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by marcosdumay 3141 days ago
> And AMD, why now? When Zen is doing great...

Well, last time AMD had an upper hand on the CPU's technical features, they tried taking Intel into a fight and couldn't handle it. Why would the same thing have a different result now?

It is much smarter to not have a full-on direct fight.

2 comments

They could handle it and beat them at several key points (1 ghz barrier, first to ship x86-64, first to integrate memory controller, not to mention eating the p4 for lunch performance wise), but Intel cheated and our justice department let them. The US refused to do anything, and the EU went at it a decade after the facts.

I agree with your conclusion that fighting head on right now would not be smart when they have nvidia on one side and arm on the other. But not with your assertion that "AMD failed to defeat Intel products in the market" the last time.

How they failed is of little relevance, since there is no reason to believe this time things would be different. (In fact, I would expect the US gov to be more corrupt now, not less.)
Yes it is of relevance, since the EU made it clear if Intel tried it again not only would they act much much more swiftly, but they would also be very tough.
This.

I'd love AMD to bloody Intel's nose (Intel deserves it after their payola anti-competitive behavior against AMD in the 2000's), but it's clear that Intel is too big to fail.

So AMD can win by helping Intel win.

It is not good in the long run for consumers, but it's probably the right move for AMD today.

I assume AMD is making these moves to get their products back out there where consumers read their name even when (web-)stores predominantly stock Intel products (I think it's called "mindshare").

I also hope this is the start of a long journey where AMD chips away bit by bit at Intel (near-)monopoly in the CPU market.

Yes, definitely both mindshare and piggybacking on Intel's existing product pipelines. Playing sidecar to Intel means getting in and getting the spotlight with every major computer manufacturer, where right now they are struggling to get put into pre-assembled systems.