By allowing a competitor into the market, the exit cost for the
incumbent is small and may, in fact, prevent the entry of a stronger
firm. This is a strategy that Intel appeared to have adopted with
regards to laptops: we would suggest that the appearance of Transmeta
Crusoe machines in the Sony lineup was not disputed by Intel in the
hope of preventing the stronger competitor - AMD - from gaining a
foothold there. That, however, is speculation.
Relating these theories of monopoly back to the real world
requires a little more thought. Intel clearly conceded some product
space to AMD to allow it to enter the market with its low-end
processors such as the K5 and K6, back in the day. The weak firm,
however, has grown strong enough to compete by expanding its product
line to include high-end processors such as the Athlon, and, today,
cutting-edge technology like the Opteron. As AMD entered the high-end,
Intel monopolised rather than conceded and saturated the market with
offerings for every conceivable type of product. Arai suggests that it
is especially important to watch for monopolisation by any company with
multiple differentiated product lines, since this offers ample
opportunity for such anti-competitive acts as predatory pricing. That
would appear to be born out by the facts of this case.
YKhan said:A Japanese sociologist explored the legal and
psychological basis of Intel's monopolistic practices.
Relating these theories of monopoly back to the real
world requires a little more thought. Intel clearly conceded
some product space to AMD to allow it to enter the market with
its low-end processors such as the K5 and K6, back in the day.
low-end? IIRC, both the AMD K5 & K6 blew away their Intel
competition (486 & Pentium) on both technical and especially
cost-effectiveness. Intel was forced to react with proprietary
Sockets & Slots. The [NexGen?] K6 is so good that it lasted to
compete against PentiumPro and PentiumII and the essence of this
core is still apparent in the K7 & K8.
The shrink should stick to people. It's not nice to make up
facts to make theories work.
-- Robert
Robert said:Hunh? Wouldn't the economics be paramount?
low-end? IIRC, both the AMD K5 & K6 blew away their Intel
competition (486 & Pentium) on both technical and especially
cost-effectiveness. Intel was forced to react with proprietary
Sockets & Slots. The [NexGen?] K6 is so good that it lasted to
compete against PentiumPro and PentiumII and the essence of this
core is still apparent in the K7 & K8.
The shrink should stick to people. It's not nice to make up
facts to make theories work.
Robert said:low-end? IIRC, both the AMD K5 & K6 blew away their Intel
competition (486 & Pentium) on both technical and especially
cost-effectiveness.
Intel was forced to react with proprietary
Sockets & Slots.
The [NexGen?] K6 is so good that it lasted to
compete against PentiumPro and PentiumII and the essence of this
core is still apparent in the K7 & K8.
chrisv said:You recall wrong. The K5 was weak, compared to the
Pentiums of the time
There were good reasons for the slot. AMD did a slot
too, you know.
Sounds like someone loves the AMD Corporation.
Robert said:Certainly. But the K5 wasn';t aimed at the original
Pentiums. It was targetted against the 486 which Intel
had to kill prematurely as a result.
No, the AMD 5x86 was aimed against the 486's, it fit into the 486
sockets. The K5 was aimed against the Pentium Classic, it fit into its
socket. AMD never got any decent ramp up of this processor, and
therefore it brought the K6 up quickly. The K6 was the processor
previously being designed by NexGen Technologies before they were
bought by AMD.
The K6 was actually a very good processor, but it was designed to
compete against Pentium Classic and Pentium MMX, at a time when Intel
was migrating over to the P6 architecture, 6th generation architecture.
K6 was at best a 5.5th generation architecture, so it was behind the
P6's.
The K7 Athlon actually played a leapfrog on Intel's P6 architecture
(which at that point was represented by Pentium 3), and it was still
able to give Intel's 7th generation Pentium 4 a huge headache for most
of its lifecycle. But then again, we now know that even Intel's own 6th
generation (now represented by Pentium-M) is also still able to give its
own 7th generation a beating.
YKhan said:Relating these theories of monopoly back to the real
world requires a little more thought. Intel clearly conceded
some product space to AMD to allow it to enter the market with
its low-end processors such as the K5 and K6, back in the day.
low-end? IIRC, both the AMD K5 & K6 blew away their Intel
competition (486 & Pentium) on both technical and especially
cost-effectiveness. Intel was forced to react with proprietary
Sockets & Slots. The [NexGen?] K6 is so good that it lasted to
compete against PentiumPro and PentiumII and the essence of this
core is still apparent in the K7 & K8.
The K6 did very well against the PentiumMMX, but it was released
almost exactly one month to the day before Intel brought out the
Pentium II (K6 was released in April of '97, the PII was released in
May of '97). From that point on, AMD was relegated to competing on
the low-end with the K6 and it's follow-ups.
The same was largely true with the K5. While it competed very well
with the low-end Pentiums, by the time it actually started shipping in
PR75 and PR90 forms (early to mid '96), Intel was selling Pentium 150
and 166MHz chips. Intel hit 200MHz before AMD managed to release a
PR100 chip.
While AMD's chips did compete well at the low-end due to their price,
neither the K5 or the K6 was very competitive on the high-end when
compared to Intel's offerings of the day. It wasn't until the Athlon
came out that AMD really had a high-end competitor.
Certainly. But the K5 wasn';t aimed at the original
Pentiums. It was targetted against the 486 which Intel
had to kill prematurely as a result.
Yes, but slots are no more, and it wasn't about slots that
I was talking, but about proprietary CPU/mobo interfaces.
No, I like Intel too. I like to recognize quality
wherever it is found. Intel has _great_ process.
But the P7 (Pentium4) was a horrible stop-gap made
necessary by the failure of IA64 (Itanium).
keith said:The K6 was reworked extensively from the Nextgen processor. The Nextgen
processor was quite nice, but it suffered from not being socket-5/7
compatable. That was a fatal difference at the time, so it took some time
for AMD to get it to fit.
As soon as the K6s got an internal L2 they did quite well against
the slotted PIIs. They ran out of gas being limited by the 100MHz SS7
socket and when Intel went to the integrated L2 and back to the socket it
was all over for the K6. The slot actually sucked from the bilge. What a
horrible package.
Says a lot for P4, eh?
chrisv said:You recall wrong. The K5 was weak, compared to the Pentiums of the
time, and the K6 BARELY edged-out (by about 4%) the Pentium in integer
performance, despite the benefit of having twice the L1 cache. Plus,
the Pentium kicked the K6 around the block where it really mattered,
floating-point performance.
Yeah that's right, but I didn't want to overburden with too many details.
The 100Mhz Socket 7 was higher than what was available when Intel left
that platform. Intel left it at 66Mhz.
It took a fairly long time before anybody got their FSB's to 133Mhz,
I don't think it came until after the
Pentium 3 was introduced. I remember even the original Athlon K7's were
initially running on a double-pumped 100Mhz FSB.
There's now even talk of Pentium-M based Xeons coming in a few years.
Everyone is going back to the P6 architecture.
The K6 was hardly kicked around the block in floating point performance,
that was the Cyrix 6x86. The K6 was maybe 70-90% the performance of P5
and P6 at floating point clock-for-clock;
which most people wouldn't
even notice except in benchmarks. The K6 overhauled the P5 in floating
point performance once its clocks rose up higher than P5. But the P6 &
K6 kept up with each other in Mhz for the most part, therefore the K6
was never able to overhaul the P6 in floating point.
Tony said:Check your time table! The K5 didn't see light of day until *THREE
YEARS* after Intel had released the Pentium.
Yousuf said:The K6 was hardly kicked around the block in floating point performance,
that was the Cyrix 6x86. The K6 was maybe 70-90% the performance of P5
and P6 at floating point clock-for-clock; which most people wouldn't
even notice except in benchmarks.
Tony said:The K6 did very well against the PentiumMMX, but it was released
almost exactly one month to the day before Intel brought out the
Pentium II (K6 was released in April of '97, the PII was released in
May of '97). From that point on, AMD was relegated to competing on
the low-end with the K6 and it's follow-ups.
The 5V Pentium, you mean. The K5 was certainly out and competing
with the first "real" Pentiums, the P90-P133 series.
Tony said:The P90 was released in March of 1994. The K5 was released in March
of 1996, a full two years later. Intel released their Pentium 200MHz
before AMD hit PR100 with the K5.
Face it, the K5 was WAY too little too late!
Tony said:The P90 was released in March of 1994. The K5 was released in March
of 1996, a full two years later. Intel released their Pentium 200MHz
before AMD hit PR100 with the K5.
It's worth noting that floating point performance was a niche marketCompared to the P5, the K6 was pretty close, but it tended to get
kicked around pretty badly when compared to the P6. Now, I suppose
one could argue that the 20-50% improvement in floating point
performance for the P6 vs. P5 was as much to do with the memory
subsystem as anything else, the end result was the same.