Microsoft to acquire... AMD?  - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 08:59:03 am
content: The newest batch of rumors is in:http://www.kitguru.net/components/anton-shilov/microsoft-is-interested-to-buy-advanced-micro-devices-source/Soooo, we'll end up with Intel vs. Microsoft vs. Everyone else (ARM?), whilst at the same time cooperating... I'm going to get my popcorn out... I wonder who will gobble up Xilinx - I'm guessing Google?

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 09:23:02 am
content: Wouldn't this lose AMD their x86 license? Even though they aren't really a real option in PCs any more that'd be a big deal for the XB1 and PS4.

author: miguelvp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 10:53:27 am
content: Quote from: daqq on July 03, 2015, 08:59:03 amIf MS wants to compete with Intel at the server level, then they might be the next acquisition since Altera got bought by Intel.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 11:00:17 am
content: QuoteClippy for PlanAhead and Vivado? KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

author: void_error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 12:07:38 pm
content: Quote from: Mechanical Menace on July 03, 2015, 09:23:02 amYou couldn't be more wrong. Not everyone can afford to spend the $$$ Intel asks for their processors. Plus, when it comes to price/performance ratio AMD pretty much wins in most cases. Of course, if you have the $$$ to spend go buy whatever.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 12:22:33 pm
content: When I have built my own computers, I've always used AMD. I like their products. Intel here right now but the computer and laptop were free and that's the best price of all.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 12:28:09 pm
content: Quote from: void_error on July 03, 2015, 12:07:38 pmErm lets compare their cheaper offerings with thesebudget APUs at the same price.The price/performance advantage of AMD doesn't exist any more, hasn't since the Core series were released. It's a shame how much they've slipped, they used to be my go to CPU manufacturer when I got into x86 machines. But it's also remarkable how many people still believe it to be true, but compare any 2 AMD and Intel chips of the same price and you'll see Intel winning out on performance and lower power usage.

author: krish2487
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 12:54:07 pm
content: This!Plus I am a cheapskate. I have built for my office Servers using desktop processors from AMD. They are on 24x7 and have never given me a sleepless night. All they need is a decent PSU that have a long MTBF.And pound per pound lighter on the power consumption than intel.Quote from: GreyWoolfe onTodayat 10:22:33 PM

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 03:31:27 pm
content: Quote from: void_error on July 03, 2015, 12:07:38 pmOver the past 20 years I have never seen an AMD machine work in an office environment without mysterious crashes and other mayhem. Fine for a few hours of gaming use per day but not if you need to depend on it. People around me tried to buy AMD systems and even at some point a co-worker ordered a whole bunch of AMD based machines but they where replaced in 3 months.The bottom line is: Better buy a slower Intel CPU in a properly designed PC and get work done instead of losing your work all the time.

author: timofonic
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 03:43:24 pm
content: Microsoft in hardware? Apple competition is.coming!I would see Samsung or even Oracle, but not Microsoft.

author: rollatorwieltje
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 06:08:18 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on July 03, 2015, 03:31:27 pmI think it really had to do with the chipset and peripherals. Intel machines were usually "full Intel", including stuff like chipset, graphics, audio, lan etc. Basically just the Intel reference board. AMD never did that, manufacturers had to select their own components. Boards with Via chipsets and peripherals were good, but there were some very dodgy chipsets and peripherals that manufacturers could use (SiS 730... ALS4000 audio... ).Never had issues with my AMD machines, but they did have motherboards with reasonable peripherals on them. They were also just as expensive as an equal Intel board.Somewhat ironically maybe, the only system I had issues with was an Intel P35 system, that chipset had some serious cold boot issues.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 03, 2015, 06:33:28 pm
content: I'm sure that is part of the problem. With an Intel chipset you know it has been designed to work together and due to the higher volumes Intel is selling more design effort can be put into designing the chipsets without increasing the price.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2015, 10:57:50 am
content: AMD 6000+ Xpc... 4 years old and no problems. Just a Ssd and a new graphic card (free, a single faulty cap).Most "bad" AMD pc's are usually fitted with laughingly bad motherboard...Fanboy stuff appart, Since Athlon's, i've found Amd's more responsive in very heavy Autocad or photoshop files. But Intel much betters rendering - at a similar price point. The top of the range intel is very good, but I can't afford it.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2015, 11:05:11 am
content: Yeah, i tend to agree.AMD has always had good coverage at the ultra lower end of the market. Because of this there's always been a lot of cheap and nasty AMD motherboards to match the price point of their ultra low end cpus. (Sempron)..shivers..The real problems occur when people/companies try to save money by using these cheap motherboards for the highend AMD cpu's without realizing what they're doing.You end up with a PC that runs fast but crashes a lot because the motherboard was never intended/tested for that clock speed even though the chipset supports it.Most people filter motherboards for the CPU/RAM support they want and then order-by-price, which is a bad move for AMD systems.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2015, 01:14:23 pm
content: And there one thing that kinda annoys me with Intel; they keep changing the sockets...Since 2000:AMD: 16, of which 7 are relevant for my use, narrowed to 4 that I would (or would have considered buying).Intel: 27, of witch 12 are relevant for my use, narrowed to 7 that I would (or would have considered buying).But that's just me, for my usage.

author: void_error
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2015, 06:05:25 pm
content: Quote from: Psi on July 04, 2015, 11:05:11 amDon't forget about the voltage regulator for the CPU, if it's poorly designed it won't be able to cope well with fast CPU current draw changes and the CPU voltage will sag leading to system instability.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2015, 11:44:35 pm
content: My wife's school had purchased some new laptops with AMD E1 processors to replace some laptops they had with Celeron processors that were a few years old. She showed me her new laptop and asked what I thought about it. I looked at the specs and said "I don't think they could have spent any less if they tried" The CPU had lower benchmarks than her previous Celeron Laptop. Those E1 laptops lasted about a year before the school replaced them with Refurbished Dell Latitude E6420 laptops (about 3 years old) The laptops cost roughly the same as the HP laptops they had bought new the previous year but the I5 2520m processor in them was about 5 to 6 times as fast. (Based on Passmark scores)I've not had many AMD systems, but two I owned had processor failures (AMD 486 dx2 66), AMD K6 200, and one I had worked on for a family member had the processor burn up (Thunderbird 900). This was back when AMD processors did not have thermal shutdown features. The computer store that sold him the processor and heatsink had given him the wrong heatsink and it didn't make contact with the core. The computer ran for about 15 minutes until it smoked.I haven't been impressed by them since they made the first x86-64 processor. When I heard they were using a variant of the EV6 bus from the Alpha 21264 I was really excited to see what would become of it, but Intel changed gears on their processors and got away from the NetBurst P4 bus and based the their new line on the Pentium M and AMD started struggling again.Their current top of the line processors still lag far behind Intel. I guess the only plus with their lagging development is they have kept their sockets fairly close so boards can sometimes support 3+ generations of processors.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 07:09:05 am
content: One company that I worked for decided to get us new Celeron's in the early 2000's, because that was "sufficient" to run AutoCAD on Windows NT 4.0...The very next day I came in early with my personal computer (1.2Ghz Athlon) with the new Celeron in the paper basket next to my desk in the most visible/comical position I could put it in.Still had to use my PC for 2 weeks getting the silent treatment from the boss before we got Pentium 4's.Those Celeron's were slower in CAD than a well sorted 486 DX4: Files that were slow to open on the 486 would lock up the Celeron for 30 min... And half the lines would not refresh, they were there, and appear when selected. Utter crap.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 09:21:32 am
content: I dunno if this is still true but from my experience...Clock for clock Intels have always been faster by a reasonable amount. However price for price AMD has edges out intel a few times. Not a lot, but there have been a few cpus that did it.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 11:15:51 am
content: Quote from: Psi on July 05, 2015, 09:21:32 amMostly agree.However we can thank AMD for keeping Intel on it's toes and sometimes overtaking when Intel boys got lazy (386, 486DX and the K5 drop in, Pentium 60 pile O crap, Pentium 4 3Ghz etc).I don't think we would have the great Intel CPU's we have today without competition from AMD.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 01:04:57 pm
content: Intel vs. AMD... it has been some time since I saw one of these discussions...I probably prefer Intel - I had one AMD notebook, which was constantly trying to initiate fusion. Later, my colleague got an AMD box, which after a few years started to randomly freeze. I will admit that I'm not a PC expert (I just use them and do some code for them for fun), but most of the people around me who are prefer Intel stuff. I guess there's a reason for that other than marketing.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 01:33:17 pm
content: Quote from: daqq on July 05, 2015, 01:04:57 pmMore marketing?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 01:59:17 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 05, 2015, 01:33:17 pmNo. AMD has made the classic mistake by competing solely on price. There is no profit at the bottom of the market!

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 02:54:18 pm
content: Quote from: Stonent on July 04, 2015, 11:44:35 pmThis is not laptop APU(CPU). They could buy "laptops" (if this is the right word for such devices) with Atom CPUs and then wonder why they are crap too. Regarding reliability, None of my AMD CPUs died, however my first intel CPU - core i7 3820 with LGA2011 socket died after about 2.5 years (no overclock). Regarding PCs being unstable IMO it is not CPU vendor related. I would say mostly happen because of crap motherboards, RAM compatibility issues. Edit: except very common issues because ofverycheap PSUs which are widespread.BTW Intel have a lot bugs in their peripherals. Just out of mind: failing SATA3 in several chipsets. Bug in 82579V PHI which causes it stop working. Had that issue myself, firmware update didn't help. Replaced with newer silicon revision chip. Sandy Bridge-E VT-d Broken In C1 Stepping.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 03:04:45 pm
content: Quote from: Psi on July 05, 2015, 09:21:32 amNope. Clock per clock Intel sucked until core 2 duo appeared.

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 03:29:06 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 05, 2015, 03:04:45 pmThe story behind the Core2duo is remarkable, they essentially went back to the P3 (that became Pentium M) and "re-evolved" over the P4 that was becoming a dead end.The initial design was done by a very small team.http://news.cnet.com/Intels-new-chip-family-Core-microarchitecture/2100-1006_3-6047044.html

author: Bloch
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 03:41:33 pm
content: Fromhttp://news.cnet.com/Intels-new-chip-family-Core-microarchitecture/2100-1006_3-6047044.html"about 49 nanojoules per watt"

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 03:45:50 pm
content: Quote from: Bloch on July 05, 2015, 03:41:33 pmBad editing strikes again! Had not even noticed...Obviously 49 Nectarine per pie.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 03:50:29 pm
content: Quote from: Bloch on July 05, 2015, 03:41:33 pmJust a typo. At all other places there is written "nanojoules per instruction"

author: XDroidie626
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 04:12:04 pm
content: Hmm MS to purchase AMD? Personally I do not agree with this move, while MS has a superb research department there PC counterpart sucks these days, they are currently a Xbox company first it seems, there focus is cloud (Azure) and 2/1 tablet market (General consumer markets)Again while MS is good at research I feel that the purchase of AMD would kill AMD for gamers, and another avenue to lock users down, I love AMD products but if MS got them I would soon switch to Nvidia.Another avenue to look at here is FOSS, while MS support Linux in a fashion its nothing compared to Intel or Google, AMD driver support is spotty but good, especially on the Free Open side of the coin, I feel MS would hinder this progress, while they cant stop FOSS dead, they can slow it down extremely by not releasing the kernel modules, which I believe Nvidia does (I am not 100% sure there)A side where it maybe good is AMD for mobile, with MS focus for mobile I feel they could actually rival Nvidia and Intel with AMD ARM, when AMD put there mind to things they can really push technology, but again a downside is the power draw from said components, the reason the K1 is so bad for battery the superscalar and if the code is not in the DCO it requires extra power to push the ARM code into the DCO, requiring more power, but I digress.TL:DR version -> MS getting AMD is bad for desktop but can be good for mobile, but could also affect FOSS in the process, and also MS needs to learn how to use ARM correctly with Windows, do not repeat RT!

author: gildasd
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 06:45:32 pm
content: The problem I see with AMD since Opteron, is that they do a bit of a "me too product"...So yeah, instead of doing parallel identical cores like Intel, maybe if they had dedicated architecture for certain tasks, or the hard drive interface on the die (I really don't know what I'm talking about), maybe they would still be slower on average, but blow everything out of the water on some dedicated life sucking tasks (video editing, compiling, compressing, big CAD/Jpeg files, rendering, start up, batch editing photos... you name it).But those are billion dollar decisions and I would also be conservative

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 05, 2015, 08:50:13 pm
content: Quote from: gildasd on July 05, 2015, 06:45:32 pmDo you mean Bulldozer which sucks for general purpose but excels at specific multi-thread tasks?

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 05:25:17 am
content: Quote from: XDroidie626 on July 05, 2015, 04:12:04 pmIt's not like they can't make the apps completely portable. .NET is really good for that. I have a multithreaded ping program that I wrote about 6 months ago in C# and compiled against .NET 4.0. I was able to take that source code without changing it and compile it on my Raspberry Pi using Xamarin and the Mono compiler and it worked. Not only that, the resulting .exe file from the Raspberry Pi ran perfectly fine on my Windows 8.1 laptop.

author: Mechanical Menace
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2015, 05:20:27 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on July 05, 2015, 03:04:45 pmYup, that's why lower clocked AMD processors had a number after them to reflect the clock speed of the performance equivalent Intel processor of the day. Then lagging behind on the 64 bit implantations because "you only really need it for addressing more memory," while something I agree with in most cases, was a bad marketing move from them. I'm pretty certain if the Core 2s had been shite AMD would have taken over the top spot.