Fortune "Most Admired" American semiconductor manufacturers: Intel vs. AMD

[Stacey]

Robert Myers wrote:

Why do corporate buyers not leap on AMD's offerings?

There is no "Whole solution". With Intel you can buy a board/CPU made and
-supported- by the same company. With AMD you have to buy a board from one
place, with a chipset made by someone else and then a CPU from a different
company. It's too easy for any of them to blame the other and corporate
buyers know it 'cause they probably do it themselves!

Now that nVidia is in the game and SIS is making better chipsets things look
better. But I think to be accepted, AMD is going to have to step up and
make their own -stable- mobo's and chipsets, even if these don't perform
100% as fast as a 3rd party board does. Intel has been doing this for years
and I believe this is what is holding AMD back. The problems with AMD
systems have never been the chips themselves, it's always a problem with
the chipsets or the mobo's. I can't understand why AMD doesn't want a piece
of that pie anyway especially since it would help their chip sales too.

 

[Robert Myers]

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/mostadmired/subs/2004/industrysnapshot/0,19409,50,00.html

available, unfortunately, only with a subscription.

Who's No. 1? Well, it's not Intel.

Nor is it AMD.

Intel's overall score of 7.72 is good enough to make it No. 2. Last
year Intel was No. 1. AMD's score of 5.57 puts it at No. 6, behind
Nvidia, but ahead of Vishay Intertechnology.

Why do corporate buyers not leap on AMD's offerings? No. 10 rankings
of financial soundness and long-term investment might have something
to do with it. Even more surprising: No 6 in both employee talent and
innovation, as opposed to Intel's No. 2 and No. 4, respectively.
Intel is No. 1 on financial soundness, naturally.

For those Usenet managers who think that Intel doesn't know how to
manage its wealth (sinking all that money into Itanium, you know), it
gets a No. 2 ranking for management of corporate assets as opposed to
AMD's no 7.

AMD-bashing again, am I? Not this time certainly, and not ever, I
hope. There's lots to like about Opteron, and AMD has done a
stunningly good job of keeping Intel on its toes.

Is Fortune unaware of AMD's recent triumphs with Opteron? No, there's
an upbeat article available to everyone

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,587634,00.html

Last paragraph of the article:

"This is probably AMD's make-or-break year. I hope they make it. For
all Intel's wondrous abilities, it's nice to see a two-horse race."

That's not my assessment, folks. That's one set of perspectives from
corporate America.

RM

 

[Tony Hill]

Last paragraph of the article:

"This is probably AMD's make-or-break year. I hope they make it. For
all Intel's wondrous abilities, it's nice to see a two-horse race."

What, is there an echo in corporate America or something? I'm SURE
I've heard the exact same line being said about AMD nearly every year!

In any case, I've worked with corporate America (or at least the
Canadian office of a large American company), and I have to say that
the general intelligence of tech stuff is EXTREMELY low... and that's
for the IT department! Honestly there are usually only a small
handful of people in most large companies that know their stuff, the
bulk of the IT department is just a bunch of MCSEs. And then there
are the head honchos of the corporate world, who may be geniuses when
it comes to business administration, management and sales, but
generally know dick-all about tech stuff (not that this is a fault
really, that's what the IT staff is supposed to be there for).

 

[Stacey]

I doubt that's the reason. I suspect 90% of corporate buyers don't
even know what a chipset is or does.

There is no blaming the other because they've bought a complete system
from a vendor like Dell or HP etc. As far as they know, the only company
they need to go to is their system vendor...

Which is why most of the mainstream builders don't use them either. DOn't
get me wrong I like AMD, I just don't like the fact they rely on other
people for their chipsets.

 

[Stacey]

It's a different game with AMD64 chipsets though - no complicated North
Bridge to design. AMD has put all the nasty stuff on the CPU die so
effectively they *have* made the larger half of a "chipset'.

I'm sure this is going to help! I just hope it isn't too late for AMD to
turn around corporate perceptions.

 

[AD.]

There is no "Whole solution". With Intel you can buy a board/CPU made and
-supported- by the same company. With AMD you have to buy a board from one
place, with a chipset made by someone else and then a CPU from a different
company. It's too easy for any of them to blame the other and corporate
buyers know it 'cause they probably do it themselves!

I doubt that's the reason. I suspect 90% of corporate buyers don't
even know what a chipset is or does.

There is no blaming the other because they've bought a complete system
from a vendor like Dell or HP etc. As far as they know, the only company
they need to go to is their system vendor - they don't directly call Intel
or ATI or Kingston etc for hardware support.

Cheers
Anton

 

[Stacey]

They don't want Opteron to
be perceived as a "value" processor for servers.

Yep, that was their mistake early on with the K6 line.

If AMD had the money, this would be the time for an aggressive media
campaign to differentiate Opteron on some issue other than price in
the minds of potential buyers.

They need to find the money...

 

[George Macdonald]

Robert Myers wrote:



There is no "Whole solution". With Intel you can buy a board/CPU made and
-supported- by the same company. With AMD you have to buy a board from one
place, with a chipset made by someone else and then a CPU from a different
company. It's too easy for any of them to blame the other and corporate
buyers know it 'cause they probably do it themselves!

It's a different game with AMD64 chipsets though - no complicated North
Bridge to design. AMD has put all the nasty stuff on the CPU die so
effectively they *have* made the larger half of a "chipset'. You have an
I/O pipe to the CPU which is an open standard so all the "chipset mfr" has
to do is interface the PC I/O to that standard. I'm sure this is going to
make a big difference to the ease of building mbrds/systems... and
consequently the total cost. The only down-side is that AMD has to do a
rework of the CPU, socket, etc. for new memory standards.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Stacey]

..

Ahh? We've been watching it for years already, it's the same show over
and over again. ;p

I'm not so sure it's going to be a repeat. Lots of people got burned on the
early P4's and the SDRAM 845 chipset systems that were slower than the P3
systems they were replacing. I used AMD's until the northwood came out with
good DDR333 chipsets (>845G). These new prescotts look like a step
backwards again (like the early p4's) just to be able to turn the clock up
to later get back to the same point performance wise, but have "impressive"
clock ratings. If AMD can get away from flakey chipsets for a while, this
time could be different? IMHO they could have taken a BIG bite out of intel
with the athlon if they hadn't relied on Via to make chipsets.

 

[Robert Myers]

I'm sure this is going to help! I just hope it isn't too late for AMD to
turn around corporate perceptions.

It's almost entirely about perceptions. The possibility that AMD
won't be around and the fact that, given the opportunity, Intel will
gradually pull the plug on x86 have to make enterprise buyers
hesitate, and who knows how much of the legacy of flakey chipsets AMD
is still living down.

AMD also has to be careful about pricing. They don't want Opteron to
be perceived as a "value" processor for servers. It might not be the
kiss of death, but it's not the outcome they're looking for, and it
wouldn't get AMD out of the "me-too" mode it's been stuck in.

If AMD had the money, this would be the time for an aggressive media
campaign to differentiate Opteron on some issue other than price in
the minds of potential buyers.

AMD doesn't have the money to shape buyer perceptions. Intel does.

Intel has this weird processor called Itanium that's years behind
schedule and has cost Intel alot of money without making much of a
dent on markets (that's the part that corporate buyers will
understand), but they've got all the money in the world to sell it
with. AMD has very compelling technology, a reputation to live down,
and no money.

It will be interesting to watch.

RM

 

[Ed]

AMD doesn't have the money to shape buyer perceptions. Intel does.

Intel has this weird processor called Itanium that's years behind
schedule and has cost Intel alot of money without making much of a
dent on markets (that's the part that corporate buyers will
understand), but they've got all the money in the world to sell it
with. AMD has very compelling technology, a reputation to live down,
and no money.

It will be interesting to watch.

Ahh? We've been watching it for years already, it's the same show over
and over again. ;p

Ed

 

[RusH]

behind Nvidia

Hold your horses, does Nvidia manufacture theyr semiconductors ? Last
time I checked it was IBM.

"This is probably AMD's make-or-break year. I hope they make it.
For all Intel's wondrous abilities, it's nice to see a two-horse
race."

That's not my assessment, folks. That's one set of perspectives
from corporate America.

AMD has alvays had those "make-or-break year"s.

Pozdrawiam.

 

[George Macdonald]

Hold your horses, does Nvidia manufacture theyr semiconductors ? Last
time I checked it was IBM.

Like many others, they're a "fabless semiconductor manufacturer and AFAICT
the IBM deal is not working too well - extremely poor yields on their
foundry stuff... I've seen 5% mentioned. nVidia is still having much of
its current production done by TSMC IIRC.

Rgds, George Macdonald

"Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean you're not psychotic" - Who, me??

 

[Norm Dresner]

Which is why most of the mainstream builders don't use them either. DOn't
get me wrong I like AMD, I just don't like the fact they rely on other
people for their chipsets.

I like Porsche cars. But they rely on other companies for their tires.

I actual admire a company that sticks to its core competency and
outsources the rest. Just because AMD is competent to make good CPU's
doesn't mean that they have either the tallent or the available workers to
design, manufacture, and support a chip-set too.

And I do own a Porsche.

Norm

 

[Norm Dresner]

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/mostadmired/subs/2004/industrysnapshot/0,1940
9,50,00.html

available, unfortunately, only with a subscription.

Who's No. 1? Well, it's not Intel.

Nor is it AMD.

Intel's overall score of 7.72 is good enough to make it No. 2. Last
year Intel was No. 1. AMD's score of 5.57 puts it at No. 6, behind
Nvidia, but ahead of Vishay Intertechnology.

Why do corporate buyers not leap on AMD's offerings? No. 10 rankings
of financial soundness and long-term investment might have something
to do with it. Even more surprising: No 6 in both employee talent and
innovation, as opposed to Intel's No. 2 and No. 4, respectively.
Intel is No. 1 on financial soundness, naturally.

In a world in which support is actually an expensive commodity to own
and people downtime is an expensive resource to waste, I understand the
hesitency of corporate buyers not to mix Intel and AMD systems in their
inventories. This doesn't mean that an all-AMD system is bad -- in fact it
would probably be superior in both performance and cost-effectiveness.
And in my own business -- designing and maintaining real-time, embedded
systems for a large, aerospace manufacturer, the last thing I, or they, need
is to waste time arguing about whether a particular OS feature is failing
because of an OS code bug or harware incompatibility. Time on the aircraft
that my systems fly on is charged to customers at $10-20K per hour. Saving
even a hundred bucks on a CPU isn't in my best interest.

Norm

 

[Tony Hill]

There is no "Whole solution". With Intel you can buy a board/CPU made and
-supported- by the same company. With AMD you have to buy a board from one
place, with a chipset made by someone else and then a CPU from a different
company. It's too easy for any of them to blame the other and corporate
buyers know it 'cause they probably do it themselves!

Now that nVidia is in the game and SIS is making better chipsets things look
better. But I think to be accepted, AMD is going to have to step up and
make their own -stable- mobo's and chipsets, even if these don't perform
100% as fast as a 3rd party board does. Intel has been doing this for years
and I believe this is what is holding AMD back. The problems with AMD
systems have never been the chips themselves, it's always a problem with
the chipsets or the mobo's. I can't understand why AMD doesn't want a piece
of that pie anyway especially since it would help their chip sales too.

The reason why they don't want a piece of that pie is because it's a
money-losing pie. Intel does it because, as you mention, it helps
sell processors where Intel makes back the money to support their
loses on chipsets and motherboards. AMD, being a smaller company,
would probably not sell enough extra processors to make it all that
worth while, at least at the consumer level.

Of course, AMD DOES produce their own workstation/server level
chipsets. Virtually ALL of the multi-processor AMD systems use an AMD
chipset. AMD also does a lot of motherboard design for servers as
well, though they contract out production to other companies.

I would actually expect Intel to start pulling out of the motherboard
market rather than AMD getting into it. Intel motherboards are not
generally seen as the best quality boards and are not all that widely
used by OEMs anymore from what I've seen (Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and ECS
are the big-boys here). The only case where Intel-designed
motherboards still make sense are for workstations and servers.
Chipsets are another matter, and it certainly makes sense for Intel to
remain in that business, though AMD hasn't had much luck with any of
their forays into consumer chipsets (see AMD 750 or AMD 760 chipsets,
both targetting consumers directly and both mostly flopped).

 

[Tony Hill]

It's a different game with AMD64 chipsets though - no complicated North
Bridge to design. AMD has put all the nasty stuff on the CPU die so
effectively they *have* made the larger half of a "chipset'. You have an

I don't know about that, the "nasty" stuff I've seen in chipsets has
ALWAYS been the drivers. Actual hardware problems with the chipsets
have been quite rare in my experience, it almost always comes down to
shitty drivers. The memory controller and interchip communication
don't need any drivers, but the stuff that is left to the chipset
vendors still need the same stuff.

I/O pipe to the CPU which is an open standard so all the "chipset mfr" has
to do is interface the PC I/O to that standard. I'm sure this is going to
make a big difference to the ease of building mbrds/systems... and
consequently the total cost. The only down-side is that AMD has to do a
rework of the CPU, socket, etc. for new memory standards.

Hopefully AMD will have thought far enough ahead that they'll
accommodate new memory technologies with existing sockets. It's not
like memory technology changes very often (DDR has been around for
nearly 4 years now), basically once they have DDR-2 support they
should be set for the life of the K8 design.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Bitstring <[email protected]>, from the

I don't know about that, the "nasty" stuff I've seen in chipsets has
ALWAYS been the drivers. Actual hardware problems with the chipsets
have been quite rare in my experience, it almost always comes down to
shitty drivers.

Thus spake someone who never tried to get the KT133A chipset to work
with multiple DMA transfers and Creative Labs SB cards. 8>.

 

[Stacey]

I don't know about that, the "nasty" stuff I've seen in chipsets has
ALWAYS been the drivers. Actual hardware problems with the chipsets
have been quite rare in my experience, it almost always comes down to
shitty drivers.

And the difference to the end user is???

 

[RusH]

I don't know about that, the "nasty" stuff I've seen in chipsets
has ALWAYS been the drivers. Actual hardware problems with the
chipsets have been quite rare in my experience, it almost always
comes down to shitty drivers. The memory controller and interchip
communication don't need any drivers, but the stuff that is left
to the chipset vendors still need the same stuff.

VIA memory controllers plain sucked compared to Intel counterparts for
P2-P3 platform. SiS was no different with theyr superior 630 crap. Let
us not forget about one and only PLE133 hitting the bottom with <iBX
performance on 3x faster processor. Oh, thers ALI too, ALi's amazing
Athlon chipset was ... ehrmm, my Mom told me not to use those words

Hopefully AMD will have thought far enough ahead that they'll
accommodate new memory technologies with existing sockets.

I bet memory conroller inside the CPU was something they had on TODO
list for a very long time (since those superior VIA/SiS/ALI designs).

Pozdrawiam.