Torvalds criticizes Intel for the errors and malfunctions it had reported but no corrections made by the manufacturer until then. Are the prices offered by Intel correct? Here is the information provided by Torvalds on this subject.
Linus Torvalds attacks Intel on ECC memory and has migrated to AMD. He says he's happy with the AMD platform. It switched to the AMD platform last year after more than 15 years of using Intel processors. He has since used a Ryzen Threadripper 3970X. He gave positive feedback on the use of this processor. Linux Torvalds announced on the Real World Technologies forum that he had switched to AMD, because the latter presents products with a much better quality-price ratio than its rival Intel. Linus Torvalds tested high-end Xeon processors, but reported that these processors did not perform well. Intel has set a price 5 times more for a processor 2 times more performance.
What about AMD?
On AMD's side, the price is correct: The price of a dual-processor set is slightly more than twice the price of a single processor. The price is justified because apart from adding a processor, you have to pay for the rest: cooling and other slightly modified components. Torvalds says AMD also offers reasonably priced EPYC processors. If you want more power you have to pay more but at a fair price. AMD is not scamming you according to its claims and it provides ECC support for its standard Threadripper and Ryzen processors although this information is not given officially. This is not the case for Intel, which sells components at exorbitant prices whose performance is not up to par.
ECC or Error Correcting Code concerns memories. If the memories are equipped with ECC, they automatically correct the errors encountered. These errors are very common, Torvalds criticizes, and the thesis that next-generation DRAM is so reliable that it does not need ECC is not true at all.
Errors remain unfixed at Intel
Programmer and founder of the Linux kernel Linus Torvalds continues in his posts to announce that there are still uncorrected errors in modern DRAM memories. Which means that the attacks on memories continue to only speak to the generations of Rowhammer. The errors have not been corrected for around ten years although users and programmers report anomalies to Intel. And in some cases, Intel calls certain issues attacks when it actually is a missing feature.
Ultimately Torvalds ended up switching to AMD. The latter says he is happy to use Ryzen processors. He does not deny that he had criticized AMD's Bulldozer core processors. But the Company led by Lisa Su made up for it with Ryzen and the Chiplet approach. Torvalds will not return to Intel processors. When he was asked about this, his answer was a resounding “no”. In his words, HEDT and Xeon chips are well and truly dead for him. The value of Intel chips has fallen so there is no reason to stay or return to Intel components. This is not the first time that Linux Torvalds has harshly criticized Intel; he did so quite forcefully regarding the AVX-512 instructions.
More and more developers, users or customers are abandoning Intel for AMD because of a non-transparent pricing and technology policy. Linus Torvalds, the founder of Linux, is one of them. It is time for Intel to raise the bar in this new year if it wants to catch up with AMD which is monopolizing more and more market share.
