FTC accuses Intel of rigging SysMark, Cinebench and TPC benchmarks

Intel received another drop of bomb in its legal front yard. Now, it's the United States of America versus Intel Corporation. The Intel-AMD settlement was a sweet deal for both AMD and Intel. AMD got some money and the freedom to have10 Fabs built with Arabian gold. Intel saves $16 billion in treble damages. Time is more important for AMD.

Now. the FTC took the charge against the mighty Intel. One of the accusation that U.S. is making is the following:

58. For example, in response to AMD introduction of its Opteron CPU for servers in 2003, Intel
became concerned about the competitive threat posed by Opteron processors. Intel then designed its compiler and libraries in or about 2003 to generate software that runs slower on non-Intel x86 CPUs, such as Opteron. This decrease in the efficiency of Opteron and other non-Intel x86 CPUs harmed competition in the relevant CPU markets.

59. To the public, OEMs, ISVs, and benchmarking organizations, the slower performance of non-Intel CPUs on Intel-compiled software applications appeared to be caused by the non-Intel CPUs rather than the Intel software. Intel failed to disclose the effects of the changes it made to its software in or about 2003 and later to its customers or the public. Intel also disseminated false or misleading documentation about its compiler and libraries. Intel represented to ISVs, OEMs, benchmarking organizations, and the public that programs inherently performed better on Intel CPUs than on competing CPUs. In truth and in fact, many differences were due largely or entirely to the Intel software. Intel’s misleading or false statements and omissions about the performance of its software were material to ISVs, OEMs, benchmarking organizations, and the public in their purchase or use of CPUs. Therefore, Intel’s representations that programs inherently performed better on Intel CPUs than on competing CPUs were, and are, false or misleading. Intel’s failure to disclose that the differences were due largely to the Intel software, in light of the representations made, was, and is, a deceptive practice. Moreover, those misrepresentations and omissions were likely to harm the reputation of other x86 CPUs companies, and harmed competition.

60. Some ISVs requested information from Intel concerning the apparent variation in performance of identical software run on Intel and non-Intel CPUs. In response to such requests, on numerous occasions, Intel misrepresented, expressly or by implication, the source of the problem and whether it could be solved.

61. Intel’s software design changes slowed the performance of non-Intel x86 CPUs and had no
sufficiently justifiable technological benefit. Intel’s deceptive conduct deprived consumers of an
informed choice between Intel chips and rival chips, and between Intel software and rival software, and raised rivals’ costs of competing in the relevant CPU markets. The loss of performance caused by the Intel compiler and libraries also directly harmed consumers that used non-Intel x86 CPUs.

64. Several benchmarking organizations adopted benchmarks that measured performance of CPUs running software programs compiled using the Intel compiler or libraries. Intel’s deception affected among others, the Business Applications Performance Corporation (“BAPCo”), Cinebench, and TPC benchmarks.

67. Intel publicized the results of the benchmarking to promote sales of products containing its
x86 CPUs even though it knew the benchmarks were misleading. For example: ...

One of the relief the FTC is seeking is to order Intel to provide non-Defective compilers to its customers and pay all the cost caused by the deliberate degradation of AMD CPU performance.

Microsoft recommends not to use Nahelem due to serious bug

See here.

Intel didn’t specify this bug until September when it was mentioned in its specification updates under AAK119 (Xeon 5500), AAM123 (Xeon 3500), AAO89 (Xeon 3400), AAJ121 (Core i7-900) and AAN87 (Core i7-800, Core i5). ... Microsoft now describes the disaster under error number 975 530, provides a hotfix (on e-mail request) that is not further specified and otherwise proposes the non-serious solution of disabling the power saving states C3 and C6 – which would also shut down the Nehalem’s turbo-boost feature. And it gets worse: the editorial office received a non-published raw version of the error report that even included the brusque “preferred solution” of not using the processors in question.

AMD and Intel Settlement

Well, those who wanted to see some dirty stuff are disappointed. Intel and AMD signed a settlement agreement.

One thing in the agreement is that Intel will not dope benchmarks:

"Intel shall not include any Artificial Performance Impairment in any Intel product or require any Third Party to include an Artificial Performance Impairment in the Third Party’s product.As used in this Section 2.3, “Artificial Performance Impairment” means an affirmative engineering or design action by Intel (but not a failure to act) that (i) degrades the performance or operation of a Specified AMD product, (ii) is not a consequence of an Intel Product Benefit and (iii) is made intentionally to degrade the performance or operation of a Specified AMD Product."

Windows 7 + Phenom II is a winning combination

The small 320GB hard drive in my desktop is getting filled, so I bought a bunch of 1TB external ones. But a small internal drive is always a limitation. So I decided to do some upgrade. And I found the simplest and probably the cheapest upgrade is to get a whole a new PC powered by AMD technologist and Windows 7.

I was buying a Windows 7 Notebook (a beautiful Gateway machine powered by AMD Turion X2) at BestBuy, and the guy managed to sell me a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium for $50. So I decided to build myself a Windows 7 desktop. What a joy for a man who does not wear suits.

My configuration: Phenom II X4 805 (2.5 GHZ); GigaByte MA785GMT-UD2H; 1.5TB Seagate drive; 4GB DDR3; and a $34 case+350 watt PS. Adding the $50 Windows 7, total cost about $450.

The Phenom II X4 805 cost me only $80, which was a bargain. I was going to buy the Athlon II X4 620, but at this price, the 805 is a better deal.

There are a lot of dirt cheap Nvidia based AMD MBs out there. But they are pretty much obsolete. The AMD OverDrive utility only supports the ATI 700 series chipset. Also, the 785G IGP has much better performance.

I have to praise the MA785GMT-UD2H motherboard. It has ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics and VGA+DVI+HDMI, eSATA, i1394, Optical output for audio, GbE... Most importantly, the motherboard is mATX but with 4 memory slots. The build quality is very good by just looking at it. But remember, this MB needs DDR3 memory. There is another one that supports DDR2.

I hurriedly plugged in the CPU, the memory, and the system POSTed. Then I installed the hard drive, copied Windows 7 files onto a USB key, and changed the BIOS to boot from USB, and Windows 7 installed without any problem. Then I used the Easy Transfer program to move data from the old PC to the new one. The program did a fairly good job of keeping the original data. I did need to manually adjust Mozilla Thunderbird to use the old data though.

Using the AMD OverDrive program, it determined that I can bump bus reference clock by 24MHz, resulting in a 2.8GHz speed for the poor X4 805.

So right now, I am typing from this Windows 7 computer. Actually, it is predicting what I am typing...

The system is so stable and so fast... I totally forgot the hateful days when Vista was crashing or freezing...

I also managed to play some 3D games. The 4200 is about 20x faster than any Intel IGP out there. If you buy an Intel PC with Intel IGP, your kids are gonna curse you for not being able to play runescape or WOW. So buy some decent board with decent graphics to improve your user experience as well as family relationships.

Intel-Dell secret pact exposed by lawsuit

Fun stuff to read. Like a Mafia story. Now, read my analysis back in 2005.

On December 6, 2004, Intel’s Otellini emailed Intel’s Dell account representative about his concern that Dell would defect to AMD: “I had the analysts dinner tonight. One of the analysts … said he talked with Kevin [Rollins] today and Kevin told him it was ‘inevitable’ that Dell would use Opteron…” The next day, the Intel executive promptly forwarded this email onto Dell’s lead negotiator with a plea for help in securing “incremental support” for Dell. Hours
later, Dell’s lead negotiator emailed back that Michael Dell was on board: “Sitting in the car
right next to msd [Michael Dell] as I type. He’s aligned. I’ll get with kbr [Kevin Rollins] when I
return. I’m positive that incremental mcp will get kbr aligned.…”

117. Later in the day, Intel’s negotiator wrote that “we’ve made a lot of progress in the
last couple of months – you guys had a ton to do w/it!! … I’m struggling finding the incremental
meet comp exposure .... I need some help here …”. Dell’s lead negotiator emailed back: “This is
really easy. MSD [Michael Dell] wants $400M more. I’ve been trying to figure out the
structure…”

118. Three days later, on Dec. 10, 2004, Intel’s Dell account representative submitted
the “list of meet comp terms” for internal approvals at Intel which “assumes we can negotiate
[Dell] down to $300M.” In exchange, the first item on the term list expressed Dell’s
commitment to “Maintain CPU and Chipset MSS [market segment share] --- Commitment to ‘05 roadmap.” In other words, what the payments bought was Dell’s commitment to “maintain”
exclusivity. Intel’s Dell account representative emphasized that “there is no middle ground ...
we either keep them emotionally or pull back the majority of our support….”

In fact, Intel’s payments to Dell shot upward, roughly doubling in less than one
year. Under these circumstances, Dell did not launch AMD-based products at that time.
According to a wire service report dated from Phoenix Feb. 23, 2005: “Dell Inc. has renewed
confidence in Intel Corp. as its sole supplier of microprocessor chips and is no longer seriously
considering rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. as an alternative supplier, Dell’s chief executive
said … ‘That’s looking like “No”,’ Rollins said of Dell’s decision not to use AMD. ‘For a while
it was looking like “Yes”.’”

In one internal Intel email, an Intel executive imagined the following response by
Dell’s lead negotiator to Intel’s attempts to sell Dell more high-end server CPUs: “[I]f I was
[him], here is how I would respond: ‘I am losing [expletive deleted] mss [market segment share]
cause your CPU sucks and your chipset sucks … I am losing [be]cause HP is using [AMD’s]
opteron and IBM has [IBM’s own chipset product] which is killing [Intel’s chipset product] …
it’s your crap Intel that is causing me to lose!’” He further imagined Dell arguing: “‘And you
want me to spend more money on a stale 5yr old platform … and others will have superior
technology? I know I’m a dumb old Texan, but that even sounds stupid to me!’”

500 Page EU Verdict Shows DELL Planned Coup Against Intel

Interesting stuff to read. Four companies formed a secret alliance to escape the death claw of Intel.

In a presentation of 10 January 2003 on Dell rebates, [Intel Executive] outlined a
list of objectives to be achieved by Intel in a high-level executive meeting with
Dell. This includes the following objective: "Get [Dell Senior Executive]/OOC [abbreviation used by Dell meaning Office Of the Chair and specifying a certain
group of Dell executives, usually [Dell Senior Executive]and [Dell Senior
Executive]] clearly understand out meet-comp process and how it applies to
DELL- I.e. if they have AMD in their arsenal they'll have less meet comp exposure-
hence less meet comp dollars avail to them—even the possibility that meet-comp
dollars that we're applied [sic] to DELL go somewhere else..." This objective
was reiterated in a subsequent presentation of 5 February 2003 that served as a
briefing for a Dell executive dinner: "Some how, with finesse, we need [Dell Senior
Executive]to understand that if Dell adds AMD to their product line they no longer
have a meet-comp exposure – We have a meet comp exposure so we must prioritize
opportunities on a case by case situation."


In an e-mail dated 17 February 2006, [Intel Senior Executive] sent an e-mail
commented on a news report which stated that Dell had announced that it had no
plans to begin using chips from AMD. [Intel Executive] had reported this
announcement to [Intel Senior Executive], writing: "Finally something
positive...." [Intel Senior Executive] replied: "the best friend money can buy
...."

This demonstrates the direct link between Dell's policy of Intel exclusivity
and Intel payments.

AMD Reports 3Q09 Operating Profit

Most Americans cannot read and comprehend. But the news is AMD is profitable now.

The idiot who wrote this can't understand plain English.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/167233-amd-q3-results-approach-breakeven

He says: "Revenue of $1.39 billion was up 17.9% sequentially and down 21.4% year over year, better than management’s expectations of a slight sequential increase. However, excluding the $191 million in one-time process technology license revenue, it was up 1.8% sequentially and down 32.2% year over year, in-line with management expectations."

Basically, he is saying that AMD 3Q09 revenue was really 1.39-0.19 = 1.2 billion.

And this is what Rivet said in the conference call:

"Third quarter revenue was $1.396 billion, growing 18% compared to the second quarter of 2009. Compared to the third quarter of last year, revenue declined 22%. However, excluding the $191 million Process Technology License revenue, revenue declined 13% on a non-GAAP basis."

Obviously, the $191 million licensing revenue happened in 3Q08.

AMD made $80 million profit in 3Q09.

Intel Faked its Performance by up to 46%

Investigation shows Intel cheated in benchmarks and the cheating boosted is benchmark numbers by up to 46%. In the duped benchmark test, Intel is ahead of AMD by 40%. Yet, in real world test, AMD is 200% of Intel.

Intel Accuses European Commission of Mischaracterization

According to this report, EC has published some internal Intel emails, with some juicy details. In response, Intel accuses the European Commission of mischaracterizing the documents.

Intel Follows AMD Yet Again

Amazing, Intel followed AMD on technologies: AMD64, Direct Connect, HyperTransport, IMC, NX Bit, Multi-Core, L3 Cache, Performance/Watt, Spinning off flash business... Now it follows AMD to restructure it business units, closely mirroring AMD's effort.

The only thing Intel can't copy is AMD "Asset Smart". Intel does not do SOI, and its FABs are not attractive to GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

Intel Atom is slow

So, I bought a DELL Mini 10, with stuff like GPS built-in. Why? I had this $200 DELL gift certificate, and I had to spend it.

I have to say the Mini 10 was good for the price after the $200 off. Otherwise, it is far better to buy the Gateway 11.1 inch AMD netbook with a 1.2GHZ Athlon 64 CPU.

The DELL mini 10 is good enough for surfing the web and play minesweeper, the battery life is OK. But one thing the Mini 10 cannot do is viewing Youtube videos in High Quality (HQ) mode. I am not talking about HD Youtube video here, just the HQ video. On the mini 10, the audio will come out, the video is gonna playing like a slide show. The Atom processor is probably slower than a Celeron 677 MHz.

The lesson AMD should learn is this: performance is not that important. People buy cheap.

The Arabian Kings Are Buying FABs = INTEL BK SOON

Abu Dhabi's ATIC are on a shopping spree to buy FABs. It has now acquired the nine FABs of Chartered and is looking for more. With the mega FABs in Dresden and New York, ATIC/GLOBALFOUNDRIES are in a roll to world FAB domination.

This is smart. The dollar still worth something. And Abu Dhabi has plenty of the paper. Before the dollar bills turn into germ infested garbage worth less than pieces of toilet paper, the Arabian princesses are buying real estate in semi business.

For Intel, that's bad news. The only weapona Intel had against AMD were its monopolistic tricks and deep balance sheet. Intel had always outspent AMD on FABs to gain an advantage. No more, Paul. That's history.

The princesses of Arab have money to burn, and they will outspend Intel by a factor of 10.

Remember they have about 30% of AMD's shares. When AMD worth $200 billion. Their share worth $60 billion.

Intel BK is projected in 2011, after the massive $80 billion treble damages from the anti-trust lawsuit. Intel may have to sell its FABs to GLOBALFOUNDRIES to pay the damages.

NVIDIA's Huang independently reached the same conclusion as to Intel's inevitable demise.

AMD set to release 45nm K10.5 mobile CPUs based

Note this from Fudzilla, apparently, this is AMD's 45nm mobile CPUs with K10.5 technology. I almost regret that I bought this red notebook that makes ladies turn their heads. Hopefully, AMD will sell boxed CPUs, so I can do a quick and dirty replacement with the 45nm chip.

Since AMD can do 6 cores in 40watts, we can expect these CPUs to do 7 watts single core. That's will be 4x the speed of Intel Atom, at lower power. Remember that Intel's Atom chipset built on 130nm ancient tech dissipates 15 watts or so, even though the Atom cpu uses only 5 watts.

P. Nikiforos Diamandouros bought by Intel?

European Union ombudsman P. Nikiforos Diamandouros accused EC for mishandling the guilty verdict against Intel. His reason? A Dell person said AMD processor performance was "poor."

The dude is either a moron or has been bought by Intel. Of course Dell and Intel will say AMD chips are bad. But why has Intel copied every piece of AMD technology and forced its customers not to buy AMD?

Amazing upgrade from Tri-Core to Dual Core

My old desktop was running a Phenom X3 8450 triple core processor. The clock speed was 2.1Ghz. It was blazingly faster for running Windows XP and Windows 7.

But two days ago, I noticed this Athlon II X2 245 processor running at 2.9Ghz for $66 with free shipping. As those who are educated know, this is a 45nm chip built on the K10.5 Shanghai technology. Since the total Ghz is 2x2.9 = 5.8 Ghz, while the 8450 was 6.3, I guess this processor will be faster than the old one, but at only 65 watts.

Today, the processor arrived, and within five minutes, the new CPU is running. Much faster at lower power consumption. Windows 7 shows the new CPU performance at 6.4, up from 6.0 with the 8450. You can feel the difference.

Unlike those Core i7 folks who always need to change the whole CPU, motherboard and memory set, with AMD, you just swap the CPU. The AM3 Athlon II is backward compatible with old AM2 motherboards. Its integrated memory controller does both DDR3 and DDR2.

Intel's mobile CPU generates more heat

The Intel Pentium Su2700 CPU is a single core, 1.3GHZ core speed, 800MHZ ancient FSB CPU made on 45nm. The SU2700's heat generation is 10 watts. The AMD 200U CPU is 1GHZ with 1.6GHZ HyperTransport made on 65nm SOI, its heat production is 8 watts.

Moreover, the AMD CPU uses direct connect, the memory controller is built in. The Intel one needs a separate chipset, and usually that is another 10 watts.

Intel Netbooks use toy CPUs, try something real

I am interested in getting something like a netbook, small and cheap. But all those Intel Atom CPUs are so toyish, they will invite laughs from educated people. In this age of 64 bit computing, the 32 bit Atom CPU is rather primitive. Coupled with low screen resolution, they look like those toy notebooks for kids to learn the alphabet.

Then I found this Gateway LT3114u for just $100 more. It has a 11.6 inch HD screen (1366 x 768 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio), 2GB ram, 250GB HDD, and a 1.2GHZ Athlon 64 CPU, that can run everything for modern computing needs. It has a ATI graphics card capable of playing Doom3. It will run Windows 7 64 bit without any problems.

That's a real computer.

Paper shows how small investors are screwed by max pain

In a recent Wired article titled "Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street", a Chinese mathematician Dr. David Li was blamed for the collapse of U.S. financial market.

Now, another Chinese scholar tells you why you the small fish are screwed.

"We think that the GOOGLE stock may have been illegally controlled by Wall

Street firms. We show that large financial institutions use small GOOGLE investors as

pawns in their pursuits of high returns. This study is of significant value to the stock

market. We provide the evidence of illegal activities surrounding the trading of

GOOGLE stock and this evidence can be used to track down the manipulators. We tell

naive, small investors why they are losing money, and sometimes their retirement money,

in the stock market. It is due to malicious stock price manipulations by large financial

firms. We will show why large financial firms seem to be always able to generate large

amounts of profit and hand out generous bonuses to themselves – they have the power to

muscle stock price up and down and may use this power to their interest."

I think Dr. Liu is feeling sorry for the American public, being the battery in the matrix without knowing that they are merely batteries of the financial machine. Dr. Liu reportedly sent his study to SEC. But, what if SEC itself is part of the matrix.

AMD shows off 12-core Opteron

It is called Many-Cores: 96 cores for a 8P configuration.

Meanwhile, a Chinese firm showed a mobile phone running Windows XP on AMD's super mobile processor.

Copycat Intel Fellow Bath Mouth AMD

Read this, Fred Pollack is touting Intel's skill in copying AMD.

He failed to mention that Intel copied everything from AMD. Basically, Intel illegally bought off OEMs, locked them into Intel, and bought 8 years of time to copy AMD64+Direct Connect, which Intel named EM64T and QuickPath.

It literally took Intel engineers 8 years to digest AMD's PDFs and patents, and came out with knockoffs of AMD technology.

Pollack fails to realize that AMD is preparing the next set of technologies that will take Intel 20 years to copy.

AMD Instanbul achieves 402 in SpecInt rate 2006

Nice, very nice score of 402. It is very nice that AMD was able to keep the 2.6Ghz six-core Istanbul at 75 watts. In comparison, Intel's 2.93Ghz Core i7 is a 130 watt beast that can fry eggs for your breakfast.

AMD's GlobalFoundries is a Potent Weapon Against Nvidia

AMD's GlobalFoundries subsidiary is ready for 28nm GPUs.

With Dirk Meyer as CEO, AMD's cranking out products like there is no tomorrow.

Where did all the money go?

I was surprised to find that U.S. government borrowed $770 billion from China. In comparison, all the oil exporters (Saudi, UAE, etc) only lent $213 billion to the US. So, when US is deploying those nuke subs and F22s around China, it is actually using Chinese money. Who owes money is the boss. What a scheme!

There is an explosion of Ponzi scheme cases like this one. The victims are usually friends and relatives of the scammers. It seems everyone is losing money: from small investors, to big banks, to big governments. So where did the money go?

Or, maybe the money never existed in the first place.

What happened was the US government borrowed the money from other countries, and award it to US corporations (for contracts such as weapon systems) and federal employees (such as salaries for judges and agents)...

CNBC's Jim Goldman Makes Himself a Fool

Despite the Intel's dirty acts revealed by the EU, the Korean FTC and the Japanese, Jim Goldman of CNBC jumps for the defense of the big Intel money pile. Can this man tell the difference between right and wrong, honor and dishonor, competition and anti-competition?

"Oh really? Not one of those millions of harmed consumers brought an action against Intel." Goldman wrote.

My suggestion to Mr. Goldman: do some research so not to make yourself a fool. There are dozens if not hundreds of class action law suits against Intel by consumers of Intel processor based PCes. They all accuse Intel of robbing them money by eliminating competition and maintaining high prices.

It's no surprise that Mr. Goldman had not heard of these cases. Because when individuals act against big money like Intel, the media ignore their complaints.

Even assuming consumers were too dumb to complain (they were not and they had sued Intel), Intel's behavior is dirty business and harmful. Once Intel kills off competition, it can start charging whatever higher price it can get, like the old times when a 486 CPU cost $1200.

Because of Intel's tactics, most of the world are still in dark ages: they are using outdated FSB based technology made by Intel, instead of AMD's 64 bit Direct Connect technology that is well suited for HD computing.

The $1.4 billion fine imposed on Intel was way too small for the crimes it committed against the European people and the damage it inflicted on the advance of computing technology .

Intel's dirty and nasty tactics -- Intelers should be ashamed

The EU finds Intel guilty

Conditional rebates and payments

Intel awarded major computer manufacturers rebates on condition that they purchased all or almost all of their supplies, at least in certain defined segments, from Intel:

• Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer A from December 2002 to December 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing exclusively Intel CPUs
• Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer B from November 2002 to May 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 95% of its CPU needs for its business desktop computers from Intel (the remaining 5% that computer manufacturer B could purchase from rival chip maker AMD was then subject to further restrictive conditions set out below)
• Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer C from October 2002 to November 2005 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing no less than 80% of its CPU needs for its desktop and notebook computers from Intel
• Intel gave rebates to computer manufacturer D in 2007 conditional on this manufacturer purchasing its CPU needs for its notebook computers exclusively from Intel.

Furthermore, Intel made payments to major retailer Media Saturn Holding from October 2002 to December 2007 on condition that it exclusively sold Intel-based PCs in all countries in which Media Saturn Holding is active.

Certain rebates can lead to lower prices for consumers. However, where a company is in a dominant position on a market, rebates that are conditional on buying less of a rival's products, or not buying them at all, are abusive according to settled case-law of the Community Courts unless the dominant company can put forward specific reasons to justify their application in the individual case.

In its decision, the Commission does not object to rebates in themselves but to the conditions Intel attached to those rebates. Because computer manufacturers are dependent on Intel for a majority of their x86 CPU supplies, only a limited part of a computer manufacturer's x86 CPU requirements is open to competition at any given time.

Intel structured its pricing policy to ensure that a computer manufacturer which opted to buy AMD CPUs for that part of its needs that was open to competition would consequently lose the rebate (or a large part of it) that Intel provided for the much greater part of its needs for which the computer manufacturer had no choice but to buy from Intel. The computer manufacturer would therefore have to pay Intel a higher price for each of the units supplied for which the computer manufacturer had no alternative but to buy from Intel. In other words, should a computer manufacturer fail to purchase virtually all its x86 CPU requirements from Intel, it would forego the possibility of obtaining a significant rebate on any of its very high volumes of Intel purchases.

Moreover, in order to be able to compete with the Intel rebates, for the part of the computer manufacturers' supplies that was up for grabs, a competitor that was just as efficient as Intel would have had to offer a price for its CPUs lower than its costs of producing those CPUs, even if the average price of its CPUs was lower than that of Intel.

For example, rival chip manufacturer AMD offered one million free CPUs to one particular computer manufacturer. If the computer manufacturer had accepted all of these, it would have lost Intel's rebate on its many millions of remaining CPU purchases, and would have been worse off overall simply for having accepted this highly competitive offer. In the end, the computer manufacturer took only 160,000 CPUs for free.

As a result of Intel's rebates, the ability of rival manufacturers to compete and innovate was impaired, and this led to reduced choice for consumers.

Rebates such as those applied by Intel are recognised in many jurisdictions around the world as anti-competitive and unlawful because the effect in practice is to deny consumers a choice of products.

Payments to prevent sales of specific rival products

Intel also interfered directly in the relations between computer manufacturers and AMD. Intel awarded computer manufacturers payments - unrelated to any particular purchases from Intel - on condition that these computer manufacturers postponed or cancelled the launch of specific AMD-based products and/or put restrictions on the distribution of specific AMD-based products. The Commission found that these payments had the potential effect of preventing products for which there was a consumer demand from coming to the market. The Commission found the following specific cases:

• For the 5% of computer manufacturer B’s business that was not subject to the conditional rebate outlined above, Intel made further payments to computer manufacturer B provided that this manufacturer :
• sold AMD-based business desktops only to small and medium enterprises
• sold AMD-based business desktops only via direct distribution channels (as opposed to through distributors) and
• postponed the launch of its first AMD-based business desktop in Europe by 6 months.
• Intel made payments to computer manufacturer E provided that this manufacturer postponed the launch of an AMD-based notebook from September 2003 to January 2004.
• Before the conditional rebate to computer manufacturer D outlined above, Intel made payments to this manufacturer provided that it postponed the launch of AMD-based notebooks from September 2006 to the end of 2006.

The Commission obtained proof of the existence of many of the conditions found to be illegal in the antitrust decision even though they were not made explicit in Intel’s contracts. Such proof is based on a broad range of contemporaneous evidence such as e-mails obtained inter alia from unannounced on-site inspections, in responses to formal requests for information and in a number of formal statements made to the Commission by the other companies concerned. In addition, there is evidence that Intel had sought to conceal the conditions associated with its payments.

x86 CPUs are the main hardware component of a computer. The decision contains a broad range of contemporaneous evidence that shows that AMD, essentially Intel's only competitor in the market, was generally perceived, by computer manufacturers and by Intel itself, to have improved its product range, to be a viable competitor, and to be a growing competitive threat. The decision finds that Intel's practices did not constitute competition on the merits of the respective Intel and AMD products, but rather were part of a strategy designed to exploit Intel's existing entrenched position in the market.

Intel’s worldwide turnover in 2007 was €27 972 million (US$ 38 834 million). The fine in this case takes account of the duration and gravity of the infringement. In accordance with the Commission's 2006 Guidelines on Fines (see IP/06/857 and MEMO/06/256) the fine has been calculated on the basis of the value of Intel's x86 CPU sales in the European Economic Area (EEA). The duration of the infringement established in the decision is five years and three months.

The Commission’s investigation followed complaints from AMD in 2000, 2003 and 2006 (the last having been sent to the German competition authority and subsequently examined by the European Commission). The Commission's decision follows a Statement of Objections sent in July 2007 (see MEMO/07/314), a Supplementary Statement of Objections sent in July 2008 (see MEMO/08/517) and a letter sent to Intel in December 2008 setting out additional factual elements relevant to the final decision. Intel's rights of defence have been fully respected in this case.

Email from within the DOJ - Intel to be nailed

Intelers are quiet these days, they know uncle Obama is not going to give them favors. Reliable sources say.

This is the statement of an e-mail in full - even though the source was anonymous, we have to state that this opinion is opinion of the source alone and not the comment of US Department of Justice:

"Hi Theo,

We are not actively investigating the x86 cross-license agreement between the two parties involved (or indeed, any party that has to do with x86-based patents originating from Intel Corporation), but I can tell you from our experiences that patents are not The 10 Commandments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments .

There were legal precedents in the past where market-limiting or market-damaging patents were pronounced "null and void" to the party that wanted to exercise its rights on the expense of the consumer. Example that you might use with your readers is the wheel. Even though there are than 10,000 patents about the wheel on a car, PTO [U.S. Patent Trade Office, Ed.] would not allow a patent that would result in inability to manufacture wheels by anyone else than the patent owner. If such patent was granted in the past, there are legal precedents that would allow PTO to safeguard market freedom.

Regards,"

Intel guilty -- findings by KFTC

The KFTC held a full-member committee on June 4, 2008 and decided to impose a corrective order and surcharges against abusing market dominance by 「Intel Corporation, Intel Semi-conductor and Intel Korea (Hereinafter referred to as “Intel”). To eliminate AMD, a rival company, from the CPU market using its dominant market power, Intel provided rebates to Samsung Electronics and Sambo Computer ranked 1st and 2nd in the domestic PC market on the condition that they would not purchase CPUs manufactured by AMD.

In May 2002, Intel agreed to provide rebates to Samsung Electronics on the condition that it suspend the purchase of CPUs made by AMD. In connection with this, Samsung Electronics in effect suspended the purchase of AMD CPUs starting in the 4th quarter of 2002, and received various amounts of rebates until the 2nd quarter of 2005 on the condition that they purchase only CPUs made by Intel.

During the period from the latter half of 2003 to the first half of 2004, Intel provided rebates (approximately $2,600,000 USD) to Sambo Computer (ranked 2nd in Korea) on the condition that it convert the company from which to purchase CPU from AMD to Intel for the Home Shopping channel sales. In September 2003, Intel, using market dominance and rebates, interfered with local marketing of 64 bit AMD-based CPU for desktop computers from Sambo Computer’s.

Such acts of providing rebates to customers on the condition that they would not deal with rival companies constitute a violation of Article 3-2 (1) 5 of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act.

...

When the market share of AMD increased, Intel provided new rebates to PC makers and the market share of AMD dropped again. During the period from 2000 to 2006, AMD’s market share stood at 10% or less in most cases, and even its highest market share was only 17%.
However, in the CPU sales agent market where the consumers’ preference is directly reflected, AMD’s market share increased during the period from 2000 to 2005, and the market share went up as high as to 30% at the end of 2005. The KFTC started investigating this case in June 2005 and it took 3 years of thorough investigation and discussions with domestic and foreign economists and jurists before a final decision was made.

Intel’s action has forced domestic PC manufacturers to buy only the expensive CPU supplied by Intel, causing domestic consumers to purchase PCs at higher prices. In addition, it has reduced the purchasing options for PC consumers who prefer AMD CPUs.

George Ou Caught Red Handed in Making False Analysis

George Ou is known to be a bit mental, as he likes to accuse people of fraud with his semi-retarded and illogical stuff. He was again caught making false analysis.

An AMD guy wrote:

What's interesting is that those benchmark results are based on Intel systems configured with 24 GB of memory for the SPECcpu results and 96GB for the SPECweb result. Yet, when George does his price comparison later in the article, he uses servers configured with only 6 GB of memory in the case fo the Intel servers. Seems to be a bit of a misrepresentation there, even if these are considered the "standard" configurations the OEM publish on their sites. I would ask that if George is going to highlight benchmark numbers followed by price comparisons, he stay consistent.

Also, George claims that AMD "now refuses to post the TDP" for our Opteron EE processors. At no time have we ever "refused" to disclose that info to anyone. In fact, our MAX TDP number can be found here at www.amd.com/acp. Please note, that Intel's TDP number is not a MAX TDP. Had George taken the time to look on AMD's web site for the info, he would have found this information. If there is an article out there where an AMD spokesperson has "refused" to provide this info at any time, please send it to me.

Another poster further exposed George Ou with the following comparison:

HP has a special testlap where a huge amount of there systems are tested with various load SW and where you can combine each piece of hardware to see the influence. Both systems have the same base server layout and same latest server generation.

HP DL380G6
2 x L5520
4 x 4GB PC3-8500R LP
2x 146GB 15K 2.5 SAS
2 x 460W HE Power supply

idle: 132.29W
40% cpu load: 171.69W
60% cpu load: 191.72W
100% cpu load: 231.51W

HP DL385G5p
2 x 2376HE
4 x 4GB PC6400 LP
2x 146GB 15K 2.5 SAS
2 x 460W HE Power supply

idle: 106.68W
40% cpu load: 147.94W
60% cpu load: 168.7W
100% cpu load: 209.93W

So dear George you cqn already shut up with the bullshit about ACP and the launch of the opteron EE series, because they ARE more power efficient.

AMD to ship six core in May and 12 core in 4Q09

Dirk Meyer pwns Intel, whose Nahelem chip will get smothered before it could take a healthy breath out of the bushes of old double-cheeseburger designs. Intel customers had to switch boards, memory, cables and re-install the OS. AMD's six shooter is plug n play. Take an existing socket F Opteron server, you can swap in the 6-core Istanbul, and there you go. The 12-core version had been sampled and shipped to vendors for testing. With AMD's glueless 8-way SMP, that enables 96-P computing. The 16-core next generation Opteron is not far away either.

Intel engineers will have more sleepless nights reading those 1000-page AMD pdf documents.

AMD dominates the Java server performance hill

This Shanghai Quad Core Opteron server from HP scores 1,181,782. The best Intel Nahelem based Xeon X5570 scores about 542,793, less than 50% of AMD.

Core i7 has shown some good IPC numbers, but it is no big iron like Opteron, which scales to 8P 32 core. This again shows that Intel is a desktop company which only knows how to do 2P, while AMD's Opteron is a server chip designed by server people.

It's rumored that AMD will yank Intel's AMD64 and Direct Connect licenses.

PS: I see one reader tries to multiply Intel's score by 4, as if Intel can pile up 4 Nehalem servers to compete against 1 Opteron server. But 1000 sheep can't beat a single wolf. The math does not add.

AMD talks about Intel's NAZI gene

AMD's general counsel sees the true picture, Intel wants AMD dead. Hitler did not like jews as competitors, so he went on his way. Intel has been trying to do the same.

I have analysed that long time ago.

Intel's claim that GlobalFoundries is not an AMD subsidiary as defined in the AMD-Intel cross-licensing agreement. Of course, AMD is saying it met the definition: originally >50%, 50% control, and > 30% profit share.

But, there is another aspect. Intel knew that AMD is doing the asset smart, and knew the basic facts of the deal, Intel made no protests, AMD justifiably relied on this silence and completed the deal... Intel is estopped from making any noise after the fact.

AMD to terminate Intel's x86_64 and HT licenses

According to this SEC filing, Intel has materially breached the Intel-AMD cross-licensing agreement, "which gives the Company [AMD] the right to terminate Intel’s rights and licenses under the Cross License Agreement while retaining the Company’s rights and licenses under the Cross License Agreement."

If this is true, then Intel is in trouble. With the x86_64, HyperTransport clone, IMC, Direct Connect and Multi-core licenses terminated, Intel will be pushed back into the 80386 age. Imaging a court order that says all Intel machines running the AMD64 architecture must be shut down. That will be definitively reduce a lot of power consumption for U.S.

Intel found guilty

Original source is here.

"In the beginning of January 2001, the defendants suggested a total $800 million rebate
proposal to Samsung on the condition of abandoning the AMD CPUs-installed PC
models named 'Airfox' and 'Leo'(defendants described it as "AMD Drop"2), with
concerns such as an erosion of domestic market share, a difficulty of accomplishing
100% Intel CPU MSS, an increase of AMD’s brand value, and domino effects to other PC makers3. As Samsung rejected this proposal, defendants established a plan named
"Samsung Risk Mgmt Plan" in January 22, 2002. According to the plan, the defendants
would focus on a marketing plan for isolating AMD, also no rebate benefits and no comarketing
program with Samsung. Then, the defendants notified Samsung that it would
not help but to reduce the volume of rebates if Samsung adopted AMD CPUs. (Omitted)
After this notice, as the illustrates, the defendants actually reduced the
amount of rebates by $0.76 million in the first quarter of 2002, which was significantly
under the prior level of rebates (average $4 million quarterly)." (18p)

"ooo and ooo, respectfully, the Chief of Samsung's Computer System Headquarters’
Purchasing Team and the Division Chief of the same department, and ooo, the Director of
Planning Group, consistently testified that the defendants suggested rebates in
exchange for abandoning the AMD CPUs-installed PCs, or in exchange for retaining
the 100% Intel CPU MSS. They testified also that defendants reduced the amount of
rebates and stopped providing MDF money to Samsung when Samsung rejected the
proposals. (20p)

"According to Samsung's internal documents named "Review of Intel Special Proposal"
(produced in January 29, 2002), Intel Korea's internal document named "oooo"4
(produced in January 2002), and "oooo"(produced in January 22, 2002), the defendants
requested $2,490,000 in first quarter 2002 and total $800 million + alpha in 2002, in
exchange for abandoning the production plan or production of 'Airfox' and 'Leo'." (21p)
“Also, according to the Intel Korea’s internal documents “ooo”, “ooo”, and “ooo,” the
following outcomes are mentioned as main achievements: excluded a competitor-
AMD, hindered AMD’s expansions in the domestic market; AMD’s decreasing
awareness or reputation in the market and within Samsung; Samsung’s
abandonment of AMD CPUs. (25p)

“With providing rebates to Samsung pursuant to the quarterly support plan from first
quarter 2003 to second quarter 2005, as illustrates, the defendants
particularly emphasized that only Intel products should be used and maintained as CPUs
installed in the PCs sold through home-shopping distribution channel and governmental
network (government agency usage) channel, where AMD’s market entry or expansions
were predicted, especially in the low-price PC lines. Consequently, the defendants could
secure the 100% Intel CPU MSS in Samsung.” (26p)

...


"First of all, involving the 'long term support plan,' according to the defendants’ internal
documents "oooo" (produced in July 19, 2002 produced)Footnote 72, "oooo" (produced in
June 19, 2002) Footnote 73, "oooo" (produced in July 26) Footnote 74, Samsung accepted the
defendants’ 'long term support plan’ in the latter half of 2002, and, as a result, Samsung
promised to cease from purchasing AMD CPUs in both Desktop and Laptop lines" (44p-
45p)


“Samsung long term support plan accepted by Samsung!!! We ikl delivered “we’ll do
best” in Q4 but samsung still wants firmed long term commitment. In spite of some
argument in samsung internal, the detail win back schedule on the processing base on DT
drop by July, NB by SEP” (44p-45p)
...

"Former leader of Sambo's Product-Planning Team ooo stated that defendants requested
exclusion of AMD from the home-shopping channel so Sambo agreed to maintain the
Intel CPUs at 100% level for purpose to receive the maximum-level rebates from Intel.
Also, according to the deposition of Intel Korea’s executive director ooo, the defendants
provided ECAP on the condition that Sambo converted its using CPUs from AMD to
defendants in the home-shopping channel because Intel CPUs’ proportion in the homeshopping
channel was merely 30% at that time, and consequently, Sambo accepted the
proposal." (31p)

“In this context, the defendants requested Sambo several times not to join in the
launching event and not to launch PCs installed with AMD 64 bit CPUs. As a result,
Sambo did not join in the launching event and eliminated its trademark from the
prototype PCs, in which AMD 64 bit CPUs was installed. Since then, Sambo did not
launch or sell the AMD 64 bit CPUs installed PCs more than six months. In return for
this, in third quarter 2003, the defendants provided MDF 3~30 times higher than before
and thereafter quarters, as the illustrates.” (32p)

“The former leader of Sambo’s Product Planning Team ooo and a former executive
director ooo testified that Sambo had intended to join the launching event of AMD
64 bit CPUs. However, as Intel Korea’s director and head, respectively, ooo and ooo
requested Sambo not to join in the event and not to launch AMD 64 bit CPUsinstalled
PCs, Sambo accepted the requests. In return for this acceptance, Sambo
could receive more assistance such as MDF.” (33p)


"The defendants argue that the ECAP was only provided in certain items which were
competing with competitor's products, and the rebates were simply "a certain type of volume discount", in which the amount of rebates is calculated by the purchased volume
of ECAP-applied items.” (35p)
“Reviewing this argument, as the Table 31 illustrates, considering the amount of rebates
actually provided to Samsung and Sambo, we could observe that the rebate rate was in
the lowest level in first quarter 2002 when Samsung rejected the defendants’ request for
abandonment of AMD’s products, despite Samsung's purchase amount of the defendants’
products was in the highest level at the same period. On the contrary, we could observe
that the rebate rate was at the highest level in third quarter 2002 when Samsung stopped
purchasing the AMD’s products, despite Samsung's purchased amount of the defendants’
products was at the lowest level during the same period. This fact resulted from the fact
that the defendants’ rebates had not been provided in pursuant to the amount of partner’s
purchased volume but pursuant to the purchased volume of competitor AMD’s products.
Accordingly, it is appropriate to conclude that the defendants’ rebate program is
totally different from the volume discount scheme which defendants are arguing."
(36p)

“Consequently, the defendants’ rebate system is not a volume discount program but
a system where the amount of rebates is reduced or increased according to
fulfillment of conditions involving exclusion of competitors, through the
determination of ECAP applied items, amount of discounts, and payment of MDF,
regardless of partner’s purchasing volume. (38p)

Intel follows AMD in Manufacturing Strategy

I predicted long time ago that Intel will always follow AMD. Now it is doing it again. AMD has successfully carried out the asset smart strategy, basically unloading CPU fabrication to another firm. Now, the news is that Intel is following suit. It has shutdown numerous FABs and signed up TSMC for Intel CPU manufacturing.

I predict some day Intel may even use GlobalFoundries for its next generation of copycat chips.

The following is a incomplete list of AMD moves that Intel has tried to copy.

*) x86-64
*) performance per watt concept
*) Multi-core
*) Direct Connect
*) Spinning off NOR flash business
*) Asset smart

AMD's Six Core CPUs are running

Unlike Intel three-dual-core 220 watt monsters, AMD's are real six-core chips with HT3 consuming 95 watts. Intel will play copycat for the next 20 years...

My guess is that the HT3 cache coherence technology may indeed carry some hidden tricks, maybe something borrowed from the Horus chipset.

Core i7 boosts Intel 3D gaming performance by 40%

One of Intel's new Core i7-965 processors can run Crysis at an average of 7.4 FPS at 800x600 with the detail level turned down. In the same test, Microsoft says Intel's DX10-capable integrated graphics hardware managed just 5.2 FPS.

From 5.2 FPS to 7.4 FPS, 40% jump for Intel.

The $30 GeForce 8400 GS scores 33.9 FPS.

Nice Picture from AMD

Fired Tech Employee Fired

An employee of a tech firm allegedly killed three colleagues.

Intel begged Microsoft to Lower Vista Standard

Intel's chips are only "Windows XP Capable", yet Intel begged Bill Gates for Windows Vista labels. Class action suit uncovers internal Intel-Microsoft emails that show the secret dealings.

Nvidia the pitiful: two HD 4830 pwned GTX 280

Two $90 HD 4830s fragged Nvidia's $500 top dog, GTX 280. Jenhesung is furious right now.