AMD: Done for?

[jennyh]

Why not do both?

Sure it makes everything faster but some people are interested in the clock for clock ratio etc.

Because without turbo on, the i5 gets blown away by even AMD X3's. There is no way intel would allow that to be seen.

 

[amdfangirl]

Read the review, turbo was enabled on ALL benchmarks.

It's a bit awful they state it as "2.66Ghz"

 

[amdfangirl]

Because without turbo on, the i5 gets blown away by even AMD X3's. There is no way intel would allow that to be seen.

Well, we are in a free world.

Besides, turbo is almost like cheating.

It's like OC'ing in the no OC section.

 

[jennyh]

Free world perhaps, but when intel are 'encouraging' you to use turbo, it's not exactly difficult to do that.

Cheating? Well it's overclocking at least. It's smart, it's a smart piece of technology. What it isn't is faster than a 965 BE at stock, not even close.

 

[randomizer]

Turbo disabled on this review (turbo seems to have problems under linux?).

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_lynnfield&num=1

According to that one, the i5 loses to the 710 X3 more often than not. Interesting to see benchmarks on linux, as they cannot be accused of being optimised for a certain company.

It also shows how far behind the i5 is compared to the i7.

They also mentioned in the conclusion (in the update) that they think there's some issues with Linux and Lynnfield but didn't specifically state whether they were talking only about Turbo or not. It's worth keeping an eye on that review to see if they can improve the results or not.

 

[amdfangirl]

Free world perhaps, but when intel are 'encouraging' you to use turbo, it's not exactly difficult to do that.

Cheating? Well it's overclocking at least. It's smart, it's a smart piece of technology. What it isn't is faster than a 965 BE at stock, not even close.

Intel has done some smart marketing, I'll give them that much.

I sincerely believe turbo scores should be discretely stated and compared to overclocked AMD and Intel equivalents.

 

[ibnsina]

The golden questions is whether in the long term ATIC [owner of GlobalFoundries] sees AMD as valuable assets and continues the partnership. If this happens then AMD would become a very strong competitor to Intel and might even take it’s place as the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, five to seven years down the line.

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority [ATIC] is currently the largest fund among oil exporters and has accumulated assets worth between US$ 650 billion and US$ 1 trillion and has sufficient cash reserves.

As for "Oil running out", Abu Dhabi sits atop some 8% of the world’s proven reserves of oil, At current rates of extraction, the oil will last for another 92 years. Abu Dhabi National Oil Company one of the world's leading oil companies, producing over 2.7 million barrels of oil a day.

AMD might be the underdog for another 2 years, but after that I think they will have much brighter future to look forward to. Globalfoundries's new [$4.2B] Fab 2 is expect to be the world’s most advanced semiconductor foundry, breaking ground on a new facility, which is based New York. They are also in the process of buying Singapore’s state-controlled Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing for $1.8 billion. If GlobalFoundries continues to invest and manages these Fabs properly, than expect a different AMD few years down the line.

 

[amdfangirl]

AMD is recovering.

I like cake.

But cake is a lie.

 

[jennyh]

What I dont like is them showing some benchmarks with their intels stock ghz rating, when they are in fact operating at higher frequencies.

Thats just plain deceit as far as i'm concerned. Why label a cpu at 2.7ghz when its running at 3ghz or even higher? If the label says 2.7ghz, it should be benched at 2.7ghz not some unknown (but higher) 'turbo' clockspeed.

It's just total fail all round tbh, people can go on about conspiracy theorists etc but how often are these things working out in intels favour? When they don't have anything particularly great as a product, you can be sure they'll figure out a way to let the public believe they have. No more itaniums from intel, they'll bribe their way out of anything that bad.

Some of the rubbish i've read over the i5 is just mind boggling. "The best cpu ever made" was a headline I read 2 weeks ago in PC Format. The i5 is a decent cpu but it's hardly a step up over what intel already have at core2.

 

[jennyh]

Also, OT - AMD will be fine. The gap between Phenom II and Core i5/i7 is nowhere near as big as the gap between Phenom I and Core 2 was.

AMD are practically assured survival now that ATIC are buying up fabs. And ATIC need AMD because they have no other way of getting x86. That is why AMD shares rose 15% yesterday, everything ATIC does now is making AMD more and more powerful almost by default.

 

[Reynod]

http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NYSE:AMD

Yeah ... AMD is done for ... absolutely going off the cliff.

Punched UP through $5 a share today.

Morons ...

 

[Andraxxus]

Here is one article that has TM off:
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,694495/Intel-Core-i5-and-Core-i7-Lynnfield-CPUs-reviewed/Reviews/

 

[4745454b]

Free world perhaps, but when intel are 'encouraging' you to use turbo, it's not exactly difficult to do that.

But they were also using a BE AMD chip, which also encourages you to overclock. I would have liked to have seen true stock i5 750, turbo on i5 750, and stock and OC'd 965. This lets us compare not only C4C, but also best case/overclocking, etc.

Interesting on the Linux front as well. Anyone seen any reviews of i5 and XP? Another "win" for AMD might be if it runs better in XP. Anyone needing to hang onto an old machine/software might not be able to upgrade to i5.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

I believe AMD can afford a price war against Intel simply becuase of the die shrinks and better yield. AMD already has Instanbul in the server market and I believe that there just isn't a market for hexa cores yet (except for the server market of course). Thuban would be their best bet at the high end market. If AMD can slash their Phenom II x4 prices to around 150~160, then it'd be great. They'd definitely own the market. Screw Kuma/Athlon x64 7xxx. Discontinue that segment and let Calisto replace it. Tri-core will go head on against Core 2 Duo. That way, AMD will sure be on the winning side.

Did you happen to catch any of AMD's last dozen quarterly earnings reports, by any chance? AMDs margins are in the toilet, and Intel's holding the flush handle.

Intel has been at 45nm a year longer than AMD (who reportedly is just now at 'crossover' where half their CPU product line is 45nm - Intel got there in June 2008). And I believe Intel's 45nm yields are better than AMDs - judging by the availability of triple-cripple X3s - plus AMD uses more expensive SOI wafers. And Phenom X4 (& X3) are about the same die size as Nehalem, so the theoretical max yield is about the same anyway.

Intel is moving to 32nm in a couple months. AMD - in a couple years.

AMD spends a whopping 35% of their income on R&D, Intel only 15% or so.

AMD really cannot afford to play in this game much longer, and they certainly cannot afford cutting their margins even further below the miserable 27% of last quarter.

 

[amdfangirl]

That's just R&D?

What about operating costs and etc?

 

[masterasia]

I'm not an Intel or AMD fanboy. I just like what performs the best. I had a couple AMD processors back in the day when the FX chip just came out. It blew Intel out of the water when their best desktop chip was just a 3.2Ghz P4. That was why I shelled out the big bucks to buy it. It was good while it lasted and then Intel released the Core 2 series and it was all over for AMD. I went back to Intel processors because AMD has nothing on the market that would compete with them.

But I do have to say something about AMD. Their RMA process is very quick. Took only a week to get something RMA'd. 3 days to ship it there, got the email that they approved my RMA, and another 3 days to ship it back. I've never RMA'd an Intel product before but I hear they kinda suck.

 

[MarkG]

Thats just plain deceit as far as i'm concerned. Why label a cpu at 2.7ghz when its running at 3ghz or even higher? If the label says 2.7ghz, it should be benched at 2.7ghz not some unknown (but higher) 'turbo' clockspeed.

Yes, it's just so unfair. Someone should have a talk with Intel's dad and tell them to stop bullying poor little AMD by producing faster chips... they should be forced to stop making good chips and start selling Pentium-4 space heaters again.

What's funny is that for years AMD were doing the opposite, selling '3000+' chips which naive buyers didn't realise were only running at around 2GHz, and that was apparently a good thing. Now that Intel are selling CPUs claiming that they run at a _lower_ clock speed than they're really capable of running at, they're suddenly evil. When did giving people more than they think they're paying for become bad while giving them less is good?

Some of the rubbish i've read over the i5 is just mind boggling. "The best cpu ever made" was a headline I read 2 weeks ago in PC Format. The i5 is a decent cpu but it's hardly a step up over what intel already have at core2.

It's better than the Core 2, which was the best x86 CPU ever made prior to Nehalem; hence, pretty much by definition, it's among the best CPUs ever made... and considering it comes close to the original i7 performance (or beats it in some areas) while using less power, laiming that it's a better CPU isn't hard.

Now, I do hope that AMD get out of the doldrums with some competitive products, but whining about how unfair Turbo mode is won't achieve that... AMD would do much better to just copy Intel and stick a Turbo mode in their own CPUs for operation with a limited number of threads.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

That's just R&D?

What about operating costs and etc?

Heh I'm too lazy to go to AMD.com and look up their Q2 report, but they have been reducing payroll and cutting costs. I'm sure their 45nm process (actually GFs now) is maturing as well, judging by the binning, but since the wafers already cost something like 10x that of strained silicon, the cost to manufacture is likely higher than Intels.

Bottom line is that AMD has not made a profit since Q3 of 2006. Total losses including the ATI writeoff is approaching $8 billion. Excluding the writeoff, it's over $3B IIRC.

The actual dollar amount of CPU R&D is less than what Intel spends, but since AMDs earnings are just a fraction of Intels, that's why AMDs R&D consumes such a large portion of earnings. And frankly AMD cannot reduce that budget if they hope to stay in the high-end CPU business.

 

[OvrClkr]

IMO the only way AMD will survive is by reducing thier prices on thier current lineup... If AMD can sell a Quad for 149.99$ then they should be ok... if not then it does not look good for them....

One of AMD's downfall's was the infamous TWKR, it really didnt do much or shall I save achieve anything that has not been done already... I had high hopes and was not impressed at all, but there are rumors that AMD has a comparable CPU (quad) that can trounce the 965 at a lower TDP........Hopefully these rumors are true and we will see AMD back in the game....

 

[amdfangirl]

Perhaps GloFo might have a better 45nm process as it matures or we might see a die revision.

 

[Cryslayer80]

So Intel just launched LGA1156, which, by all means, eliminates AMD's competitiveness in the market above $200. And at below $200 price points, AMD has a hard time fighting it out with the still potent LGA775 solutions down there. Simply put, Intel has completely shut AMD out of the market except in the really low price segments. In pre-built PCs, anything over $550 will soon probably have the i5-750 in it. In performance, only the hardcore AMD crowd would still buy an AMD processor right now.

Looking at the Intel roadmap, the next year will be full of new products: i9 with a 32nm hexacore will be out before years end, and early 2010 will see 32nm dual cores (so Intel will most likely end up dominating the sub $200 price points as well). By the end of 2010, all of Intel's lineup will be 32nm.

And what is AMD doing to counter this?
...

Nothing. Its first hexacore will be on the 45nm process, and still based on the same K10 architecture that Intel has completely overran performance-wise. All next year, it will release more K10 products, all of which are based on the current processors. More steppings and clock speed increases to come.

Its first 32nm product won't ship until 2011. Likelyhood is, it will be at the end of 2011, when Intel starts talking about 22nm.

ATI is at least still competitive in the GPU market. It offers solid cards now at all meaningful price ranges. Nvidia hasn't paid a lot of attention to the GPU market much in recent times, and the GTX3xx series will likely be either a rehash of the current cards on a smaller process (as Nvidia has been doing recently) or will come to the market way after ATi launches its newest chips. And about those chips: they will be launching on a 40nm process that will likely be vastly improved over the last 65nm process in more than just size. The 4770 already gave us a taste of what the low end of the 40nm chips can do, and that was without a ton of structural changes.

My worry is that AMD is going to get bulldozed by Intel, and we will be back in the same spot we were pre-K8. Remember back then? Intel had a crushing hold on the CPU market, P4 was a terrible excuse for a "upgrade." AMD put the spark back in Intel, and got them innovating again. What happens when Intel decides it no longer has need for a large R&D budget?

AMD has only one thing on its side: Abu Dhabi. The oil is running out, and everyone up and down the Gulf needs something to run off of after the black gold disappears. I have no doubts that AMD can secure more financing, and the money needed to make it work again. What I do worry about is that AMD seems to not care: their roadmap is behind Intel's by a whole year, and for that whole year, Intel will dominate the market. Once you have consumers consistently buying Intel chips, its done for. Heck, we are already at that point, standing on the edge even.

What can AMD do? If they can't move the roadmap up, if they can't get a killer processor that people will be willing to spend more than $300 for, something with margin and flair, then its over.

So Intel just launched LGA1156, which, by all means, eliminates AMD's competitiveness in the market above $200.

Sorry, after seeing that, I know the rest of the post is a total garbagy fail.
Fail.
Regards.

PS: AMD has a hard time fighting it out with the still potent LGA775 solutions down there.

AMD beats down the highest performing Core2 out there so you have no helling idea what you are talking about.

 

[Cryslayer80]

Wont happen, ever. Not even if you wish really, really, really hard for it. Nvidia can buy AMD twice or even three times over, but it isn't in their best interests to do so.

I dont think AMD is looking over the edge of the cliff of Failure. They're still highly competitive against i7 with their AM3 chips, and now they've even launched a cheap, cacheless quad-core that kicks Intel's low-end dualies out of the playground. AMD's going to play the markets that are looking for value for money and a stable system that can be used for years, without fear of a loss of an upgrade path. Intel, on the other hand, is going to have their hands full trying to convince people to now upgrade from LGA775 to the i5 or i7 platform, especially when there are i5 chips that whip the i7 920. If one invests in an i5 board, you'll have to stick to i5 processors, unless you fork out more money for i7. And I got a feeling that AMD will make a good comeback next year with a few suprises for us - they're still the underdogs, and may just find a way to relive the glory days when they beat the Pentium 4.

That post is the win here. +1

PS: And one more reason for AMD's position. A marketing team consisted of n00bs. Do you think someone will buy your product if you compare it with a competitive product on your OFFICIAL site??? That is reserved for testers and fanboys, for cry's sakes. Look at this and laugh: http://sites.amd.com/us/atplay/Pages/showtime10.aspx

Instead of just suggesting that their products are better, they clearly point: faster than an nvidia solution. N00bs.

 

[jeffk464]

Why not do both?

Sure it makes everything faster but some people are interested in the clock for clock ratio etc.

I'm mostly interested in what gets the best benchmarks for the dollar amount I want to spend. Or my new concern in choosing processors is which chip can do what I need for the least amount of electricity . I never buy top of the line processors because their prices are outragous. The last system I built was a AMD regor 250/785 chipset. It did everything I wanted, basically multimedia including HD, at a great pricepoint and great energy savings. My next chip is probably going to be the new pentium based on core i3, its suppose to be around $80 and will build a system with very low power requirements. I think the overall platform is becoming more important then just the processor speed these days.

 

[Raidur]

Here are some benches (non-gaming) of i5 (with the Phenom II 965 and i7 870) with turbo on/off and overclocks I just stumbled upon.

http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1673&pageID=7544

 

[Raidur]

AMD beats down the highest performing Core2 out there so you have no helling idea what you are talking about.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=48&p2=88

Clock for clock comparison. Fail!