are you waffling on about. Protecting Intel? Justifying their next move? Your post basically just descended into a really bizzarre Intel rant while making many amusing yet inaccurate assumptions about me.

And for the record, I was as much a PC and overclocking enthusiast in my day as you think you are now, and I was a die-hard AMD user before Core2 arrived on the scene because back then AMD were on an even keel performance-wise, and cheaper. I have no bias towards any hardware company, I am now, and always have been, objective in my views towards brands and hardware... I buy the best performer at the time regardless of who it is.

Me, My World & I

What we have here folks is a classic case of a jaded" ex overclocker who thinks he knows it all . . . he is bored with OverClocking therefore concludes that everyone else should be bored with overclocking and its Ok if overclocking is scrapped or that its ok for new overclockers to be "taxed"

This is not "objective" thinking really!

Im not bored with overclocking, I really enjoyed it... it's just I now have good reason to not be sitting at my computer investing the same time and money that I once did for 15 long years. I don't think anyone else should be bored with it or should have to stop if they enjoy it, just that I believe that the face of it nowadays has changed, and will continue to change in conjunction with technology improvements. I don't personally forsee a bright long-term future for the overclocking and PC enthusiast market in its current form.

Either way given the direction your last post went I think i'll make this my last one too. Enjoy your evening.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Something seems suspicious here but I cant quite place what.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17342132&postcount=16

I think someone forgot to quote who he stole stuff off.

Also, we've seen since my post(originally, not the new stolen one) that the K series pricing is pretty damn competitive, IE, $10 more for a K series over a non overclocking CPU so its a non issue.

Though the problem will be how many K series cpu's they let out, and how much certain stores who like to gouge, increase the prices.

Though afaik you do have to use the "enthusiast" mobo, hopefully it will be the relatively normal ranges of mobo's, but if they limited you to only £200+ Asus "couldn't sound more gay" mobo's with ridiculously high spec for no reason then it could end up significantly more expensive.


If the enthusiast chipset Intel boards aren't any more expensive, then you're looking at potentially $20 more for an overclocking version of both chip/mobo over standard.

THen again, overclocking is getting less important, NOT because of the lack of performance increase, plenty of stuff scales VERY well with increased CPU usage, and for gaming when the next consoles come out we'll get a HUGE leap forward in gaming over a short space of time and that will likely include a lot of CPU based power being used. The reason its getting less important is turbo modes. I'm not sure Intel has implemented every core turbo mode yet, Bulldozer seems to be bringing the ability to use turbo mode for every core as long as the TDP is kept to. As some workloads will load every part of a chip, and many workloads will only load the FPU or interger parts heavily.

THe real interesting thing is high end Sandybridge looks massively massively cheaper than current high end daft £1000 chips, though that could be because they are only releasing at quad core to start with, I've only seen some pricing.

Theres a fair step up on cost to get a hyperthreading enabled 8mb cache jobbie.

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/11/26/wholesale-sandy-bridge-list-pricing-appears/

$316 for 3.4Ghz 4 core, 8 thread, 8mb cache Sandy overclocking version, $216 for a 3.3Ghz, 4 core, 4 thread, 6mb cache version.

But not bad pricing at all, but yes I had remembered right, this doesn't included 6 core pricing so I'm assuming 6 or 8 core versions at some point will carry the daft pricing.

$316 for a top end new quad core isn't half bad though, and $216 is excellent.

 

[mdb08]

Your arguement is flawed! . . . you have basically stated that Intel are so far ahead in the game that they could stop overclocking tommorow and would be "almost no worse off than they are today" . . . that "Overclockers are a proverbial thorn in the foot" who are "no longer necessary for brand marketing" and who are a "now near-pointless niche"

You seem to not know just how good the latest AMD processors are . . . I supect this is because you haven't used them but that would be an "assumption" on my behalf? . . .
....

This is all changing as slowly people are waking up from the Intel® "Consensus Trance" and actually seeing that AMD®
are actually producing really good hardware that is selling for a really good price . . . all it will take is a few tier 1 OEMS to back AMD® (which is more likely now the shady dealings have been stamped out by the ITC) and more and more OverClockers/Enthusiasts to find their way into positions of power and use their "objective" buying power to really elavate AMD® . . .

Think about it in proportion, to how many computers there is world wide. The amount of people that do not over clock and just run at stock significantly outnumbers those who do, for instance companies that buy massive amounts of intel based systems do not over clock these machines and run them at stock. So I agree with Richdog, that if intel decided to ban overclocking it would not drastically affect intels market position or market share.

However, I arn't too sure what you mean by "objective" buying power? :S Do you by any chance mean economies of scale?

http://tutor2u.net/business/gcse/production_economies_of_scale.htm

 

[Big.Wayne]

Though if AMD really want to compete, they need to start pumping out chips for the laptop market, thats where things are heading at the moment, and thats one area where AMD fail right now.

AMD® Bobcat™ Hello?

AMD Teases Bobcat Fusion APUs again, delivers Atom-busting performance (video)

AMD's Bobcat APU benchmarked: the age of the Atom is at an end

 

[deusexlumina]

The argument keeps being made that the overclocking/enthusiast market is small and thats why intel are making the k chips, but surely if this market didnt matter there'd be no money to be made from performing such a move...

I dislike intel's move quite a bit. There's no real *need* for it. They arnt stark broke. They are just alienating enthusiasts who have computing as a hobby.

 

[ATIorNvidia]

Maybe? But if Intel are planning on limiting overclocking AMD could seriously kick their arses. Roll your eyes all you want my friend.

If Intel start limiting overclocking do you honestly think AMD won't follow shortly after?

I'm getting sick and tired of people thinking AMD are some sort of saints from heaven.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hello mdb08

I agree with Richdog

Ok, so maybe you can address some of the points i raised that he failed to respond to . . . obviously my post style is not what we are discussing here?

My argument is this, why does Intel keep changing sockets? . . why does Intel now want to lock their systems down to prevent overclocking?

How do either of these "technological advancements" benefit the end user? . . . why would they invest extra money into prevent the apparent small, puny, insignificant amount of enthusiasts wordwide tweaking their product?

Is it a case that Intel are thinking more about their own profits than giving the customers what they want? . . . and if that is the case why would anyone spend any money with a company that puts its own needs ahead of the customer?

Intel work for us, they should put our needs/wants before their own . . . the customer is always right . . . I don't want a locked-down system, I don't want to be forced to shell out more cash for extra processor speed when I could just "tinker" and unlock the performance that is there . . .

In light of all this I do not think the Intel corporation are acting in my best interests or the interests of anyone I know . . . therefore anyone who would prefere Intel acted more reasonable must boycott their products until such a time that they get with the program . . . one person here and one person there not buying from a company out for themselves is not going to take much of an impact but like a snowball these things have a habit of growing and growing until millions of consumers buy elsewhere . . . at which point the Intel money men may reconsider their actions . . .

If anyone thinks trying to topple a huge corporation like Intel is a tall order then they obviously haven't watched Star Wars . . . the bigger they are . . . the harder they fall!

 

[Judgeneo]

AMD® Bobcat™ Hello?

AMD Teases Bobcat Fusion APUs again, delivers Atom-busting performance (video)

AMD's Bobcat APU benchmarked: the age of the Atom is at an end

Haha I know all about Bobcat, but its not powerful enough to be entered in the £400 notebook or above market and we still don't know how the other bulldozer architectures scale down to laptop power, which is what I was trying to say.

I might be buying a bobcat powered netbook myself.

 

[james.miller]

big wayne, how many mainstream sockets have AMD and intel released in the last 4 years?

 

[Judgeneo]

big wayne, how many mainstream sockets have AMD and intel released in the last 4 years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_socket

AMD 7, Intel 6.

Intel are releasing two more next year, with AMD only 1 so the score will be tied then.

If you ignore AMDs server line, then Intel releases more sockets.


I wish people wouldn't try to prove a point by asking a question. The facts are easy to find, just post them.

 

[james.miller]

If you ignore AMDs server line, then Intel releases more sockets.

i did say mainstream. server line is not mainstream, is it?

I wish people wouldn't try to prove a point by asking a question. The facts are easy to find, just post them.

I was asking Wayne, not you. if you dont like it, use the back button FYI, sometimes the only way to get through to people is to get them to go find out themselves. I think most of us already know the answer.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Not 100% James? . . . not sure what you mean by mainstream? and also do you mean four actual years (Dec 2006 to dec 2010) I think two? AM2+ and AM3 . . .

AMD's latest and greatest processors can in theory be used with AM2+ which was released back in 2007 . . . not too shabby . . . Hardware interoperability is cool!

 

[Liampope]

Overclockers may be a small market of consumers, but Intel love us! All the free performance and stress testing data they could possibly hope for. As with a lot of things, it's what the enthusiasts at the bleeding edge do that helps spur the development of the tech that eventually filters down to the mainstream market. If anything, the fact that Intel think we'll pay a little more for the privilege with the 'k' versions shows how big/healthy/important the overclocking/benching/folding scenes are, not that it's dwindling/insignificant at all. They want a slice of the pie . They could easily shut us down if they wanted to - they design the CPUs and the chipsets. No k versions is all it'd take. They clearly dont want that - just for us to pay a little for our 'free' lunches.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Haha I know all about Bobcat, but its not powerful enough to be entered in the £400 notebook or above market and we still don't know how the other bulldozer architectures scale down to laptop power, which is what I was trying to say.

I might be buying a bobcat powered netbook myself.

I would suspect that AMD Llano will be in the higher end laptops. AFAIK,it looks like a tweaked 32NM Athlon II with a relatively powerful IGP in the same die. Supposedly the IGP has 320 to 400 stream processors according to rumours.

 

[james.miller]

Not 100% James? . . . not sure what you mean by mainstream? and also do you mean four actual years (Dec 2006 to dec 2010) I think two? AM2+ and AM3 . . .

AMD's latest and greatest processors can in theory be used with AM2+ which was released back in 2007 . . . not too shabby . . . Hardware interoperability is cool!

AM2 2006
AM2+ 2007
AM3 2009

LGA 1366 2008
LGA 1156 2009

three for AMD....two for intel. Like Judgeneo Said, intel are releasing two next year, AMD one more. That'll be four in four years for the both of them. admittedly that doesn't look all that fair on the surface as that would be four in three years for intel and four in five for AMD. But, throw socket 775 in to the mix and it swings back in intels favour. overall, there isnt much difference.

there's only one real difference between the two at this point: Intel chipsets aren't forwards compatible like AMD chipset's can be. thinking about this objectively, im not sure how useful this is in the real world. yes it does enable people to use newer cpu's in existing boards, but most enthusiasts will buy a new board when they want new features anyway, usb3 and sata6 for example - wont find them on many AM2+ boards. I think this backwards compatibility is overplayed somewhat.

So, what else is getting your back up over Intel so much, Wayne? Afterall, many of those comments you have made about Intel could be levelled at AMD also. people were quite disappointed to learn AM3 wouldn't support bulldozer, despite promises to the contrary. That is by definition, exactly what you've been complaining about with Intel.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AM2 2006
AM2+ 2007
AM3 2009

LGA 1366 2008
LGA 1156 2009

three for AMD....two for intel. Like Judgeneo Said, intel are releasing two next year, AMD one more. That'll be four in four years for the both of them. admittedly that doesn't look all that fair on the surface as that would be four in three years for intel and four in five for AMD. But, throw socket 775 in to the mix and it swings back in intels favour. overall, there isnt much difference.

there's only one real difference between the two at this point: Intel chipsets aren't forwards compatible like AMD chipset's can be. thinking about this objectively, im not sure how useful this is in the real world. yes it does enable people to use newer cpu's in existing boards, but most enthusiasts will buy a new board when they want new features anyway, usb3 and sata6 for example - wont find them on many AM2+ boards. I think this backwards compatibility is overplayed somewhat.

So, what else is getting your back up over Intel so much, Wayne?

You have forgotten the last revision of socket 775 too which provided 45NM Core2 support in 2007. However,not all the socket 775 motheboards from 2006 supported the 45NM processors. My socket 775 975X motherboard from 2006 cannot run the newer 45NM Core2 processors for example!

At least many people who had socket AM2 and AM2+ motherboards could upgrade to newer processors.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hold on . . . . we are a few weeks away from 2011 . . . that would make AM2 five years old!

Talking of company motherboard designs consider 790GX and 8800GX vs H55/P55 . . . in essence the consumer using the AMD platform gets an IGP and the ability to overclock any of AMD's consumer chips . . . Intel forces you to buy a specific processor on the modern platform if you want IGP and overclocking whereas if you want a nice QuadCore + Overclocking its very simple with AMD . . .

Intel forces you to junk your valuable & capable DDR2 if you want one of their modern processors which is not in the consumers best interests . . . whereas AMD gives you the option to mix n max

This is in the customers interest and a good thing, you can literally have it all but Intel see if differently . . . they think you should do what they say and buy what they tell you to . . . if anyone remembers RAMBUS then you will know that sometimes Intel have to reconsider what the think is best!

Anyway . . . what do you think about the "possible" CPU Overclocking lockdown James!

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This motherboard is socket AM2 and supports Phenom II processors:

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=NFlvt10av3F7ayQ9

It was released in 2006.

 

[james.miller]

You have forgotten the last revision of socket 775 too which provided 45NM Core2 support in 2007. However,not all the socket 775 motheboards from 2006 supported the 45NM processors. My socket 775 975X cannot run the newer 45NM Core2 processors! .

I did, you are quite right same situation with am2+ boards, not all of them can run all of the am3 cpus (125w variants).

Wayne,

Talking of company motherboard designs consider 790GX and 8800GX vs H55/P55 . . . in essence the consumer using the AMD platform gets an IGP and the ability to overclock any of AMD's consumer chips . . . Intel forces you to buy a specific processor on the modern platform if you want IGP and overclocking whereas if you want a nice QuadCore + Overclocking its very simple with AMD . . .

I don't use the IGP on my 890gx board so I'm possibly not the best person to comment, but i can't help wondering how many people actually need an IGP if they are running 6-core overclocked monsters. Chances are, IGP's are next to useless for those people. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong? I certainly have no use for it with a 5850 installed. I only bought the board with the view of the IGP being a backup incase my 5850 or whatever i have installed at the time failed, but that's only because i don't have a spare PCI-e card.

Intel forces you to junk your valuable & capable DDR2 if you want one of their modern processors which is not in the consumers best interests . . . whereas AMD gives you the option to mix n max

without the support for usb3 onboard, yes. I don't know if that's changed recently but it certainly was the case when i was looking at boards. So you get to keep your worthless ddr2 and have to buy add-in cards if you want those new features. that just comes down to preference really. But even then, that's only useful for existing am2+ users.

This is in the customers interest and a good thing, you can literally have it all but Intel see if differently . . . they think you should do what they say and buy what they tell you to . . . if anyone remembers RAMBUS then you will know that sometimes Intel have to reconsider what the think is best!

AMD are no different. they released socket 939 with the intention of revealing 754 to the entry level market. 754 actually outlived it in the end...

Anyway . . . what do you think about the CPU Overclocking lockdown James!

indifferent, at this time. I can overclock my 965 and it is...a bit.... but since building this pc ive not found it to be in any cpu-limited situations to any great degree. I'm not seeing anything like the improvements i found with previous chipsets and cpu's. when i remember back to my opteron 148, or before that my celeron tulatin, the performance differentials where MASSIVE. I'm just not seeing it these days. It's a similar story with gpu's also, my 5850 is sitting happily at 900mhz but tbh the difference is so minimal that it's almost not worth it. Nothing liek unlocking those 4 other pipelines on my 9500 non-pro - that was massively faster.

If they (AMD or Intel) locked it down completely, i dont think it would be the end of the world. from a market share perspective, i dont think it would make much difference to either of them. We simply aren't important enough to make a dent in cpu sales.

This motherboard is socket AM2 and supports Phenom II processors:

http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=NFlvt10av3F7ayQ9

It was released in 2006.

Nice, doesnt support 125w cpu's (minor thing in all honesty) but it was a decent board nonetheless, if only for future cpu support. The chipset was an abomination though

 

[Big.Wayne]

I don't use the IGP on my 890gx board so I'm possibly not the best person to comment, but i can't help wondering how many people actually need an IGP if they are running 6-core overclocked monsters. Chances are, IGP's are next to useless for those people

IGP is a huge market . . . not sure why you would think everyone using a HexCore would be a gamer? . . . think about it a bit more?

So you get to keep your worthless ddr2 and have to buy add-in cards if you want those new features

Cheek! . . . my DDR2 is worth more than your house! . . . Ok not quite but it maturing quite nicely as an investment and its serving it purpose . . . what is stepping up to DDR3 going to achieve for most people? . . . what's it going to achieve?

AMD are no different. they released socket 939 with the intention of revealing 754 to the entry level market. 754 actually outlived it in the end...

Jesus thats along time ago . . . AMD like everyone else makes mistakes . . . but only the wise avoid making the same mistake twice . . . pity about Am3+ granted but its helped somewhat by the fact that one can swap over their AM3 chips . . . not really sure how compelling USB3.0 and SATA III is really?

If they (AMD or Intel) locked it down completely, i dont think it would be the end of the world. from a market share perspective, i dont think it would make much difference to either of them. We simply aren't important enough to make a dent in cpu sales.

Haha speak for yourself little man! . . . if we are so small and meaningless then I fail to understand why Intel have spent cold hard cash on "possibly" locking us out? . . . why would they even think of doing that?

I wonder what the OverClocking industry is worth? . . . I wonder what all the Kudos they get from enthusiasts on the forums around the world and the knock on effect from the enthusiasts recommending their products is worth?

How much money do they lose from the fact OverClockers buy a cheaper chip and clock the nads off it instead of buying a mucho more expensive product . . . must be a lot if they want to stop it? . . . either that or there is some other factor I didn't consider yet?