AMD AMA Points To Nearing GlobalFoundries 14 nm FinFET Polaris GPU

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Should I buy a 980ti right now or wait for these cards to come out?

Running an old Ati 7870xt so am missing out on playing all the current games on ultra settings. Looking at playing The Division,Far Cry Primal and whatever 2016 throws at us!
 
AMD won't gain market share if they are at core i5 levels as was proven with the Phenom x6 and fx8300s which where core i5 levels. Heck they won't gain market share when they have 25% better performance as proven with the Athlon processors.
They need to work with OEMs more than anything to get their chips in pcs.
 


Actually, they DID gain marketshare during the hayday of the Athlon chips, but you're right: they need to work with OEMs (without Intel breaking laws to block them) to get into more systems. That starts with having a "best" flagship. That's why having a top GPU has been important. Regardless of how your other products actually perform, the perception will be "well, they have the BEST Product X" and thus their lower stuff must be "better" too. If they pumped out an 8-core CPU that beat Intel's 8-core $1000 CPU, or even just one that beat an i7-6700K on performance at that ~$350 price point, it would be a significant blow to Intel in the community.
 
One of my frustrations with Intel is the over-reliance on "halo marketing." Intel might make some great chips, but they're often either completely unavailable, or they bare no resemblance to the much crappier solutions that OEMs are putting in their notebooks and desktops (like dual core i5 and i7 CPUs, e.g.).

One of my buddies at work was all excited about the new Iris graphics APUs that Intel is finally shipping. Then he got a couple of systems set up at home and found out the state of Intel's graphic drivers. It's like Intel engineers their graphic cores to run benchmark programs and almost nothing else. Hopefully there are plenty of Intel users who've had a better experience; my buddy from work now has a new appreciation for AMD APUs since trying to get his Intel Iris CPUs running.

It's funny to remember when AMD actually held a power efficiency advantage over Intel years ago, but back then nobody cared. Now it's a portable world. We all want to play Far Cry 4 at 4k on our smart phones at 75 fps.

AMD may not make the most exciting products, or spend a lot of money marketing them. Their stuff works well, however, and they do a good job of supporting their products with updates and good working drivers.

Even if Zen is everything AMD hopes it will be, I am skeptical that it will do much to disrupt the marketplace. Intel is a marketing juggernaut who has no problem flexing its muscle with OEM partners to make sure there is little room for AMD at the table. AMD would have to somehow magically create a CPU capable of doubling the performance of Intel's best, then sell it for half the price, in order to make any significant inroads in terms of market share.

Still, I look forward to seeing what these new CPUs, GPUs, and APUs can do.

 
One of my frustrations with Intel is the over-reliance on "halo marketing." Intel might make some great chips, but they're often either completely unavailable, or they bare no resemblance to the much crappier solutions that OEMs are putting in their notebooks and desktops (like dual core i5 and i7 CPUs, e.g.).

One of my buddies at work was all excited about the new Iris graphics APUs that Intel is finally shipping. Then he got a couple of systems set up at home and found out the state of Intel's graphic drivers. It's like Intel engineers their graphic cores to run benchmark programs and almost nothing else. Hopefully there are plenty of Intel users who've had a better experience; my buddy from work now has a new appreciation for AMD APUs since trying to get his Intel Iris CPUs running.

It's funny to remember when AMD actually held a power efficiency advantage over Intel years ago, but back then nobody cared. Now it's a portable world. We all want to play Far Cry 4 at 4k on our smart phones at 75 fps.

AMD may not make the most exciting products, or spend a lot of money marketing them. Their stuff works well, however, and they do a good job of supporting their products with updates and good working drivers.

Even if Zen is everything AMD hopes it will be, I am skeptical that it will do much to disrupt the marketplace. Intel is a marketing juggernaut who has no problem flexing its muscle with OEM partners to make sure there is little room for AMD at the table. AMD would have to somehow magically create a CPU capable of doubling the performance of Intel's best, then sell it for half the price, in order to make any significant inroads in terms of market share.

Still, I look forward to seeing what these new CPUs, GPUs, and APUs can do.
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I think AMD ZEN APU's will take a large hold of the laptop market. Kids will ask for it because it's better for games, but not tell their parents that. At the target price parents are willing to pay, i think AMD will sell a boatload. Gaming PC's are simply too expensive, but at $600, a parent might buy their kid an AMD APU laptop.

I simply can't wait to replace my 1st gen core i7 920. It's still fast, but intel is always changing sockets, so i'd like to get an AMD and switch processors every 2 years.
 
Should I take the plunge and buy a 980ti right now or do you guys recommend I wait 3 months for these cards? Running an Ati 7870xt (ancient) right now and am really wanting to play a lot of new games (The Division / Far Cry Primal) on Ultra settings.
 


It's really up to you if you can wait or not. If you are itching for the extra performance, go for it. The next generation is very promising with better efficiency and performance. Personally, I'd wait if I was you. Only reason I upgraded my GPU (Radeon 6870) back in december is because it was struggling and then my nephew pushed it too hard and too long and it gave out.
 


Do you men the original Athlon through Athlon 64? The 3-4 years during which AMD's market share increased to the point that it briefly surpassed Intel in the market?

Phenom II held its own, the big units to lose market share were Phenom (original) and Bulldozer. Original Phenom's weren't so bad, just they had a lot of strong competition with the Core 2 Duo. Bulldozer just has had a ton of problems and Intel created an excellent architecture at the same time, so the situation isn't looking so good for AMD.
 
They need to get to at least i5-6600k level (or 7600k level) is Caby Lake is out by then. That makes them competitive at the top of Intel mainstream but not at the -E level.

I'd prefer to see a top chip that competes with the 10 core Broadwell-Es myself as well as a 5820K equivalent at $350 so Intel is finally forced to release that 6 core to the mainstream.
 
When devs start buying AMD GPUs, then you will know they are good enough. As long as you are compiling your code on Intel, you know which company is winning. Even if I like where AMD is going, as a consumer Intel and nVidia is the way for me. I expect changes, but AMD is taking head on not one, but two of the industry leaders. Leaders with great teams and deep pockets.
 
I think when Apple starts putting AMD APU's in their mac mini or macbooks, then you'll see intel management sweating.

I think this is entirely possible too given a perfect storm if apple would ditch metal and adopt Vulkan. Then game developers wouldn't need much to compile for apple as well.
 
AMD needs to improve its marketing on the world. People don´t think AMD, only thinks INTEL. Why? because they don't see posters or the logo at computer store.
 
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