AMD Unveils Threadripper Retail Packaging

[Guest]

AMD's CEO Dr. Lisa Su unveiled the retail packaging for the company's aptly-named Threadripper processors.

AMD Unveils Threadripper Retail Packaging : Read more

 

[Lucky_SLS]

will there be a 1080ti killer by AMD anytime soon?

 

[Eximo]

Early Vega numbers say no. It might compete well with the GTX1080 for less money though.

 

[JamesSneed]

That packaging, is that the Eye of SUron? Couldn't help it.

 

[Kridian]

Hah, you know that's probably how they described it to their marketing department.
"I take it you've all seen Lord of The Rings..."

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

Is it just me, or does Lisa Su smile a lot more when she's showing off Ryzen? Seems a little more restrained when talking about Vega. Or when she's standing next to Raja Koduri...

 

[BadBoyGreek]

Jesus, look at the size of that CPU socket. Really though, super stoked that AMD is back in the game after far too long and finally sticking it back to Intel again. Eager to see how this war continues to unfold.

 

[derekullo]

Is it just me, or does Lisa Su smile a lot more when she's showing off Ryzen? Seems a little more restrained when talking about Vega. Or when she's standing next to Raja Koduri...

Dr. Lisa Su:
'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden twinkle in my eye
I never had a chance to shine
Never a happy song to sing
But suddenly half the world is mine

 

[InvalidError]

Seems a little more restrained when talking about Vega.

Given how quiet consumer Vega has gone so close to launch, maybe AMD is trying to shush that launch in favor of selling more higher margin Frontier cards. There is no point in hyping a $400-500 GPU launch if HBM2 and GPU die supply isn't going to be there to meet demand and the same parts can be sold for $1000+ to the HPC/bigdata/AI/etc. crowds.

 

[JamesSneed]

Either Vega isn't that great or AMD has been sandbagging like crazy. Will know soon enough but the silence from AMD on Vega is pretty crazy.

 

[cryoburner]

will there be a 1080ti killer by AMD anytime soon?

AMD doesn't really need a 1080 Ti killer though. While the 1080 Ti might get a lot of press on review sites due to it being one of the fastest GPUs, in actuality hardly anyone buys $700+ graphics cards. There's been evidence that there may be a dual-gpu Vega card on the way, but those kinds of things tend to be more for show than a viable product that will bring in significant income.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

It all comes down to price really. If it has 1080 level performance at 1080 ti prices it would be horrendous. But even if it had 1070 level performance, if it were priced like a 1060 it would be utterly fantastic. HBM2 is the wild card here, nobody really knows how much it's going to drive prices.

 

[Glock24]

Is that a mini-ITX case they are bungling with the Threadripper CPU?

 

[redgarl]

So far Vega seems to not go against a TI which is surprising for a 12TFLOP card. I will be honest, a little deceived, however if it is stronger than a 1080 GTX for 100$ less like they claim with HBM2, it's a really good deal.

The stock will be so volatile in the upcoming days.

 

[Kennyy Evony]

" JamesSneed 4 hours ago
That packaging, is that the Eye of SUron? Couldn't help it"

AMD gets sued over copyrighted content

 

[gio2vanni86]

This is good, been waiting for it to launch so reviews and boards and everything else start to follow. Will be buying one somewhere near the end of this year if there available.

 

[mapesdhs]

Dr. Lisa Su:
'Cause I've got a golden ticket
I've got a golden twinkle in my eye
I never had a chance to shine
Never a happy song to sing
But suddenly half the world is mine

I'm more interested in your sig... how have you managed to slap a 4930K onto a Z87 board? ;D

Too expensive for your typical AMD shopper

Given what's happened in the last five years, I don't think there's really any such thing as a "typical" AMD shopper, especially in the context of what TR offers. Afterall, look at all the people on all the tech site forums who currently use Intel setups, are tired of Intel's faffing around and intend to buy a TR setup (or have already bought Ryzen). Seems to me AMD is attracting all new customers to itself, and I expect a fair few who've been away for a while.

We are in a very untypical market atm, new competitive CPU options, but expensive RAM, expensive SSDs and expensive GPUs. It's all a bit of a pickle.

Ian.

 

[jimmysmitty]

So far Vega seems to not go against a TI which is surprising for a 12TFLOP card. I will be honest, a little deceived, however if it is stronger than a 1080 GTX for 100$ less like they claim with HBM2, it's a really good deal.

The stock will be so volatile in the upcoming days.

TFLOPS has never been a good indication of game performance. AMD has been equal to or in some cases higher TFLOPS than what NVidia has yet game performance shows a different result.

I doubt it will be $100 less than a GTX 1080 since the MSRP is $499 for the 108. That would make Vega $399 with HBM2? Seems a bit cheap for something with a new tech that should add to the cost of the hardware.

 

[cryoburner]

I doubt it will be $100 less than a GTX 1080 since the MSRP is $499 for the 108. That would make Vega $399 with HBM2? Seems a bit cheap for something with a new tech that should add to the cost of the hardware.

Keep in mind that nearly all GTX 1080s are priced over $550 now. : P

 

[InvalidError]

That would make Vega $399 with HBM2? Seems a bit cheap for something with a new tech that should add to the cost of the hardware.

Out of that $400, less than $200 is parts, material and assembly costs. AMD can certainly push Vega for $400 or less if AMD, its AIB partners, distributors and other middle-men accept lower profit margins. It is much the same story with high-end flagship phones that cost only $200-250 to put together but retail for $700-1200.

While lower margins on consumer Vega may not be ideal for AMD, AMD is going to have a hard time moving inventory otherwise if Vega barely competes with the stock 1080 while consuming ~100W more under load. Unsold inventory is going to hurt a lot more than reduced margins.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

Margins also don't factor in the R&D costs, which were probably substantial this time around.

 

[InvalidError]

Margins also don't factor in the R&D costs, which were probably substantial this time around.

R&D costs aren't going to be exclusively borne by consumer Vega sales either. Vega will get used in APUs, is being sold on the HPC market in the Frontier Edition models for $1000+ a pop and much of that R&D will also get carried to next-gen products.

When your product isn't going to have the performance required to command a premium on the retail market, the next best thing you can do is make sure you don't get stuck with unsold inventory as you shift production focus to higher margin products to recover sunk costs like R&D.

 

[kinggremlin]

AMD needs to fire their entire marketing team because they are all awful and stop wasting money designing an "interesting" looking box for a CPU and instead use it to pay some engineers to develop better video cards. The vast majority of these CPU's are going to be sold to businesses who don't give a rat's ass what the packaging looks like. Companies like Apple, Intel, Nvidia, and Microsoft are too busy talking about their actual products to have time making announcements about the packaging for them.

 

[Kenneth Barker]

Sorry KingGremlin, but few very if any companies at all will buy AMD chips for years to come much less "Threadripper" Companies are not interested in marketing hype. Or even in the little bit of "added performance to dollar". Companies will spend much more $$ just to have a given product that will work, always, with no issues whatsoever. AMD cannot offer that. AMD cannot offer the level of dedicated support that companies need and demand from their business hardware.

The last thing any good company will do is buy AMD chips to "save" any money at all. The good company does not care about spending an extra $5k on a proven, well supported intel chip because the things that companies need these products to do for them likely equals thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour in revenue. The last thing companies want to do is save 2 grand for a chip that has 0 credibility or has even started proving they even work...

AMD is marketing the threadripper chip to kids with more money than sense (The box) or content creators on a budget (Kids hoping to be something some day). AMD is doing the right things... but they are not about to convince any companies to jump the intel ship and go with AMD for a couple thousand $ savings.

 

[Lucky_SLS]

Things might change with the ryzen pro chips. Especially if oems like Dell, hp, Lenovo brings out ryzen pro workstations.