AMD CPU speculation... and expert conjecture

[juanrga]

@etayorius, they have been promising lots of stuff during years: they promised Bulldozer was a game changer, promised Kaveri was going to be a 1050 TFLOP/s APU, promised 65W Carrizo for FM2+, promised Mantle SDK would be final and open to everyone before the end of 2014, promised Berlin APU, promised 16-core Seattle,...

And this is the short list.

 

[etayorius]

@etayorius, they have been promising lots of stuff during years: they promised Bulldozer was a game changer, promised Kaveri was going to be a 1050 TFLOP/s APU, promised 65W Carrizo for FM2+, promised Mantle SDK would be final and open to everyone before the end of 2014, promised Berlin APU, promised 16-core Seattle,...

And this is the short list.

Steamroller and Excavator FX CPUs, a Desktop APU version of the PS4 and 15 Mantle Titles for the end of 2014, i'm done with these guys, too many undelivered promises.

It's a shame, i really wanted to support AMD, been saving money since 2011 to build a complete AMD System and after the Bulldozer fiasco i decided to wait and save even more for Piledriver, it turn out to be better than Bulldozer but not what i needed so i waited for Steamroller CPU which promised 30% more IPC, then they cancelled it along Excavator, so i had even more money and decided to just build new Desktop with Kaveri but it turn out to have the exact same performance as the PhenomII... right now i'm sitting at 1120 USD, may just as well build a Haswell and be done with AMD once and for all, but seeing as how Intel promises the most innovative CPU with Skylake in the last 10 year i may as well just wait for it, i can't stand Intel i just hate those guys... but i am left with little choice.

I may however grab a Radeon 380X if it not a lame rebrand of the 290x, if so i will just grab nVidia... i like nVidia i just HATE their anti consumer schemes, but whatever... at least they deliver more often in comparisson to AMD.

What ever PR Group AMD has, is doing a heck of a job for nVidia and Intel... seriously, they just need to sit out and watch AMD keept slashing their feet.

I'll try to build a list of undelivered promises of AMD since 2011 complete with quotes and Links, it seriously is that bad with their promises.

 

[logainofhades]

AMD has lost my trust as well. False promise, after false promise, I cannot believe anything they really say anymore. If your system is performing well enough, I would wait for skylake. Waiting on AMD is a waste of time.

 

[-Fran-]

Yes, it's sad that AMD is not good at keeping their promises, but just to give a little inside view to that, they're always in the shadow of Intel and picking up their left overs in most markets. I'm not saying that to call out for pity, but to put it in more context: Intel can talk 1:1 with Apple, but AMD has to humblebeg Apple for whatever they think of doing (for example). This can be extended to OEMs and other industries where they have to compete with Intel or IBM.

Their chances to move forward with their plans is greatly diminished by that. For AMD's size should not be an excuse, I know, but at least give you ample reason to understand a bit the "why".

Like I've always said, when they make those announcement it's not to lie to us. They don't do that do deceive or lure you into traps (except the BD fiasco, that is; that's why the Marketing Team was fired right after it), but when trying to keep their word, they just can't for one reason or another. Sometimes for the better sometimes because they just couldn't (costs or opportunities missed).

I'm sure AMD is not the only one, nVidia has suffered from it too before. The days when they were developing Intel and AMD chipsets, they were top notch, but couldn't out do Intel when they started to be jerks and were not able to fulfill some chipset promises (can't remember exactly which ones, sorry) of the time.

Cheers!

 

[de5_Roy]

^ these companies are publicly traded companies. if they actually "lie" (or have their statements/claims construed as "lies") they'll get sued.

all these promise sh...stuff looks like emotional outburst from unmet expectations. i've been very disappointed by them before, but i looked into the workings and realized how they might miss or under-deliver.

 

[logainofhades]

Barcelona was supposed to be awesome too, and fell on its face. AMD has had a history of this for far too long.

 

[-Fran-]

Yes, Barcelona fell short for it's very own and particular reasons: process and TLB bug. They eeked out everything with Phenom II, but the underlying idea is the same Barcie core.

And de5 is also right; a traded company that lies, can get sued. AMD hasn't, AFAIK, get sued in a class action.

It's basically giving out excuses for each undelivered "promise", but oh well. Just think about when they do deliver to stay a bit more positive.

Cheers!

 

[Embra]

^ these companies are publicly traded companies. if they actually "lie" (or have their statements/claims construed as "lies") they'll get sued.

all these promise sh...stuff looks like emotional outburst from unmet expectations. i've been very disappointed by them before, but i looked into the workings and realized how they might miss or under-deliver.

Thank you de5_Roy!

 

[logainofhades]

I just have trouble supporting a company that consistently fails to keep its promises.

 

[juanrga]

AMD has over-promised and underperformed in essentially all the fields: from tablets to supercomputers. But what really worry me is that they show no signs of change. Once I believed that Rory Read and Lisa Su would change the company and transform it into a new, nicer company with more realistic targets and better execution, but I was plain wrong: Seattle, Kaveri, Carrizo, and Mantle SDK are four disappointment examples that correspond to the "new AMD" and I expect the same for the future. I sometimes write the next joke:

Be patient, Bulldozer will be the real game changer.
Be patient, Piledriver will fix everything.
Be patient, Steamroller will be the real game changer.
Be patient, Excavator will be the real game changer.
Be patient, Zen will be the real game changer.
Be patient, Post-Zen will be the real game changer...

 

[de5_Roy]

but I was plain wrong

close the thread because the admission is finally out. from the horse's mouth (hoof on a touchscreen?). it's a figure of speech, relax.

kidding btw. please don't close the thread. i am working on something that will disappoint all the disappointments.

 

[juanrga]

^ these companies are publicly traded companies. if they actually "lie" (or have their statements/claims construed as "lies") they'll get sued.

all these promise sh...stuff looks like emotional outburst from unmet expectations. i've been very disappointed by them before, but i looked into the workings and realized how they might miss or under-deliver.

They promised Kaveri for 2013 as replacement for Trinity and then added a footnote saying "roadmaps are subject to change without previous notice" and if Kaveri comes in 2014 they didn't lie technically.

They promised a 1050 GFLOP/s Kaveri APU, and then added in a footnote: "estimation based in numbers from AMD labs assuming this and this and this" and if final Kaveri hits under 900 GFLOP/s, they didn't lie technically.

And so on. We are not talking about if AMD lies or not. We are discussing how AMD systematically over-promises. Some examples where given; check them.

 

[Embra]

Am I on the right thread, or does the title need to be changed?
Seriously, I think I may need to stop following this thread.
Too much trouble to weed through all the hate, doom and gloom and self-back patting to find news about AMD.
I don't give a hoot about who's predictions were right or wrong, or comparing three year old cpu's to present.
I am using an FX, and it works great for all my needs.

 

[logainofhades]

Am I on the right thread, or does the title need to be changed?
Seriously, I think I may need to stop following this thread.
Too much trouble to weed through all the hate, doom and gloom and self-back patting to find news about AMD.
I don't give a hoot about who's predictions were right or wrong, or comparing three year old cpu's to present.
I am using an FX, and it works great for all my needs.

I have an FX also, if not for how cheap it was, I wouldn't have bought it.

 

[con635]

I like to watch and play football, I'm Irish, I would absolutely love Ireland to win the fifa world cup, am I disappointed when they don't? No, we're a fraction of the size of the top countries and to beat them would be totally unrealistic, a miracle in fact. Hope everyone understands my point.

 

[juanrga]

Am I on the right thread, or does the title need to be changed?
Seriously, I think I may need to stop following this thread.
Too much trouble to weed through all the hate, doom and gloom and self-back patting to find news about AMD.
I don't give a hoot about who's predictions were right or wrong, or comparing three year old cpu's to present.
I am using an FX, and it works great for all my needs.

I am writing this from AMD hardware. Does it mean that I must close my eyes and distort reality or just select news are only good to AMD? No, thanks.

 

[etayorius]

I like to watch and play football, I'm Irish, I would absolutely love Ireland to win the fifa world cup, am I disappointed when they don't? No, we're a fraction of the size of the top countries and to beat them would be totally unrealistic, a miracle in fact. Hope everyone understands my point.

No, but i been sitting in a pile of money which i was supposed to spend in 2011 on Bulldozer, 4 years later i am getting told to wait for 2016 and Zen. Oh i will wait for Skylake and build my Intel System with either Radeon or GeForce GPU, depending on price performance.

I have decided to just move on and stop waiting for miracles from AMD. I don't blame them, but i also cannot take their words seriously anymore.

 

[de5_Roy]

i have trouble supporting a company/corporation that

Spoiler

overprices it's products.
underpowers it's products.
underpowers and overprices it's products.
delays it's new products.
delays it's new products, underpowers them, then overprices them.
messes up it's new product's software support.
delays fixing it's new product's buggy software support.
messes up it's new product's firmware support.
messes up fixing it's buggy launch firmware.
launches a new product that heats up too easily or overheats.
launches a new product that makes too loud noise.
sells/bundles inadequate/barely adequate cooling system that is also borderline unbearably noisy.
has bad customer support and after sales service.
engages in unlawful, unethical business practices that harm the competition and healthy business practices.
launches a new product/lineup/platform that has various degrees of compatibility issues with other products.
is mean to me.
hurts my feelings.
doesn't make me warm and fuzzy.
makes me really upset.
thinks that x-men: the last stand is a masterpiece.
thinks that the amazing spider-man 2 is great.
thinks that john carter/jupiter ascending was a blockbuster.
thinks it can force people to buy it's products regardless of quality.
hires will.i.am.
has a cult following of rabid fans.
hates/neglects/drives away enthusiasts.
has/makes too much money.
pretends to be nice but is evil on the inside.
hates/neglects/cripples/all-of-the-aforementioned overclocking and any kind of tweaking.
locks down software/hardware to own ecosystem/platform.
extorts money from customers.
releases incomplete, unfinished, buggy software.
doesn't releases patches and bug fixes when i need them.
hires gene simmons.
doesn't meet my delusions.
attempts to cripple software performance of competitor's products.
wins benchmarks by cheating.
loses benchmarks too many times.
bribes tech journalists for good press and publicity.
bribes other vendor to drop competitor's products.
bribes tech writers/journalists to undermine competitor's products.
charges hidden fees.
promises to divorce his wife but never does.
i meant "Promises, but never delivers" darn it! scratch the stuff about the wife. Please!
has finished building it's new product/lineup but delays in the name of "finishing touches.
can't pronounce idina menzel's name right.
launches it's products in other countries but mine.
delays launching it's new products in my region.
i suspect of building backdoors into it's products.
conspires against competitors.
pretends to care about desktop users but doesn't.
makes snuggies.
doesn't care about efficiency.
publicizes efficiency too much.
caters to mobile users.

and that's why, i will buy from the other company that never does those things.
...
.....

Spoiler

bruce willis was dead the whole time.
brad pitt was imaginary.
mila kunis was imaginary.
hd4000 wasn't ~200% faster.
annie was the female titan.
tyrese dies.
walt dies.
aaron echolls killed lily.
joe miller was the killer. the name !@#$ing rhymed. nobody noticed that? come on!
one of the broadwell core i3s have one less EU than the rest.
consumer skylake cpus may have avx-512 disabled.
mobile core i3s are actually mobile core i5 with turbo and some cache disabled.
arm was the one who held back socs and decided that a57 based cpus won't scale higher than 8 cores.
amd didn't reveal which cache coherent interconnect/interface it was using in seattle.
tobin bell is alive the whole time!!

uh-oh...

@embra: when tech companies release huge amount of very small bits of info on future stuff for a very short period of time a.k.a. an expo and then goes back to silent mode, there's always temporary quiet news period afterwards. that's when people measure if the released info were satisfying or not.

 

[jdwii]

Well if you look at the Amd in the 80's-90's(mid 90's) they were always behind Intel and many always claimed they would be dead, i think we are seeing that today but this time around i think Amd is better today then they were back then. Still behind but in a way found a niche market and hopefully SOC devices can give them revenue.

As for waiting for a game changer i wouldn't i'd just switch or wait or skylake. I personally don't expect major things with skylake(like 50% boost in most areas) but i do expect it to be stronger then Zen which i expect to probably be around ivy-haswell in terms of overall performance.

 

[etayorius]

Well if you look at the Amd in the 80's-90's(mid 90's) they were always behind Intel and many always claimed they would be dead, i think we are seeing that today but this time around i think Amd is better today then they were back then. Still behind but in a way found a niche market and hopefully SOC devices can give them revenue.

As for waiting for a game changer i wouldn't i'd just switch or wait or skylake. I personally don't expect major things with skylake(like 50% boost in most areas) but i do expect it to be stronger then Zen which i expect to probably be around ivy-haswell in terms of overall performance.

Yeah totally agree, i expect Zen to be on par or slightly slower than Haswell but i need something before the year ends, so Skylake will be my choice as soon as it arrives.

 

[-Fran-]

CPU wise with Intel, you won't notice earth shattering differences in games from Sandy and up.

Cheers!

 

[etayorius]

CPU wise with Intel, you won't notice earth shattering differences in games from Sandy and up.

Cheers!

Agree, but i am at PhenomII and moving to Skylake should be up to 80% faster at least.

 

[-Fran-]

CPU wise with Intel, you won't notice earth shattering differences in games from Sandy and up.

Cheers!

Agree, but i am at PhenomII and moving to Skylake should be up to 80% faster at least.

Haha, sorry; the answer turned out to be cryptic. That happens when you need to do something in a hurry and press "answer"

Anyway, what I meant is any Intel K cpu will do a great job at replacing your Phenom II (i5 or i7, even for the X platform). No need to wait for a certain specific gen to come out. What's already out is very good and you won't see big enough differences to regret your purchase. This is from someone who was waiting for the FX8350 to arrive at Microcenter the day before traveling back to his home country, when they slapped the "50% off + 100USD discount on any Asus MoBo" combo on top of the i7 2700K, hahaha. Man... That happens few times in life, haha.

Cheers!

 

[jdwii]

CPU wise with Intel, you won't notice earth shattering differences in games from Sandy and up.

Cheers!

Yeah in the majority of titles and most sandy setups can get to 5.0 BUT in some thing haswell is huge upgrade one is dolphin emulator one other game that comes to mind is evil within but i wouldn't say its worth getting if you own sandy and have it OC.

 

[jdwii]

i have trouble supporting a company/corporation that

Spoiler

overprices it's products.
underpowers it's products.
underpowers and overprices it's products.
delays it's new products.
delays it's new products, underpowers them, then overprices them.
messes up it's new product's software support.
delays fixing it's new product's buggy software support.
messes up it's new product's firmware support.
messes up fixing it's buggy launch firmware.
launches a new product that heats up too easily or overheats.
launches a new product that makes too loud noise.
sells/bundles inadequate/barely adequate cooling system that is also borderline unbearably noisy.
has bad customer support and after sales service.
engages in unlawful, unethical business practices that harm the competition and healthy business practices.
launches a new product/lineup/platform that has various degrees of compatibility issues with other products.
is mean to me.
hurts my feelings.
doesn't make me warm and fuzzy.
makes me really upset.
thinks that x-men: the last stand is a masterpiece.
thinks that the amazing spider-man 2 is great.
thinks that john carter/jupiter ascending was a blockbuster.
thinks it can force people to buy it's products regardless of quality.
hires will.i.am.
has a cult following of rabid fans.
hates/neglects/drives away enthusiasts.
has/makes too much money.
pretends to be nice but is evil on the inside.
hates/neglects/cripples/all-of-the-aforementioned overclocking and any kind of tweaking.
locks down software/hardware to own ecosystem/platform.
extorts money from customers.
releases incomplete, unfinished, buggy software.
doesn't releases patches and bug fixes when i need them.
hires gene simmons.
doesn't meet my delusions.
attempts to cripple software performance of competitor's products.
wins benchmarks by cheating.
loses benchmarks too many times.
bribes tech journalists for good press and publicity.
bribes other vendor to drop competitor's products.
bribes tech writers/journalists to undermine competitor's products.
charges hidden fees.
promises to divorce his wife but never does.
i meant "Promises, but never delivers" darn it! scratch the stuff about the wife. Please!
has finished building it's new product/lineup but delays in the name of "finishing touches.
can't pronounce idina menzel's name right.
launches it's products in other countries but mine.
delays launching it's new products in my region.
i suspect of building backdoors into it's products.
conspires against competitors.
pretends to care about desktop users but doesn't.
makes snuggies.
doesn't care about efficiency.
publicizes efficiency too much.
caters to mobile users.

and that's why, i will buy from the other company that never does those things.
...
.....

Spoiler

bruce willis was dead the whole time.
brad pitt was imaginary.
mila kunis was imaginary.
hd4000 wasn't ~200% faster.
annie was the female titan.
tyrese dies.
walt dies.
aaron echolls killed lily.
joe miller was the killer. the name !@#$ing rhymed. nobody noticed that? come on!
one of the broadwell core i3s have one less EU than the rest.
consumer skylake cpus may have avx-512 disabled.
mobile core i3s are actually mobile core i5 with turbo and some cache disabled.
arm was the one who held back socs and decided that a57 based cpus won't scale higher than 8 cores.
amd didn't reveal which cache coherent interconnect/interface it was using in seattle.
tobin bell is alive the whole time!!

uh-oh...

@embra: when tech companies release huge amount of very small bits of info on future stuff for a very short period of time a.k.a. an expo and then goes back to silent mode, there's always temporary quiet news period afterwards. that's when people measure if the released info were satisfying or not.

When i read the first part i thought of all of them lol not sure if you were trolling and meant that.