FTC sues Intel over alleged anticompetitive tactics - Page 2

Apple is mentioned as a "Tier One OEM", and is bunched together with the top names. How much of this was Apple involved in? Was Apple a victim? Number 54 below is rather juicy.

"49. Hewlett-Packard/Compaq, Dell, IBM, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer/Gateway, Sun, Sony, NEC, Apple, and Fujitsu are the largest OEMs in the world (“Tier One OEMs”). Tier One OEMs account for over 60 percent of the computers with CPUs in the relevant markets. Intel has prevented or limited the sale of non-Intel CPUs to these Tier One OEMs...

50. Because of Intel’s actions and threats, certain Tier One OEMs reasonably feared that purchasing too many non-Intel CPUs would expose their companies to retaliation from Intel...

51. Intel took advantage of its monopoly power and induced and/or coerced certain Tier One OEMs to forgo adoption or purchases of non-Intel CPUs, or to limit such purchases to a small percentage of the sales of certain computer products...

54. Intel used OEMs that were exclusive to Intel to discipline and punish OEMs that chose to deal with Intel’s competitors. Intel gave OEMs that agreed to buy CPUs exclusively from Intel the best pricing, supply guarantees in times of shortage, and indemnification from patent liability relating to the patent litigation initiated by Intergraph against several OEMs. Intel also offered these OEMs a slush fund of hundreds of millions of dollars to be used in bidding competitions against OEMs that offered non-Intel-based computers. These payments were contingent on the OEMs purchasing CPUs exclusively or nearly exclusively from Intel..."

Apple should switch to AMD, or probably go the full length and switch to ARM.

Geez, you're so fixated on this. It's really no big deal if the pricing isn't much more than the Core2Duo part, the package size is the same and you can turn off the GPU part to not use power beyond the memory controller portion. With Sandy bridge they'll even be on the same die.

It's 45nm because it is a low end and cheapo part and for non-gamers it works okay. The Clarkdale GPU is faster than the X4500HD, does DX10 + shader model 4.0, and can do dual stream HD decoding, dual HDMI and 12 bit color. It does blue ray audio bitstreams correctly and you don't need to buy a Radeon HD 5870 to do so. It's not a GPU as much as a media processing unit. All the enhancements beyond making Aero not suck has been improvements in media playback support.

It's like whining that every motherboard comes with ethernet now.

Well, I guess if those motherboards are made by various companies then ethernet's okay. Oops! Wait, since the chipset is all Intel I guess your ethernet's all from Intel*.

*Or ethernet chip suppliers which have to work with Intel chipsets.

To be honest, I'm not as psycho as I sound, just bored. People at work are idiots so I don't hang out with them on my off days... I have friends, I swear... *sniff* *now you made me cry*

If by 5 to 10 frames per second you mean, then I guess it *does* DX10... I see bundleGate has pulled the wool over your eyes. See the FTC document on Intel's "miselading statements". Why do they even need to bother mentioning DX10 and Shader model 4.0? You can't do anything with DX10 and Shader model 4.0 on a X4500HD (or whatever is in Clarkdale or Arrandale) - the frame rates will be way, way too low, for sure. It's pure, unadulterated marketing candy floss. Maybe Aero might have something to do with DX10, I could be mistaken.

*sigh. long boring day today*

Why? Are you desperate for inferior performance?

Apple should doing exactly what they do now. Use Intel cpus and avoid the Intel IG for the desktops and laptops. ARM for the iPhones and iPods.

AMD is getting better but for the machines that Apple make Intel are still better. ATI gpus are good at the moment and Apple can and do use them.

ARM is fine for the iPhones/ipods but are you suggesting they be used for anything else?

I agree, I still think Apple should use Intel CPUs for desktops and laptops, Clarkdale and Arrandale are going to bring the next step up of performance-per-watt. I *am* curious to see if Apple will have to do what Vinea says, accept the CPU as it is and simply "disable" the integrated GPU on the chip.

However, the problem was that you could not cram a dual-core or dual-processor PowerPC G5 into a laptop or an iMac (both of which are far more popular than the Power Mac G5/Mac Pro). Also, the PowerPC G5 wasn't getting any faster at that point. The fastest PowerPC G5 required liquid-cooling because it was so damn hot, and eventually the liquid-cooling system failed destroying the computer.

Huh?


It's not about whether Apple is happy or unhappy in their relationship with Intel, or whether they wish to participate in the suit. It's about the FTC sending a subpoena to key people at Apple and asking them to explain in depositions their change from a competitor of Intel to a customer of Intel.

I completely agree with the switch to Intel. Never meant to suggest otherwise. My only point was that I am not seeing a significant improvement in speed for a newer Intel machine with a processor of similar speed. I do look forward to a machine that does not affect my air-conditioning bill!

Aero only requires DX9 but there's no reason not to do DX10 and SM 4.0 given it's already in the X4500/X4500HD. It's faster so there are probably some low end DX10 games that will work. Not every DX10 game will be Crysis or World In Conflict. Civ 4 is a DX9.0c title for example but not in the same league as any DX9 FPS game. Having geometry shading can be useful even for games without a high FPS requirement.

Most AAA titles will be DX10 soon...even the non-frame rate heavy genres. Heck LOTROL and D&DOL support DX10 effects.

Here's Counter Strike Source bench comparing the GMA4500 and the HD 3470.

http://www.overclock.net/laptops-not...ma-4500-a.html

So, for very light gaming the intel part is okay. For flash games it probably doesn't matter at all.

For the MBPs the IGP is weaker than the 9400M that it currently uses for low power mode and adding a discrete GPU in the 13" might be a little annoying but a custom Arrandale part? At this late date? They might as well wait for Sandy Bridge. There's no way they'll get the IGP portion removed in any scenario that makes any economic or schedule sense if the objection is this late in the game.

Maybe for the MBA the custom part was reasonable given the lead times. But the only thing this does is make the MBP line up really "pro" across the whole line up if they all have discrete graphics. They can certainly spin that to their advantage.

AND can't right now. Intels price slashing lead AMD to do the same thing. This forced AMD to also lowering their prices, again, top of the line was about $350-$400. Meanwhile AMD lost a lot of money and ended up selling their Dresden wafer fab which was intels intent.

What we can hope for are legal proceedings that lead to AMD getting the rights to work on the duo core. Then they can make some money again, come up with something even more effecient, yet powerful then Apple has machines from both companies perhaps lowering the price of their machines as chip prices drop and finally? The long awaited mid range, headless mac pro for the millions if ProSumers out there from gaming ( boot to windows, any graphic card), musicians, millions that can run software from both platforms and of course for some excitement, throw in a bios mode so over clockers can tweak the machings memory timings, front side bus, and CPU mulitiplyer, allowing for extreme speeds. Apple would dominte in like a heart beat. Millions of customers, gamers and semi entertainment folks out there would love their own gpu, over clocking a mac, editing, ethusiasts, audio production.

It would be quite huge. AMD just needs a break and a breakthrough.

Also, OT, read a few weeks ago, 1000 cores should be out in a few years by this MIT of company. AMD should by that company as they wouldnhave the nada to release a 64 core for a duo core price. That's what I loved about them.

P