Manufacturers AMD, Nvidia, Via walk out of consortium supported by Intel

HARSIMRAN JULKA NEW DELHI

Computers in India may become cheaper as a result of a row between global chip manufacturers, such as Intel and AMD, over standards. The world's second-largest PC chipmaker AMD says processors in India are likely to become cheaper by 5% due to its exit from the global chip benchmark body,this week.

AMD declined to support the newly-launched chip standard Sysmark 2012 and quit the benchmark body - Business Applications Performance Corporation (Bapco) benchmark - this week. Sysmark2012 is being supported by Intel. "It's an outdated chip benchmark. It means costlier chips and a loss of $8 billion globally to users. Now, we will be free to produce chips withoutsubscribing to Bapco's Sysmark benchmark," Ravi Swaminathan, AMD India head, told ET.

"It has the potential to make chips cheaper by at least 5% in India," he added. The Sysmark benchmark, AMD says, was used to produce chips with very high scores but many unnecessary components - often not required by a general consumer - were a drawback. This led to higher chip prices. Bapco has members such as Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo, HP, Sony, Samsung and Hitachi. Intel is the only large chipmaker in the body now.Taiwanese chipset manufacturer Via and USbased graphics card maker Nvidia also quit Bapco on the issue. Bapco provides chip standards that other chip manufacturers used to subscribe to.

Intel, the largest chipmaker, on the other hand, applauds Bapco's controversial Sysmark 2012. "It is a leading applicationbased benchmark designed to measure performance of computers running popular business software. Intel will continue to participate in many industry benchmarking groups including Bapco," said Intel in a statement. Intel says it will not be making chips cheaper as other options are already available for users. "Our users already have choice in the market with the large processor line-up we offer. We don't think the event will affect chip prices," said an Intel India spokesperson.

Chipmakers moving out of Bapco may also lead to a chaos in IT procurement.Government and corporates used to prescribe the Sysmark standard in tenders that computer makers used to comply with. In the absence of a global benchmark, question mark will be put on tenders, which prescribe Sysmark 2012.