Intel reserved $ 3 billion in 2019 to competitively block AMD

Never happened before, and there it is again!

 

Waste of money.

 

Yup I made a comment on here while back or at tech spot, gotta love their shady business ethics.

 

Well, while this is all to be confirmed, in case is abuse of dominant position can be punished.

What would make me really sad is that 3 billion spent on research would pay more to everyone.

 

Called it. I knew they'd do this shady BS again. They haven't even paid up for the last time yet, have they? And that was such a tiny fine relative to the near-apocalypse they caused in the CPU market.

Just think about it, where would we be now if AMD had lost just a little more and went under? $500 locked quad core chips that are lower in IPC than what we have now... with toothpaste between the die and heatspreader.

Edit: Wrote HSF instead of heatspreader.

 

I mostly find it weird, even incomprehensible from my own standpoint.

Obviously this could all be made up, it's all too easy to believe Intel doing shady stuff again so there's a receptive audience for this kind of thing.

Assuming this is in some way true, though not necessarily in as bad a way as last time AMD were doing better than Intel, my question would be why? Why offer incentives rather than just lower prices to compete? Sure, I get the points about lower prices making Intel seem more "budget" - or more accurately less "premium" - and that lowered prices would affect a larger spectrum of their market. Ie. they couldn't milk consumers as much if they dropped prices rather than gave OEMs incentives.

But to me it seems obvious that the people that care about these things, meaning the enthusiasts, already know Intel's positioning and the people who don't... well, don't.

The risk just seems too high compared to a more straightforward price competition.

I'd argue that Intel's last fine were a couple of zeroes too low but regardless, if they were to be caught doing anything even remotely shady again I'd find it appropriate for the courts to break up the company and start putting people in jail rather than discussing fines.

Of course the cynic in me would consider that Intel did their due diligence in risk assessment and realized that even if they were caught it'd at worst be another slap on the wrist and piddling fine to be paid a decade later. *shrug*

Hopefully this is all made-up bs.

 

Another case i find interresting for same utuber is how nvidia seems to manage to "steal" freesync. So freesync has been replaced with nvidias Gsync compatable.

 

They need to discount $3B just to match the performance/price ratio of AMD.

 

Maybe i´m misunderstanding this but why is this illegal??? From what i understand Intel is simply discounting their prices, something we all wanted and asked before. Shouldn´t this be read like AMD forces Intel to cut prices agressesivly to compete???

 

The last time intel did this they literally paid OEM's billions in incentives to snub AMD CPU's causing AMD alot of financial woe and it looks like they're going to try something similar again either by directly asking OEM's to snub AMD CPU's or by offering a cash back type purchase agreement ie: OEM pays full price for the intel CPU and Intel give them a considerable cash back check for using their CPU's instead of AMD's... So basically amounts to the same thing as before and like they care if they get a fine of a few hundred million dollars that's chump change to them in the long run

 

It's not illegal. Why would it be? You guys are overreacting.
It's simple competition. If your competition makes a better product for the price, you either need to make a better product or lower your price. Their products are very similar at this point, so you lower the price.
Intel (allegedly) is willing to toss out 3 Billion dollars worth of profit to make it happen. Makes sense considering making and selling CPU's is what they do.
Honestly the robbery is their old prices, the new HEDT CPU prices actually make sense now.

 

The implications from this rumor are that Intel are doing neither of those things though, hence the discussion.

If Intel are actually lowering their prices to the tune of an estimated ~$3B then great, that's a start and actually meaningful competition.

What's implied here is that they're not lowering prices but rather offering other financial incentives to stay on top, not unlike - but not necessarily exactly like - the last time they "incentivized" big OEMs from buying AMD product.

If that implication is correct, which is what we're discussing, then that's not in any way competition and decidedly not ok.

 

After the last 2 years of vulnerability issues, milking the last architecture to complete dryness, rushed CPUs and requiring new motherboards and use of low quality thermal compound what is the reason of buying Intel?
I know, they will " fight" AMD in order to offer more value to the customers.
This is a circus, Intel. The one where Goliath farts and tries desperately to say it is David's fault for the foul smell.
Go home Intel before you lose the last drop of professionalism which you had in the computer business environment.

 

Since when is cashback illegal? Not only is it not illegal, as it happens every day in various brands.

For example, when I bought my OLED TV from LG, I had a cashback, It's a promotion like any other.

People are confusing the act of paying/bribing not to use a particular brand and offer a discount/cashback. One thing has nothing to do with the other.

 

Then it would be cheaper for OEMs. That changes nothing.

 

If that´s the case then it´s illegal of course. But the story only says Intel is willing to discount their CPUs by a 3Bn amount in order to remain competitive against AMD. That´s no illegal, it´s just how competition works, before Ryzen AMD was always cutting the prices of their Bulldozer CPUs to sell them, no problem.

This is what i think and what i think the story says but maybe i´m not understanding something.

 

If u sell your stuff cheaper, that's it, u lose control and is up to consumer and oems to chose what to buy. This programs are made in a way to keep a constant eye over them ala big brother.
Also remember contracts with big oems and server firms can last several years, while this "programs" can be started and ended anytime at intel's discretion.

Last time, conditions for the cashbacks were considered monopolistic and anti-competitive, and if they are actually doing it again, I bet my house the conditions will be more or less the same.
Offering cashbacks to an end user/consumer is not the same as offering it to a third party corporation/oem.
Imagine Coke paying cashbacks to Wallmart so they don't sell Pepsi or relegate it to a tiny corner without refrigeration... now apply that same logic to every product category....
This kind of practice on business that are basically distributors cut down on consumer choice while doing nothing to make things cheaper or better for them.

Btw, this is why net neutrality is so important xD

 

You didnt even read the article, did you?

 

I can't believe people are still falling for AdoredTV's witch hunt.