Once upon a time (specifically in the early 2000s), some manufacturers and OEMs were so terrified of what Intel could do to them if they sold AMD products that they made a ridiculous effort to hide the fact that they did. -a. Motherboard manufacturers delivered plates without their own logos, in white boxes without ornaments. System vendors formatted their product lists for 1024 × 768 at a time when 800 × 600 was the norm. Set the page to 800 × 600, and AMD products would either be pushed down and should be scrolled to see, or even pushed to the side, where you wouldn’t notice them at all if you didn’t see the horizontal scroll bar. Even when AMD beat Intel in performance tests, OEMs would describe Intel-powered systems in ascending terms, while AMD cars were labeled with several pedestrian remarks such as “Good for business and home office.”
I thought this type of behavior was downgraded in the distant past, but it seems to be happening again. We tracked OEM prices as part of our lack of GPU coverage. I was really surprised to see the following at Alienware today. There are a number of issues with this unwanted flashback until 2005, some more immediately visible than others:
Start:
Alienware increases its number of “R” models on the Intel side when Intel launches a new generation of products, but does not treat AMD in an equivalent way. Intel 10th Gen chips sold in Alienware R11 systems. Now, Rocket Lake is sold as Alienware R12. On the other hand, the Ryzen 3950X and 5950X from AMD are sold as R10. This creates the illusion that Intel is advancing, while AMD is not.
The Intel Alienware option offers a “redesigned gaming desktop with 11th generation Intel Core processors, PCI-Express Gen 4 graphics and 80 Plus Gold power options.” The AMD option is described as follows: “High-performance desktop with overclockable AMD Ryzen processors up to 16 cores, 5 cores, designed for creating players.”
There are several differences in how these two products are described to the potential buyer and are not equivalent. Only the Intel system is described as a gaming desktop, even though the Ryzen 5000 matches Rocket Lake’s gaming performance, and Alienware is a gaming provider in the first place. AMD introduced PCI-Express 4.0 in 2019, but it is only mentioned for Intel systems. There is no indication anywhere on the product pages that Alienware uses different power supplies for Intel systems than AMD systems, but only the Intel system gets the head for efficient power.
According to the desktop landing page, the AMD system accepts half the RAM as the Intel system and only offers up to one RTX 3080. Both are fake. AMD Aurora systems can be equipped with 128 GB of DDR4-3400 and an RTX 3090, but you will need to click the “Buy” button. then click on a specific system before Alienware tells you that RTX 3090 and 128GB of DDR4 are both available for AMD systems. At least the RAM upgrade options are listed after you click “Buy.”
Alienware’s Ryzen 9 5900 offers a memory bandwidth of 25.6 GB / s in a single-channel DDR4-3200 configuration. It’s the same as a 2010 Intel Core i7-980X.
In December 2019, you could buy an Intel Alienware Aurora with 64 GB of DDR4-2933 or an AMD system with 64 GB of HyperX Fury DDR4-3200. In April 2021, you can buy an Intel Alienware Aurora R12 with 128 GB of DDR4-3400 or / check notes, an AMD system with 64 GB of HyperX Fury DDR4-3200. Alienware hit Intel from DDR4-2933 to DDR4-3400, but you must have forgotten that the Ryzen 5000 series supports a 1: 1 memory multiplier in DDR4-3600, making it the preferred RAM clock for a high-end system.
Rocket Lake, on the other hand, offers dual channels by default.
Alienware sells its $ 2,700 + Ryzen 9 5900 desktop with 16 GB of RAM in a single channel configuration. Intel desktop systems move to dual-channel RAM for $ 1,900 and retain the configuration later. Only one AMD system offers dual channel memory by default and is the second smallest. The top two options offer single channel configurations by default. If you select a Ryzen 9 5950X as an upgrade to the 5900, the Dell configurator does not upgrade or recommend that you upgrade to a dual-channel memory configuration. It does not recommend to the end user that limiting a 16-core processor to a single memory channel may result in lower performance. There is no charge for switching from 16 GB with a single channel to 16 GB with two RAM channels – Alienware simply does not offer dual channel as default on AMD systems, despite offering it as default on Intel systems.
He’s watching: In the 1990s, one of the easiest ways to improve the performance of an unhappy person’s OEM computer was to check how many PATA cables were connected to the motherboard. Invariably, it would be found that the CD-ROM and the hard disk were connected to each other and then to the motherboard, through a single Parallel ATA (PATA) cable. Connecting components in this way halved performance compared to what could be achieved by using two cables and both PATA connectors that were standard on almost every motherboard.
OEM companies like Dell beloved saving the pathetic amount of money he could put in his pocket, not including an extra cable, even if this made copying data from a CD-ROM to a hard drive much slower than it would otherwise be. Keep in mind that this was exactly the time when everyone installed the software by copying it from a CD-ROM. Companies like Alienware and Falcon-Northwest have become popular because they have promised not to cut corners and trick users into shaving a penny from the bottom line, even if their computers cost more than a desktop PC.
In 2000, my best friend wanted to buy a branded gaming PC, especially with warranty and professional support, so that he would never have to find out that his computer manufacturer cheated him out of upgrades or from performance, using cheap parts. I recommended buying an Alienware. When I helped unpack it, the first thing I did was open the case panel and see if Alienware included two PATA cables, not just one.
They had.
Today – obviously – not so much.
Alienware should shake its head at the idea of charging people $ 3,400 – the minimum price for a Ryzen 9 5950X system – for a boutique PC locked behind memory with a single 16 GB channel without so much warning. We know that dual-channel memory doesn’t cost Alienware more money, because the company allows users to manually select 16 GB of dual-channel memory as a free alternative configuration. We know that the company realizes its importance, because every high-quality Intel desktop has it.
There is no defense to the default delivery of a single-channel RAM configuration in a 12- or 16-core system. There is no justification for offering poorly configured AMD systems, which change an extremely important performance feature at higher prices. Prices from $ 2,000 to $ 3,500 Alienware fees for 12- and 16-core systems should pay for the type of compensation that makes mistakes like this impossible. How much of an additional premium does AMD customers have to pay to receive the appropriate default hardware configurations at each price, as Intel users do?
AMD systems were promoted on the landing page as offering an RTX 3090 as early as January, but were downgraded to RTX 3080 until Intel launched Rocket Lake. Dell did not incorrectly list the maximum supported GPU or maximum RAM configuration on Intel systems during the time it offered the R11 and R12 systems side by side. Both machines have been properly listed as offering up to an RTX 3090 and up to 128 GB of DDR4 RAM. Only the AMD system was listed incorrectly.
If you take a walk through the Wayback Machine, you’ll find that Alienware updates its advertising verbs every time Intel launches a new platform. AMD systems have been described in wood with the same language since mid-2019.
Adding everything
Aside from the single-channel RAM issue, AMD midrange SKUs are quite competitive with Intel systems. It feels despite Alienware, rather than because of what the company does to support a robust market with significant opportunities for customer choice. Any two – damn, three – of these problems can be deleted manually. Combined, they show either an OEM that subtly puts all the weight on Intel’s side of the equation and / or an OEM disinterested in selling well-configured AMD hardware, despite being more than willing to pay for it.
To summarize: Intel products receive updated descriptions, and AMD products do not. Intel products get increases in the number of models, AMD products do not. Intel systems are directly described as “gaming desktops”, while AMD systems are not. Intel Aurora systems are correctly identified as offering PCIe 4.0, while the AMD Aurora R10 has never been promoted as offering PCIe 4.0 in the landing page specification sheet. We checked every instance of WayBack Machine saved since September 2019, as mentioned above. PCI-Express 4.0 support was not important enough to be listed as a reason to buy an AMD computer, but it somehow became a reason to buy an Intel computer.
By listing the “80 Plus Gold” power supply metric for Intel systems, Alienware creates the illusion that these systems are more energy efficient than their AMD counterparts. Please forgive me while I laugh at myself. Rocket Lake is not a bad performer, but you would need an 80 Plus Neutronium power source capable of> 100% efficiency to make its power consumption competitive with the Ryzen 5000.
Intel products receive landing page upgrades to secondary components, such as upgrades from 64 GB to 128 GB of RAM. AMD products do not. The desktop landing page accurately describes “up to” RAM clock speed and capacity for Intel systems, but not for AMD systems. Alienware sells top Intel boxes with dual-channel RAM, but sells state-of-the-art AMD computers in single-channel configurations, even though AMD systems are historically more clock-sensitive. Even if Alienware customers pay a premium, especially to know this kind of thing.
Could it all be an accident? Sure. Alienware may have spontaneously made more than half a dozen mistakes, all of which favored Intel. One of those mistakes may have involved listing the power supply efficiency in a way that makes Rocket Lake look better than Ryzen at a time when Ryzen’s energy efficiency is much better than anything Intel brings to the table. . It is possible that Alienware misrepresented its own product configurations in a way that exclusively and totally favors Intel’s worse target platform.
But is it likely?
Now Read: