The Stock Market reacts to the events of the previous post:



I imagine Intel will rebound. But, this does indicate that AMD is building a "brand name" with more investors who may not have been paying attention.

The point of the article was that a Ryzen 4000 series APU is a decent 1080p gaming solution. So, a low end, cost effective, everyday use Ryzen 4000 APU powered PC can play games decently too.

Another news item that would have seemed ridiculous 4 years ago.



Article

It remains to be seen if Intel actually did any wrong. And, they are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But, they have done wrong in the past.

My Opinion: That last underlined sentence is what made me an AMD supporter way back then. AMD had just begun making the best CPUs and expected business to grow (just as now, AMD only had a fraction of the CPU business). Intel's under the table dealings were proven in court to virtually put AMD out of business (on purpose). AMD was awarded $1.5 Billion (IIRC). Intel never paid and may never pay.

Its taken until recently for AMD to become competitive again. We've also seen that -- if Intel "has the market to themselves", they are slow to improve their products and actually work to keep our costs high.

Competition is good If any group actually gets total control of any market or situation, improvement slows dramatically or stops while costs increase -- Intel is just one example of very many. Heck, if the situation were reversed, AMD might have done the same thing. As a consumer who is hurt by such practices, I won't support the bad guy whoever it is. End Opinion.

Update:

Lots of articles like this one today. I won't be cutting/pasting a play by play account every day. We've got the idea.

Basically, Intel solving its problems by reorganizing internally and sending some production from Intel plants to TSMC plants.

Interestingly, the articles mention that in the near future (now) Intel will jump to 6nm at TSMC for some rumored/speculated things -- while AMD uses TSMC 7nm for near term parts (and is already working on 5nm and 3nm).

A couple interesting things: AMD will have $1.8B cash on hand. Intel owes AMD over $1B but is not paying -- that's a relatively significant amount. Also, other articles pointed out that Intel has bought "manufacturing capability" from places like TSMC just so their competitors would have a harder time buying parts (Intel has their own Intel Factories). We'll see if that becomes an issue during the next couple years.

Do you have a source? If this would only be about hampering AMD business, this would be quite illegal in the EU.

This could also be a solution to Intel having massive shortages for their 14nm chips, or their own fabs not getting good yields on the 10nm and 7nm procedure. Buying machine time from companies using the ASML lithography process would solve a lot of the problems Intel had in the past decade, and wouldn't be as much about Intel screwing AMD, but more about Intel getting their own ducks in order.

The long winded version:

I agree with you. Right now, Intel buying from TSMC would first be to solve Intel internal issues. However, a writer noted that there could be a "side benefit" to Intel -- if Intel used up limited resources needed by competitors like AMD. More than one author noted this.

The comment that this has happened in the past was a comment in one of the many articles I read and had to do with past actions. I didn't memorize which article on which site -- I only remembered the information. As mentioned in one article, Intel has several (or more) ongoing litigations in which they are accused of various wrong doings versus competitors. Again, until its proven in a court of law, its only an accusation. It was proven in 2001 vs AMD, for example.

No proof was offered that it was happening now. It was a "thought" by the author of the article I was reading (as is much of what is copied/pasted in this thread). The author based the "thought" on past actions.

Generally, I do not copy/paste or post Intel negative comments unless lots of nominally unbiased folks are currently making similar comments based on rumors/leaks from normally reliable sources. And, then, I paste only because Intel's situation (both real and imagined) impacts AMD's "Future and Current Status". Moreover, I won't paste obviously biased comments or those worded to "inflame" folks against Intel. As frequently noted in this thread, Intel makes good products.

Regarding the above two posts:



Of course, if TSMC is not building new capacity for Intel, the capacity has to come from current customers (in one way or another). Again, this "hampering" of some (not all) competitors might be a side benefit for Intel.

Some writers believe that ARM based CPUs have a chance to take over the market from x86 CPUs (AMD and Intel CPUs) -- in the long run.

ARM really is not a new/earthshaking concept. RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) has been around for decades. So far, its efficient for some uses; but, it has shown limitations. Its not obvious its a good idea for a stand alone PC. However, for desktop and handheld devices that get part of their power from the "cloud" (e.g. cellphones), it's obviously useful.

Leaks/rumors/guesses regarding AMDs "Big Navi" GPU have been prevalent. But, I don't believe them yet, so I have not cut/pasted them.

For completeness, here's one -- enjoy this one with several shovels full of salt:

While AMD is only selling 1 of every 5 CPUs, it matters -- because AMD is "climbing the ladder". If, eventually, AMD can reach 25 or 30 percent market share, the company will be solid with good Future income to stay competitive. That will force Intel to be competitive and we customers benefit.

Regarding future competition:

So, without the IBM 5150, Intel would have no AMD competition today -- and we'd be paying for it.

By the way, I had one of the first IBMs -- strictly for work (literally). Eventually, IBM changed their design to make it hard for other PC makers to compete. The market rebelled -- after some time of losing business, no more IBM PCs. Through the 80s and 90s, I preferred Intel x86 CPUs to AMD x86 CPUs and bought pre-made commercial PCs.

Competition is good

Weren't up to the 486 the AMD x86's not 1-to-1 copies of the Intel's? Why the preference?

You got it! AMD's copies were not exact. They did not activate all the features correctly. At least that's what I believed based on my reading -- I never bought one to try.

I started doing some gaming in the early 90s. What started me: I bought a program for "work", they included a Flight Simulator for free, I was hooked -- at home -- only when I had no work left to do. FWIW: Many days, I literally worked many more than 8 hours a day and then literally fell asleep and dreamed I was at work. As they say, "the buck stops with the Project Manager". I solved the unsolvable technical problems to keep the Projects going and on budget (very stressful leading to early retirement).

Anyhow, the lack of features in the AMD command set (belief based on reading, not my testing) ruined performance for some apps and games (based on reading, not my testing). Around 2000, AMD caught up.

P.S. Subsequently, I have learned recently that some compilers in the recent past (and maybe now), do not activate all the AMD CPU features even if they are there. I.e. The compilers were (or are) optimized for Intel and take a slower path if a non-Intel CPU is detected. Maybe that was going on back then. At the end of the day, I don't know if my beliefs (back then) were correct or if it was a problem with the software used for the published tests and software used by AMD users who complained on line.