94 replies to this topic

[Vernius Ix]

When is Piledriver supposed to release?

[Vulpesveritas]

Vernius Ix, on 22 March 2012 - 08:03 AM, said:

When is Piledriver supposed to release?

Mainstream dual/quad core APUs release between April - July.
Desktop quad/hex/octa core CPUs are expected sometime July - November.

Here's a supposed leak of the APU; http://www.techpower...ad.php?t=162843

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 22 March 2012 - 08:10 AM.

[acheronlv426]

Wow, just got back and I want to say, from the bottom of my heart.....

BOYS AND GIRLS, IF YOU CAN'T PLAY NICE I'M TURNING THIS THREAD AROUND RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Works with my kids, maybe it'll work here too?

OK, lets regroup for a minute..........

You have started to talk way above my level at this point. I'm sure that the AMD vs Intel battle will rage on ad-infinitum, but frankly I don't care. From what I've gleaned at this point both companies have setups that should have no problem running MWO, yaaaaay. I'm not overly concerned about how detailed an explosion can be rendered (Sam Kinnison Hi-Fi and Heavy Metal joke here, if I could remember it). Now, power consumption and something about legal issues with Intel are some things I'd like to hear more about.

[Vulpesveritas]

acheronlv426, on 22 March 2012 - 07:25 PM, said:

Wow, just got back and I want to say, from the bottom of my heart.....

BOYS AND GIRLS, IF YOU CAN'T PLAY NICE I'M TURNING THIS THREAD AROUND RIGHT NOW!!!!!

Works with my kids, maybe it'll work here too?

OK, lets regroup for a minute..........

You have started to talk way above my level at this point. I'm sure that the AMD vs Intel battle will rage on ad-infinitum, but frankly I don't care. From what I've gleaned at this point both companies have setups that should have no problem running MWO, yaaaaay. I'm not overly concerned about how detailed an explosion can be rendered (Sam Kinnison Hi-Fi and Heavy Metal joke here, if I could remember it). Now, power consumption and something about legal issues with Intel are some things I'd like to hear more about.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/AMD_v._Intel
http://en.wikipedia....o_Devices,_Inc.
"Intel has often been accused by competitors of using legal claims to thwart competition. Intel claims that it is defending its intellectual property. Intel has been plaintiff and defendant in numerous legal actions.
In September 2005, Intel filed a response to an AMD lawsuit,^[150] disputing AMD's claims, and claiming that Intel's business practices are fair and lawful. In a rebuttal, Intel deconstructed AMD's offensive strategy and argued that AMD struggled largely as a result of its own bad business decisions, including underinvestment in essential manufacturing capacity and excessive reliance on contracting out chip foundries.^[151] Legal analysts predicted the lawsuit would drag on for a number of years, since Intel's initial response indicated its unwillingness to settle with AMD.^[152][153] In 2008 a court date was finally set,^[154] but in 2009 Intel settled with a $1.25 billion payout to AMD (see below).^[155]
In October 2006, a Transmeta lawsuit was filed against Intel for patent infringement on computer architecture and power efficiency technologies.^[156] The lawsuit was settled in October 2007, with Intel agreeing to pay US$150 million initially and US$20 million per year for the next five years. Both companies agreed to drop lawsuits against each other, while Intel was granted a perpetual non-exclusive license to use current and future patented Transmeta technologies in its chips for 10 years.^[157
On November 4, 2009, New York's attorney general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corp, claiming the company used "illegal threats and collusion" to dominate the market for computer microprocessors
On November 12, 2009, AMD agreed to drop the antitrust lawsuit against Intel in exchange for $1.25 billion.^[155] A joint press release published by the two chip makers stated "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."^{[158][159]"
"}
Japan

In 2005, the local Fair Trade Commission found that Intel violated the Japanese Antimonopoly Act. The commission ordered Intel to eliminate discounts that had discriminated against AMD. To avoid a trial, Intel agreed to comply with the order.^{[160][161][162][163}

[edit]European Union

In July 2007, the European Commission accused Intel of anti-competitive practices, mostly against AMD.^[164] The allegations, going back to 2003, include giving preferential prices to computer makers buying most or all of their chips from Intel, paying computer makers to delay or cancel the launch of products using AMD chips, and providing chips at below standard cost to governments and educational institutions.^[165] Intel responded that the allegations were unfounded and instead qualified its market behavior as consumer-friendly.^[165] General counsel Bruce Sewell responded that the Commission had misunderstood some factual assumptions as to pricing and manufacturing costs.^[166]

In February 2008, Intel stated that its office in Munich had been raided by European Union regulators. Intel reported that it was cooperating with investigators.^[167] Intel faced a fine of up to 10% of its annual revenue, if found guilty of stifling competition.^[168] AMD subsequently launched a website promoting these allegations.^[169][170] In June 2008, the EU filed new charges against Intel.^[171] In May 2009, the EU found that Intel had engaged in anti-competitive practices and subsequently fined Intel €1.06 billion (US$1.44 billion), a record amount. Intel was found to have paid companies, including Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and NEC,^[172] to exclusively use Intel chips in their products, and therefore harmed other companies including AMD.^{[172][173][174]} The European Commission said that Intel had deliberately acted to keep competitors out of the computer chip market and in doing so had made a "serious and sustained violation of the EU's antitrust rules".^[172] In addition to the fine, Intel was ordered by the Commission to immediately cease all illegal practices.^[172] Intel has stated that they will appeal against the Commission's verdict.^[172]

[edit]South Korea

In September 2007, South Korean regulators accused Intel of breaking antitrust law. The investigation began in February 2006, when officials raided Intel's South Korean offices. The company risked a penalty of up to 3% of its annual sales, if found guilty.^[175] In June 2008, the Fair Trade Commission ordered Intel to pay a fine of US$25.5 million for taking advantage of its dominant position to offer incentives to major Korean PC manufacturers on the condition of not buying products from AMD.^[176]
[edit]United States

New York started an investigation of Intel in January 2008 on whether the company violated antitrust laws in pricing and sales of its microprocessors.^[177] In June 2008, the Federal Trade Commission also began an antitrust investigation of the case.^[178] In December 2009 the FTC announced it would initiate an administrative proceeding against Intel in September 2010.^{[179][180][181][182]}
In November 2009, following a two year investigation, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo sued Intel, accusing them of bribery and coercion, claiming that Intel bribed computer makers to buy more of their chips than those of their rivals, and threatened to withdraw these payments if the computer makers were perceived as working too closely with its competitors. Intel has denied these claims.^{[183]
On July 22, 2010, Dell agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to pay $100M in penalties resulting from charges that Dell did not accurately disclose accounting information to investors. In particular, the SEC charged that from 2002 to 2006, Dell had an agreement with Intel to receive rebates in exchange for not using chips manufactured by AMD. These substantial rebates were not disclosed to investors, but were used to help meet investor expectations regarding the company's financial performance; the SEC said that in the first quarter of 2007 they amounted to 70% of Dell's operating income. Dell eventually did adopt AMD as a secondary supplier in 2006, and Intel subsequently stopped their rebates, causing Dell's financial performance to fall.[184][185][186]" -} http://en.wikipedia..../Intel#Lawsuits

"

Religious controversy

Orthodox Jews have protested against Intel operating in Israel on Saturday, Shabbat. Intel ringed its office with barbed wire before the protest, but there was no violence.^[143] As of December 2009, the situation has been stable for Intel Israel while some employees reported working overtime on Shabbat.

[edit]Age discrimination

Intel has faced complaints of age discrimination in firing and layoffs. Intel was sued by nine former employees, over allegations that they were laid off because they were over the age of 40.^[144]

A group called FACE Intel (Former and Current Employees of Intel) claims that Intel weeds out older employees. FACE Intel claims that more than 90 percent of people who have been terminated by Intel are over the age of 40. Upside magazine requested data from Intel breaking out its hiring and terminations by age, but the company declined to provide any.^[145] Intel has denied that age plays any role in Intel's employment practices.^[146] FACE Intel was founded by Ken Hamidi, who was terminated by Intel in 1995 at the age of 47.^[145] Hamidi was blocked in a 1999 court decision from using Intel's email system to distribute criticism of the company to employees.^[147]"
"

Environmental record
^{In 2003, there were 1.4 tons of carbon tetrachloride measured from one of Intel's many acid scrubbers. However, Intel reported no release of carbon tetrachloride for all of 2003.[139] Intel's facility in Rio Rancho, New Mexico overlooks a nearby village, and the hilly contours of its location create a setting for chemical gases heavier than air to move along arroyos and irrigation ditches in that village. Release of chemicals in such an environment reportedly caused adverse effects in both animals and humans. Deceased dogs in the area were found to have high levels of toluene, hexane, ethylbenzene, and xylene isomers in lungs.[140] More than 1,580 pounds (720 kg) of VOC were released in June and July 2006, the company stated.[141] Intel’s environmental performance is published annually in their corporate responsibility report.[142]"-} http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel


Power efficiency: AMD's top end part, the FX-8150p, which is priced near the i5-2500k, consumes about 2/3ish more power. In the value sector, you have the FX-4170 vs the i3 CPUs, wherein the 4170 is faster and has an unlocked multiplier for overclocking, but consumes twice the power. Bare budget you have the A-series and E2-series vs the i3, pentium, and celeron. There are two unlocked parts, and the A-series have much better integrated graphics, while maintaining similar TDP and having a core count advantage, although Intel retains a single core performance edge CPU-wise. On the ultra - low wattage parts, you have the AMD Zacate and c50/c60 processors, which outperform dual-core atoms while using less power. The e-450 is an 18w part which outperforms the dual core/HT atoms while using 1/3 more power, but the e-450 is substantially faster both CPU and GPU wise. The E-450 also competes with the Intel Celeron, having half the TDP and somewhat higher graphics performance, but lower CPU performance.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 22 March 2012 - 10:58 PM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

You missed one.

In 1997, Intel filed suit against AMD and Cyrix Corp. for misuse of the termMMX. AMD and Intel settled, with AMD acknowledging MMX as a trademark owned by Intel, and with Intel granting AMD rights to market the AMD K6 MMX processor.

Edited by DV^McKenna, 23 March 2012 - 08:50 AM.

[Vulpesveritas]

@dv nice excerpt;

"MMX is officially a meaningless initialism trademarked by Intel^{[citation needed]}; unofficially, the initials have been variously explained as standing for MultiMedia eXtension, Multiple Math eXtension, or Matrix Math eXtension.
AMD, during one of its numerous court battles with Intel, produced marketing material from Intel indicating that MMX stood for "Matrix Math Extensions". Since an initialism cannot be trademarked, this was an attempt to invalidate Intel's trademark.^[3] In 1997, Intel filed suit against AMD and Cyrix Corp. for misuse of its trademark MMX. AMD and Intel settled, with AMD acknowledging MMX as a trademark owned by Intel, and with Intel granting AMD rights to use the MMX trademark as a technology name, but not a processor name." - http://en.m.wikipedi...nstruction_set)

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 23 March 2012 - 11:39 AM.

[Vincent Vascaul]

Yeah I feel bad that we turned this guy's genuine question into a bit of a fan argument.

[Chas]

Vincent Vascaul, on 23 March 2012 - 11:18 AM, said:

Yeah I feel bad that we turned this guy's genuine question into a bit of a fan argument.

But somewhere, somehow, someone is WRONG ON THE INTERNET!

Now put on your battle-woad! Will it be blue or green?

[acheronlv426]

It's nice to see that people are passionate about the hardware, leads me to believe both items are quality (or there's a brilliant marketing ploy to surf the internet and post how great your product is on as many forums as you can). As far as the legal stuff, wow, big companies saying the other isn't playing fair, I'm shocked!!! I was involved in a dispute over a decade ago between two large corps that shall remain nameless over toilet paper, the pettiness and lack of common sense on both sides was just amazing.

[Vulpesveritas]

acheronlv426, on 24 March 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

It's nice to see that people are passionate about the hardware, leads me to believe both items are quality (or there's a brilliant marketing ploy to surf the internet and post how great your product is on as many forums as you can). As far as the legal stuff, wow, big companies saying the other isn't playing fair, I'm shocked!!! I was involved in a dispute over a decade ago between two large corps that shall remain nameless over toilet paper, the pettiness and lack of common sense on both sides was just amazing.

Yes, well the interesting bit is when not only other big businesses, but multiple governments worldwide accuse a company of paying billions of dollars for assemblers to not use their competitor's products whatsoever and said governments find strong evidence for it.

That aside, yeah they both make good products. AMD focuses more on the lower end of the price spectrum, Intel makes most of the x86 chips out there. AMD has tended to innovate more, Intel has focused on die-shrinks mostly.

In the end, it is up to an individual's opinions, values, and choice.

[JackDeth]

Old is relative....LOL.
I started out with a S100 bus machine with core memory 16MB....yes Megabytes!
Wired all the boards and backplane myself....built the memory (tiny little Ferrite doughnuts with 3 wires through each!!)
Power supply was homebuilt....about 15 AMPS on the main rail.
Monitor was an old 15" B&W TV.
Keyboard was a Selectrik...wired to mate with the i/p board.
Program i/p was by audio tape (150 baud).
Haven't thought about that old thing in years...LOL
Jack

[Wyzak]

If your budget is really $3000, here's a build which easily undercuts that maximum price.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA990FX (UD3, UD5, or UD7) ($150, $200, $250)
GPU: HIS Radeon 7970 3GB ($540)
CPU: AMD FX-8150 Zambezi core ($240)
RAM: 12GB any appropriate 1600MHz RAM in 4GB modules (Crucial is $65)
OS Drive: 2x Patriot Pyro 240GB SSD in RAID (array size will be ~400GB) ($690)
Media/data drive: 1TB Western Digital ($116)
Optical Drive: Sony 18x DVD ($20)
Mouse: Microsoft BlueTrack Comfortmouse ($15)
Case: HEC 6T ATX Mid-tower case ($40)
CPU Fan: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU Fan ($35)
Power Supply: HEC Zephyr MX750 (750 Watts) ($71)
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OEM builder's edition ($140)

This comes to $2222, so if your budget for your next build is $3000 then you still have 800 dollars left for a nice big screen tv to use as a monitor and whatever keyboard you want.

[Vulpesveritas]

Wyzak, on 28 March 2012 - 10:25 PM, said:

If your budget is really $3000, here's a build which easily undercuts that maximum price.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA990FX (UD3, UD5, or UD7) ($150, $200, $250)
GPU: HIS Radeon 7970 3GB ($540)
CPU: AMD FX-8150 Zambezi core ($240)
RAM: 12GB any appropriate 1600MHz RAM in 4GB modules (Crucial is $65)
OS Drive: 2x Patriot Pyro 240GB SSD in RAID (array size will be ~400GB) ($690)
Media/data drive: 1TB Western Digital ($116)
Optical Drive: Sony 18x DVD ($20)
Mouse: Microsoft BlueTrack Comfortmouse ($15)
Case: HEC 6T ATX Mid-tower case ($40)
CPU Fan: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 CPU Fan ($35)
Power Supply: HEC Zephyr MX750 (750 Watts) ($71)
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OEM builder's edition ($140)

This comes to $2222, so if your budget for your next build is $3000 then you still have 800 dollars left for a nice big screen tv to use as a monitor and whatever keyboard you want.

Few things I have to say about that...
1. I would suggest an AsRock motherboard, for a couple reasons. A: you get a better value / $$$ and faster USB and ethernet. and B: AsRock is a fab's namebrand, Pegatron, which also makes all Asustek boards, wheras Gigabyte motherboards are made at Foxconn.
2. Why 12GB RAM? FX only has a dual channel memory bus, so go with 8GB.
3: You can get a better optical drive for the same cost.
4: There are better mice for gaming. you forgot a keyboard and monitor too.
5. I would suggest a case with better airflow.
6. For the cost, a Coolermaster hyper 212 EVO is better for the same exact cost.
7. I suggest a better, more reliable PSU from a seasonic, FSP, or superflower internals with a single 12v rail.
8.: Why not just go with home premium for $40 less?

[plodder]

Wow!!! I got through the 1st 2 pages, and man, you guys have some knowledge! I too am old and need a new computer. I have partially read through some of the varied posts, and I find it all very helpful. I am on the older poorer spectrum, I will sell a clunker car or two, have about 900 bucks. No need to give me help now though, thanks.I am posting to see if this applies: In looking at the various PC blogs or magazines, I don't remember, maybe even in MWO somewhere? I read that if I am not in a compulsive hurry, that in july to august, there will be better deals because of the push into the market of 3D graphics cards , that non-3D grafic cards will plummet in price even though they are great cards, only because they are not 3D. Is there any truth to that, is it even applicable to someone spending 3k? How about to the poor like me, the 900 dollar range? Thanks uncle danno

[Vincent Vascaul]

All tech (except hard drives due to a natural disaster) gets cheaper, waiting is always a good idea the last gen cards should get cheaper in a few months and you can build a great system for $900

[Wyzak]

Vulpesveritas, on 29 March 2012 - 08:23 AM, said:

Few things I have to say about that...
1. I would suggest an AsRock motherboard, for a couple reasons. A: you get a better value / $$$ and faster USB and ethernet. and B: AsRock is a fab's namebrand, Pegatron, which also makes all Asustek boards, whereas Gigabyte motherboards are made at Foxconn.
2. Why 12GB RAM? FX only has a dual channel memory bus, so go with 8GB.
3: You can get a better optical drive for the same cost.
4: There are better mice for gaming. you forgot a keyboard and monitor too.
5. I would suggest a case with better airflow.
6. For the cost, a Coolermaster hyper 212 EVO is better for the same exact cost.
7. I suggest a better, more reliable PSU from a seasonic, FSP, or superflower internals with a single 12v rail.
8.: Why not just go with home premium for $40 less?

Wanted to save him some money on the case, but you are quite correct, there are many cases which are much better. Same for the power supply - wanted to save some money. A risky gamble I suppose, since the power supply could take out other components if it failed. I opted for a more expensive power supply over this concern. Also, isn't 4x 12V rails supposed to be better then 1 if you wanted to go with a SLI configuration?

Windows 7 Professional has features which I like, such as "Make compatible" (of course it never works as advertised)

I'm somewhat of a Gigabyte fanboy. I just like their features better. And they have full USB 3.0 support.

12GB is a step up from 8GB, unless you're saying 2x4GB is the only way to get dual channel memory performance. If so, maybe I should pull one of my sticks out. (This build is actually faster then my current build, but I do have 12GB on mine with the UD3)

This optical drive has free shipping; the one you quoted has another $7 shipping. Other than that they are identical. So it saves a few bucks.

I like the Microsoft mice because of the bluetrack lasers. It's quite possible he may want to do other stuff on the computer as well - any five button optical mouse can be used for gaming. Also, I mentioned keyboards and monitors at the bottom, but no, I didn't include it in the quoted price.

I agree the Hyper 212 is great. But I have had very good experiences with Arctic Cooling as well. And I couldn't find the Hyper 212 at that price point when I scrolled through Newegg.

The takeaway for anyone watching this should be, do not go TOO cheap on the power supply, because if it fails it can damage your computer, but on a lot of power supplies you are only paying for the name brand and the fancy LEDs.

[Vulpesveritas]

Wyzak, on 29 March 2012 - 09:27 AM, said:

Wanted to save him some money on the case, but you are quite correct, there are many cases which are much better. Same for the power supply - wanted to save some money. A risky gamble I suppose, since the power supply could take out other components if it failed. I opted for a more expensive power supply over this concern. Also, isn't 4x 12V rails supposed to be better then 1 if you wanted to go with a SLI configuration?

Windows 7 Professional has features which I like, such as "Make compatible" (of course it never works as advertised)

I'm somewhat of a Gigabyte fanboy. I just like their features better. And they have full USB 3.0 support.

12GB is a step up from 8GB, unless you're saying 2x4GB is the only way to get dual channel memory performance. If so, maybe I should pull one of my sticks out. (This build is actually faster then my current build, but I do have 12GB on mine with the UD3)

This optical drive has free shipping; the one you quoted has another $7 shipping. Other than that they are identical. So it saves a few bucks.

I like the Microsoft mice because of the bluetrack lasers. It's quite possible he may want to do other stuff on the computer as well - any five button optical mouse can be used for gaming. Also, I mentioned keyboards and monitors at the bottom, but no, I didn't include it in the quoted price.

I agree the Hyper 212 is great. But I have had very good experiences with Arctic Cooling as well. And I couldn't find the Hyper 212 at that price point when I scrolled through Newegg.

The takeaway for anyone watching this should be, do not go TOO cheap on the power supply, because if it fails it can damage your computer, but on a lot of power supplies you are only paying for the name brand and the fancy LEDs.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16835103099 - $35
and no, for sli/xfire what you need are amps in your system, a single 12v rail will give you more steady and higher amperage. For example, the GTX 680 suggests at least 50 amps on the 12v rail I believe. You'll want more for a 7970, especially if you OC it at all.
AsRock as USB 3.0 support as well, have their X-fast USB tech (which actually works suprisingly, not just an advertisement.), and genarlly have many good features.
on the RAM, it is better for your memory controller to use the same numer of the same RAM in each channel.

PSU-wise, you're going to want more than 750w anyhow with xfire/sli, at least 800ish.
And mouse wise, that's a matter of opinion. Personally I'm liking the reviews and looks for the corsair vengeance mice, and looking to get one soon.

[Vincent Vascaul]

Artic Cooling has QC issues with their fans I have had many of their fans fail on me, they have replaced them underwarranty but still I would rather just not have them fail.

[acheronlv426]

Hmmmmm... so if I hold off buying until July.....

[ENDMYSUFFERING]

I've got an Asus G74Sx Republic of Gamers laptop, it can run most games on max settings with little to no lag, and it only costed about $1200 or so, and It's a really nice machine. I'd recommend it to anyone.