AMD/iBuyPower Respond To Puget Column

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Well this is not a who's better CPU article, it’s a who's better marketing / distribution channel to reseller business article. Which was the point of the 1st article, and this rebuttal article.
Curious point on this rebuttal the last comments to the article explain why Jon at Puget was correct in his statement.

"Chris: I think that’s the message you’d want to get across. If they exist, how do builders get access to it?"

Here Chris final sentence in the article directing the main question of Jon from Puget’s question to them - as you read this, it is a direct question asked to him and the reply is;

"John: Right, that sounds like a good challenge on our part. Because we do have a number of programs, the same as the other guys. Maybe we don’t publicize it because they’re not offered across the board."

John agrees right we don’t do that question you asked Chris. even states we have programs just not publicized, meaning guys like Jon with Puget are speaking truth as Chris question is still unanswered correctly, they don’t have those programs available as easily for resellers programs to smaller businesses aka Puget boutique style shops.

Marketing talk doesn’t get it done when resellers need to actually sell stuff to stay in business. “But ours is not public” as he states, so the answer to the question of how do we get that info, of his final question asked?? Still goes legitimately unanswered. Well we know its not public but how do we get it?? still unanswered?? Puget is obviously a reseller, so why even if not public cant he get it, what’s this portion of not across the board mean as well, so whom non public is left out of that equation?????

Marketing / support dollars in the mfg to reseller channel are not unlimited, and as companies go we all know Intel is bigger then AMD and even APPLE, so they can spend more personnel dollars support resources to more smaller vendors on a global market to which all those companies do business.
 
I do work for a system builder and we do prefer Intel to AMD. In my opinion, if AMD would redesign their processor architecture like Intel did, they make come out on top again. Working with 8 year old technology vs. 3 year old technology just doesn't make sense to me.

I don't really se the price/performance margin being in AMD's favor currently either. A similarly performing processor from Intel costs about $40 more than a comparable AMD processor....and typically runs at a slower clock speed.

AMD has some good processors on the market, and are (again, my opinion) really killing it in the gaming graphics department, but I personally believe that they have a lot of catching up to do in order to give Intel a run for it's money. I'd personally like some information on how to get my company involved in their partner program. Intel's Retail Edge program is awesome. I'm sure AMD's similar program would be just as good.
 
I do work for a system builder and we do prefer Intel to AMD. In my opinion, if AMD would redesign their processor architecture like Intel did, they make come out on top again. Working with 8 year old technology vs. 3 year old technology just doesn't make sense to me.

I don't really se the price/performance margin being in AMD's favor currently either. A similarly performing processor from Intel costs about $40 more than a comparable AMD processor....and typically runs at a slower clock speed.

AMD has some good processors on the market, and are (again, my opinion) really killing it in the gaming graphics department, but I personally believe that they have a lot of catching up to do in order to give Intel a run for it's money. I'd personally like some information on how to get my company involved in their partner program. Intel's Retail Edge program is awesome. I'm sure AMD's similar program would be just as good.
 
Nice seeing some passionate and educated responses here. I've been a system builder on a small scale - mostly friends and family - for a long time now.

AMD really does have the platform nailed, especially for my budget builds. I look at my buying history at the dozens of motherboards I've bought, even in just the last six months. The Intel motherboards in the $60 price range typically have had only two slots for RAM, whereas the AMD boards in the same price range have four slots. If the board has integrated graphics, the Intel graphics suck, while AMD's seem to at least get basic jobs done more pleasantly so ... And several of the AMD boards have the 780G chipset, which supports hybrid crossfire. Throw in a cheap $30 ATI GPU and you've got 8 channel audio and the combined power of integrated and dedicated, which Tom's showed in a past article to actually post a marginal performance boost.

Assuming CPUs are equal performance per dollar across the board (which is seldom the case, depending on price fluctuations) you still get a little more performance for your dollar on the AMD build if you're in the budget segment, which many of my clients typically are.

The two "high end" builds have been based on Intel's quad core CPUs, but I'm about to make one for my mom with a Phenom II. Newegg has been having some crazy combo deals with the Deneb quad cores, and they are such an excellent value for the money. It will be a perfect editing rig for my mom and her photoshop and video editing - for a phenomenal price. (pun intended, har har...) The socket AM3 motherboard I got her was fifty bucks, and supports - you guessed it - four sticks of DDR2. FIFTY BUCKS!!! It also has integrated 8100 graphics if she ever wanted to do hybrid SLI for performance/power savings. What Intel board is $50 ($40 after mail in rebate) that has that kind of expandability and runs Intel's best CPUs? Your i7 boards are going to run you nigh $180-200 for the budget ones. They're great boards, and yes, the i7 is faster, but pair a 3.0GHz phenom II, 8GB of RAM, and a decent dedicated card and you've got a fairly powerful editing rig, for half the price.

And AMD might not hype their programs, trainings, and incentives like Intel does, but they are there. I just got a $35 triple core CPU and a T-shirt from AMD via their training program. And they shipped the incentive package a LOT faster than anything I've ever received from Intel.

Don't get me wrong, I love the i7 for my own rig. I wanted the best, and I've spend the dinars on it, but how many truly fall into that bracket? How many truly "need" to spend that much? Most don't, and I think with phenom II's doing so well, the upper mainstream or "budget" enthusiast is in a veritable sweet spot with plenty of fantastic options for graphics and CPU. AMD's most definitely a contender in this bracket, and I see a lot more consumers falling into that arena than the ultra-high end enthusiast.

If vendors aren't capitalizing on the platforms AMD offers, then they are crazy. It's their own fault. AMD setups offer better margins for manufacturers and resellers on the budget end, and provide customers with much better integrated graphics, and usually an extra core or two for the same price as a lesser Intel getup. When I go into Best Buy I see $600 AMD quad core rigs and $800 Intel dual core rigs. Even though sometimes the dual core would be faster - and we enthusiasts know that - the customer sees "quad core" and buys the AMD, especially because it's cheaper. Even if the CPU is inferior (like a 1.8 quad core ... yuk!) the integrated graphics are much better, and who knows. Maybe the customer will do some real multitasking or multithreaded editing some day when they learn how.

Their chances of AMD making a better CPU for that same socket (and probably with a lower envelope) are quite high, so they'll probably have a really cheap upgrade path.
 
@surrept420:
I've had an athlon xp 1900+ (1600mhz) for about 7 years until 6 months ago, and its been through hell. It's the palomino stepping which is very hot but my technician probably didn't care much so for the first 3 summers (~40*Celsius) it ran with one cranky intake fan and on a dusty room.
When I was abit older and got into computers, I checked the bios and discovered the cpu was on 80*c(!!) on ~50% load and immediately replaced the heatsink and fan, and added an exhaust. Except for a bad hard disk the computer is still working perfectly fine, and has served me well beyond the call of duty :), always felt real snappy (even with xp sp3), and was even faster than pentiums @ 2.0ghz. Heck, I'm using a pentium 4 3.0ghz w/1gb ram at work and I would rather use my old comp any day.

Needless to say, those who bring computers to repair usually don't know anything about them, have crappy technicians (not very hard to find) and probably run them until they're fried. amd guys usually overclock (overcook?) as well.
 
I'm not a system builder, but I recently bought an AMD Phenom II from the IBuyPower website. I read the Puget Systems column while I was waiting for my PC to ship, and what Jon Bach said about AMD chips slipping out the socket easily during shipping had me a little worried. However, when my PC arrived, it was held firmly in place by a foam insert; simple, effective, and it completely nullifies his position on shipping problems being more of a concern for AMD.

Also, since IBuyPower does a great job of advertising BOTH Intel and AMD, I would give a lot more attention to their numbers than to a company who only advertises one of the two.
 
michaelahess stated that at one time AMD was more friendly to the little guy, but by "little guy," he meant a shop owner.

I've worked retail computer sales at a big box company, and an interesting note: right now Intel has a program called "Retail Edge." You basically go to a website, learn about Intel product, and intel gives you "points" to spend on stuff from their website. Anything from a pocket knife to a 40 inch Sony HDTV has been available, for free, provided you took the time to learn about their product (and really, most salesman already know more than Intel lets on by watching sites like Toms).

They also have a "Retail Edge" bundle where people who are part of the Retail edge get discounts on Intel motherboards, processors, and even Windows Vista.

What does AMD have? Nada. At Best Buy, most people haven't ever seen an AMD rep. But the Intel rep is in almost monthly, handing out free stuff and getting the sales people pumped about Intel processors.

And while people like iBuyPower and Puget Systems cater to speciality markets, where are most processors, indeed most computers, actually purchased? Big box retail, like Wal-Mart or Best Buy or Fry's. Even Nebraska Furniture Mart churns out PCs. And while readers of Tom's may have some negative things to say about those establishments, the fact is the majority of computers sold flow through big box retail.

So there is AMD's weakness: mass market. Sure, some enthusiasts and speciality builders may know of them, but I still get customers asking me "whats AMD" and "what is a Turion processor?" But EVERYONE knows the Intel name and even the Intel jingle. Does AMD even have a jingle, or a retail education program? The mass market is all but ignorant about AMD.

 
Then explain them what's AMD and what are some of the benefits if they choose AMD.

Of 100 people they ask me to buy a rig (office work, gaming, serious work) 99 of them go AMD with a happy smile after their learn. The one left will choose an i7 beceause he really need the powerhouse (intensive rendering).

On the internet world this link works.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/cpu_retrospective_the_life_and_times_x86
 
I've had so many athlons that I could probably build a house with them, but I'm not married to amd, or to intel. I meant to use an x3 in the last build I did, but I did end up with an i7 920 system instead. It just was the smarter choice :)
Anyway, I think amd has as much chance as intel when it comes to prebuilt systems. Price matters, and they're good at that at the moment, although sb7xx boards are still overpriced.
Amd will never make it properly in the business sector I think though. Too many are still dreading the change from intel to amd, lest they aren't compatible like in the old days. At work we use all hp, and only servers are running amd, mainly the old ones when the opty was beating the p4 based xeons.
 
LOL, am I the only guy that thinks John from AMD is barking at the wrong tree?

"At the very highest-end, the folks in blue have a performance advantage, but from a price/performance level, we beat them across the board."

As a marketing guy, he is pushing value at boutique shops that prides themselves on beating Dell's Alienware and HP's Voodoo. Is he going to advertise the virtue of Nike in a Versace boutique?

This is the problem that’s plaguing AMD for years, no effective marketing what-so-ever. On the other hand, Intel’s marketing has been so effective that people think Centrino is better than Intel.
 
[citation][nom]Andy_Newton[/nom]@JMS3096It's the result that matters.@AMD -> Advanced Micro Device company, not their fansDon't forget that a while back plenty of ATI senior engineers fled the New AMD because AMD tells its ATI roadmap to nVidia for no obvious reasons & no obvious benefit.It's a misconduct since YOUR heads got big when Intel Prescott failed to compete with YOUR Athlon X2 and too late to realize that their highest end Phenom can not compete with highest end Core2duo and let alone today's i7.Without those senior engineers, there's no way YOU can defeat Intel and there's no way your ATI can defeat nVidia immediately because of lack of good drivers.Now open source drivers??? That is just so lame--you can't make good driver so you let your users figure it out on their own.Wake up AMD!!!EVEN APPLE DOES NOT WANT YOUR X86!!!I was in the market for building an all AMD system a few years ago in china, strictly for gaming. Asus or MSI board with Athlon X2 CPU & ATI chipset.The problem was: there is no ATI chipsets in China even till this day. Look at your Opteron. The best 4 socket Opteron board has not 1 but TWO Intel gigabit ethernet???I don't want to mix stuff especially from competing companies. If you can't get an all AMD, might as well make it all Intel with nVidia graphics.Since we all know that nvidia chipset works best with nvidia graphics, isn't it obvious that getting a board for intel i7 with nvidia chipset & nvidia graphics is a way better system then a Phenom x4 with nvidia chipset (no ATI chipset down here) and ATI graphics?So understand that it is indeed very difficult to get an all AMD not because of Intel, rather, because AMD IS NOT SERIOUS ENOUGH to compete with Intel!!!AMD does NOT want to compete with intel anymore. Since Core2duo, YOU, AMD, have had this looser mentality and had only hoped to make money from mid-range products and by suing Intel!!!WTFWake up AMD!!!PROVE ME WRONG!!!Let me buy a 4 socket OPTERON board with ATI Chipset and broadcom gigabit LAN!!! No intel no nvidia!!!NAME one vendor that makes that!!!JUST ONE!!!Your vendors have factories in China and China population is billions. They game like crazy every single day and YOU, AMD, choose not do any ATI business in China and now YOU, AMD, are blaming Intel for your own lack of winning mentality!!!If YOU, AMD, don't even believe you can win, why should WE, your (former) devoted fans, believe in YOU anymore?PROVE ME WRONG!!!Abandon all this Intel Lawsuits and focus on making great products like you used to. Defeat Intel!!!Make Paul Otellini say it again to Intel shareholders: "We can not compete with AMD"I wanna see the arrogant Steve Jobs of Apple knocking on your door begging on his knees to transition their X86 to AMD.Make it happen!!!For all who had loved AMD and for those who still does,Best Regards,-ND[/citation]

All this typing just to let people know he's an idiot...
 
On a side note, I think AMD is aiming at where Intel was and not where Intel is going to be. My sis is going to grad school and I am thinking of replacing her Core Duo notebook with a new one and the only “good” offering are Intels. Turions are too slow and hot for the price so most brands don’t offer Turion on their performance/business notebooks. With notebooks accounts for more than half of “PC” sales, AMD is in fact locking itself out of the biggest and fastest growing market.

I am also thinking of converting an old Athlon X2 ATX-sized box into a SFF so it would look neat. I want to carry over the X2 chip but AMD’s miniITX boards are so much more expensive than Intel’s ($95~$160 vs. $51~$140). I know 780G is better than Intel’s crap but some of the Intel board came with mGPU 9300 which easily matches 780/790. In addition, I am going to use a half height HD 4650 so chipset doesn’t really matter.
 
Long live the Athlon XP 2500+!!! I had that thing for 4 years and it served me well. I love AMD but unfortunately, I need performance in the audio and video encoding benchmarks and Intel beats them. I've got my eye on the Phenom II Quad though. I've got an aging Pentium D and looking for an upgrade.
 
Try and remember that this is the same EU that made the great decision to force MS to either drop IE or include all the competition's browsers on their OS disc. I'm not a fan of anything (except my family, WOW, grandkids !!), but marketing and partnering by business is absolutely normal, has been since Glub traded more meat to Gob for firewood, preferentially over Doofus. Markets have a way of taking care of themselves, as Glub found out when he got some wormy wood from Gob. Stuff happens.

I've built everything over the years. Remember Cyrix chips? You couldn't find a hotter running chip, could heat the house while running them. Ice water cooling barely helped. Like so many previous commments above, AMD and Intel both have their own development paths, marketing approaches. Neither is wrong, neither right. They both bring their own value to the marketplace. It's a matter of what serves the needs of their clientele. Most of Tom's readers play around and experiment with both platforms and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each. That includes OS's, GPU's, et al.

So EU, US Gov, Intergalactic Trade Commision, Get the Hell Out of the Way.
 
I build rigs, but not professionally; I mean, I make my own, and I built the half-dozen rigs we use in my small shop.

I built them all out of AMD stuff starting 4 years ago; extremely cheap components at the time, I have had zero CPU failures and one motherborad that had to be returned. My own rig, the one I'm using currently, has been running all day long, for 4 years, with a 40% overclock (Sempron64 1600@2200) so that it can run my browser, development suite, a music player, a mail client,a web server, a database... and can withstand 300 connection request/second.

Yeah, all right... I run them all under 64-bit Linux.

But whoever said AMD stuff can't take it, has obviously not used any! Busted mobos, yeah, sure; but then, that's hardly AMD's fault. And anyway, if you consider the price for an AM2 mobo and that for a C2D one, you can buy a spare AM2 mobo for the price you'd get the other one.
 
[citation][nom]mitch074[/nom]....But whoever said AMD stuff can't take it, has obviously not used any! Busted mobos, yeah, sure; but then, that's hardly AMD's fault. And anyway, if you consider the price for an AM2 mobo and that for a C2D one, you can buy a spare AM2 mobo for the price you'd get the other one.[/citation]
I think people should remember that 760G/780G is designed to counter G41/G43/G45 and not P45 or X48. Only 790GX and 790FX motherboard should be compared with P45/X48.
 
Mainly unrelated to the topic at hand but could someone at toms maybe come up with a classification scale to indicate what the differences between "system builder" vs "I bought some crap and put it together a few times" would be - I don't think anyone who has put together less than 50 systems of any "current" generation should be considered any kind of builder but they would need a title - maybe moderate enthusiast. Just because you can change the oil in your own car doesn't make you a mechanic any more than being able to put in your own memory. Hell my 3 year old can put a computer together... its harder to build something from lego. I usually don't bother commenting but something needs to be done to address this issue. I'm sure there are alot of professional systems builders that like to read these articles, see some of the comments and decide that its not worth the effort to post anything back.

I'm sure alot of system builders "That Actually Build Alot Of Systems" have alot more factors to concern them than "I can buy this and that from here and there and get a great deal" - real companies that build systems work on shit margins due to hardware pricing right now and have to plan for large scale product rollout. Its one thing to build 6 systems for $600 and kit out your family with uber gear - its another thing to plan on 600 systems with pretty much the exact same stuff while taking into account shelf life - new product rollout - performance to purchase dollar vs. current market trends - customer satisfaction, reliability, noise.

Bah whatever... I'm probably wasting my time... now I'm going to go fix that phonejack that's broken in the wall and troll some telecommunication boards to offer my expert advice
 
cb, it's right in the story.

If you're a system builder (and by system builder I mean a for-profit individual or organization that'd qualify for one of these reseller programs, rather than an enthusiast who builds his own machines when it comes time to upgrade), I again welcome you to share your experiences and opinions.
Click to expand...
 
@ cangelini

:)

I saw that in the article - I'm just wondering how many enthusiasts understand the importance of that paragraph. And my comment, albiet in this thread goes for the majority of articles concerning this kind of bent... if you want an example take a look at the raving comments over at this particular thread concerning AMD spinning off globalfoundries and how many people either know or don't know about big business and advanced design issues
 
Thank you to everyone that took the time to comment on this article! I've been watching it closely, and have found the responses very interesting. In going through the comments, I kept notes -- I figured I'd post them here in case someone finds it helpful.


DIY End Users say:

I love AMD
AMD has more innovation, is more creative
Intel has so much more R&D money, AMD is the underdog
Intel has better product on the high end
AMD is slower, but more power efficient
AMD is fast enough for my needs
AMD has better bang for the buck
Intel copies AMD
AMD never answered the question about their reseller programs
AMD makes a good platform
AMD is not vulnerable to shipping damage with a little effort
Most people go AMD, except when you need a powerhouse system
Intel has better marketing
AMD is very weak in notebooks
AMD is cheaper


Computer Builders / Repair Shops say:

AMD is more friendly to the little guy
AMD did not provide samples as promised
Intel is more stable, AMD drivers are problematic
AMD fails far more often
We sell more Intel in order to stay in their channel program
Intel has a superior product, and has a great retail program
Intel has an excellent reseller program, AMD has no program

It seems like DIY end user crowd, especially here at Tom's Hardware, tends to favor and strongly support AMD. AMD has had some strong products, and that competition brings innovation that is good for everyone. I completely agree! What's interesting is that some other system builders and repair shop owners are commenting as well, but they tend to favor Intel, citing reliability and a better reseller program. One thing this tells me is that there is a lack of awareness of the issues with both parties. End users, with the experience of only a handful of systems they've built, find it attractive to support the underdog, and appreciate AMD for the competition they bring to the industry. Professional shops, with the experience of hundreds or thousands of systems, have to make more practical decisions, and cannot be as driven by ideas, but rather what impacts the bottom line. That means that reliability and retail programs are more important. To a professional shop, it isn't as important to them that Intel costs more, since the customers are paying that difference. Cost is only a factor to the extent that can be a barrier to more business. Interesting stuff! This disconnect between end users and resellers is important to recognize, and is good for everyone. I think that end users need to be educated more on the practical realities of the matter, and I think that resellers need to hear the public, that bang for the buck is even more important than it seems to them.

Jon Bach
Puget Systems
http://www.pugetsystems.com
 
This disconnect between end users and resellers is important to recognize, and is good for everyone.
Click to expand...

Oops, I didn't mean that the disconnect is good for everyone! I meant to say that discussing and reconciling that disconnect is good for everyone.
 
@jonbach
Not a bash/flame/or troll just some input on my part - its my opinion only from a system builder viewpoint.

Computer Builders / Repair Shops say:

AMD is more friendly to the little guy
AMD did not provide samples as promised
Intel is more stable, AMD drivers are problematic
AMD fails far more often
We sell more Intel in order to stay in their channel program
Intel has a superior product, and has a great retail program
Intel has an excellent reseller program, AMD has no program
Click to expand...

AMD is more cost effective for the little guy trying to save money true
AMD not providing samples is a one off from one commenter - not much to base your point from.
Intel used to be more stable but I would call any business that uses that as a pitch to be outdated and or haven't worked with both current platforms enough to realize that cpu's are one of the least reliability impacting component. Drivers are company specific - you either have ones that work properly or ones that don't and alot of time it can be affected by other components in your machine other drivers and or even os issues - software is funny like that. The complexity of today's drivers don't help but that's a different issue.
AMD as a processor I wouldn't say fail more often - the supporting components of the processor are crappier quality in most cases because large companies are using AMD in the value segment and to help segregate the product lines they have to spread the dollar range a bit more by subbing in components that are lackluster and or cheap. People who experience actual CPU failures are few considering the complexity of the component in question and the amount produced and in use.
I have not bothered to check but from what I understand the requirements on units moved for some of the intel channel stuff is not hard to meet - I do know that at least in Canada only product purchased through certain distributers actually count towards your total.
Intel has great products - but so does AMD - availability through our supply chain of distributors is a disappointment and may be a distributor issue but even the AMD carrying ones have at best a poor level of product spread and or # available.
Intel does have a great reseller program and out of everything stands out as one item I can think of that isn't out there in such a way that people can say hey - let me check what's new.

Intel and AMD both have and had great product - I feel that on the whole AMD needs to focus more on making available the information and tools to educate people on how to sell their product.
 
[citation][nom]jonbach[/nom]What's interesting is that some other system builders and repair shop owners are commenting as well, but they tend to favor Intel, citing reliability and a better reseller program.[/citation]

I have no idea about reseller programs, as I work in the IT department of a large school (~500 employees, many more students), but on reliability I have experience.
Schools have limited budgets, so we're inclined to take what's cheapest right? well yeah, we do. But we don't go amd anymore. Athlon has often been praised to be a kickass chip series compared to intels p3 and p4 offerings. And for the most part that's true. But reliability is important for a company that keeps pc's running for 5+ years. I don't know how many computers I've looked at during my career (10 years anniversary at this place a few days ago), but I know that I've only once had to replace a broken intel chip - and that was because some idiot had stolen the heatsink. On the other hand, I've had to replace a lot of motherboards for amd systems as the capaciators seemed to fail after a few years (heat issue with the amd heatsinks not cooling the surrounding parts properly). In one room with 25 computers I had 7 different motherboards after a 6 year period of running autocad. In comparison I've just scrapped a buckload of hp dx2000 systems (s478 celerons) that just kept working ; only had 1 of those systems fail (apart from broken hds and abused cd-combo drives), and that was due to an electrician feeding the ihc controller, and subsequently the usb port 230v

Also - how many athlon chips have people fried over the years? The socket a retention system was rubbish and people remember that sort of thing.

We just bought a bit over 400 hp's with e5200 cpu's before the summer hollidays, and I'm expecting less than 5 of those systems to have had a fatal breakdown before they're replaced in 5 years time. Simply because I can't recall an intel cpu or a motherboard with intel chipset to have ever failed on me.
 
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