quick question: intel owned AMD?

dont bash my head in, i remember seeing a AMD intel Microprocessor. And i also remember hearing that at one time they were 1 company... am i wrong?

i googled a bit and didnt find any evidence, but some might know...

it was something like pepsi offering to sell them selfs to coca cola and they turned them down...

thanks

AMD used to sell Intel Clones back in the day

No but Intel did used to directly license their designs or technology to AMD for fabbing. I believe it ended in the 486 era or maybe earlier and it's what made AMD come out with the K6 line of CPUs.

MadMan007 said:

No but Intel did used to directly license their designs or technology to AMD for fabbing. I believe it ended in the 486 era or maybe earlier and it's what made AMD come out with the K6 line of CPUs.

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AMD started off making memory of various kinds and embedded processors. They began making x86 CPUs when Intel hired them as a partner. This was because IBM and some of the other big OEMs wanted a second source of x86 CPUs and this is probably how any myths about them having been one company arose.

Yup, earlier AMD chips were clones because IBM required two suppliers (a backup supplier) in case intel wasn't able to deliver the goods back in the day when IBM slapped together the 5150. I believe the last straight clone was the 5x86 or 5k86 (which was really just an intel DX4, and despite what people say AMD's "586" chip was technologically inferior clock-for-clock to the Cyrix 5x86, but anyways). The K5 was their own design, but it couldn't even come close in performance to the classic Pentiums so AMD purchased NexGen and modified a much better processor that they had been designing...and the K6 was born. I love history.

EDIT: doh, hyperlogik can type faster then me.

Man, I hope AMD doesn't go "belly up", can you imagine what Intel could charge for their chips if they don't have any competition I think the whole thing back when Intel was sharing secrets with AMD was to prevent a monopoly chip maker (Intel)

jws2346 said:

Man, I hope AMD doesn't go "belly up", can you imagine what Intel could charge for their chips if they don't have any competition I think the whole thing back when Intel was sharing secrets with AMD was to prevent a monopoly chip maker (Intel)

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Motorola, Zilog, and MOS technology were around at the time making chips, as well as some others (NEC had the V20 which was a good deal faster then intel's 8088 while retaining socket and code compatibility).

I agree, I hope AMD doesn't go away because like everybody else I too am loving the price wars!!!

intel is owning amd now thats for sure

Rattle said:

intel is owning amd now thats for sure

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If you'll check my sig you can see I completely agree with you. I was just worried that Intel needed some competition, but as benbaked posted above it sounds like even if AMD goes "belly up" there will still be competition with Intel to keep the price wars going.

i hope amd does not go belly up, i want them to come back and punish intel like they did before c2d, I really love my c2c rigs tho. I really hope they start devising a worthy chipset cuz intels chipsets are pretty awesome compared to nvidia.

~

I wonder if IBM will ever release the "cell" processor for PC use. Or if that is even possible... I would not mind 8 cores 8)

I dont think AMd will go belly up, simply because AMD will be owning intel in the Price segment of the market, which is still the largest segment, fact AMD AM2 semoprons are the cheapest all those familys want a computer that will just browse the net, anmd thats all, AMD will still be the best choice for all those budget PCs.

intel will have an 8 core processor soon.

Rattle said:

i hope amd does not go belly up, i want them to come back and punish intel like they did before c2d, I really love my c2c rigs tho. I really hope they start devising a worthy chipset cuz intels chipsets are pretty awesome compared to nvidia.

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I have to say that as anti-fanboyish as I am this statement rings true and reflects most closely why I might consider myself an Intel-leaning fan. Their chipsets are absolutely rock-solid and AMD is honestly let down by not having chipsets that compare. When was the last time there was a major bug that affects end-users in an Intel chipset? Oh yea...never. On the AMD side it takes looking only to the current top of the line in the 680i to find serious bugs, from the broken drive implementation to the hardware-breaking issue of damaging Ram. These things were fixed but they never should have been there in the first place. I hope the integration of ATi into the company will bring some high-quality homegrown chipsets.

As far as AMD 'going down' it's not going to happen. We keep up to date on the bleeding edge but the vast majority don't so a 6 or 12 month lag time isn't important in terms of 'death of the company.'

Andisoss said:

I wonder if IBM will ever release the "cell" processor for PC use. Or if that is even possible... I would not mind 8 cores 8)

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There is a pci-e 16x card with a Cell on it for boosting the fp performance of workstations, and I think if anything comes of the AMD torrenza thing we might see cells and opterons working next to each other.