If might have been if AMD were opening up and Intel weren't.

EDIT to expand a bit since some people seem to be missing the point: hypothetically, GP might have preferred Intel on narrow technical criteria, but have been willing to override that preference for the sake of transparency. No transparency difference, no reason to override.

Yes thank you, that's about how I have been thinking about it.

Well in this line of thought at least now there's a chance competition will set either/both on that path.

Fwiw I'm not ready to use open-ish ARM/POWER exclusively, but AMD/Intel'll have to contend with that soon(tm)

[Answer to parents EDIT] I'd argue the effective technical difference set between AMD & Intel is growing ever narrower, and aside from brand fidelity there is very little reason for a consumer to have non-moral preferences to one or the other manufacturer.

Well, you can get a POWER{8,9} workstation [1]; which has a big selling point of having no ME/PSP processor. But it looks a bit expensive.

[1] http://raptorcs.com/TALOSII/prerelease.php

I don't know the plans with TALOS II, but those who are interested in what happened to the original Talos Secure Workstation crowdfunding might be interested in the following article, which I think anybody, who is interested in how an alternative could look like, should read:

> https://www.crowdsupply.com/raptor-computing-systems/talos-s...

You can also use C201 arm Chromebook with libreboot (I do) to avoid concerns about a management engine.

Wasn't the funding for Talos unsuccessful? Are they really going to release it?

Sorry, I'm confused by your response. I was saying that if AMD took a different approach from Intel, it would have been a differentiating attribute and I would have been swayed in that direction.