Is Intel up to its old tricks regarding the Ryzen launch??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Saw this on OcUK forums(had to edit the last bit of the picture due to an inappropriate sentence):

http://i.imgur.com/ypFMZ3Z.png



Can,anyone from Hexus confirm this??

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads...#post-38753453

[kompukare]

This was quoted in the AT forums but not sourced:

pmurphy8811 1 Day ago
It's upsetting to have to say, but should be said. As an IT Director I have already been approached by an Intel representative to discuss the "special promotions" and "Incentive rebates" that they are willing to offer me for purchasing exclusively Intel powered servers. I was not well received when I explained that I would not be purchasing anything until I see the benchmarks of the new Ryzen (naples) core and compare the cost-to-performance ratio. It was at that point they made it very clear that they would go to great lengths from a financial standpoint to incentivize me to NOT purchase AMD chips.

These are the tactics that were used back in the day that AMD had feared would be used again. Intel offered "loyalty rebates" and other clever promotions to hide the fact that they were paying customers to lock out the competition. I sincerely hope that other IT Directors and all in IT in general do what's best for the industry and choose based off of what's best for the consumer and their environment. The rebates are nice and all, but if we continue to hurt AMD for a small rebate, we destroy AMD's ability to compete and enable Intel to continue their "Tick-Tock" releases and oppressive pricing.

Be aware folks, Intel is scared and is already looking to use their weight and $'s to NOT out innovate, but to obstruct competitions ability to enter the marketplace. Why else would they be contacting and attempting to "Incentivize" customers well before the launch of AMD's server chips in Q2-Q3?

Sorry for the rant, but these past few years from Intel have been terrible from a pricing and tech innovation standpoint. I would hate to see AMD get the shaft after building such a great product over the last 5 years with the help of Jim Keller and AMD architect Mike Clark. They did such a great job turning the CPU division around it should have the ability to be judged on its own merits and not locked out by Intel to prolong the CPU stagnation in the market.

Found the original source:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/amd/amd-fea...ryzen-reprisal
If true, it really does seem like a repeat of Intel's tactics in mid 2000s.
Remember, they settled out of court at the time which means they never were found guilty by a competition authority like the EC unlike Microsoft. Point being, that once found guilty a repeat offence can be dealt swiftly, whereas by the time EC or someone investigates and decides to prosecute and Intel appeal etc. a decade could be gone and anyway what is a $1 billion or so fine, if during that time they've made $10s of billion in profits?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I wonder if anyone from Hexus can comment on this??

[kompukare]

Well to be fair, techsites might be reluctant to say anything. So many places are too friendly to companies these days.
While advertising revenue etc. has always been a big factor, magazines used to have writers like Guy Kewney in PCW who would write rather jaundiced pieces not sub-servant to any advertiser. That's rather rare these days.
Maybe tech journalists need a Techwiki leaks?

[imadaily]

I wonder if this explains the change of tone in Linus Tech Tips...

They seemed kinda excited about it and generally very positive. and then in their most recent WAN show video they were talking about all the useful features of the Intel CPUs (Such as extra PCIe lanes, quad channel memory, brought up a rumour of issues when running very fast memory)
I think that it's completely fair that they talk about these things, but at no point did they say, "But the average user doesn't need any of these things" which to me seems a little bit odd.

Edit:

I guess the first thing we should ask is: "HEXUS, do you have any confidentiality agreements or NDAs in place with intel?"

because if they do have something in place, then legally then they might not be able to disclose whether or not they were asked to review Ryzen in a certain way...

[Phage]

Makes me even keener !

[The Hand]

Makes me even keener !

Me too. The email will only make Intel look bad in general, attempting to meddle in the review process.

Just seen this:

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/56440/...gin/index.html

Intel already cutting Core prices.

[royo]

Sounds a bit too tinfoily to me.

[EndlessWaves]

This is an easy rumour to start and it's from someone known for talking nonsense.

Definitely one for the tin foil hat brigade unless a more reputable source says something.

[DanceswithUnix]

This is an easy rumour to start and it's from someone known for talking nonsense.

Definitely one to for the tin foil hat brigade unless a more reputable source says something.

All sounds pretty run of the mill to me

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=intel+monopolistic+practices

This is quite a good article about what happened last time: https://www.extremetech.com/computin...es-against-amd

Now that is about a 1B Euro fine that took a decade to get through the courts including appeals. So about 100M euros a year, I wonder if that came out of Intel's marketing budget or just pocket change?

[scaryjim]

It's fairly standard practice to "brief" the press about "preferred testing methodology" for one's own products. It'd be a little unusual to do it for a competitor's product, but I certainly wouldn't put it past Intel. Given the figures AMD have come out with ahead of launch for Ryzen - rather cunningly using benchmarks that are popular with reviewers - we've got a fairly good indication of what the benchmarks are going to look like if Ryzen is put up against Intel's comparably-specified and much higher priced HEDT processors.

I'm sure Intel would much rather see Ryzen compared against the i7 7700k, making the argument that it's the closest priced chip to the R7 1700 and the AM4 platform is more comparable to s1151 than s2011. Get plenty of lightly threaded tests in that review and Intel are going to come out looking a lot better. AMD spent a lot more time comparing Ryzen 7 to the 6800k/6900k in their launch event which I'm sure is meant to persuade reviewers to use that as their primary comparison, so I could totally believe that Intel's marketing and PR people may have got on the phone/email to suggest to reviewers that perhaps that's not the fairest comparison...

[Biscuit]

I cant see hexus responding publicly, its just not worth risking their relationship with such high profile companies.

Will be interesting to see the independent reviews and if anything smells a bit... fishy.

[kompukare]

All sounds pretty run of the mill to me
Now that is about a 1B Euro fine that took a decade to get through the courts including appeals. So about 100M euros a year, I wonder if that came out of Intel's marketing budget or just pocket change?

Yes, don't get the tin foil hat comments at all. Surely only people with very short memories who've forgotten Intel's priors for this kind of stuff would not take any sign of Intel doing what they did before as a bad trend.

A court case takes so long and the fines are so small that it is very much worth their while. Since they just pissed $billions on 'contra revenue' and other things to unsuccessfully break into the mobile market, I'm sure the ARM players will be happy if Intel's attention is elsewhere but of course AMD could not withstand a $10 billion onslaught which is what this ExtremeTech article estimates to have been the total:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...-mobile-market

Of course, it is possible that this is not even sanctioned at the top level of Intel just sales people with commissions etc. taking it upon themselves. And even if it were to go to the top, I'm sure there's no internal paper or email trail to prove that.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think I know how the reviews can be swung - lots of software with AVX2 and lots of oldish games and not newer games people will play.

This is OFC assuming AMD gets at least to Haswell level IPC for gaming.

[EndlessWaves]

All sounds pretty run of the mill to me

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=intel+monopolistic+practices

This is quite a good article about what happened last time: https://www.extremetech.com/computin...es-against-amd

Now that is about a 1B Euro fine that took a decade to get through the courts including appeals. So about 100M euros a year, I wonder if that came out of Intel's marketing budget or just pocket change?

As I said, it's an easy rumour to start.

[DanceswithUnix]

As I said, it's an easy rumour to start.

I can't think of another CPU company that the rumour would stick to, Intel only have themselves to blame.