"Intel is evil!"

[NateSLC]

Wingznut

I do not think Intel is evil. However, I will not purchase or recommend a purchase of an Intel CPU until it's price and performance are more in line with the competition. Of their other products I have only heard rave reviews, however they are still usually costly and you can usually find a 'better value'. Of course this is my opinion only.

I think that your efforts to paint Intel in as good or better light than the competition because of their donations is misplaced. Donations from large companies have more to do with marketing than warm and fuzzy feelings. Donating large sums of money can do more than fancy commercials. It gives the consumer yet another reason for brand loyalty. It's good marketing, plain and simple, and also another reason that capitolism works to benefit all.

To answer your comment about how AMD would be praised here for donating X amount of dollars, I would agree. However, considering AMD's current financial state (compared to Intel), it would be praiseworthy. AMD does not have the large coffers that Intel has. We will have to wait until the financial difference between AMD and Intel is negligible before we start comparing which has the most community support value.

 

[formulav8]

<< 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. >>




I am disappointed in you Pez for starting this thread.

 

[majewski9]

I dont care how much money Intel has to donate. They still are still evil when it comes to business. They control the market by name, over pricing, slander, law suits, under pricing, illegal contracts, and down right dirty tactics. They are just as dirty as microsoft! I mean did you hear that Intel told compaq that winXP couldnt come with any AMD notebook? or how they sued VIA for making athlon chipsets? How about their alliance with the ultra evil company Rambus? I mean gimme a break Intel. They know AMD is making some serious headway since Intel cant make a CPU with price/performance worth a damn.

AMD donates millions a year to various organiztions and I am sure they helped with sept. 11 charities.

 

[JellyBaby]

What Wingznut said about no one here (including me) recognizing the good in Intel's contributions is true. All else equal Intel should be praised for the money it has given to those in need.

 

[CTho9305]

<< I dont care how much money Intel has to donate. They still are still evil when it comes to business. They control the market by name, over pricing, slander, law suits, under pricing, illegal contracts, and down right dirty tactics. They are just as dirty as microsoft! I mean did you hear that Intel told compaq that winXP couldnt come with any AMD notebook? or how they sued VIA for making athlon chipsets? How about their alliance with the ultra evil company Rambus? I mean gimme a break Intel. They know AMD is making some serious headway since Intel cant make a CPU with price/performance worth a damn.

AMD donates millions a year to various organiztions and I am sure they helped with sept. 11 charities. >>



please support ALL of the above statements with EVIDENCE from "reliable" sources. Do not cite "The Register" or "The Inquierer", since those are both about 99.9% bs.

 

[apoppin]

<< Opinions on Intel's "goodness" is not a General Hardware specific post >>



Agreed. This does belong in OT. And it only serves to start another flame war. Also, coming from an Intel employee it brings into question "motivation".

Finally, almost all big corporations give to charity . . . there is a tax advantage plus "good-will" and free advertising (although I am not calling into question any company's charity-giving motive - it is just a common practice and the "right" thing to do).

Finally (I lied before about that "finally"), I have an Intel system (still) and don't consider Intel any more "evil" or "good" than any other big company out to make a (big) buck.

 

[Rectalfier]

I applaud Intel's efforts. I'm sure AMD would do the same, but they are losing money right now, because Intel is pushing their ASP's down using a high megahurtz processor with low IPC. I don't think that's evil, but I do look down upon it.

 

[BagFace]

your right Intel isnt evil, Micro$haft is

 

[Snoop]

GTaudiophile:


<< 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. >>


Wow, thats amazing. Multiple friends of yours, AMD CPU's died within 1 year?....... I have built a good deal of amd, as well as Intel systems, and have NEVER once seen a properly installed CPU, of less than 2-3 years old, with functional cooling, quit working. I have seen PS's die, Fans die, Motherboards die, memory die, soundcards die, hard drives die, video cards die, but never a cpu. I am not saying that it doesnt happen, but it would be phenomenal event IMO, if it happened to multiple friends of yours.

 

[smp]

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?

The fact that a third of the money came from the employees just kills it for me.
I work for CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce).. I work at the bottom (both literally and symbolically), I am a student. Every year around christmas time, they come around with these United Way brochures and we get to sit in on a long video about some poor people who don't have christmas, or are on drugs or whatever. This is all very heartbreaking.
I then go on to look around at the people who are condemned to work in the bowels of the bank for the rest of their usefull life. Pretty much all of them come from a small, poor or wartorn country. I know them well, these people are real people. I also come from such a country (although, it wasn't always like that) and I know how it is.
Now, CIBC wants all of us people, to dig deep, we aren't getting christmas bonuses this year (because of the failing economy) even though they just spent billions buying out the Canadian branch of Merril Lynch (sp?). Business is business though right.
When all of these people are exposed to this United Way propaganda (because that's what it is, I'm using the term objectively here) they are faced with this misery (maybe they can relate, who knows) so many of them do go ahead and contribute a certain amount per paycheque to the United Way.
CIBC will in turn, go on to say that they have raised XXX.XXX.XXX amount of money for the United Way.. all hail CIBC.
Now all of these generous CIBC employees (and where I work they really don't make much) don't get christmas bonuses, have pink slips (CIBC just laid off 2000 people) hanging over their heads and are x dollars poorer a month so that CIBC can gloat about what an amazing charity presence they are. Fvck that sh!t. If I'm going to give to charity, I go to the goddamned homeless shelter and do it my damned self. I can head over there with cans of food, dishes, money, whatever, and I did it. No corporate conglomerate is going to take my contributions and call them their own.


I'de like to add to my list of hated corporations;
ALL OF THEM

Thank you.
Yes I have read Ayn Rand, plenty of it. Ayn Rand is not my only reading material however.
*(I'de like to note; the model that the Objectivitists call capitalism is far removed from this Imperialism that we have today. There is quite a bit of coercion that is involved with modern day business practices and foreign policies. The free market? Doesn't look so free to me.)Nobody should own anybody else. What we have here is Imperialism, same as it ever was. Imperialism and slavery in the form (euphamism) of globalization, profit, trade. A corporation is allowed to transcend borders to find better deals on wages, taxes and environmental laws. Why can't people transcend borders to find a better wage? a better environment? That is true globalization, a true "free market". No, we must keep the power here, that is the only way to stay on top.


I am a trade barrier. I am not entitled to affordable medication because that would be a trade barrier and would infringe on some corporation's profits as described in the WTO. Who are the WTO and who elected them?

Someone (bingbong?) up there called Gates a communist. I find this a totally empty statement. Calling someone a commnist nowadays is akin to calling someone "the devil" .. or .. ."evil" .. or "crazy".. Well, there are parts of the world where people use the term capitalist with the same intentions. I, for the record, am not a communist, so nobody try to throw a blanket over what I've said by calling me a "pinko, commy socialist".
I don't subscribe to any religion, politrick, state or CORPORATION. I'm in it for me.
United States of ME.. thank you.


Does anyone know the proper procedure to have your home designated as an independant entity, a soveriegn body if you will?

 

[MadRat]

Large corporations expect employees to donate, and even track, funds given to the United Way Fund.

I'll never give to the United Way Fund. Enough said.

 

[Bluga]

and those who are at the top of corporation sit and wait for praise from media while those at the bottom are the ones doing work.

 

[Zebo]

Public Relations Wings. And who ever said anyone other than MS was evil?

 

[Degenerate]

Yield, You seem to not able to see things from the business point of view. The idea to to maximise profits. peroid.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

The fact Intel has to give money to look good proves they are evil look at M$(bill gates) and Apple, they both give money to various stuff and they are the kings of evil, Intel is the prince of all evil. You guys should donate all your assets, not that wuld be a smart thing to do

 

[Midnight Rambler]

<< << I dont care how much money Intel has to donate. They still are still evil when it comes to business. They control the market by name, over pricing, slander, law suits, under pricing, illegal contracts, and down right dirty tactics. They are just as dirty as microsoft! I mean did you hear that Intel told compaq that winXP couldnt come with any AMD notebook? or how they sued VIA for making athlon chipsets? How about their alliance with the ultra evil company Rambus? I mean gimme a break Intel. They know AMD is making some serious headway since Intel cant make a CPU with price/performance worth a damn.

AMD donates millions a year to various organiztions and I am sure they helped with sept. 11 charities. >>



please support ALL of the above statements with EVIDENCE from "reliable" sources. Do not cite "The Register" or "The Inquierer", since those are both about 99.9% bs. >>

Right as you are, I don't think anyone will be able to satisfy your requirements.

The certain "myths" about Intel that are accepted here as gospel truth are so ingrained that even when the truth is in front of someone they cannot see it.

Such as the myth about Intel "overcharging" for CPUs all these years. What they ignore is the fact that the major reason for the drop in ALL CPU prices is because manufacturing volumes of CPUs are many times more than they were 5 years ago, even 3 years ago. The cost of a fab and its equipment is a fixed price, and if you're only producing 5 million chips versus 30+ million chips, you have to charge more per chip, no matter what company you are. Also, most of the youngsters who buy in to this myth are totally unaware of the fact that prior to the last couple years' price wars, Intel even then always cut CPU prices on a regular basis, at minimum once every quarter. Yet there are people who will insist that Intel only started cutting prices once "AMD forced them to."

I can, however, understand the DIYer's frustration. Intel has chosen to direct the bulk of its production to its closely allied OEMs, leaving fewer chips for the retail CPU market thereby making their boxed CPUs quite expensive, whereas AMD has pumped the bulk of its production in to the gray market, thereby providing cheap chips for DIYers (the only downside being the 15, 30, and 90 day warranties that come with this). As such, you can still build an AMD DIY system for cheap, whereas it is now cheaper to buy most Intel-based systems from a big OEM, and esp. DELL.

 

[Bluga]

<< The fact Intel has to give money to look good proves they are evil look at M$(bill gates) and Apple, they both give money to various stuff and they are the kings of evil, Intel is the prince of all evil. You guys should donate all your assets, not that wuld be a smart thing to do >>



they do it to reduce the taxes.

sigh, no wonder some ppl are rich while other ppl are "computer enthusiasts".

 

[dszd0g]

<< The cost of a fab and its equipment is a fixed price >>



Midnight Rambler, while that may be true for any particular generation of manufacturing. It is much more expensive to produce .18 or .13 microprocessors than the .25 that was used a few years ago.

Fab 14 which originally produced .25 cost 1.3 billion see here.
Fab 16 which originally produced .25 cost 1.5 billion see here.
I can not seem to find any new plants Intel has built for .18, it seems to cost about $800 million to upgrade a plant to a new process.
Fab 24 which (will?) produce(s) .13 cost approximately $2 billion.
Fab 22 which also does .13 also cost $2 billion, see here.

5 years ago I read a lot of articles that were predicting that it would cost around $10 billion to produce fabs by 2010, we'll see I guess. .Here is an example of such an article. I haven't come across those types of articles in the last couple years. I guess the media lost interest in how much fabs cost to produce. It's actually a lot harder to find that kind of information than I thought it would.

Overall manufacturing costs per CPU do decrease, because of the decrease in die size and increased quantity of microprocessors produced

 

[paulzebo]

Good bye Wingnut. I've enjoyed your contributions to the group.

Just remember its human nature to bash the constant winner. The facts seem to be if Intel/Microsoft/CISCO and others didn't lead the way, typewriters would still be in fashion. I can't say any major corporation is always an Angel, but neither are they always the devil. It would be interesting to have the "bashers" back up their claims and not purchased any Intel products or products which use Intel patents legally licensed to them. We all would be still using a phone with wires and the US mail to communicate. Take Care and good luck

 

[MadRat]

Wingnutz is just young and has let his emotions get the better of him. He'll be back. They always come back. At least the good ones all come back...

 

[pm]

<< Wingnutz is just young and has let his emotions get the better of him. He'll be back. They always come back. At least the good ones all come back... >>

Maybe I've read this wrong, but this seems like a ridiculously patronizing statement that is also not true in my experience. In the past I have seen people from Via, 3Dfx, @Home, Cisco, S3 and Intel post here and they left never to return.

I left and then returned only when several people emailed that a highly technical forum was created. I still find a small but vocal minority of the members that participate in GH to be ignorant of the 'real world', extemely frustrating and very irritating, and I generally avoid posting in GH nowadays and confine myself mostly to HT, FS/FT, Networking, and OS. It's not like I expect people to agree with me, or love Intel, or anything like this. But I often get flamemail at work (not so much recently, but certainly during the first half the year, I accumulated a lovely pile of emails from one (or maybe two) anonymous forum members who were convinced that I'm evil or something. Madrat, several times (twice that I can think of right now) you personally have directly accused me of lying and of being deliberately deceptive. There are few things that annoy me more than being totally honest with someone and then having them accuse me publicly of lying. Other people claim that Intel pays me to be here - which is laughably ridiculous. And if I ever post anything that could be remotely pro-Intel, then I get lovely flame posts reminding me of my 'bias'.

The point of John's (Wingz) post is to remind everyone on here that Intel is not what so many on here seem to think it is. It is a nice place to work, it is an asset to any community that it has a presence in, it's an asset to the United States of America. Two years ago John was a Jeep mechanic and really didn't like his job. Now he is a highly respected fab technician in a state-of-the-art fab and is well compensated for doing a job that he enjoys much more than his prior one. He is understandably thankful to the company that helped make his life happier. I have a similiar story about how I graduated with a British degree and many high-tech companies wouldn't interview me because I didn't have a GPA. Intel has had a similar positive impact on my family's life. Yet at least once a week he (and I) get to read on here is how much the company that we love to work for sucks. And not just "sucks" because that wouldn't be so bad, but that we are evil. That Intel employees are evil, and that our company is evil.

The Intel McKinley processor team spent it's last quarterly 'party' building Habitat for Humanity homes. Intel didn't ask us to do this, we didn't get any publicity for this: this is the first time that I think anyone outside of Fort Collins has heard about this. The webpage about our efforts here doesn't mention anything at all about Intel (that Patrick Mahoney, is me, by the way, and most of the list are Intel employees) and doesn't say that Intel gave us time off of work to spend building homes in Fort Collins without any form of recognition. We have been involved in schools in our community. And the point is not "we are so wonderful" the point is that we do this - usually anonymously - because Intel employees are generally a friendly, intelligent, compassionate group who want to give back to the community. This is not evil. A company is a collection of assets and employees and Intel employees are generally a pretty nice bunch in my experience. I am proud and grateful that I am employed by Intel Corporation.

I don't particularly mind if you prefer not to buy Intel products, but, like John, I am tired of hearing how evil I am, and how evil my co-workers are, and how evil the company that I enjoy working for is.

 

[dowxp]

*sigh* wingz will be missed. thanks to yallllll =\

 

[MadRat]

pm-

John's pm'd me quite a few times because of my critical nature of Intel's marketing practices. The first thing he did was accuse me of being some fifteen year old snotnose. Once he heard the details of my argument then he understood what I was saying. The trouble is he just doesn't have the emotional energy to track down every Intel basher out there. I suggested that he not take criticism of Intel so personally if he expects to survive around here. On a side note, he's disappeared several times in the past only to return.

As far as my viewpoints on Intel, I wish they'd cater to the whole community rather than special considerations of the corporate market. As an American it is my patriotic duty to spend my money on products that are made in the grand ole USA. Like everything else in my life, I try to make decisions based upon homeostasis... balance. Intel's decision making over the last three years has made my decision making very easy.

When the Athlon came out it was the first time that I bought (first-hand) a non-Intel CPU. I've owned AMD K6's and Cyrix's, but got them in two or three way swaps in order to maximize the number of machines in my possession. (I was studying NT at the time.) Clock locking was what initially made me skip Intel for that slot-A Athlon. It was initial pricing of the Intel P4 that made me stick to AMD on the machine after I ditched the Athlon. The cost of P!!!'s and P4's is just ridiculously high in my opinion.

I've had my share of buggy Intel products and never had stability problems with AMD's, so this stability argument I hear from Intel-ze@lots has always been annoying to me. All ze@lotry around here is just plain annoying. I survive it by ignoring it. If John has spent less time reacting to it and more time talking about the things he enjoys then he'd probably still be here.

 

[Phuz]

pm-

Very well said.

But like MadRat is saying, I agree that this isn't something that Wingz should take personally, at all.

I can understand that he must be pretty emotionally attached to the company who helped him so much, at work, at home, in quality of life.
I'd feel the same way too however, but like MadRat is saying, I agree that this isn't something that Wingz should take personally, at all.

 

[WilsonTung]

Madrat:

<< As an American it is my patriotic duty to spend my money on products that are made in the grand ole USA. Like everything else in my life, I try to make decisions based upon homeostasis... balance. Intel's decision making over the last three years has made my decision making very easy >>



AMD Athlon: Gebildet in Deutschland