AMD: It Won't Be About 'AMD vs. Intel' Anymore

[kikireeki]

A very cheap way to dignify your epic fail AMD!

 

[BlackHawk91]

Why now when I'm about to build a 2500k system? Nooo

 

[shqtth]

I AMD going to let NVIDIA win too? I want my canadian company back

The new AMD lacks direction, and the CEO is a juvenile ASS, they needs someone with more experience.



What I don't understand why they just don't push a faster version of the Penom 6 core and call that plan B, and then fix the bulldozer. That way atleast they have a product that competes with the previous product instead of been beat by their own flagship. What ever happened to having a plan A plan B. (what if bulldozer fails). They were hoping the future windows 8 would save their ass, but more people don't upgrade to a new OS, meaning that an performance increase will not be noticed until a few years after windows 8 release which is 3 years. THats insane. They need to design a product that fast now, not fast later, and not something I need to buy a whole new windows just to make it fast. They should of realized this during testing, and had an alternative plan. Current people need to be satisfied, not just future users. No point disapointing the fans. I am sure Intel comes up with a few microprocessor designs and then selects the best, and then revers to the other plans if the plan fails. I guess if production where it was, they could of pulled it off with higher frequency, but that didn't happen and when they knew they were behind production, why they not come up with something else?




IF Amd keeps this up they will be left in the dust, and even emerging markets wont be so good as their technology will be behind. Intel will eventually catch up to their APU. Also they don't realize how competition ARM is and how creative the partners are, so technology needs to be on its toes. ANd they can only get there by giving their product a reality check by copeting against Intel.
Sure they don't have to go for high end, but for main stream. I hate it when AMD was only low end, and that were they are going to head if they don't smarten up.


I am scared for this as I see ARM as evil, the new Intel of the future or more like the borg of Startreck with a vast collective (many many parterns signing on). When ARM moves into the PC scene, if AMD perormance is too low, then they will loose out, and our beloved AMD will be lost forever, taken my Canadian ATI company with it . THe thing is, when the borg (ARM) invades hte PC scene, AMD won't be needed as #2 and they might be bought up. So its important, ver ver very important AMD keeps their stance. Microsoft with Windows 8 opened the door, and the linux programmers are helping, and it will make it easier for other OS to switch over too, and legacy Apps with be threw emulation joy The future is scary and very real. And they are heading to the server with 64bit, so that space its gettign invaded soon witht he help of linux. So as it stands now AMD cpus need to be both energy efficient to compete with ARM, and powerful to keep up with current technology for when ARM tries to envade higher end servers. Someone lets the ARM cat out of the box, and the future is going to be very messaed up, especially when they find out its not a cat but the king of the jungle and a killer too.

 

[omnimodis78]

I have never owned an Intel CPU even though I always understood that it made superior processors - but I always went with AMD simply because I was a smart shopper and knew quite well that speed benchmarks are just half the story. I quite enjoy paying good prices for good processors, instead of paying crazy prices for a bit more horsepower that I would never ever be able to actually notice (between "similar" options, that is). Nobody wins when competition disappears, in fact, in the long run, even a monopoly self-defeats.

 

[ansar]

Bah, I am sad to hear this. I hope this is just thrown out there hoping that Intel will take it that AMD is giving up and then slaps them in face with a new line of processors down the road. I have always liked the AMD strategy of reusing sockets. Hell, I don't even know what the current Intel socket is for the latest Intel processors. Sad Sad.

 

[chumly]

Time to step up, Nvidia.

 

[danwat1234]

[citation][nom]saturnus[/nom]What AMD should do is to not blindly follow neither Intel as they have been doing nor nVidia as it seem they will be doing but form their own unique platform. And here AMD is in a good position, they have an x86 license, they should use it to make ARM processors that can run legacy x86 code and combine that with their own take of a GPU into an SoC if they so desire. That will be a unique product. And a product there will be a huge demand for when Microsoft finally release Windows for ARM since the only drawback of that platform would be lack of x86 legacy app compatibility. A processor that combine true ARM cores with a dedicated x86 recoder co-processor could be a game changer for AMD and will likely win them huge marketshares, if not even overtake Intel flat out.[/citation]

I totally agree! If AMD could make a decoder to translate x86 to ARM, and make it efficient, it would be a huge competitor in the market. Or maybe make a successful Larrabee type chip. Great post

 

[clonazepam]

well come December 2012, Biebergeddon destroys all life on Earth anyway... :: ducks for cover ::

 

[fazers_on_stun]

IMO, I doubt Intel will jack their prices way, way up even if AMD vacates the desktop arena. Intel, like most corporations, does price analysis where they determine the sweet spot for each product. If the prices are too high, sales volume falls and you lose money. Most customers including those corporations that buy many thousands of machines at once, will simply delay their next upgrade cycle if insufficient return on investment. My company stuck me with a pentium 4/WinXP machine for 8+ years until last summer when I got an i7 820QM quadcore laptop. I expect to be pushing up daisies before the next upgrade cycle ..

Besides, Intel knows that if they jacked up prices, GF couldn't produce enough good AMD CPUs to fill the resulting market for low-cost CPUs. Seeing as they already have over 80% of the market anyway, I seriously doubt Intel would be so stupid as to completely alienate their customer base..

 

[megamanx00]

The fools. Bulldozer is AMDs netburst architecture and the good ol Stars core is their Pentium pro. They need to ditch bulldozer, finally get around to improving Stars just as Intel's Israeli team did with the Pentium Pro based Core architecture. Latter on they can bring some of the technology from bulldozer into an improved stars core. AMD should learn not only from their rivals failures but also their success.

 

[billj214]

I think the main reason AMD is backing down is due the cost to produce CPU's is 2-3x for AMD vs Intel. Intel is already making 22nm factories where Global Foundries does not have the technical know how or money to jump to 22nm. If AMD were to outsource it's chip manufacturing to a company capable of 22nm they would have fast efficient chips but still would cost more than Intel to make due to outsource costs.

As for Intel prices, with better manufacturing capablity comes lower prices, Intel is a very ethical company and I dont believe price gouging is going to be an issue.

 

[cutebeans]

AMD. My friend, you will be missed.

 

[ohim]

am i the only one who wants to fast forward 5 years and see what will happen ?

 

[soccerdocks]

[citation][nom]schizofrog[/nom]Why do so many people sound like complete retards. The biggest issue for ANY company is finding the point of sale for their product. This is the level that they 'can' charge that we the customers can afford/will pay. If like many comments have mentioned that Intel suddenly raised prices due to a 'lack of competition' I would not be paying £1000 for a mid range CPU, would you? For years the budget segment has been sub £75, Low-Mid £75-£100, Mid-High £100-£200 and High-Extreme £200+ and this is still true today and AMD hasn't been competition now for over 3 years.I think praise should be heaped on Intel because they are pushing technology advancements while not having a serious competitor and still keeping their CPUs within established price brackets and lowering power requirements.[/citation]

This is something more people need to understand. I just have a few things to add to it.

Remember what Gordon Moore said in 1965? That the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit will approximately double every 2 years. Guess what? for the past 36 years that has happened. That is an INCREDIBLE feat. Can you think of another company or industry that made such a bold prediction so long ago and have it hold true for such a long time? I can't think of anything that even comes close. From the information I've Intel is still planning on continuing that pattern up to 2016 with Skymont (assuming they follow the same tick-tock pattern). After that it may finally stop to to issues with quantum tunneling, but I'm hoping Intel comes up with something clever to continue processor development.

Intel will not stop innovating to create more powerful and efficient processors. They have a release schedule that works very well for them. As schizofrog stated they also have a solid understanding of their pricing and will not be changing it significantly because of lack of competition. Although I do believe we will see price hikes of around $20-$30 for the mid-high range. It will not be anywhere near the $500 for a mid-high range processor.

 

[aevm]

[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom]And in later news Intel raises the cpu prices by 200% over a 3 year period and Ivy bridge is delayed 5 years and after that its 33mhz increases for 1000$ each![/citation]

Scary...

However, I wouldn't be this pessimistic. If Intel really had that kind of pricing power, the mutual fund managers and executives and other large investors would be rushing to buy it today. The stock would be up a lot more than the general market - something like 20% or so. Instead, it's only up 5%, just like AMD, ARMH, nVidia, Logitech, Cisco, IBM, etc.

 

[wiyosaya]

Perhaps this is good news, but I'll take the wait and see attitude.

If they are always chasing Intel, then they lose the opportunity for innovation because it is like playing "keep up with the Jones." Perhaps BD was "inspired" by hyperthreading. Now, we know that tact was a failure for some aspects of the CPU marketplace. So, instead of saying why are we not doing what Intel is doing, AMD is free to move forward on their own. AMD always has been. They brought x64 to the market, the first FX, etc. What they need to do to knock some sense into Intel is to come up with more innovations like x64. They will never do that if they try to copy what Intel does. If that is what is being said with this, then this could be good for AMD. I highly suspect that there are AMD engineers working on BD MkII at this very moment, and it would not surprise me if the next gen x86 CPU out of AMD is like what happened with Intel between Core and Core 2. Core was an embarrassment for Intel just like BD is for AMD.

 

[Cazalan]

I wish AMD the best but things are not looking good. Poor execution on Bulldozer has hurt them significantly. A bold move but entirely too many transistors. They clearly could have done better with a die-shrunk Thuban.

They're just being out engineered on the low end with so many ARM partners. On the mid-high end Intel is crushing. AMD still has a slight graphics edge. Perhaps a target for a buyout from Samsung.

 

[captaincharisma]

[citation][nom]stratplaya[/nom]Bring back Cyrix![/citation]

yea bring back a CPU that was even slower than AMDs CPU's

 

[jacobdrj]

I agree with this mindset... Competing in general x86 makes no sense. We have achieved balance with the APU. Quad core Fusion chips just work, and work for everything... Power users will hurt with the lack of competition... But for the everyday user, this is decision by AMD is a huge win. Platform v platform. AMD has found their niche...


They still need to hire a gosh darned marketing firm worth their salt... AMD's largest problem historically was never their products, no matter when they were beating Intel or loosing to them... Their problem is that no REGULAR JOE knows WHO AMD IS!!!

 

[shqtth]

Here is the sad thing, with less competition from AMD, or initive from AMD, will slow down Intel high end, which will increase prices. Intel needs AMD to be more competitiove, even if Intel antecipates AMD will come out with a better product, Intel will always try harder due to R&D. Now ARM is going to be soon in the pc budget/lower power market and in servers, and threw multicores ARM will invade main stream and higher end. So its vital to be very competitive so arm can't progress much. Killing main stream/ higher end, will slow down technology at the lower end, and will create the position where the ARM invasion forces will start. Designing for high end in mind, makes your technology light years compared to ARM, as they have not even thought of that market yet/not ready to be there, but soon they will be if cards play out.

AMD just can't become one of the many ARM dealers, as all those ARM players play for #1, and its more competitive then AMD will notice. ANd AMD not being competitive (or winding down), means they are not ready to be more competitive to take on the ARM players head to head in emerging markets.

So basically without AMD being or trying to be competitive with Intel will bring the rise of ARMin the pc market, and will make it so that we will be in a time warp for the next few years with inflated prices, until ARM catches up, and by that time we will be begging for ARM sadely as we would have enough of this BS.




Its funny, with bulldozer, you can see that AMD was trying to go the ARM route in their own way, but they messed it up by increasing latency in the cache, and in the pipleline by extenting. As a result floating point is shot too. WHat AMd really needed was the 6 module version of FX to help compete with the previous Penom 6 core, that way they wouldn't have to butcher the pipeline in trying to over take the Penom 6 core. Also its kind of sad AMD has the capability to install a graphics core/gpu/apu, and yet the cpu does not utilize it with advanced instructions. imagine the loating poing power if the AMD chip somehow converted instructions or tapped into the performance, or used it just to acceletate physics in games and other windows elements so even if you use the onchip graphics or not, the pc gets a boost. THe onboard graphics ship doesnt even have to be a graphics chip, it can be cut down just for its horse power/raw performance and not include the 3d elements. Its sad AMD hasn't taken advantage of fusions design, to kill intel in terms of processing power. THis could even be implemented on the server chips (servers don't use graphics but sure could use the power).

 

[atikkur]

it's a shame,, they had admitted they cant keep the race anymore..

 

[clonazepam]

I recall AMD pricing desktop processors at $1k when they could do it. I agree with the sensible people that prices will go up by $5-$15, but I'm not expecting much more than that. That would be like Intel giving AMD a big handout to stay competitive. They may do that anyway to avoid future problems...

It's a different world today. It's finally popular to care about energy efficiency. The popularity of this way of thinking is enough to drive Intel forward in improving their products. Stiff competition would of course help but the energy efficiency excitement has taken up a huge chunk in the driving force going forward.

Cars with 6 cylinder engines are hitting over 300hp, cars are reaching or exceeding the 30mpg mark... It's a movement effecting every industry that's increasing consumers' expectations so competition or not, I think radical advancements will continue at a similar pace or even accelerate as we learn more.

 

[_Pez_]

AMD will end as a candy store (if you don't know what I mean they have for sale many things but they sell a little part of it) if they don't focus in two or three things, now they decided to sell DDR3 memory wtf ??, they should be thinking about reworking their cpu's. That's what I would do.

 

[buzznut]

Yeah, I didn't read AMD is dead anywhere here. When they announce they will no longer be producing CPUs, then we can make these snap judgements. Until then, they've shifted their focus which is what all you guys have been saying they should do for quite some time now.

I'll admit this news isn't encouraging for enthusiasts, and I am a bit disappointed. I still expect them to continue to provide good price for performance type desktop processors, although it may be mostly APUs going forward.

 

[SchizoFrog]

[citation][nom]ojas[/nom]Not really. The 9600GT was released as a $170 part. Look what you get at that price point now. The 9600GT (poor thing) can barely scratch that performance.[/citation]

Sorry, I do not wish to make an assumption on the point you are making. Are you saying the 9600GT was cheap or expensive? Are you actually comparing the original price against a modern card of the same price?