Agreed....I don't think people realize how dangerous this is with respect to competition in the x86 market place....this harkens back to Intel's dirty tactics circa the early 2000s when they resorted to bribing OEMs when they couldn't beat AMD, and now they're resorting to using their financial weight again instead of innovation. AMD's annual revenue is 800%+ less than Intel's, AMD's annual R&D budget is 650% less than Intel's, and AMD has not made nearly enough ground in the two most lucrative x86 markets: enterprise and mobility (laptops). I'm sure people will write this off as the rantings of an AMD fanboy, but in reality, I'm honestly scared we could easily backslide into Intel cartelism and stagnation like the one we have really just come out of, all thanks to AMD. Seriously, in a just world, Intel would be forced to use ONLY their own fabs and have to lie in the bed they've made for themselves. We as enthusiasts have absolutely NO guarantee's that AMD can weather this storm as they are nowhere near 50% market share and have nowhere near the financial resources of Intel (which makes it all that more impressive what AMD and Lisa Su have managed to accomplish with a shoestring budget by comparison). Seriously, for the betterment of all consumers, it would have been far more beneficial for AMD to have dominance for another 3 to 5 years....time enough to build up their financial resources and penetrate the x86 market much further. Everyone seems to forget that the vast majority of x86 sales for consumers are laptops, and the overwhelming majority of those consumers don't even know AMD exists and basically see "Intel" and "laptop" as synonymous and interchangeable terms...we may seriously be looking back at the Zen 1 through Zen 3/4 period as the "good old days" in a couple years when where back with overpriced stagnation from Intel and all because they threw around their financial weight and NOT because they out-engineered or out-innovated AMD.
AMD, in order to remain profitable (remember, only share prices matter in late-stage capitalism), could easily scale down all consumer x86 and consumer dGPU development, shed those entire departments, and just go completely semi-custom, and remain profitable, sell off their IP/patents, and the shareholders would be just as happy.
