Dell CTO On AMD-Powered Products: "Don't Expect a [Intel and AMD] Duopoly"

[Valantar]

Dell opened the door to another AMD anti-trust suit. If it does happen and AMD wins again, I hope the fine is more than a slap on the wrist this time.

A bit of a stretch, but I actually hope you're right. Intel has a long and sordid history of abusing its market position, which has significantly disadvantaged AMD outside of "fair" (hah, as if capitalism can be fair) competition on product quality. It's high time they saw some consequences.

 

[Vya Domus]

Well , presumably , Dell hasn't received a couple of billion from AMD so it's totally understandable.

 

[Kaotik]

So, AMD wins only in two scenarios... high core counts, and with APUs. Unfortunately those are the edges of the usage spectrum, and the majority of needs fall between AMD's strong points.

And multithreaded loads on lower core counts and price/performance in many of the cases where it's not performing on top already

 

[_Flare]

Is this light blue B!tch paid with coins or with check ?

 

[sepheronx]

That bad capacitor issue affected the entire electronics industry and wasn't specific to Dell. They have been using standard ATX power supplies for a while now and I can't remember seeing a Dell power supply that wasn't made by Delta.

I could be wrong, but I swear by that some of the 7040's we had, had proprietary PSU connections. Heck, they even use a proprietary one for their liquid coolers as well.

A well, during what you said as a time where most capacitors had that problem: I am not 100% sure and I apologize if I am spreading misinformation, but I also do not remember having issue with any of the offices HP machines ever having said issue while our dells did. Could be coincidence, I am not sure. I just never liked dealing with dell. Things may be different now, but I don't know, haven't had to use their services in at least a couple years now.

But I am interested in their XPS machines and or Alienware builds that are heavily discounted. Those from what I see are rather solid machines.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Oh well. Dell laptops today are junk on the business end, too hard to repair and prioritizing thinness and looks over durability and battery life. The lack of an AMD option simply pushes me further away from buying one.

I could be wrong, but I swear by that some of the 7040's we had, had proprietary PSU connections. Heck, they even use a proprietary one for their liquid coolers as well.

A well, during what you said as a time where most capacitors had that problem: I am not 100% sure and I apologize if I am spreading misinformation, but I also do not remember having issue with any of the offices HP machines ever having said issue while our dells did. Could be coincidence, I am not sure. I just never liked dealing with dell. Things may be different now, but I don't know, haven't had to use their services in at least a couple years now.

But I am interested in their XPS machines and or Alienware builds that are heavily discounted. Those from what I see are rather solid machines.

Correct. They went with standard 24 pin plugs on the 520, 620, 320, and 755 models, mini 24 pin on 760, 780, and 790, then with 990 and 7010 they went with standard 24 pin. With the 7020 and later, they now use a 8 pin plug instead of a 24 pin plug.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Most of the time discussions here on TPU are very interesting. There are exceptions though. This one started out with Dell bashing which turned into Intel/AMD bashing and the nonsense carried on from there. What next, HP bashing? Why?...

 

[medi01]

... does that even apply to this discussion? It's not like embedded CPUs and APUs apply to consumer-facing products from Dell anyhow. Also, are you trying to say that Intel doesn't have ~15W embedded chips? I agree that AMD has demonstrated an impressive ability to get Zen (and Vega) out into the vast majority of possible product types quickly. Again, I don't see how this applies to this discussion, though.

Reading comprehension problems? AMD rolled out BOTH faster-than-intel-ULV-at-both-CPU-and-GPU-tasks mobile APU and an embedded.

 

[Valantar]

Reading comprehension problems? AMD rolled out BOTH faster-than-intel-ULV-at-both-CPU-and-GPU-tasks mobile APU and an embedded.

More like reading-of-incomplete-sentences-without-necessary-context comprehension problems, but never mind that. Still don't fully see how this applies to the discussion - the actual performance isn't the issue here, nor is availability. This is about a Dell executive effectively saying "We won't make more AMD designs no matter what, seeing how Intel is the dominant force in the market and we don't want that to change". Discussing the technical realities of the products is not the issue here (if it was, we could all agree that AMD has caught up to or passed Intel in pure performance in a given power envelope (CPU varying from slightly slower to slightly faster depending on the workload, GPU far superior), but still lags in power savings and battery life (although this might be down to poor implementations in early products, and is as such not quite established)). Rather, the issue is the blatant favoritism and tell-tale signs of too-cozy supplier-manufacturer relations, possibly (probably?) bordering on anti-competitive business practices.

The statement you replied to, saying "Ultra-light and portables is still Intel's domain as well" is both a statement of (market) fact (and thus relevant to the discussion) and predictive (at least for the short term) with regard to AMD's seeming battery life deficiency, to which your statement doesn't add anything at all. Embedded is in no way applicable in this case (doesn't apply to consumer products outside of weirdo edge cases like the Smach Z), and you don't address battery life/power draw at all. As such: you're veering off into "who has the fastest part" discussions, which - again - I don't see as applicable to this thread. You're welcome to disagree, but I'd like some explanation as to how, then.

 

[medi01]

The statement you replied to, saying "Ultra-light and portables is still Intel's domain as well" is both a statement of (market) fact...

It implied AMD didn't have products for that market, which is false.

Try to not take this post as a personal insult, there really is nothing directed at you (or anyone else for that matter).

 

[lexluthermiester]

It implied AMD didn't have products for that market, which is false. Try to not take this post as a personal insult, there really is nothing directed at you (or anyone else for that matter).

That user is trolling, ignore them.

 

[BiggieShady]

It implied AMD didn't have products for that market, which is false.

You're not really good with implications ... it only implied AMD didn't have most desirable product in that specific market because of the battery life

 

[Valantar]

It implied AMD didn't have products for that market, which is false.

Try to not take this post as a personal insult, there really is nothing directed at you (or anyone else for that matter).

I have to disagree with that. "[Market X] is [Company A]'s domain" to me simply states that that company entirely dominates that market, regardless of reason, but to such an extent that there's little likelihood of that changing simply due to a new competitor showing up. I'd think the same if you said "High-end smartphone SoCs are Qualcomm's domain" (even if they have quasi-competition from Apple and Samsung), as there's very little chance of, say, MediaTek getting a high-profile design win with a new high-end chip even if they could solve their performance and battery life deficits. Dominance through near-monopoly, not necessarily due to technical reasons alone.

I'm really not sure how you're reading my post as taking anything personally - I was simply trying to explain how I didn't see your line of argumentation as applicable to this thread. You've explained your reasoning, which is appreciated even if I still disagree. I suppose we should leave it at that, as my whole point was that this is not the thread to get into technical stuff or the actual merits of various chips, but rather a thread for discussing the seemingly shady business practices and anti-competitive attitudes seen in that statement. A topic that we've long since veered off.

That user is trolling, ignore them.

Hm. Thanks for letting me know, 'cause I sure hadn't noticed that I was. Real insightful of you.

 

[medi01]

it only implied AMD didn't have most desirable product in that specific market because of the battery life

Except AMD has great product with excellent perf/watt in that market.

 

[voltage]

Hope to see 9TH gen Intel soon.

 

[las]

Hope to see 9TH gen Intel soon.

I hope to see 10nm Ice Lake - I don't wanna see YET ANOTHER Skylake refresh.

If 9th gen is going to be Skylake again, it's 4th time with same arch and 5th release on 14nm... INSANE...

 

[voltage]

I agree! but 9th gen will not be another skylake refresh. plenty of fairly current info on the web to substantiate that. which is why I am waiting for it.

 

[jabbadap]

... Unless it's just the Sky Lake shrinked to 10nm... Z390 chipset is called Cannon Lake PCH by intels own roadmaps. And only Cannon Lake cpu I know is 10nm 2+2 low voltage mobile chip. But maybe there will be Cannon Lake desktop variant too i.e. that 8c/16t cpu from 3dmark might be 10nm Canon Lake cpu.

 

[Arch]

So that guys says Dell is not gonna use AMD, because they have low market share... I thought, from the economical standpoint, it's a reason to do exactly the opposite?