AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[de5_Roy]

biostar's AM1 platform motherboards have different memory slot orientation
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/biostar-am1-amd-motherboard,26236.html
i haven't come across any photos of the apus themselves...

 

[jimmysmitty]

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?cmpid=socialCorpHQ_20140307_19712764&play=1&video=3000250837#eyJ2aWQiOiIzMDAwMjUwODM3IiwiZW5jVmlkIjoicnZlMDBLQUVzWFpTRzdDVlJsaWpBUT09IiwidlRhYiI6ImluZm8iLCJ2UGFnZSI6MSwiZ05hdiI6WyLCoExhdGVzdCBWaWRlbyJdLCJnU2VjdCI6IkFMTCIsImdQYWdlIjoiMSIsInN5bSI6IiIsInNlYXJjaCI6IiJ9

Kinda explains Amd a bit more....they want to set and do nothing for 2 years? Confused seems like a good strategy i guess.

I liked the previous CEO more. Grabbing markets like consoles is good but it does seem like they are just sitting on their hands currently with no real plans.

Intel is dominating the commercial market because their server CPUs consistently perform better than their previous gens. Where we don't see much from Haswell, a server would love that 2x L1 cache speed and boosted memory speeds.

biostar's AM1 platform motherboards have different memory slot orientation
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/biostar-am1-amd-motherboard,26236.html
i haven't come across any photos of the apus themselves...

This is not the first time this design has been done:

I worked on a lot of PCs and came across this quite a few times. BTX also had memory on the bottom of the mobo, CPU at the front of the case and slots towards the top of the mobo.

As for the CPU, I bet it will look like every other AMD CPU.

 

[de5_Roy]

This is not the first time this design has been done:
http://www.msi.com/pic/product/five_pictures9_210_8c18127bde66f4c3eb0bad28d4dca188.jpg
I worked on a lot of PCs and came across this quite a few times. BTX also had memory on the bottom of the mobo, CPU at the front of the case and slots towards the top of the mobo.

:O side-by-side pata ports (right over the power connector!), top memory slots and way-too-close sata ports and agp port... msi was hell-bent on not letting any heat escape! i remember how painful (often literally) it was, working with those pata cables and ports. ;-; i was so happy when sata came out. msi has come a long way since then. good old days...

As for the CPU, I bet it will look like every other AMD CPU.

kabini soc's biggest issue is not in the cpu, but in the igpu and the uncore (or w/e it's called... the block with all the i/o controllers). in desktop, having more pcie lanes for discreet gfx and i/o ports pay off very well. kabini has only 8x gen 2.0 lanes iirc - that could easily be consumed by gfx or storage. if beema adds pcie gen 3.0 support, those socs will have plenty of bandwidth. the igpu can get close to intel hd4k but it needs o.c. support. then again, AM1 "platform"'s target market might not need the features i'm seeking from the socs. except more sata ports - 4 or higher. skip the dgfx instead. i don't think many sites showed the promo slide where amd said that this platform is aimed at "emerging markets" in south-east asia, south america (all of it), part of south western europe. north america, china, u.s.s.r., australia and africa were not included.

 

[juggernautxtr]

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?cmpid=socialCorpHQ_20140307_19712764&play=1&video=3000250837#eyJ2aWQiOiIzMDAwMjUwODM3IiwiZW5jVmlkIjoicnZlMDBLQUVzWFpTRzdDVlJsaWpBUT09IiwidlRhYiI6ImluZm8iLCJ2UGFnZSI6MSwiZ05hdiI6WyLCoExhdGVzdCBWaWRlbyJdLCJnU2VjdCI6IkFMTCIsImdQYWdlIjoiMSIsInN5bSI6IiIsInNlYXJjaCI6IiJ9

Kinda explains Amd a bit more....they want to set and do nothing for 2 years? Confused seems like a good strategy i guess.

from what i gathered, is get the emerging commercials with custom design, then they have them for at least 2 yrs.
money upfront, (you tell us what you want we design it, you agree to it,you pay all costs).
basically turning themselves into a 50% design and build firm(kinda like what IBM is doing). the other 50% will be PC and server.
sounds pretty smart to me, take over the world a chip at a time.

 

[Cazalan]

from what i gathered, is get the emerging commercials with custom design, then they have them for at least 2 yrs.
money upfront, (you tell us what you want we design it, you agree to it,you pay all costs).
basically turning themselves into a 50% design and build firm(kinda like what IBM is doing). the other 50% will be PC and server.
sounds pretty smart to me, take over the world a chip at a time.

How many Sony/Microsft size deals can they win? Even combined that's only 10M units in a quarter so far. PC market is around 320M units a year even with reduced demand.

 

[juggernautxtr]

but, those 10 million units,are a gureenteed permanent income.
that 320m is also just not AMD's sales intel,nvidia,via all have numbers in there too.
don't need to be huge ones, design and build is practically pure profit, cause all the time spent designing, configuring any system would be charged back to the customer. plus the initial investigation/consultation. it is pure income no cost to the company at all.

 

[jdwii]

from what i gathered, is get the emerging commercials with custom design, then they have them for at least 2 yrs.
money upfront, (you tell us what you want we design it, you agree to it,you pay all costs).
basically turning themselves into a 50% design and build firm(kinda like what IBM is doing). the other 50% will be PC and server.
sounds pretty smart to me, take over the world a chip at a time.

How many Sony/Microsft size deals can they win? Even combined that's only 10M units in a quarter so far. PC market is around 320M units a year even with reduced demand.

I think the best percentage of that number Amd ever got was 30% which would mean 96M a year.

 

[jimmysmitty]

This is not the first time this design has been done:
http://www.msi.com/pic/product/five_pictures9_210_8c18127bde66f4c3eb0bad28d4dca188.jpg
I worked on a lot of PCs and came across this quite a few times. BTX also had memory on the bottom of the mobo, CPU at the front of the case and slots towards the top of the mobo.

:O side-by-side pata ports (right over the power connector!), top memory slots and way-too-close sata ports and agp port... msi was hell-bent on not letting any heat escape! i remember how painful (often literally) it was, working with those pata cables and ports. ;-; i was so happy when sata came out. msi has come a long way since then. good old days...

As for the CPU, I bet it will look like every other AMD CPU.

kabini soc's biggest issue is not in the cpu, but in the igpu and the uncore (or w/e it's called... the block with all the i/o controllers). in desktop, having more pcie lanes for discreet gfx and i/o ports pay off very well. kabini has only 8x gen 2.0 lanes iirc - that could easily be consumed by gfx or storage. if beema adds pcie gen 3.0 support, those socs will have plenty of bandwidth. the igpu can get close to intel hd4k but it needs o.c. support. then again, AM1 "platform"'s target market might not need the features i'm seeking from the socs. except more sata ports - 4 or higher. skip the dgfx instead. i don't think many sites showed the promo slide where amd said that this platform is aimed at "emerging markets" in south-east asia, south america (all of it), part of south western europe. north america, china, u.s.s.r., australia and africa were not included.

Yea I jumped on SATA the day it came out. Had one of the first mobos with it and some of the first SATA HDDs. Only used PATA until SATA DVDs came out.

from what i gathered, is get the emerging commercials with custom design, then they have them for at least 2 yrs.
money upfront, (you tell us what you want we design it, you agree to it,you pay all costs).
basically turning themselves into a 50% design and build firm(kinda like what IBM is doing). the other 50% will be PC and server.
sounds pretty smart to me, take over the world a chip at a time.

How many Sony/Microsft size deals can they win? Even combined that's only 10M units in a quarter so far. PC market is around 320M units a year even with reduced demand.

The console market is one thing. I am sure they will win some UMD markets but those always change. Look at Samsung who also has a Intel CPU powered system.

I don't see them making major strides or holding anything other than consoles and if Intel comes out with a decent APU, that might happen to change too with the next system.

 

[truegenius]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/call-duty-ghosts-xbox-one-reportedly-suffers-frame-rate-drops/63065.html

Now an ex IGN editor reports that the Xbox One version is plagued by the same frame rate drops, which is disappointing considering the game is already running at a lower resolution of 720p.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-watch-dogs-will-1080p-ps4-960p-xbox-one-4k-pc/73596.html

Below are the purported resolutions for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC flavors of Watch Dogs, however these figures may be subject to change:

PS4: 1080p at 30fps
Xbox One: 960p at 30fps
PC: Up to 4K with varying frame-rates

:lol:

glad people are not blaming amd for lower resolution of console release

 

[8350rocks]

Facebook just ordered a shipload of microservers...and they do not have Intel inside...they also do not spell CPU A-R-M either...

Just saying...AMD is making some waves...that is likely a lot of revenue as well...

 

[jimmysmitty]

Facebook just ordered a shipload of microservers...and they do not have Intel inside...they also do not spell CPU A-R-M either...

Just saying...AMD is making some waves...that is likely a lot of revenue as well...

It is a drop in the ocean. Intel still has around 90% of the market share for servers. Sure it is more revenue for AMD with every win they get but until they get a larger share it wont be enough to really benefit them.

 

[jdwii]

Facebook just ordered a shipload of microservers...and they do not have Intel inside...they also do not spell CPU A-R-M either...

Just saying...AMD is making some waves...that is likely a lot of revenue as well...

It is a drop in the ocean. Intel still has around 90% of the market share for servers. Sure it is more revenue for AMD with every win they get but until they get a larger share it wont be enough to really benefit them.

This makes sense however keep in mind why would that 90% want Amd they picked Intel for a reason, that is why Amd is going after newer markets for servers such as microservers, Cheap and i mean very cheap servers probably around atom level performance. There's little need for a 12 core xeon when a 4 core APU rated at 25watts and only cost 1/3 as much as Intel can do the job just as well. I know you know this but just restating it for others.

Intel controls 90% of the Server market? Ok true but what about newer markets that consist new players?

 

[griptwister]

@jimmysmitty, Lol, I'm shooting for a minimum of a GTX 780. We'll see what happens with DX 12 and if the next gen GPUs come out soon.

@de5 Roy, seems like he's working methodically. I think that, while it sucks not having any high end products, it'll be nice for AMD to generate some revenue to bring us better products in the future.

 

[palladin9479]

@de5 Roy, seems like he's working methodically. I think that, while it sucks not having any high end products, it'll be nice for AMD to generate some revenue to bring us better products in the future.

I don't think people really understand how important this point is. AMD's has suffered a string of bad business decisions along with some dirty competition which resulted in them being in a position where they simply can't compete in the high performance market. They don't have the R&D cash to compete head to head with Intel, just ain't gonna happen. Now they just gotta sell product and make money in whatever way they can, once they stabilize themselves they can think about nailing down a high performance chip.

 

[Cazalan]

Facebook just ordered a shipload of microservers...and they do not have Intel inside...they also do not spell CPU A-R-M either...

Just saying...AMD is making some waves...that is likely a lot of revenue as well...

Source? Jaguar or Piledriver based?

 

[Cazalan]

The long war on 'DRAM price fixing' is over: Claim YOUR spoils now
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/07/come_get_your_share_of_the_dram_bounty_ten_bucks/

Lawyers get rich, consumers get pennies. Companies get a slap on the wrist for price gouging.

 

[Embra]

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/10/is-advanced-micro-devices-executing-a-winning-stra.aspx

 

[jimmysmitty]

Facebook just ordered a shipload of microservers...and they do not have Intel inside...they also do not spell CPU A-R-M either...

Just saying...AMD is making some waves...that is likely a lot of revenue as well...

It is a drop in the ocean. Intel still has around 90% of the market share for servers. Sure it is more revenue for AMD with every win they get but until they get a larger share it wont be enough to really benefit them.

This makes sense however keep in mind why would that 90% want Amd they picked Intel for a reason, that is why Amd is going after newer markets for servers such as microservers, Cheap and i mean very cheap servers probably around atom level performance. There's little need for a 12 core xeon when a 4 core APU rated at 25watts and only cost 1/3 as much as Intel can do the job just as well. I know you know this but just restating it for others.

Intel controls 90% of the Server market? Ok true but what about newer markets that consist new players?

That is true but we can assume that Intel is also looking to target that market as well. Atom is starting to get the same IGP as their desktop counterparts and if Skylake does make a major change to the GPU as it is supposed to I can assume that AMD will have some decent competition in those markets from Intel as well.

I have seen a lot of articles talking about the new ARM micro servers and how a lot of companies are going to use them and that is fine but no matter how they spin it, a ARM or Atom based CPU just is not nearly as powerful as a Xeon or Opteron so there will always be markets that those will not be able to fill and there will be companies that will also realize this later on.

Power is one thing for sure but if it takes 20 5w TDP ARM CPUs to do the same job as a 80w TDP Xeon/Opteron they will eventually move over.

This is all theory as we need to see the real performance of each but markets are always changing and moving.

@jimmysmitty, Lol, I'm shooting for a minimum of a GTX 780. We'll see what happens with DX 12 and if the next gen GPUs come out soon.

@de5 Roy, seems like he's working methodically. I think that, while it sucks not having any high end products, it'll be nice for AMD to generate some revenue to bring us better products in the future.

That is a good minimum. I think if Microsoft adds the same level of support as Mantle that supports any GPU it would benefit gamers unlike Mantle right now which is only beneficial to GCN, and only optimized currently for 2 of the GCN cards.

 

[gamerk316]

We'll see what happens with DX 12 and if the next gen GPUs come out soon.

DX12 has been cooking for about two years now, so I'm expecting a lot more then a lower-level APi.

 

[gamerk316]

Boy, [H] just posted something in their BF4 Mantle review that will spark a firestorm:

There's that cynic in me that wonders where AMD intentionally tanked their D3D driver, even if just a little...

Good to know but not a very thorough review. What's important is how it does with an average CPU/GPU and APUs, not $330 CPU and $700 GPU.

Pardon me, but if I were building such a system, wouldn't that information be perfectly relevant?

 

[gamerk316]

Another AMD GPU driver problem:

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/177668-turbo-trouble-amds-dual-graphics-is-bugged-introduces-game-breaking-frame-stutter

 

[8350rocks]

Facebook just ordered a shipload of microservers...and they do not have Intel inside...they also do not spell CPU A-R-M either...

Just saying...AMD is making some waves...that is likely a lot of revenue as well...

Source? Jaguar or Piledriver based?

First wave using Opteron X (Jaguar based)

I cannot recall the website, may have been S|A...?

 

[Rum]

Another AMD GPU driver problem:

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/177668-turbo-trouble-amds-dual-graphics-is-bugged-introduces-game-breaking-frame-stutter

Mmmmm that is more of an APU issue.

 

[Cazalan]

Boy, [H] just posted something in their BF4 Mantle review that will spark a firestorm:

There's that cynic in me that wonders where AMD intentionally tanked their D3D driver, even if just a little...

Good to know but not a very thorough review. What's important is how it does with an average CPU/GPU and APUs, not $330 CPU and $700 GPU.

Pardon me, but if I were building such a system, wouldn't that information be perfectly relevant?

Like I said, good to know, but entirely irrelevant to 96% of people who would use Mantle.

 

[Cazalan]

We'll see what happens with DX 12 and if the next gen GPUs come out soon.

DX12 has been cooking for about two years now, so I'm expecting a lot more then a lower-level APi.

They must have had to do something to make XBone more efficient. I just want to know if it's going to be available for Win 7/8 or if they're going to cheese out and force people to do Win 9.

Still I think we can all thank AMD for lighting a fire under their arse.