Why Intel is not > AMD....?

I don't really understand how AMD, a company that mostly makes flash memory chips, and is the red quarter after quarter, is able to produce chips even close to Intel's, when Intel makes frikkin bank year after year, and all they do is make CPUs. What gives?

AMD spends alot of money to design and produce their CPU's just as Intel does. The flash memory chips is kinda an on the side thing. Also I beleive, Intel makes flash memory chips as well. They even make wireless stuff (centrino) and processors for Pocket Pc's.

Usually the latest AMD offers pretty good competition to Intel's latest, but sometimes they even make CPU's 1 or two steps ahead of Intel. For example back in the day and age of the Tbirds going at 1.4 Ghz and making Intel paper-launch Pentium 3's. Then in the 2400-2600 tbred era, AMD had to paper-launch the 2600 to keep up with Intel's latest I think. And now, the Athlon FX and Opterons are just owning Intels latest and greatest. I saw some benchmarks posted here a couople months ago. If needed I could go get that thread.

To answer your origional question, AMD and Intel seem to be pretty similar as CPU makers. They both dump tons of money into reasearching and developing their cpu's. Im sure they both reverse engineer the hell out of each other as well. Only difference is that AMD dosent have a repuation to the average Joe, and they are something like 150 million in debt.

@md0Cer said:

AMD spends alot of money to design and produce their CPU's just as Intel does. The flash memory chips is kinda an on the side thing. Also I beleive, Intel makes flash memory chips as well. They even make wireless stuff (centrino) and processors for Pocket Pc's.

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AMD-Sept. 28, 2003
Revenue from processors and chipsets: $503 Million
Income from processors and chipsets: $-19 Million
Revenue from memory products: $424 Million
Income from memory products: $-49 Million
Total Income: -$31 Million
Long Term Debt: 2 Billion

Intel-Q3
Revenue from processors and chipsets: $6,838 Million
Income from processors and chipsets: $2,915 Million
Revenue from memory/phone products: $544 Million
Income from memory/phone products: $-94 Million
Total Income: $2,304 Million

AMD Revenue Breakdown

Intel Revenue Breakdown

@md0Cer said:

And now, the Athlon FX and Opterons are just owning Intels latest and greatest. I saw some benchmarks posted here a couople months ago. If needed I could go get that thread.

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Unless 3-5% is "ownage", AMD's latest is pretty close.

So, why?

Come on, we all know VIA owns both Intel and AMD.

Something I don't undestand either, Intel is in every brand name computer, EVERY brand name computer, and that's all ANYONE EVER BUYS!! Companies, people, etc. All AMD has is people building their own computers, what's that 5%? I am BAFFLED.
=\

No there are more OMEs that use AMD, but Intel has some of the best marketing in the world (who doesn't know "Intel Inside"?).

Because Intel was the first and they are ahead of the game when it comes to image, AMD processors use to be really bad take the K5, and K6 they were not that good at all, and that is kinda where they got the bad rep with the P3's kicking them around, but when the K7 and Athlon hit town the image changed and for a while AMD was really pushing intel like a rag doll, As this happend Intel got smart and relized people buy the MHz not benchmark numbers, and so netburst was born (aka Willy,Northy,Prescott,Teja). I don't care what anybody says but people do buy the MHz and some don't know who AMD is. As a local computer tech AMD is often refered to as that "other processor, you know not the pentium" It is just that AMD is not a well known company and not advertising is really not getting them anywhere. However it seems that AMD is really pushing this 64-bit quiet far and hopefully for us computer buyers is a success.

What OEMs use AMD? D

HP does, Emachines as well.

alot more OEMs will start using AMD now imo because they have 64 bit processors out there. People like big numbers.

AMD is in a tough spot. Thats why I buy there stuff. Gotta support the underdog. Plus they're cheap as hell.

The other guys right. Most people don't know anything about benchmarks. They just go "Duh, them there mhz numbers is bigger. Must be faster."

Mr. $T$ said:

Because Intel was the first and they are ahead of the game when it comes to image, AMD processors use to be really bad take the K5, and K6 they were not that good at all, and that is kinda where they got the bad rep with the P3's kicking them around, but when the K7 and Athlon hit town the image changed and for a while AMD was really pushing intel like a rag doll, As this happend Intel got smart and relized people buy the MHz not benchmark numbers, and so netburst was born (aka Willy,Northy,Prescott,Teja). I don't care what anybody says but people do buy the MHz and some don't know who AMD is. As a local computer tech AMD is often refered to as that "other processor, you know not the pentium" It is just that AMD is not a well known company and not advertising is really not getting them anywhere. However it seems that AMD is really pushing this 64-bit quiet far and hopefully for us computer buyers is a success.

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But AMD made a faster 486 than Intel...
And the 8088 was chosen for the IMB PC initially because it was cheaper than the competition (chiefly the M6800 series), not because it was faster or better.

gateway uses AMD does it not?

Alienware u can get AMD's

alot of smaller OEM's use AMD as well because of price.


Opterons have more then 5-10% in some cases over dual Xeon's - i have read more then enough as i am in the market for a dualie system


it is sad that AMD is in debt - i would of thought by now they would be making some profit

greenman100 said:

Unless 3-5% is "ownage", AMD's latest is pretty close.

So, why?

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That’s not what was in the several sets of benchmarks I saw. Oh well. It was quite a bit more than 3-5 percent. More like 10 percent. But it doesn’t really matter all that much, the point I was trying to make was that AMD and Intel both have CPU's that just about compete with each other. AMD has been making CPU's for quite a while.

I don't really understand how AMD, a company that mostly makes flash memory chips, and is the red quarter after quarter, is able to produce chips even close to Intel's, when Intel makes frikkin bank year after year, and all they do is make CPUs. What gives?

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Just because AMD makes other products doesn’t necessarily mean that their CPU's wont be as good. Also as I said in my first post, really AMD and Intel probably spend the same amount on their CPU's only thing is that AMD isn’t making any money off of it.

you know, I cant really answer your question that well. Id better shut up for now.

What OEMs use AMD? D

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Not all OEM's use Intel. As said above Compaq/Hp uses AMD on some of their computers, Emachines uses AMD (I bet that kind of hurts AMD's reputation because a lot of people I know think of Emachines as cheapo crap), Alienware, and ABS. Just to name some of them. But they aren’t the really big guys like Dell and Gateway. Also, the ones that do offer a choice usually end up selling more of the Intel based systems because of

The other guys right. Most people don't know anything about benchmarks. They just go "Duh, them there MHz numbers is bigger. Must be faster."

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Also, at one point in time Gateway used 1.4 GHz Tbirds. But that was becuase at that time Intel was paper launching P3's. And I’m not even sure if even their GHz could keep up, and since the Tbird still had a shorter pipeline, (even though the average Gateway buyer didn’t know this) it was probably the one to use. But I think back then Dell still used Intel.

When did gateway switch back to intel - that must have hurt AMD sales a bit.

I think we should all make a point to get some airtime and explain to the world then mhz issue against AMD.

Or AMD could beat Intel at its own game by making a processor that is more inefficient than the P4 and run it at 5 GHz. They'd be outselling Intel in no time!

Seriously though, it is too bad that the average consumer thinks that the AMD platform is inferior to Intel's solution just because P4's "Have more MHz"

@md0Cer said:

That’s not what was in the several sets of benchmarks I saw. Oh well. It was quite a bit more than 3-5 percent. More like 10 percent. But it doesn’t really matter all that much, the point I was trying to make was that AMD and Intel both have CPU's that just about compete with each other. AMD has been making CPU's for quite a while.

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There's a thread on the first page of CPUs that shows them pretty much neck and neck, slight advantage to PIVEE.

@md0Cer said:

Just because AMD makes other products doesn’t necessarily mean that their CPU's wont be as good. Also as I said in my first post, really AMD and Intel probably spend the same amount on their CPU's only thing is that AMD isn’t making any money off of it.

you know, I cant really answer your question that well. Id better shut up for now.

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I can't really see AMD spending anywhere near what Intel spends on R&D when AMD is only pulling in $500 Million in revenue, and Intel is pulling in $6,000 Million, not to mention AMD's breaking even vs. Intel's 2,000+ income from processors.


The main question is....where does AMD get the R&D money from? Obviously, it could have come from IBM of recent times, but since the K6, they've been close.

What gives?

HP and Compaq used to sell AMD systems - of course, now they're one and the same... I believe they still do. At least I know they sell laptops with mobile XP. I'm thinking of getting one, but the money is a bit tight now (and I don't want to go for one of those 36-month financing plans where you end up paying the double or triple of the original price).

Mr.Guvernment said:

it is sad that AMD is in debt - i would of thought by now they would be making some profit

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AMD has posted its smallest loss in about 3 years (don't quote me on that - I can't remember the exact year). Their quarterly revenue is up substantially over this quarter last year and they are moving further away from the red area. The only drawback is that they have been selling off convertible bonds to pay for their research - when the companies holding these bonds choose to convert them to stocks, it could mean more problems, but suffice it to say, AMD is moving in the right direction.