Discussion: AMD's last hope for survival lies in the Zen CPU architecture

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Yes and no. K7/K8 were both based on ideas from DEC-Alpha. Still AMD can't stand to not have a half decent CPU designer on their payroll.
 


Probably none. A CPU uArch is not a 1 man job.

As long as the team he leaves behind are up to the task, there won't be any impact in Zen, or at least shouldn't.

I am more curious to know what is he going to do now and what that team he leaves at AMD is capable of.

Cheers!
 


Yes I heard Jim's K8 was different from the one that launched and so he left but what made him leave this time ??

 



I have a feeling Zen is going to be bad .. they taped out Zen back in July and probably have some working samples by now. They probably know it's not ground-breaking and so I believe Jim has left .....
Oh boy !! 🙁 🙁

 


That is one reading. I'll give you another: Zen is so good, he doesn't need to babysit his team anymore and he can do what he wants in life sooner 😉

It will all depend on what glasses you choose to use when reading this. I rather take the optimistic approach.

One thing is for sure. This is not a good time to leave AMD being such a high profile worker.

Cheers!
 


Hoping for the Best and Preparing for the Worst .. 😉

 


That's just too bad.
 
Don't be drama queens. From the nature of the way the news is presented, it (almost) sounds like it was planned this way. They hired him to bring CPUs back into the right direction, leave everything in place so AMD can go on by itself, and he can follow his personal aspirations. I mean, he joined in 2012, which is shortly after the first bulldozer CPUs were released. It's well known the bulldozer CPUs had a bunch of problems and were a blunder. Now that everything is pretty much ready for Zen (bar production), he can go on. AMD is probably confident on the way forward. If they really needed him, they could make him a better offer. AMD might not be in the best financial position, but salary of a single employee is not something that has such a big impact compared to the rest of the business costs.
 

They most likely have at least a dozen, each heading a small team responsible for a subset of the whole execution pipeline and able to assist some of the other teams with other parts of the design on an as-needed basis.

When I worked at Matrox, the team I was in was primarily responsible for managing display outputs but as one of the teams typically least busy with our main priority, we also inherited most overflows, side-projects and semi-custom chip/IP-core respin projects.
 


Yes indeed !! 🙁
 


So you mean there is no work left for him at AMD ??

Well what about K12 ??? and Zen+ ??
 



K12 designing isn't even complete now so I wonder what happens to that now that JK has left ..
 


 


Well to be honest, the only reason why AMD CPUs and APU are priced so low is due to their age / performance.

The "great price point" is kinda why they are losing money. Zen needs to be competitive enough with Intel's CPU and they need to sell those CPUs at higher prices to e-tailers / retailers for a chance to turn a profit. That means when Zen comes out you are going to see higher prices.
 
Hate to burst anyones bubble but according to this http://hexus.net/tech/news/cpu/86585-legendary-cpu-architect-jim-keller-leaves-amd/ Jom Keller has left AMD. I would say that doesn't look to good for them.
 


Thanks, but that has already been discussed in this thread about 6 or 7 hours ago.
 

If AMD's future depended on a single high-profile employee remaining on-board, AMD's whole management needs to be fired. Microsoft did not implode just because Bill Gates stepped down as Microsoft's CEO to spend more time on product development instead of company management and politics.

A single high-profile employee or manager leaving or backing down is nothing unusual. If we see half a dozen more following him, then that will really start looking like senior engineers are jumping ship before AMD either goes under or takes drastic measures to reduce losses.
 


Microsoft didn't implode but it definitely took some bad turns and since he has come back on as a consultant it seems to be better.

But you are right. The only thing is that sometimes certain people are better at leading a project team than others and while I wont hype Jim Keller like some are doing, again a lot of the ideas behind K7 and K8 were originally designed by DEC-Alpha, he does seem to be a good project leader to the point where he helps to developed successful products.

K7/K8 were great products as was Apples A5.

It still is an interesting sign for AMD though. Normally when the higher up people start leaving it tends to show some sort of restructuring. Considering what they did with Radeon earlier they might be doing just that or prepping for it.
 


Obviously that's why they are priced that way. I don't think the difference in performance is commensurate with the price. Thus my opinion that AMD chips are a better value.

 
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The question is still why he left. Let me say that usually when people leave on good terms, they tell the public and media, because they don't want bad false rumors circulating around them. The fact that he has said absolutely nothing is what scares me a bit. I feel as if his silence is indicative of something negative (yeah i'm being pessimistic).

Let's just say if AMD was to go out of business, what would happen then? How would Intel react then? Would anti-trust get involved? These are questions we can speculate about.
 


Considering that a 5 generation old i5 keeps up and in most cases beats (at stock clocks) most AMD chips including the FX8000 series I would say the price is pretty spot on.

If AMD had a chip at the level or above the top i7 it would be priced at the $1K mark. History shows this, the Athlon 64 was a very expensive CPU. You could get two FX8350s for the price of a mid ranged Athlon 64.
 
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