"Intel Software Defined Silicon" Coming To Linux For Activating Extra Licensed Hardware Features

[ssokolow]

That's a bit more understandable. When you're buying a large mainframe/server, you think of it less as your property and more as a utility, like water. And just like the city owns and repairs your pipes, the mainframe corporation own and maintain your mainframe for you. Really not much different from the concept the cloud, just a lot clunkier.

This is audacious because your home computer is not a business utility, it literally is your property and you own it when you purchase it and expect to do whatever you want with it whether it's even a sane choice or not.

Actually, I was referring more to things like how, in 1956, the U.S. government sued IBM to force them to allow customers the option of buying their hardware rather than just renting it. These companies have a long tradition of doing things like that.

It's reminiscent of how it used to be illegal to connect non-phone-company hardware to the phone line until they overstepped and tried to use the "could harm the function of the network" argument on an "amplifier" that contained no electronic components and was basically just a reverse ear trumpet that clipped onto the handset.

[ms178]

unfortunately, barring a seriously major security gaffe on the part of intel, no.

Hehe, not all hope is lost then! *thinking of recent security gaffes of Intel*

But seriously, the incentive to crack these mechanisms could attract the best people of the scene.

[Ironmask]

To all those that are saying Intel is "evil" and "greedy", I hate to break it to all of you but the purpose of a business is to make as much money as it can, that's it, within the laws of the country it operates in, of course.

All of Intel's employees, from the highest paid executive to the lowest paid peon, wants to earn as much as they can, they want raises, bonuses, benefits, and some of them probably have a relative or friend that they would like to see hired. The only way this happens is if intel makes money. When they don't they lay off people, like they did a few years ago when they laid off 500 people in one shot.

Think of yourselves at your jobs, you want job security, better pay, better benefits don't you? Well then you want the company you work for to make as much money as they possibly can.

Well then that's a shame, isn't it? Turns out when you employ bad business practices, you get lawsuits and lose customers.
No, the business world isn't "be as greedy as possible", it's "how much can you get away with without pissing off your customers."
Intel is pissing off their customers. And now AMD is getting all their customers. No, this is not "making money".

[quaz0r]

i cant believe linus would accept this bullshit into the kernel

[tildearrow]

AMD is a saint despite scalpers setting exorbitant prices for Ryzen 5000 CPUs and RDNA 2.0 GPUs.

A 128 bit bus, very small die RX 6600 XT for 600 euros? Any time of the week.

There you go.

By the way, not like things on the NVIDIA side are better, so...

[birdie]

There you go.

By the way, not like things on the NVIDIA side are better, so...

Yeah, scalpers are the sole scapegoats of the chip shortage we've had for the past 1.5 years. You've forgotten to add "miners". And then maybe something else.

And of course neither AMD, nor NVIDIA can create a system where GPUs are sold to gamers directly. Oh, wait, they surely can, they just love money more than their customers only NVIDIA doesn't pretend to be "good" while AMD fans scream the opposite. They've mostly stopped however.

[tildearrow]

Yeah, scalpers are the sole scapegoats of the chip shortage we've had for the past 1.5 years. You've forgotten to add "miners". And then maybe something else.

And of course neither AMD, nor NVIDIA can create a system where GPUs are sold to gamers directly. Oh, wait, they surely can, they just love money more than their customers only NVIDIA doesn't pretend to be "good" while AMD fans scream the opposite. They've mostly stopped however.

Miners and the pandemic.

[birdie]

Miners and the pandemic.

And fairies, right. Only it doesn't explain the exorbitant MSRP AMD has set for the RX 6600 XT ($380), die size 237 mm², and a soon to be released XT-less version. This is basically a 2021 alternative to RX 480, die size 232 mm², which was released for $230. Only 65% more expensive.

Must be scalpers again who made AMD set this MSRP. Right.

Again you've just proven that for AMD fans the company is a second coming of Christ no matter what they do or how much they charge. And I've seen more than enough bug reports and issues for their open source drivers, actually a ton more than I've ever had with NVIDIA proprietary "crap".

[oiaohm]

And fairies, right. Only it doesn't explain the exorbitant MSRP AMD has set for the RX 6600 XT ($380), die size 237 mm², and a soon to be released XT-less version. This is basically a 2021 alternative to RX 480, die size 232 mm², which was released for $230. Only 65% more expensive.

Must be scalpers again who made AMD set this MSRP. Right.

RX 480 the 14nm fab price when was a lot cheaper per mm² . 7nm for the RX 6600 XT does have a higher silicon price. TSMC admits to that.

5,700 million transistors for the RX480. 11.06×10^9 transistors for RX6600 Yes that is 11060 million transistors. So almost double the transistor count. At first was to be cheaper for the same design at 7nm vs 14nm this is true. 65% more expensive still means if you made a RX480 at 7nm instead of 14nm it would be cheaper. Double the transistor count of the RX6600XT has not equal double the cost.

7nm per mm² is quite a bit more expensive than 14nm per mm². MSRP uplift by AMD is not AMD being scalpers. Without the silicon supply crunch the price per mm² for 7nm would not have been as bad has been either. Would have been a more reasonable 25% cost uplift.

So what made AMD set their cost higher is cost of production and the fact due to supply issues the jump between nm was not as low cost as AMD was expecting. Yes the pandemic disruption to supply lines of TSMC is part of the reason why the cost uplift was not where it was first projected to be.

https://www.techpowerup.com/276029/t...duct-prices-up
birdie above in 2020 is one of the big o boy that going to ruin my price. AMD use to be able to get volume discounts to get the mm² price down that has gone away. Yes AMD bought their RX480 with volume discount and they bought the RX6600 without volume discount. 65% difference is the effect of a 32% volume discount being removed.

I would say AMD attempted to design the RX6600 to be the same price as the RX480 but due to pandemic and supply crunch altering prices with the big alteration being the removal of volume discount they missed the mark. There is not much AMD can do when FAB increase prices. Yes taking job to another fab does help you when all of them have lifted price due to same issue.

[drakonas777]

How "conveniently" birdie has forgot to mention that 3080Ti with +70% MSRP over 3080 and +15% performance. AMD bad NVIDIA good. Typical birdie. At least AMD's MSRPs are real, not that Ampere MSRP bullshit, e.g. 329 for 3060 which was never would have happened even in non-shortages market.

BTW, 6600XT is still the best price/perf card at the moment. Also, why the f**k are we talking about AMD in this Intel-related thread? Oh, right, birdie has contaminated it with his lies and nonsense.