From: Yousuf Khan on
On 8/6/2010 6:14 PM, Robert Myers wrote:
>> It hasn't said that you need to keep the slots around, just the bus.
>> That means GPUs can be soldiered onto motherboards using PCIe lines
>> directly.
>>
>
> I *knew* you'd say that. Let's see what happens.
>
> Robert.
>

That's the way discrete graphics in laptops are done anyways. Have you
ever seen a video card for laptops, either from ATI or Nvidia? The
mobile video "cards" are really just part of the motherboard. Plus Atom
systems will still need PCIe lines, because all modern PC-Card (formerly
PCMCIA) peripherals are direct extensions of the PCIe interfaces.

Yousuf Khan
From: Yousuf Khan on
On 8/6/2010 6:38 PM, Robert Myers wrote:
> On Aug 6, 6:11 pm, Yousuf Khan<bbb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> What this is supposed to be a form of derision from you? News is always
>> about yesterday's news.
>>
>> Even optical interconnects are yesterday's news. Why not just wait for
>> quantum interconnects?
>
> But you were just telling me that optical interconnects wouldn't
> happen for ten years. How could that be yesterday's news?

At some point everything is yesterday's news compared to some other news.

> Let's put it this way. AMD and nVidia have just built the Maginot
> Line of computer technology, and you are offering tours.

Speaking of yesterday's news.

Yousuf Khan
From: Robert Myers on
On Aug 6, 8:44 pm, Yousuf Khan <bbb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 8/6/2010 6:38 PM, Robert Myers wrote:
>
> > On Aug 6, 6:11 pm, Yousuf Khan<bbb...(a)yahoo.com>  wrote:
>
> >> What this is supposed to be a form of derision from you? News is always
> >> about yesterday's news.
>
> >> Even optical interconnects are yesterday's news. Why not just wait for
> >> quantum interconnects?
>
> > But you were just telling me that optical interconnects wouldn't
> > happen for ten years.  How could that be yesterday's news?
>
> At some point everything is yesterday's news compared to some other news.
>
> > Let's put it this way.  AMD and nVidia have just built the Maginot
> > Line of computer technology, and you are offering tours.
>
> Speaking of yesterday's news.
>

And yesterday's wars. Maginot Line was ineffective because it
prepared for a war that was already over.

Robert.

From: Yousuf Khan on
On 06/08/2010 11:13 PM, Robert Myers wrote:
>>> Let's put it this way. AMD and nVidia have just built the Maginot
>>> Line of computer technology, and you are offering tours.
>>
>> Speaking of yesterday's news.
>>
>
> And yesterday's wars. Maginot Line was ineffective because it
> prepared for a war that was already over.

I'll agree with part of that historical sentiment. The PCIe ruling was
mainly a sop to Nvidia because Intel was crippling the performance of
Nvidia GPUs within its latest PCIe chipsets. That's basically just a
little skirmish in a long drawn-out, multi-front war. It's a battle that
might have already finished, for all we know. However, unlike the case
of the WW2-era French Maginot Line, which was a lesson learned from a
previous major war, but this lesson made France complacent about its
defenses, this thing does the opposite. It takes a lesson from a
previous minor skirmish and completely surrounds and shackles Intel. In
other words, it's the reverse of the Maginot Line, it is an
over-reaction against Intel. As you said, Intel is now obligated to keep
carrying PCIe for several more years (which it probably would've done
anyways), but now it must clear its changes with its rivals (which it
would've never done).

Yousuf Khan

***

"Section V. is one of the most interesting, it puts some serious
handcuffs on Intel. All while forcing them to dig a hole deep enough for
light not to reach the bottom. And sit there. Smiling. What V. says is
that any time Intel makes a change, basically any change, that degrades
the performance of another competitor, Intel has to prove that it was
done for technically beneficial reasons.

Remember the part about PCIe changes that allegedly hamstrung Nvidia
GPUs? Well, if that happens again, the burden of proof is now on Intel
to show why they did it. Mother hen is getting jittery from all that Red
Bull, and is looking for someone to hit. Hard. Intel has to climb out of
the hole, feed the hen Valium, and then dance. Fast. And look pretty
while doing it, or WHAM."
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/08/06/more-intel-dirt-cleaned-ftc/
From: Robert Myers on
On Aug 7, 2:14 am, Yousuf Khan <bbb...(a)spammenot.yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 06/08/2010 11:13 PM, Robert Myers wrote:
>
> >>> Let's put it this way.  AMD and nVidia have just built the Maginot
> >>> Line of computer technology, and you are offering tours.
>
> >> Speaking of yesterday's news.
>
> > And yesterday's wars.  Maginot Line was ineffective because it
> > prepared for a war that was already over.
>
> I'll agree with part of that historical sentiment. The PCIe ruling was
> mainly a sop to Nvidia because Intel was crippling the performance of
> Nvidia GPUs within its latest PCIe chipsets. That's basically just a
> little skirmish in a long drawn-out, multi-front war. It's a battle that
> might have already finished, for all we know. However, unlike the case
> of the WW2-era French Maginot Line, which was a lesson learned from a
> previous major war, but this lesson made France complacent about its
> defenses, this thing does the opposite. It takes a lesson from a
> previous minor skirmish and completely surrounds and shackles Intel. In
> other words, it's the reverse of the Maginot Line, it is an
> over-reaction against Intel. As you said, Intel is now obligated to keep
> carrying PCIe for several more years (which it probably would've done
> anyways), but now it must clear its changes with its rivals (which it
> would've never done).
>
>         Yousuf Khan
>
> ***
>
> "Section V. is one of the most interesting, it puts some serious
> handcuffs on Intel. All while forcing them to dig a hole deep enough for
> light not to reach the bottom. And sit there. Smiling. What V. says is
> that any time Intel makes a change, basically any change, that degrades
> the performance of another competitor, Intel has to prove that it was
> done for technically beneficial reasons.
>
> Remember the part about PCIe changes that allegedly hamstrung Nvidia
> GPUs? Well, if that happens again, the burden of proof is now on Intel
> to show why they did it. Mother hen is getting jittery from all that Red
> Bull, and is looking for someone to hit. Hard. Intel has to climb out of
> the hole, feed the hen Valium, and then dance. Fast. And look pretty
> while doing it, or WHAM."http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/08/06/more-intel-dirt-cleaned-ftc/

The irony of all of this, Yousuf, is that you wouldn't even have this
playground if it weren't for the aggressive behavior of two upstart
monopolists: Microsoft and Intel. IBM, the once-invincible
monopolist, never saw it coming. IBM survived, but it almost didn't.

If it can happen once, it can and almost certainly will happen again.
Maybe the mass market for uber expensive PC's will dry up, and the
future is ARM and Ubuntu. Maybe the server space and even HPC will
become dominated by specialized CPU's that only do some jobs
exceedingly well and others not at all. Right now, the business is
sufficiently capital and research intensive that it favors
monopolists, but the technology is maturing and on its way to being
commoditized.

Anyone who has observed all this from beginning to end, watching
companies come and go like fireflies flickering in the night, has to
realize that everything is temporary. The interesting question for
someone with such a perspective isn't what fleas like the FTC will do
next, but from which bush the next pit bull will leap out. "I always
say," Caligula opines in I, Claudius, "find a dog who'll eat a bigger
dog."

The bigger dog will come, even if no one knows from where or when. In
the meantime, the sob stories of also-rans just aren't that
interesting.

Robert.
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