November 12th, 2009

AMD/Intel announce settlement of all antitrust and IP disputes

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 6:17 am

Categories: AMD, Intel, Legal

Tags: Antitrust, Settlement, IP, Agreement, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp., Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

AMD and Intel are friends again …

Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) today announced a comprehensive agreement to end all outstanding legal disputes between the companies, including antitrust litigation and patent cross license disputes.  

In a joint statement the two companies commented, “While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development.”

Under terms of the agreement, AMD and Intel obtain patent rights from a new 5-year cross license agreement, Intel and AMD will give up any claims of breach from the previous license agreement, and Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion.  Intel has also agreed to abide by a set of business practice provisions.  As a result, AMD will drop all pending litigation including the case in U.S. District Court in Delaware and two cases pending in Japan.  AMD will also withdraw all of its regulatory complaints worldwide.  The agreement will be made public in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Who said big companies don’t play nicely together!

November 5th, 2009

Antitrust charges filed against Intel

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 6:40 am

Categories: Intel, Legal

Tags: Antitrust, OEM, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Intel Corp., Productivity, Corporate Law, Semiconductors, Operational Accounting, Processors, Business Operations

The New York Attorney General has filed antitrust charges against chip giant Intel, claiming that the company engaged in “a worldwide, systematic campaign of illegal conduct.”

According to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, emails have come to light which suggest that Intel leveraged “rebates” and employed threats and bribery to secure deals with PC makers.

Here’s what Cuomo said in a press release:

Rather than compete fairly, Intel used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market. Intel’s actions not only unfairly restricted potential competitors, but also hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices. These illegal tactics must stop and competition must be restored to this vital marketplace.

The complaint filed makes very interesting, and damning, reading:

Intel has engaged in a systematic worldwide campaign of illegal, exclusionary conduct to maintain its monopoly power and prices in the market for x86 microprocessors, the “brains” of Personal Computers (”PCs”).  By exacting exclusive or near-exclusive agreements from large computer makers (“Original Equipment Manufacturers” or “OEMs”) in exchange for payments totaling billions of dollars, and threatening retaliation against any company that did not heed its wishes, Intel robbed its competitors of the opportunity to challenge Intel’s dominance in key segments of the market.  This illegal behavior was highly detrimental to consumers, competition, and innovation.

Starting in 2001, the threat from competition became salient at Intel.  Intel’s biggest CPU competitor, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (“AMD”), had begun developing x86 chips that not only competed with Intel’s offerings, but were in many ways more desirable.  Business customers and consumers increasingly sought AMD-based computers.  OEMs began to comply. 

…

Intel launched an illegal campaign to deprive AMD of distribution channels and consumers of product choice and lower prices.

…

At the same time, Intel threatened OEMs with retaliation if they persisted in
dealing with AMD.  These threats took a variety of forms, including funding an OEM’s competitors to directly compete against it, ending any current payments that the OEM received from Intel, and ending joint development ventures.

…

At the highest levels, Intel routinely takes steps to make its displeasure felt when it feels threatened by OEM actions – even when those actions appear to be routine commercial behavior.  Intel’s customers are constantly reminded where their primary loyalty should lie.  For example, in March 2006, Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini received a courtesy “heads-up” from an HP executive that HP was sponsoring an advertisement featuring HP’s relationship with AMD and the theme of customer choice.  Otellini reacted:  “So, … why did you feel compelled to do this? It is certainly insulting to us and I do not see how it helps you…. If we are your key partner, this is nothing but a slap at us … I really don’t want to get in a pissing contest over this … But running an ad touting 10 years with amd [sic] and ‘choice’ is not the behavior of someone who wants to bring our two companies together.”

…

Intel’s objective throughout was not to eliminate AMD entirely, but to crush an unprecedented threat to its monopoly power.

Full complaint here (PDF).

October 28th, 2009

Intel pulls new SSD firmware day after release

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 1:18 pm

Categories: Components, Hardware, Intel, Storage

Tags: Solid State Disk, Firmware, Intel Corp., Firmware Upgrade, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

On Monday Intel released an firmware upgrade for the X25-M solid state drive (SSD). Yesterday, the company pulled the update.

The software package, called SSD Toolbox, was designed to monitor and manage performance and health of the X25-M drive on the Windows 7 OS. However, the firmware update has now been pulled.

Here’s the reason according to Intel:

“We have been contacted by users with issues with the 34-nanometer Intel SSD firmware upgrade and are investigating. We take all sightings and issues seriously and are working toward resolution. We have temporarily taken down the firmware link while we investigate.”

No word from Intel as to when updated firmware will be ready.

If you’re downloaded the update and not installed it, might be a good idea to hold off for now.

October 20th, 2009

Intel debuts Core i7 960

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 8:37 am

Categories: Intel

Tags: Speed, Intel Corp., Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Without any fanfare, Intel has released a new Core i7 processor.

The Core i7 960 is an LGA1366 “Bloomfield” 3.2GHz (3.46GHz when turbo-boosted) part that re-jigs Intel’s Core i7 lineup. It’s basically the same speed as 965 Extreme Edition and makes way for the top-end 3.33GHz (3.6GHz turbo-boosted) 975 Extreme Edition part.

Other than speed, it’s a bog-standard 9xx series part - 45nm architecture, four cores, eight threads, 1MN L2, 8MB L3 cache and 4.8 GT/s QPI.

Essentially this new CPU eliminates both the i7 965 Extreme Edition and the 950.

At $562, it’s not cheap, but since there’s no competition from AMD at the top end, it doesn’t need to be cheap.

October 13th, 2009

Economic downturn could be over ... for Intel

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 4:44 pm

Categories: In the news, Intel

Tags: Revenue, Intel Corp., Operational Accounting, Finance, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

For Intel, it seems that the economic downturn could be over as the company announced better than expected profits for the third quarter.

Net income came in at $1.9 billion, down from the $2 billion it made during the year ago quarter. Revenue fell 8% to $9.4 billion, but was ahead of analyst forecasts of $9.1 billion.

Here’s a breakdown:

• Enterprise CPU revenue: $3.87 billion (down from $4.07 billion)
• Laptop/mobile device CPU revenue: $2.92 billion (down from $3.39 billion)

Intel CEO Paul Otellini said Intel remained “primarily consumer-driven,” that back-to-school selling season was “exceeded expectations” and that “people are going to want to move to Windows 7, and it’s just a matter of how fast they do that next year.”

For Q4 Intel is predicting revenue in the region of $10.1 billion, which would compare favorably to Q4 ‘08 revenue of $8.2 billion.

September 8th, 2009

Intel shakes up mid-range CPUs with Lynnfield Core i5 750, Core i7 860 and Core i7 870

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 3:56 am

Categories: Components, Intel

Tags: HyperThreading, CPU, Intel Corp., Lynnfield, Processor World, Processors, Chipsets, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components

Intel by releasing three new Lynnfield-based Core i5 and i7 parts has significantly shaken up the mid-range of the CPU universe.

The processor world has been pretty uneventful for the past ten months or so since Intel launched the Nehalem-based Core i7 lineup of CPUs. Sure we’ve seen a few tweaks and price cuts from Intel, and AMD has continued to trickle out Phenom II parts with increasingly high clock speeds, but otherwise nothing spectacular has happened.

Until now …

Today sees Intel release three new Lynnfield-based parts whose sole purpose is to dominate the mid-range.

So, how do the new Lynnfield-based CPUs differ from the existing Bloomfield-based Core i7 parts? Well, the first thing to bear in mind is that the new Lynnfield parts are cut down/cheaper/mid-range/not as expensive/not as high end/not as extreme derivatives of the Bloomfield parts. In order to come up with a cheaper Read the rest of this entry »

September 3rd, 2009

Is lower power consumption Windows 7's killer feature?

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 6:49 am

Categories: Hardware, Industry, Intel, Performance, Software, Windows 7

Tags: Power Consumption, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

It’s no secret that I’ve been left struggling to come up with a Windows 7 killer feature. I think I might have found it, and it comes in the form of lower power consumption.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Windows 7, a lot. I find it a huge step up from Vista in terms of performance, reliability and usability, but I’ve been struggling to find that killer Windows 7 feature. But could the lower power consumption that Windows 7 combined with Intel’s upcoming Westmere CPUs offers be the killer feature.

Lower power consumption isn’t a sexy feature, and if you’re on a desktop system hooked up to a continuous supply of juice it’s not something you’re likely to worry about. However, if you spend any time Read the rest of this entry »

August 13th, 2009

Core i5 processors at Frys.com

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 11:26 am

Categories: Components, Intel

Tags: Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Quick post for those waiting for Core i5 processors to appear - seems that Frys.com have some, and they’re listed as in stock.

Listed is the Core i5 720. This is a 2.66GHz quad-core part and owning one will set you back $205. Don’t know if this listing will be pulled later, or whether orders will be fulfilled in advance of an official launch …

Oddly enough, I can’t find any LGA1156 motherboards to go with this part, so you’ll have to do some extra shopping elsewhere.

Note: The listing describes the Core i5 as a triple-channel processor. This is incorrect, the i5 is a dual-channel part.

(Bright Side of News, via Lockergnome)

August 3rd, 2009

Gulftown/Core i9 sneak peek

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 8:50 am

Categories: Industry, Intel

Tags: Core, Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Is Intel’s Core i7 range of CPUs just not offering you enough power? Well, maybe you should start saving up for a Gulftown-based processor.

32nm Gulftown-based processors aren’t due to make an appearance until Q1 next year, but that hasn’t stopped XtremeSystems’ forum member JCornell getting his hands on some of that goodness.

What’s so special about Gulftown? Well, basically you have  a 50% increase in cores, threads and cache. That means 6 cores per processor, or 12 threads, and 12MB of L3 cache.

Not enough power? Why not get two, fit them onto a Skulltrail-type platform and have 12 cores at your disposal!

OK, I want, I want!

July 21st, 2009

Intel Core i5 ... coming Sept 6th?

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes @ 9:28 am

Categories: Intel

Tags: Intel Core Microarchitecture, Intel Corp., Core, Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

The word from motherboard vendors is that Intel has set a launch date for the first Core i5 desktop processor.

Reminder: The Core i5 (codenamed Lynnfield) is basically a Core i7 part with the third memory channel removed and the QuickPath Interconnect dumped and replaced by a cheaper Direct Media Interface.

According to several sources, September 6th is the date that Intel will launch the Core i5 750. The unofficial word is that this is a 2.66GHz part that can be boosted to 3.20GHz using the built-in Read the rest of this entry »