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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday December 08 2016, @08:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the that's-quite-graphic dept.

AMD shares rose to a nearly six-year high [autoplaying video] ahead of its December 13th preview of the company's Zen chips, and amid rumors that AMD will license its integrated graphics technology to Intel:

Nvidia and Intel began suing each other in 2009 over Nvidia's nForce chipsets for Intel CPUs. The suits were eventually settled in 2011: Nvidia agreed not to build chipsets for Intel's Core i7 CPUs, and Intel was free to build graphics cores without getting sued by Nvidia. The price of Intel's freedom was high, though: The chip giant agreed to pay Nvidia licensing fees over the next six years totalling $1.5 billion.

After writing the last $200 million check in January 2016, the licensing deal is winding down, which means Intel has to go shopping for patent protection for its graphics cores. As AMD and Nvidia essentially own the lion's share of graphics patents in the world, developing graphics cores is nigh impossible without licensing deals.

[...] Such a deal wouldn't come cheap, but Intel was already cutting checks of $200 million to $300 million to Nvidia every year. "Intel would have to pony up some significant money to make this deal work," Krewell told PCWorld. "The amount of extra cash AMD could make on royalties would be very appealing to the shareholders."

Fans may be concerned that such a deal would all but give up the last advantage AMD's upcoming Zen-based APUs would have over Intel chips. AMD's Zen core could equal Intel's newest cores in x86 performance. Combine that with AMD's much more powerful graphics cores and you'd have an instant winner. Financial realities, however, overshadow any moral victories. "Is it better to make a royalty on 80 percent to 90 percent of the PC processor shipments or fight it out for the remaining 10 percent or 20 percent?" Krewell said. AMD can make a lot more money partnering with Intel rather than competing.

Also at Nasdaq. Rumor source.


Original Submission

Related Stories

New Details of AMD's Desktop Zen/"Ryzen" Chips Released 24 comments

AMD has released more details about its upcoming desktop CPUs:

For starters, it's no longer referred to by the architectural code-name "Zen," or by the desktop-specific implementation "Summit Ridge." Instead, you'll see those first CPUs show up on store shelves under the "Ryzen" brand. (As in, the company's CPU portfolio is reborn, or risen. Think of that what you will. [However, it is pronounced "Rye-zen".]) For now, it's distinct from the FX moniker, which just doesn't have the enthusiast cachet it did 13 years ago.

New features include:

  • "Pure Power", which monitors temperature, speed, voltage, and power consumption in real time
  • Clock speeds that can be adjusted by 25 MHz steps, rather than the typical 100 MHz increments of previous chips
  • "Extended Frequency Range", an automated system for overclocking when cooling is sufficient
  • A "true artificial network" for preloading instructions and prefetching data

AMD's Ryzen desktop chips are said to be on par with Intel's extreme/enthusiast chips such as the i7-6900K, for around half the price. The release date is still Q1 2017.

Previously: AMD Stock Jumps Ahead of Zen Preview and Licensing Rumors


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:39PM (#438878)

    I for one hope they do not partner in any way shape or form. We've gone from an ecosystem of graphics card manufacturers down to two. I'm sure there are still niche producers, but for general use we have AMD and Intel.

    On a sidenote, I'd love to see open standards and dev tools for people to build their own drivers. Locking things down to specific OSes should be heresy for hardware producers.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:43PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:43PM (#438881)

      As soon as the new administration is in office, Intel can buy AMD to kill the competitor and get the patents they need, with no risk of being stopped.
      If anyone asks, they'll point to ARM as "the real threat to our business".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:45PM (#438883)

      AMD and Nvidia. For integrated GPUs, you are right, and it is Intel and AMD (Nvidia threw in the towel with 7xxx model IGPs, which might have actually been 6150 derived, like their previous IGP options.)

      As far as I know there are no discrete GPU manufacturers left outside of AMD and Nvidia. The final two were the remenants of the Chrome GPU line (from S3?) and the Volari line from whoever that was, and outside of Via's CPU/Motherboard line, both have essentially died out, due to market mismanagement and lack of driver support.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:54PM

      by Arik (4543) on Thursday December 08 2016, @09:54PM (#438886) Journal
      It's the application of patent law that screwed this up, and the continuing application effectively guarantees things can only get worse.

      --
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    • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday December 08 2016, @10:26PM

      by Dunbal (3515) on Thursday December 08 2016, @10:26PM (#438893)

      There were always two, for as long as I can remember. ATI, or Nvidia. And before that, Voodoo/3dfx and S3.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @11:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 08 2016, @11:18PM (#438920)

        AMD (nee ATi), NVidia and Voodoo's 3Dfx marks your age, youngster.

        Back in the day, before 3D became all the rage, there were the likes of ATi, Matrox, S3, Number 9, Cirrus, Trident, SiS, Tseng, and Ned-knows how many other small video chipset & card makers.

        Why I still remember shelling out over $800 for a screaming 4MB Matrox Millennium for my, let's see, must have been a top-end 66MHz Pentium system at the time. Cost me over $1200 for the RAM alone to load that machine up with a jaw-dropping 16MB, it did.

        • (Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday December 09 2016, @03:03AM

          by Dunbal (3515) on Friday December 09 2016, @03:03AM (#438984)

          Marks my age? I remember when Hercules was a thing :)

  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday December 08 2016, @10:23PM

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 08 2016, @10:23PM (#438891) Journal

    What with the collapse in the value of Sterling (which is going to get worse on the run-up to the triggering of Article 50) I won't be able to afford a Zen machine when they come out. Still, my Phenom II X6 1045T (2.7GHz) is still plenty fast, I just want a new toy.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Thursday December 08 2016, @10:26PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 08 2016, @10:26PM (#438892) Journal

    What I hope is that AMD, with its Zen designs, makes some CPUs that are competitive with Intel's chips, in both the server and desktop space.

    This would be great for AMD (and their so-called "fanboys")--finally, back in competition.

    But this would be great for everybody, including Intel's customers--competition driving Intel to better and better products and value.

    There have been a lot of not-Intel chips that I've personally used in PCs over the years... NEC V20, Winchip, Via C3, Transmeta, NexGen Nx586, Cyrix [5,6]x86 (and [D,S]LC), and... AMD. Only AMD remains significant in the CPU market, and that's only significant in the "small minority" sense. I'd like to see that continue and expand for the good of all the market.

    Heck, I'd love to see half a dozen firms designing and building competing CPU chips again (fast ones, not just ARM chips), but the patent minefield probably wouldn't allow that, because it would involve "innovation" which patents kill dead. So I'd like to see *at least* AMD grow and compete, and have some awesome, awesome CPUs shake things up.

    If Zen lives up to its hype speed- and price-wise, I plan to upgrade my main workstation with one on general principle. When Intel makes an incredibly fast, capable chip, it's not a market-shaking event (it's just what they generally do), but when AMD does it... Very refreshing.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday December 08 2016, @10:52PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday December 08 2016, @10:52PM (#438902) Journal

    AMD Zen 8 Core SR7 Flagship To Sell For $499, Boost To 3.5Ghz & Outperform Intel’s $999 i7 5960X [wccftech.com]

    The $349 version has the same 8 cores, but with 3.0/3.2 GHz clock/turbo instead of 3.2/3.5.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09 2016, @01:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 09 2016, @01:00AM (#438948)

      Finally, there is a reason to upgrade boxes.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Friday December 09 2016, @01:38AM

    by RamiK (1813) on Friday December 09 2016, @01:38AM (#438958)

    Intel will get hit all over during 2017:
    Low end: https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=17346¬e=&title=Windows+is+Coming+Back+to+ARM%2C+This+Time+With+32-Bit+x86+Compatibility [soylentnews.org]
    Middle end: Zen.
    High end: Zen and Power.

    And that's what we know for sure regarding due dates. There's rumors brewing around all the new heavy silicon development centers that people attribute to IoT but seem to be recruiting compiler and system devs of the kind you'd need when doing new ISAs rather then just another ARM thumb... Exciting times :D

    --
    compiling...
  • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday December 09 2016, @04:52PM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday December 09 2016, @04:52PM (#439237) Journal

    I really see no reason to upgrade from my FX-8320E as its already insane overkill. I mean I already get between 75-110FPS and that is while recording my gameplay, blow through video transcodes and complex multitrack DSP renders like they were nothing,seriously how much more power can I possibly use?

    And I think that is the problem both AMD and Intel are facing right now, except for a small minority with tasks that require every cycle you can throw at them and those that just want the new hotness for bragging rights most folks simply aren't able to use up all the power the chips AMD and Intel have been putting out for several years. To use a car analogy its like the tasks people have are mid tier sedan level of performance and AMD and Intel have been putting out top fuel dragsters, its just insane overkill. Once AMD and Intel switched from the MHz wars to the core wars? Software just got blown away by the hardware, heck even the gamers just don't need to be bleeding edge anymore. I know several gamers with Phenom II X6s and paired with decent cards they are all quite happy and are staying above 60FPS so what is the point? To go from 100FPS to 120FPS?

    If my system were to die? I would grab a Zen no doubt, but considering the fact that my late father's Phenom I is still purring away at the shop and the wife is using my Phenom II X4 which has ran virtually nonstop since 09? I just don't see that happening anytime soon, nor do I see myself needing more than 8 cores at 4.1Ghz for the jobs I have to do. I gotta give AMD credit in that regard, pair their chips with a decent board and they just never seem to wear out, last I heard my Sempron from 03 is still running 6 days a week, it handles inventory and invoices for a salvage yard down the way.

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    • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Friday December 09 2016, @05:51PM

      by linkdude64 (5482) on Friday December 09 2016, @05:51PM (#439265)

      I think their sales will be good on release, but what to look for will be their success over the first year. I imagine many people are in my situation - with a 5+ year old machine that is showing its age, with retirement on the horizon due to 4k, VR, etc. and now we'll have a much easier time justifying a purchase that will look capable at handling the first several years of that kind of content. Never in my wildest dreams could I see myself justifying a $1000 CPU. A $500 CPU equivalent...? Especially when I can throw a cheaper APU in a decent mobo temporarily to spread out build costs...?