Computex 2017: AMD Press conference on Threadripper and X399

#5437969 Posted on: 05/31/2017 10:00 PM

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EPYC far more epic than EPIC...

While AMD spells it "EPYC", I can't help but think that this is yet another jab in the eye to Intel, because when Itanium was launched Intel named the architecture line "EPIC"... Itanium was a huge, new-architecture beast that required new hardware standards and a new OS, and I read recently that Intel had just launched its *last* EPIC cpu version (Itanium)... So just as EPIC dies off to due to a lack of market interest--despite the $billions of dollars Intel put into it over the last decade +, EPYC from AMD--a fully viable, 100% x86 compatible monster cpu is born! I am loving the irony! EPYC will go where EPIC never could.

EPIC, or Itanium, was what Intel planned for the entire global market, desktop and server, in terms of 64-bit computing, if you will recall. Intel even launched an ad campaign, believe it or not, entitled, "Why You Don't Need 64-bits on the Desktop," etc. When it became clear to Intel that the global market had rejected EPIC and adopted x86-64 from AMD (With DDR-SDRAM instead of the far more expensive RDRAM Intel was peddling) it threw in the towel and licensed x86-64 from AMD and thus Core 2 was born, and we know the history after that. (Had AMD not suffered extreme lapses in top management post the A64, something like Ryzen would have happened many years before it did--in terms of the competitive impact it would have had. That is water over the dam now--AMD is on track and has clear direction once again. I still cannot believe how versatile and multi-talented Lisa Su is! No "empty suit, bean-counter" is she!)

You would have thought that Intel would have realized that the already-well defined global x86 computing marketplace was not about to dump x86 Windows and x86 hardware standards (most of them established by Intel, in another bit of irony) and *all* of the existing x86 software base--for the dubious pleasure of paying through the nose for EPIC/Itanium and Rdram hardware/software to *completely replace* all of its existing hardware and software (with yet-to-be-written brand-new EPIC software and/or running x86 software through a dog-slow x86 software emulator on top of Itanium!)

Had Intel succeeded in converting the world markets to EPIC/Itanium back then, right after Core1--well, I shudder to think--as Intel's monopoly would have been nearly complete and iron clad--Intel had even *announced* that it was licensing the *EPIC/Itanium bus* to *nobody*! Had the company's corner-the-market-approach actually worked back then--there would be but one CPU company left--Intel, and nobody else. AMD has, in contrast, an x86 Pentium bus license (that AMD never used since it was a 32-bit license, among other things) that it got through the cross-licensing deal with Intel, a deal that gave Intel in return its x86-64 license--which was the foundation of Core 2 and all of Intel's 64-bit desktop x86 computing ever since.

I could talk about those days, long ago, at length--about how, when AMD first announced the original Athlon, that Intel launched a campaign of intimidation and threats against companies like Asus--telling these previously Intel-exclusive OEMs that if they picked up anything from AMD--anything at all--namely motherboard production based on AMD chipsets and Athlon cpus--that Intel *could no longer guarantee* these OEMs with the ongoing availability of Intel parts in the future...

Yes, it was that crude and rude in the beginning--Intel was determined to snuff AMD out before it could get started. Fortunately, the OEMs unanimously banded together and jabbed Intel in the eye again and *ramped up* their AMD supporting hardware production, instead of ceasing! When that backfired, then Intel resorted to paying OEMs of all types *not to sell* any AMD products, but to sell Intel exclusively--and the only OEM who actually followed Intel 100% was...*DELL* believe it or not. Dell remained an Intel-exclusive OEM for many years *after* the Athlon and the A64 had stolen the show, and from what I recall of those days Intel was paying DELL *a fortune* in kickbacks and in many a quarter in those days absorbing *a loss*--which screwed up Dell's real balance sheets big time--it was a big, big mess in those days.

Anyway--all that is long behind us--Intel settled AMD's monopoly suit and paid AMD a cool $1B in cash, but far more importantly, imo, Intel agreed in writing to never again commit anti-competitive acts such as paying OEMs not to sell AMD products, threatening them with parts retaliation if they sold AMD as well as Intel, etc.

Back in those days it was an epic struggle indeed--with Intel pulling out all of the stops to destroy a competitor just as it had successfully done with every single would-be x86 cpu competitor that ever existed--apart from AMD. AMD is the only x86 cpu company to not only challenge Intel and live to talk about it, but a competitor to Intel who has bested Intel on the high end of x86 performance many times to date! AMD stands alone in that category, and that is why I support them as I do. Competition that makes Intel huff and puff with effort to keep up is competition the x86 cpu market needs desperately, but in perpetuity. Looks like this go-around that AMD is here to stay as Intel's fiercest competitor--it's an EPYC struggle, indeed.

(Apologies for the lack of brevity here--I got carried away...!)