Because Intel and Dell have had a promotional relationship for years, with Intel supporting Dell via MDF funds and other types of support at a level AMD has not. Dell is offering AMD as an option simply because customers have said they want it, but AMD is almost certainly not supporting Dell to the level that Intel is. Dell is not the only system builder on the planet. Don’t like it, don’t buy a Dell. I refuse to buy Dell ever since the Dell laptop I had died and they wouldn’t provide support because I bought it in Canada. Had I bought it in the US, I would have had components replaced because they admitted design faults in a US lawsuit. This didn’t extend to Canada and they told me to go pound salt. Dell makes a garbage product and has terrible consumer support in my experience. If they don’t want to build a decent Ryzen system, I don’t care, because even if they did, I wouldn’t buy it. Stop taking them not supporting AMD personally and just don’t buy their crappy PCs.
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Alienware Really Doesn’t Want You to Buy an AMD Ryzen PC
- Thread starter gigaxtreme1
- Start date
Because Intel and Dell have had a promotional relationship for years, with Intel supporting Dell via MDF funds and other types of support at a level AMD has not. Dell is offering AMD as an option simply because customers have said they want it, but AMD is almost certainly not supporting Dell to the level that Intel is. Dell is not the only system builder on the planet. Don’t like it, don’t buy a Dell. I refuse to buy Dell ever since the Dell laptop I had died and they wouldn’t provide support because I bought it in Canada. Had I bought it in the US, I would have had components replaced because they admitted design faults in a US lawsuit. This didn’t extend to Canada and they told me to go pound salt. Dell makes a garbage product and has terrible consumer support in my experience. If they don’t want to build a decent Ryzen system, I don’t care, because even if they did, I wouldn’t buy it. Stop taking them not supporting AMD personally and just don’t buy their crappy PCs.
So don’t use Dell or Userbenchmark. Both suck, and everyone knows they suck.
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The average consumer doesn't know that. At best the average consumer probably nothing but bad things about AMD for the past decade and know to trust Intel.
I'm just choked that Dell doesn't sell a system with a Threadripper, I mean I know why they can't at this stage because honestly, they would take more orders than AMD could ever hope to fulfill but it still stings because accounting really really hates it when I custom build desktops and workstations.
How was it out of context? You are acting like a petulant child not getting his way to try and buy people into them telling you are right. You are clearly wrong here and I proved it.
Did you read the article?
The average consumer also doesn’t give a crap about AMD vs Intel. The average consumer doesn’t know what a “Ryzen” is, or how it’s different from Intel’s 14nm++++++++ architecture, nor do they care. The average consumer wants to plug their computer in and move on with their lives. For all intents and purposes, the average consumer is going to be perfectly satisfied with either an AMD or an Intel CPU. Most of the time, they probably can’t tell the difference in their daily use case. People concerned about maximizing how many FPS they can pull in CS:GO so they can advertise their E-peen to everyone on the internet have done their research and aren’t buying a PC from Dell. The majority of people simply don’t care, which is why they called Dell in the first place, and it’s not Dell’s responsibility to make them care.
I drive a Hyundai. I’m sure some BMW M3 owner is going to explain to me about how BMW’s engine does blah blah blah, but I don’t care. I get from point A to point B, and I have a satisfactory driving experience despite the fact that a BMW M3 can pull a corner at a much higher speed than my Hyundai. It’s the same thing here.
So if you went to a dealership that sells both BMW and Hyundai and the sales team was only showing BMWs with eco mode on while the Hyundais were allowed to run in sport, (for whatever reasons) you would be ok with that ?
I don't. My desktop is a homebuilt and my laptop is an Asus, so I have no dog in this fight.
I mean you know the whole used car salesman stereotype, right? Yeah, educate yourself as a consumer. There are plenty of car dealerships, and there are plenty of system builders not called “Dell”.
In any case, Dell’s behaviour is not that uncommon. They have a deep relationship with Intel going back years involving mutual support that they don’t have with AMD. I’m going to expect them to want to sell Intel first. So what if they do? Are you mad at EVGA for not building Radeon cards?
Ok, so then who cares what Dell is selling?
I have no problem with EVGA or any supplier's choice to carry a product. (As long as they don't pull a Sapphire scalping) I have a problem with non-competitive behavior.
If you're so savvy in tech and sales, why are you acting as an apologist for Dell? Convoluting the issue with weird anecdotes and appeals to common practice.
Yeah they have such a deep relationship built on
I’m not an apologist for Dell. They suck. I will never buy from them ever again. I said that clearly in the thread. Where have you been?
So if I understand you correctly, you have no problem with a supplier’s choice to carry a product, and by extension, not carry another product, because that’s their choice, but you have a problem with Dell similarly making their own choices with their business?
As others have pointed out, and you have apparently chosen to ignore, they have default single-channel RAM configurations for Intel as well. In any case, I don’t know why you’re so personally offended by this.
Regarding your link, the antitrust issues arise if a company pays you to lock out a competitor. They are allowed to provide you MDF dollars. They are not allowed to dictate what you sell. If Dell independently decides to sell Intel over AMD, that’s not illegal, even if Intel provides MDF funds. Intel got in trouble because they made receipt of the MDF funds conditional on locking out AMD. They got rightly punished for it. That was also over a decade ago. Old news.
The system randomly builds "different price points" across the spectrum for sale - anyone buying an alienware customizes it a bit.
westrock2000
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I’m so outraged, I don’t even need to read the article. Outraged I tell you!
Ok stop defending them so virulently
Straw man. I have problems with anti-competitive behavior. Stop trying to re-frame it, they applied 2 different standards to competing products. I assume they have one checkout software, and by extension, would have to specifically design rules to create a disparity.
To some extent has been remedied, but by extension, should not be forgotten. (did you read the article?)
but by extension, if Dell decides to build their systems such that one competitor is artificially put at a disadvantage when there is no logical reason to do so. (aka the costs are the same) It's news. Past transgressions provide more reason for scrutiny.
cybereality
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Not sure why people are so fired up to defend Dell (honestly one of the worst PC sellers you can find). Their computers are trash as is their website.
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I'm not defending Dell just proving someone wrong.
It's far more insidious than that. During the mid 2000s, Dell was facing hard times because they had been dealing with the one-two punch of the Itanium and Pentium 4 trash fires. They were losing millions of dollars because of the Opteron, and Intel was "backfilling" Dell's accounts under the table with the "brother in law" agreement that they would not ship AMD systems in any appreciable quantity, and by extension, quality. Dell called Intel's bluff once and went into negotiations with board OEMs to start building Athlon 64 and Opteron systems, only for intel to swiftly and decisively cut millions of dollars from the payments being sent to Dell. Dell was in such a bad state by that point that they killed off all plans for better AMD systems because they couldn't survive without Intel directly financing them.
This is why any Dell system from 2000-2006ish with an AMD processor was such hot garbage, they had to do everything they could to not upset intel, while simultaneously quelling any public outcry for Dell being Intel shills. Dell's AMD systems from this time frame had a far higher failure rate than even their Intel systems during the capacitor plague era. The biggest issue were the horrible motherboards that were not designed to the same standards as Intel boards. In many cases, they used ECS or PC-Chips boards and further cut them down, making them unstable and a lot slower than they needed to be. This is why Dell's AMD systems from this era are so hard to find today. You can find Dell P4 systems all day long, but their AMD boxes have long since failed, coupled with so few of them being sold to begin with. But, Dell AMD systems aren't the only ones. Compaq and HP AMD systems were equally bad with the same problems of shitty motherboards and power supplies.
But Dell was not the only company getting massive payoffs from Intel. IBM and HP also got millions of dollars from Intel to not release AMD systems, or downplay their significance in the market.
https://www.theregister.com/2010/07/26/after_the_dell_settlement/
There's also a YT documentary somewhere that goes into it further and shows a month by month or year by year of how much money they were getting from Intel.
Dell not offering comparably equipped AMD systems to Intel today is just the same old game they've been playing for decades. They just can't wean themselves off of Intel's financial teat.
D
Deleted member 89018
Guest
so true. Enthusiasts spent years making sure everyone knew how much AMD sucked.
By logical fallacy ?
Arguing that because something is changed now it suddenly erases the past only proves you are lazy and refuse to read the article.
Technically taking a screenshot out of context isn't arguing but go forth and pwn nubs...
Format _C:
2[H]4U
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Well I guess you got me with that! LoL
I don't mess much with their "consumer" line but I regularly get off-lease or older OptiPlex desktops and I like them better then HPs offerings of the same generation.
I have a OptiPlex 7010 and an HP Elite 8300 while not exactly the same (but both are 3rd generation Intel) I like the Dells UEFI firmware better plus I think the Dell looks better then the HP one.
I also like the fact you can easily find the service manuals on their website same with drivers but last time I looked for drivers for a cheap consumer Inspiron All-In-One they did want me to use the Dell driver finder or some BS like that but I just removed the service tag and it let me browse the driver list like you should be able to even when you have the service tag on the page.
Most makers guard the service manuals but not Dell you can even find them for the consumer models as well!
Dell did not start using AMD as a processor supplier until 2006 (see: your source in the post), thus it would be rather impossible for "any dell system from 2000-2006 with an AMD processor" to be hot garbage, since those systems did not ~exist~. So yes, I suspect those systems are hard to find - since it would be a Dell case that someone shoved a different motherboard into, and not actually a Dell ~system~. Now yes, everyone selling systems in that era based on AMD were pretty much garbage - but almost ALL pre-made systems back then were. Cheap boards, cheap PSUs, cheap - well, everything, to be honest. It wasn't until later that the desktops stopped sucking (part of why HP Bought VoodooPC, and Dell bought Alienware), and that took a concerted effort to change.
Dell offers AMD equipped systems that are not only comparable, but arguably better than the Intel systems they are also selling right now - both Alienware (ignore the name) and PowerEdge. Now, the marketing idiots building the page? Not the engineers designing the system - and yeah, the marketing guys are likely more familiar with Intel (lets be honest, it's been over a decade since AMD has been relevant - and they're still "new" to the scene this time around again from a corporate perspective - those ships take time to turn).
Now, with regards to the whole MDF fund stuff - rules changed. A ton of them, in fact - as well as what OEMs/suppliers/component manufacturers are allowed to do and not do, as part of all of this. Yeah, there was a huge settlement - Dell wasn't the only vendor that ended up paying out for stuff like this, just the most public one - and now those rules are really strictly enforced (I work in the enterprise computing space; we have to train on this every year, if not more often). Before that, they really weren't. Also, if you don't think that EVERY vendor walks that fine line on marketing funds, you're crazy. Every single one is out there trying to convince not only the public to buy their stuff, but the OEMs to build things using their parts. Hell, the oddball vendors (think NIC manufacturers and the like) are doing the same! It's marketing 101. Big business is Big business.
To put it simply: Everyone got smacked on this, Dell was just the biggest (and arguably the shadiest at the time), which is why there are very specific rules around this across the industry (and the training is identical; I've worked for 3 different enterprise computing companies over the last 12 years, and you get the SAME training at each one) now. I suspect strongly that this time around it's some marketing people that don't know what they're doing, rather than anything directly and intentionally shady.
Never ascribe to malice that which could be ascribed to incompetence.
Additional source:
Dell listed AMD processors in 2005 (as retail sales, not in systems): https://www.cnet.com/news/dell-is-selling-amd-chips-but-why/
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Hmm, I could have sworn they had a very tiny number of Athlon XP systems, but those might have been confused with Compaq or HP. In any case, they were all hot garbage. I have an Inspiron 531s that has gone through 3 PSUs and two logic boards.
Oh yes, Compaq and HP had them - and they were ALL garbage. The only decent ones were Dell Outlet, since you paid... $189 for the suckers with a P4 or celeron? At most?
Bought a lot of those as cheap servers and "systems for friends". Scratch and dent baby!Yeah those used systems were nice and cheap because so many of them were coming off business leases all the time. I avoided the SFF systems since they ran hotter than the surface of the sun internally without modifications, and even then they still ran smokin hot.
Revenant_Knight
Gawd
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Wait! Dell actually hates Intel! I found an Intel system named R9 which is ONE LOWER than 10!
https://www.techradar.com/reviews/alienware-aurora-r9-review
Honestly, the bigger problem here is the build quality of Dell...
https://www.techradar.com/reviews/alienware-aurora-r9-review
Honestly, the bigger problem here is the build quality of Dell...
Smoked Brisket
Gawd
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It is not about Dell. It is about the proliferation of these " Im on this team" articles, where there is nothing to see but the author makes a click bait article because they know that under the current climate there is a handwringing group of rabid fanboys ready to pounce at any percieved slight of their precious color. It's garbage,
Gotta get clicks somehow though. My opinion: There's good hardware and bad hardware. Some good hardware is better than other good hardware. Some bad hardware is better than other bad hardware. Picking a side instead of buying what either fits your price point or need, or what is "best" based on a metric is silly. I run everything; I've been accused of being an AMD fanboi, an Nvidia shill, ATi apologist, everything. Right now, I literally have one of ~everything~ relatively modern - can't call me that anymore! (Everything from x99 to TRX40).
Oh yeah what new ATI shit you running you shillGotta get clicks somehow though. My opinion: There's good hardware and bad hardware. Some good hardware is better than other good hardware. Some bad hardware is better than other bad hardware. Picking a side instead of buying what either fits your price point or need, or what is "best" based on a metric is silly. I run everything; I've been accused of being an AMD fanboi, an Nvidia shill, ATi apologist, everything. Right now, I literally have one of ~everything~ relatively modern - can't call me that anymore! (Everything from x99 to TRX40).
Jokes aside, I agree. Everything is a nail when your only tool is a hammer.
We went from everyone being a shill to something about sexuality and back again. This was a wilder ride than the one I took with Frodo Baggins
. Relatively!!!
Mchart
Supreme [H]ardness
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You can actually get a decent system if you stick with the pre-configs, and look at the deals section of the Dell website. You can stack those deals with a corporate/military discount which is 20% alone. I've seen decent builds go for like a combined total of what is 40-50% off, and it's not ancient/out of date stuff either. So if there is a pre-boxed build that is close to what you want, it can be worth doing.
Dell/Alienware aren't great, but honestly, when you account for the massive discounts available it actually makes it potentially worth it if you can find what you want. Even more so if you're working in an environment that is dependent on the support contracts that someone like Dell provides.
bigdogchris
Fully [H]
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I notice on the R10 they offer "quad channel" memory. Oh that's a gem.