"Intel is evil!"

[ElFenix]

actually... intel is evil until they do something with that damn hulk of a superstructure they left maring my nice downtown austin.

 

[cookieman]

Hi Wingznut PEZ!

Didn't you have something better to post? I mean this whole discussion is just provoking. What are you trying to acomplish here?
Do you want more Intel-Amd flamewars?

Let's stay technical (General Hardware Forum ?!). Being an ".13µ Lithography Technician" you could post some interesting technical details about your work. That would be an interesting discussion about hardware. Some kids here could learn something then.

But this?

Cheers, (maybe I'm grungy today...)

 

[Sunner]

While I doubt Inetl donates that money to be nice and helpful, rather than as a way to become popular, that doesn't change the fact that Inetl is a company just like any other company.

They wanna make money just live AMD, Sun, MS and everyone else.
And they're good at it too.

In dont like or dislike Intel, I like their products, but I dont like their prices, and some of their practices lately, but that an entirely different matter.

I dont like AMD either, but I like their products and I sure like their prices.

 

[Bluga]

<< Is there any other hi-tech company that has stepped up like Intel has?

And NY is just a piece of the pie. Intel and their employees contribute to the community on a daily basis. The donations to educational outlets, helping needy families... There's always some sort of charitable efforts going on.
>>



Now that's the diffference between an engineer and a businessman. (yes, Inte's CEO is both great engineer and businessman)

get into the head of boss. Intel does this for a profit reason (sure there's intention, but mostly for profit reason), just like McDonald or NIKE spoon feed young kids, brand buidling if you will. Why are Intel "donating" to schools? Its all but long-term investment, when those kids grow up they will be loyal to Intel, words of mouth is powerful.

Intel is not evil, they are doing this in order to eliminate competition and survive.

 

[Bozo Galora]

excellent post cookieman!

 

[damocles]

Having been a Strategy Planner for a large company I can tell you quite honestly that a lot of companies give for reasons above and beyond 'tax writeoffs'. My company donated over 4 million dollars a year, without having any option to claim back. On top of this individiual managers were given budgets from which they could support local charities. Of course this was seen to have a payback, in the form of good will- but nonetheless the company footed the bill for a lot of good works.

People that see companies such as Intel as 'evil' don't really garner much respect in my books. As often as not the people making those sort of statements are doing it because they perceive it to be 'cool' or because they are unable to address selected issues rationally.

Intel is a large corporation, it is inevitable that some people will have poor dealings with Intel, as others have had with AMD. Nothing done by the Intel Corporation has personally made me perceive them as an 'evil' corporation. Nvidia and Rambus are companies that come to mind as having used very strong arm tactics in recent times. In Nvidias case people tend to overlook some of this company's prior dealings because of their product ascendancy. Everyone loves to hate Rambus, but personally I believe their product has some merits, even if I don't like their courtroom antics. I just prefer to view such things as companies doing business. Often I will dislike a particular action, but it takes a lot to make me resent an actual company.

People also tend to be fickle. Not long ago I had a Celeron 300Mhz @450 and it 'ruled'. I still have my P3 700 which gained the giddy heights of 975Mhz. Now AMD tends to be the peoples darling, and with good reason. However much of AMDs action have been designed that way- to gather marketshare at the expense of profitability. A move that is having considerable success for them and providing benefits for many lucky consumers. I have no doubt that Intel will again have dominance in the performace side of the PC market, just as I have no doubt that AMD will them take it back as things 'see-saw' along.

Intel isn't evil at all

 

[Nack]

Intel isn't "evil" per se, nor are the people who work for them. Locking multipliers, disabling SMP on celerons, etc.... WAS evil. But one or two acts do not completely define a company, and Intel no doubt does many wonderful things. Even the business practices such as locking multiplers and disabling SMP on certain chips to sell more of the more expensive but no-more-capable chips (while evil) is somewhat understandable, as all seems to be fair in love, war, and business these days and the consumer has become somewhat used to being screwed... Anyway, cheers to Intel for making the donations. It was a very good thing to do. Who knows, if the rumors are true and AMD really did make their new SMP boards NOT run the XPs in SMP and only work with the MPs, and the Northwoods will bus overclock significantly, I might even build another Intel system.

Nack

 

[Sunner]

Nack, the multiplier locking was a reaction to remarking.

Lots of CPU's got sold with higher ratings than originally intended, and when the CPU's weren't clock locked, there was really no way for your avarge joe to know if that 300 MHz P-II really was a 300 or just a remarked 266.

With a locked multiplier you can still remark it, but in order to make a 300 out of a 266 you'd have to run it at 75 MHz busspeed, hence making it very easy to detect a remarked CPU.

 

[Agent004]

It seems to me that people tend to associate evil with high charge, therefore clouding their judgement what is really evil and what is business practices

BTW, if AMD is so good and not evil, why don't they do the same as intel with financial and non financial helps

 

[Nack]

Sunner, we can agree to disagree on that one. It is a very old argument. There were other ways to respond to the remarking issue (holograms, "certificates of authenticity", a bios report of the "true speed" of the chip using an embedded chip ID technology that only reflected the true speed of the chip - i.e. "Genuine Intel Pentium III 700 - running out-of-spec at 1GHz, please reduce speed", etc). They didn't really have to cripple the chips. Even if they did, there are ways to cripple the chips, and then there are ways to cripple the chips. AMD managed to address the remarking problem, but it can still easily be "fixed" by an overclocker with a mechanical pencil (on the Athlon C) or a rear window defogger kit (on the XP), while at the same time leaving clear evidence that this has been done. With Intel, there really isn't a practical way to unlock a newer chip (unless someone knows somehting that I don't - if so, please enlighten). Like I said, it is an old argument, that has long since been rendered moot by Intel's now long-standing policy and AMD's release of overclocker-friendly chips.

Nack

PS Agent 004: I never said AMD wasn't evil. I'm reserving judgment on that until I see some reviews of the new MPX boards.

 

[Agent004]

Nack



<< PS Agent 004: I never said AMD wasn't evil. I'm reserving judgment on that until I see some reviews of the new MPX boards >>



That wasn't directly aim at you, it was for the general 'techies' who thought intel are evil. I also heard a few people about MPX board blocking dual XP configs

 

[dszd0g]

Damocles, I do not consider Nvidia any more strong arm than Intel. Just look at how Intel deals with Via. I do not consider either company evil.

Attempting to cover up the Pentium FDIV bug wasn't exactly great, but I understand it because it cost them a lot of money. I was personally affected by that one.

Now, the processor ID, that was evil

There really aren't a lot of companies I really consider evil.

1) Shell: Hiring mercanaries and masacring villages... Sounds like Shadowrun not something that should happen in real life.
2) De Beers: Marketing a product that had no previous value (diamonds) and using slave labor (up until about 5 years ago) to drive the industry. Starting wars and funding armies to gain further control. Those who actually know about this stuff call them Blood gems not diamonds. Yes, if you bought your wife a diamond 5 years ago, you were either supporting slavery or warlords.
3) Philip Morris: Selling products that kill people isn't exactly nice.
4) Mitsubishi: Bribing governments in order to trash the environment doesn't win my favor
5) Microsoft: They have got to be the most dishonest company there is.
(Humor:
6) Charter - Cause I just had to spend over 30 hours on the phone with them for a 5 minute fix to get my internet connection back up
7) Intel... doesn't even make this list.)

I mean there are companies I don't like Rambus, Pacbell, Exon, and Charter at the moment. However, it is good to keep a perspective on it.

 

[veryape]

<< haha, they can afford to make those donations because they rip you off on their crappy overpriced CPU's.. now, i only say crappy, because for what you pay, you COULD be getting alot better - in comes AMD.

like seriously that's the top problem with Intel.. well, here are a few more... P4/RAMBUS (if you want ANY performance from your overpriced P4, you are FORCED to use RAMBUS because: - P4/SDR = 486 2001.

and another - what was with that socket 423 BS a while ago? just a little while back the P4 is released, then they switch the socket again to socket 478, right?and they fubar the people who bought their systems and want to upgrade a mere few months later by not having the 423 CPU's anymore.. or can you still buy those? i am not 100% sure.. all I know is, SocketA hasn't changed, and upgrade path is looking great for AMD setups.

like correct me if i am wrong, by all means.. but that is definitely enough to make ME think Intel IS evil (for the most part) there isn't any way i'll be caught getting ripped off on a P4 and SCAMBUS. here are some local price comparisons:

P3 933 - $246 CAD ( I had this CPU like a year ago or more..)
AMD T-Bird 1333 - $201 CAD ( Just got one of these a few months ago, DEFINITELY a noticeable boost in speed.. money well spent!)

Why is the P3 so much money? I don't know if most of you look past these issues for seeing Intel as evil, but I base them on the consumer level, and I can't figure out why they are charging so much for these things.. That is what I think sucks about them. - my P3 computer ran great, but my new machine, for less money, is a clear performance winner. The bottom line comes down to their pricing, the products they make are fine... but good god, CHARGE AN ARM AND A LEG. >>

Ding ding ding ding. WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

 

[JonnyDuke]

Here's one

They are doing quite a bit.

 

[GTaudiophile]

I am not too excited about having to pay $500+ for just a Northwood 2.0Ghz cpu next month. An Athlon MP solution is tempting, but I always base my purchases on first-hand experience when it can be found. While I have no problems with AMD, most of the people I know who bought AMD solutions had them die within one year of ownership. That is unacceptable when I need a solution that can last me at least three years. My current 440BX/PII-450 hasn't skipped a beat while they have had to upgrade several times; it's been a superb, reliable machine and takes every punch I throw at it. It still runs 2 harddrives, 2 DIMMs, DVD-ROM+CD-RW, 1 AGP, and 4 PCI cards, all on a 200w PS with only one system fan! Point is, Intel has been very good to me, and I see no reason not to give them repeat business. They will get my $170+ for a i845-B and my $500+ for a 2.0Ghz Northwood, no questions asked.

 

[Wingznut]

I have two questions for those who bash me (both via PM and here), and those who state that Intel only does this charity for publicity...

• Would you feel the same way if this were an "AMD donated $X" thread? Somehow I doubt it.
• Where has Intel "advertised" their efforts? Nobody had heard about any of this, until I posted it.

For those that posted, and decided to not bother to actually read what I wrote or follow the link I provided... Do you realize that more than a third of that money came from the employees?


But I did learn something today...

As someone pointed out in a pm to me, "80% of peeps here own AMD"... Even though a negative post would garner several responses, I guess it's not a good idea to post anything positive about Intel here. I thought that even maybe the most hardcore AMD zealot would applaud Intel's efforts. But I learned today that whatever Intel does, it won't be appreciated.

It's very, very sad to see that a post about how much a company contributes to aid a tragedy is seen as "provoking" or "flamebait".

 

[GTaudiophile]

Yeah, the level of supposed brand loyalty here is sometimes sickening.

I made the smartest purchase in the world by buying brand x and it's better than anything else on the market, so you better not bad-mouth it!

 

[Wingznut]

Guys, don't bother replying to this thread any more. Just let it die.

You may now resume your normal rehashing of the tired emulators.com article, the inaccurate geek.com ("inaccurate geek.com".... seems redundant) report about how Intel only has two fabs, and the completely unbiases vanshardware report about how the P4 throttles under a load. Or open up theinquirer and post about whatever mythical "facts" they are providing today (say, isn't it about time for another installment of "Dell to start carrying AMD"?)

I'm done here.

 

[Windogg]

Intel is not evil. They are a business and their aim is to remain a going concern. People think AMD is a saint? Get real. If they were at the level of Intel they would do everything to stay on top.

Company bashing is dumb. Bash products if they stink but being a brand zealot is pointless. I wonder how many AMD fanboys pissed on the K6-2 line back in the day?

Fact remains. Intel is #1 in the world which makes them a handy target. AMD is not even in the top 10 when it comes to world semis.

Windogg

 

[shathal]

A lot of people seem to have here rather extreme views. Evil tongues could call such "zealots".

Ah well - I suppose an attempt at trying to have a moderate point of view (I am sure WingZ would happily agree that not all with Intel is Feasts & Roses) seems rather difficult to find in a place like this.

Shame really

BTW - thanks for all those select few AT people who prove me wrong & keep a moderate & sensible point of view. I don't mean to say "you are now all to love Intel". What I would prefer seeing is to simply be more reasonable .

 

[Ramius]

My gf says I'm evil, but I did give $$ to the Red Cross. Same thing isn't it?

 

[shathal]

You mean a Love/Hate relationship?

Hrmmm. I'm not sure Pabster (for instance - don't mean to be pointing fingers here. There's enough ... "devout followers" of all flavours around. Some may even call me one - so heh ) would like me indicating that he actually likes Intel, if your trail of thought is followed ...

 

[WilsonTung]

Old Fashioned Arguments! - Coke vs. Pepsi

If you guys want an old fashioned brand loyalty fight, check out the above thread. btw - Pepsi sux.

 

[Pabster]

shathal wrote:

"Hrmmm. I'm not sure Pabster (for instance - don't mean to be pointing fingers here. There's enough ... "devout followers" of all flavours around. Some may even call me one - so heh ) would like me indicating that he actually likes Intel, if your trail of thought is followed ..."

Well, I certainly don't hate Intel. They've made some real advances in the industry. Am I disappointed with their latest products? Yes. But I'm as hopeful as anyone that Northwood will change all that, at least for the next couple months.

There are very, very few companies on the 'Hate' list. Even VIA doesn't get on that list.

 

[NesuD]

<< As someone pointed out in a pm to me, "80% of peeps here own AMD"... Even though a negative post would garner several responses, I guess it's not a good idea to post anything positive about Intel here. I thought that even maybe the most hardcore AMD zealot would applaud Intel's efforts. But I learned today that whatever Intel does, it won't be appreciated. >>


Look here Wingznut I think it is wonderful that Intel and it's employees came through in such a big way after the 9/11 disaster. The fact that you titled your thread "Intel is evil" makes me assume though that you were trying to light a fire. The fact is that hundreds of other companies and organizations came through in a big way just like yours did. That doesn't change the way they do business though and it certainly doesn't excuse the anticompetitive practices that intel has been guilty of. While it is the right and responsibility of every company to maximize their profits there are ethical and legal limitations to how far they can go in that attempt. This isn't to say that Intel has broken any laws in it's business dealings, i am far from qualified to make that judgement, Intel has without doubt manipulated and interfered with the development of technologies and standards to fit it's business plan. While they may technically not be in any violation of the law they have definately walked very close to the edge many times. I personally have a negative opinion of Intels business practices over the years. Primarily the way they price gouged on their processors when they were the only real game in town. They do make very good cpu's though and their pricing has become much more reasonable now that the competition has forced them to. Still can't forget those 233mmx pentiums for over $1000 though. Not trying to rundown your employer here just trying to point out to you why your thread title wasn't a very good way to get the charity message across. I think it is great that you are proud of your company I am proud of mine to but my pride is in the accomplishments of my coworkers and myself not the corporate cutthroats in the corner offices who get all the credit for what we make happen.