haricotvert
Distinguished
- Mar 26, 2009
- 16
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- 18,510
[citation][nom]willard[/nom]This is what happens when you consistently fail to grow the company and repeatedly post gigantic losses. Just two years ago they posted a quarterly loss of a whopping $300M. Q2 last year was a loss of $43M, and Q3 was a loss of $118M. They are hemorrhaging money, while their competitors post huge profits. To compare, Nvidia's last three quarters were all positive, $137M, $131M and $77M. Intel's numbers are positively obscene.Why is it that people are so attached to AMD? It's got to be some kind of underdog thing, just wanting to see the little guy beat the big guy.I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but AMD is just a company. A company that's been playing second fiddle to Intel (and more recently, Nvidia) for a long time. Current AMD processors are a generation and a half behind current Intel processors, and I'd wager damn near anything that Intel will be launching even faster i7 chips long before Bulldozer ever sees the market. If Bulldozer isn't as good as Sandy (and I'm guessing it isn't based on the last couple matchups between Intel and AMD), then they're set up to lose even more money.Sometimes you just have to face facts and admit that you've been beaten. AMD seems to have done just this and is doing what they can to try to turn things around. I wish them the best of luck, but I'm not too optimistic.[/citation]
You're correct that AMD has continually posted quarterly losses and otherwise has not been in direct competition with Intel for several years (just look at the disparity in market share). However, I'm not sure people fully understand the incredible amounts of time, effort, and $$$ that is required to make something as complex and powerful as a modern CPU, whether consumer-level or enterprise-level.
I used to work for AMD. I've spoken with customers about the Blue vs. Green wars firsthand. AMD internally knows that they cannot compete with Intel blow for blow in a sustainable way like they did during the FX vs. Pentium D days. I mean, if that's really what most of TH sees as the "glory" days, where enthusiast processors were going for 400 bucks a pop but both sides had extremely competitive performance, then be my guest.
AMD knows they are the underdog at the consumer level. Their offerings are not meant to cater to people for whom money is no object. Why do you think Intel still has a $1,000 processor offering whereas the flagship offering from AMD barely costs 1/4th that (the price of which is still dropping)? AMD's enthusiast processors are geared towards the "value gamer" who knows that the savings they make on the CPU can be put towards a beefier graphics card - where the true performance gains are. Consider that "grandma" only needs a Sempron to check her email and play solitaire, and "mom and pop" only need at most an Athlon x2 to watch their DVDs, surf YouTube, use Microsoft Office, and transfer and organize their photos. Long story short: the people who need massive multithreaded processing power know that they need it (3D graphics designers, movie makers, music mixers, virtualizers, and so on), and will buy the CPU that fits their needs accordingly.
I don't foresee AMD trying to re-instigate the Socket 939 days any time soon. It's a fight they would lose, and they know it. It would be a war of attrition between Intel and AMD, a war that AMD is almost guaranteed to lose because Intel has the capital and existing market share to outlast them. AMD knows they are the underdog and will continue to play the underdog game, touting their CPUs as power- and price-efficient rather than going balls-out performance.
Just consider that Intel's revenue for 2009 was over 6 times as much as AMD's. Think of what portion of that amount is funneled back directly into JUST Research and Development - it more than likely exceeds the entirety of AMD's yearly revenue (and historically, it has). That's a huge resource disparity that ANY company would have difficulty overcoming - and plenty of people on Tom's Hardware and elsewhere would have you believe that AMD is meant to be on equal footing with Intel. That's just simply not the case, and a slightly unreasonable expectation. It smacks of a Dilbert-esque "AMD should be able to do more with less!" mentality. Absurd.
Even if AMD did try that, they could very well sink faster than they (supposedly) already are. Bulldozer - myth or not - is probably not going to beat or necessarily even be on par with whatever Intel's mainstream offerings are once it is released. Just like the Phenom and Phenom IIs did not unseat the Core2 Quads (or even the Duos, in some cases!) when they came out. But they offered a value alternative for people who wanted quad core computing on the cheap (and absolutely playable framerates in modern games, when paired with any halfway-decent video card). AMD may simply have to be relegated to putting out processors that are about half a generation to a full generation behind the cutting edge.
I personally use AMD products, not because I am a "fanboi" or an underdog devotee. I am fully aware Intel puts out great products and would absolutely recommend them to someone who can make full use of their capabilities. Hell, I don't even know if my next build will be AMD or Intel. I run a Phenom 955 and not a Core i7 920 because I can wait an additional 30 seconds to rip a CD, or am fine with a 3 FPS dip in performance from my favorite game, or any number of minor inconveniences to my time. Just because the benchmarks for an Intel CPU post higher numbers doesn't mean that it's the processor I simply must have, unless the benchmarks in question actually apply to what I am going to do with the rig.
/end rant
You're correct that AMD has continually posted quarterly losses and otherwise has not been in direct competition with Intel for several years (just look at the disparity in market share). However, I'm not sure people fully understand the incredible amounts of time, effort, and $$$ that is required to make something as complex and powerful as a modern CPU, whether consumer-level or enterprise-level.
I used to work for AMD. I've spoken with customers about the Blue vs. Green wars firsthand. AMD internally knows that they cannot compete with Intel blow for blow in a sustainable way like they did during the FX vs. Pentium D days. I mean, if that's really what most of TH sees as the "glory" days, where enthusiast processors were going for 400 bucks a pop but both sides had extremely competitive performance, then be my guest.
AMD knows they are the underdog at the consumer level. Their offerings are not meant to cater to people for whom money is no object. Why do you think Intel still has a $1,000 processor offering whereas the flagship offering from AMD barely costs 1/4th that (the price of which is still dropping)? AMD's enthusiast processors are geared towards the "value gamer" who knows that the savings they make on the CPU can be put towards a beefier graphics card - where the true performance gains are. Consider that "grandma" only needs a Sempron to check her email and play solitaire, and "mom and pop" only need at most an Athlon x2 to watch their DVDs, surf YouTube, use Microsoft Office, and transfer and organize their photos. Long story short: the people who need massive multithreaded processing power know that they need it (3D graphics designers, movie makers, music mixers, virtualizers, and so on), and will buy the CPU that fits their needs accordingly.
I don't foresee AMD trying to re-instigate the Socket 939 days any time soon. It's a fight they would lose, and they know it. It would be a war of attrition between Intel and AMD, a war that AMD is almost guaranteed to lose because Intel has the capital and existing market share to outlast them. AMD knows they are the underdog and will continue to play the underdog game, touting their CPUs as power- and price-efficient rather than going balls-out performance.
Just consider that Intel's revenue for 2009 was over 6 times as much as AMD's. Think of what portion of that amount is funneled back directly into JUST Research and Development - it more than likely exceeds the entirety of AMD's yearly revenue (and historically, it has). That's a huge resource disparity that ANY company would have difficulty overcoming - and plenty of people on Tom's Hardware and elsewhere would have you believe that AMD is meant to be on equal footing with Intel. That's just simply not the case, and a slightly unreasonable expectation. It smacks of a Dilbert-esque "AMD should be able to do more with less!" mentality. Absurd.
Even if AMD did try that, they could very well sink faster than they (supposedly) already are. Bulldozer - myth or not - is probably not going to beat or necessarily even be on par with whatever Intel's mainstream offerings are once it is released. Just like the Phenom and Phenom IIs did not unseat the Core2 Quads (or even the Duos, in some cases!) when they came out. But they offered a value alternative for people who wanted quad core computing on the cheap (and absolutely playable framerates in modern games, when paired with any halfway-decent video card). AMD may simply have to be relegated to putting out processors that are about half a generation to a full generation behind the cutting edge.
I personally use AMD products, not because I am a "fanboi" or an underdog devotee. I am fully aware Intel puts out great products and would absolutely recommend them to someone who can make full use of their capabilities. Hell, I don't even know if my next build will be AMD or Intel. I run a Phenom 955 and not a Core i7 920 because I can wait an additional 30 seconds to rip a CD, or am fine with a 3 FPS dip in performance from my favorite game, or any number of minor inconveniences to my time. Just because the benchmarks for an Intel CPU post higher numbers doesn't mean that it's the processor I simply must have, unless the benchmarks in question actually apply to what I am going to do with the rig.
/end rant
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