Do or Die: AMD Moves Away From PCs Amid Steep Losses

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Steamroller may get delayed, it might even get brought forward, however there's little-to-no chance of AMD cancelling it as it's the one to finally banish the Phenom II performance ghost and, more importantly, give their server market share a significant kick up the backside. Anything that doesn't go into servers should end up on the desktop, so there won't be a death of the desktop CPU just yet.

AMD could make themselves a market in low-powered x86 to combat ARM. Yields have to be far better with Hondo than, say, Piledriver, and I can't see how any current ARM CPU could actually beat it. A15 is a different matter, plus AMD needs to push production to a lower process node, but these low-end APUs, especially with low-end GCN cores, could form the basis of very nice cheap x86 tablets. What's more, AMD have teamed up with BlueStacks to have an Android App Player on as many devices as they can ship - another reason for not buying a tablet, and amusingly, another reason to not buy Surface.

Of course, AMD has to make sure it doesn't spread itself too thinly as management are doing a good enough job of that right now.
 
The bad thing about AMD right now is PC sellers are not using AMD. Even when AMD makes alot more sense. Alot even pride themselves on using Intel over a better AMD solution in the price range and power envelope. For instance a Core i5 with integrated graphics on a laptop over an A10 APU.
If worst comes to worst, IBM will think of something. If IBM hates anything, its a monopoly in consumer computer products.
The other problem is their bulldozer architecture has no support right now, so its pretty much wasting half the power on it.
 
i hope RR transforms amd into a more nimble and proactive tech company. AMD had focused on taking back a share of the pie it shares with intel instead of looking for other pies. Fusion was a great idea, but AMD seemed always to fail to deliver its innovative products on time, when the market is ripe. At least nVidia shifted some of its focus on the smartphone and tablet markets instead of trying to fight ATI to the end.
 
AMD delivered far too much Llano volume for the demand, thus delaying desktop Trinity. There just wasn't enough product awareness in a world dominated by adverts for machines with "3rd Generation Intel Core iX Processors" and the Intel jingle, and I really cannot see that changing.
 
why cant they do something build like create a consumer / business cpu with hundreds or thousands of x86 cores

basically merge their cpu and gpu

somehow they are able to do it for gpu, just replace instruction set on gpu with x86

not focus on graphics but general processing. even a subset like without support for things like segments and all the old stuff from early prior to 386 linear
 
[citation][nom]loops[/nom]Question is, do most ppl need a faster CPU?Question is, do most ppl want more mobile CPUs?[/citation]

faster cpu... not, not now at least, everything most people want to do on a computer can be handled by dual cores with a bit of gpu help for video.

much of what use to drive cpu to improve has been offloaded to the gpu, or is able to be, for for the consumer, no there is no need for faster cpus within the next probably 2-4 years... less power consuming cpus, hell yea, but power, no.

on a notebook or mobile... it depends on the purpose.
desktop replacement - hell yea
mobile word processor - not really
media consumption device - kind of

[citation][nom]esrever[/nom]So more than 50% of their business is still going to be PC. Doesn't seem bad. Considering the market AMD can gain in servers/cloud and tablets, this could be an optimistic thing.[/citation]

not to mention that over the next few years, makeing better server components will also translate to better desktop also, as server side bennefits from threads right now more than desktop, it would be best to refine it there rather than just desktop it where it clock for clock preforms worse than intel and would only damage reputation.

[citation][nom]maestro0428[/nom]He's right. Media consumption is moving to the mobile environment. Problem is, you can't make media on a tablet or smart phone. We will always need desktops for media creation. My wife hasn't been on her PC since I bought her an iPhone and iPad. That's almost a year. Of course I am on my pc everyday day for several hours. It would be sad to see AMD pull out, especially out of the graphics market where they are very competitive.[/citation]

i highly doubt they will pull from graphics, i think this is more referring to the cpu side of things.

[citation][nom]kronos_cornelius[/nom]AMD should forget about the stand alone CPU and focus on the APU chips for tablets and servers.It should also work to get into the ARM business.I hope AMD makes it out of the tailspin.[/citation]

if amd went arm... they would be as good as dead to me, i want the company to have some form of use in the future.

 
"Read said that he understands what the problem is and there is a strategy in place to fix it.

Will it work? Your guess is as good as any, but Read says that his recipe will work by Q3 2013."

Sounds an awful lot like Obama's failed plans for America.

 
so now intel will get to charge almost anything for processors. Tom's always seems to favor Intel in reviews. they happily display Intel killing AMD in benchmarks. MY AMD trinity notebook wins hands down over Intel i5 in user experience. In the real world notebooks surf, run spreadsheets and if possible game a little during down tiime. I don't spend all day running benchmarks. Mt trinity battery lasts all day. I can actually get playable frame rates on games like BF3 and for work it does NOT hang up during a powerpoint like my intel laptop with an i5.....
 
They need to fire the current CEO of AMD. hes an idiot, ever since the FX line came out, AND never had a plan B when needed. AMD needed a faster Phenom II/Athlon II incase the FX line failed.(which it did). Ever since AMD decided to be less aggressive in the their PC lineup, AMD has been on a downward spiral. Sorry AMD, but some enthusiasts need a higher end cpu to keep their spirals up and try help promote AMD to others. Kill the enthusiast, kill the people who recommend AMD. There needs to be a glimmer of hope just to give AMD some good headlines.


Sure the ATI line is doing okay, but the CPU line needs to improve.
 
[citation][nom]BigMack70[/nom]I like how AMD fanboys have to resort to being conspiracy theorists and assume that basically every tech site is biased towards Intel over AMD. I swear... the rallying cry of AMD CPU fanboys everywhere is youtube videos and subjective anecdotes; any and all objective analysis is dismissed as "biased".Come on guys... this schtick is getting old. Just because your favorite company doesn't release competitive products above the $100-120 mark doesn't mean that there's an industry-wide conspiracy against you.[/citation]


Its silly, that being I am a loyal AMD fan, if I want a better performing PC, either I have to overclock, or ditch AMD all together.


But then again, for the ATI graphics, there is no problems, but for me, graphics is not important for what I do on the PC. I Hate how AMD tries to shit everything to graphics and makes an excuse to not make high end cpus. Not everything is graphics/gpu oriented.

But, if there was code that emulated functions on the GPU, so the CPU can free up seed, then it would be useful, but there is no such thing, and relies on the code/program itself it be optimized. And the instant you pc uses the GPU, suddenly power usage goes up 175-275 Watts !. So GPU optimizations are not really practical, unless they can find a way to load balance, and keep power down for what you need. My apartment gets hot enough.
 
WHen an enthusiast shifts from AMD to Intel, the enthusiast is lost to AMD.

enthusiast / AMD Fanboys, are the marketers and sales people of AMD, its not wise to loose those guys, and everything should be done to keep them happy or optimistic.
 
Probably the best thing for AMD right now is go into Chapter 11. Reorganizing and some debt relief would slow the bleeding and free up cash for research. Dumping bulldozer on desktop and keeping it in the server/opteron where it belongs while improving on the phenom for the desktop could make them competitive at least in the midrange. intel had the brand name and resaources to ride out the P4 blunder but AMD cant afford to do the same.
 
amd is pretty much done if they can't release the fx piledriver on time at least for me. why is it taking so long? 🙁

when it does come out, it better kick ivy bridge's butt. i don't think it will though. which means, my next upgrade will be haswell.
 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]... the only reason Athlon64 chips took the performance crown over P4's was Intel dropped the ball and AMD took advantage, Intel won't make the same mistake again ...[/citation]
It is true that this is the only reason. Nobody is denying that. AMD was a more nimbe company and took advantage. HOWEVER, the part that bothers me isn't that Intel eventually took the performance crown back.
The part that bothers me is that AMD, when the had the crown did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to capitalize on their superior product. They didn't market their name, like Intel did back in the Pentium and MMX days. They were only known to high level IT people and enthusiasts, and that just isn't enough. AMD also started to price gouge themselves when they had shown they had the better product.

They needed to market market market, to CONSUMERS on TV... I saw exactly ONE AMD newspaper advertisement back in the Athlon64 days. One. In a NEWSPAPER. Seriously!?!

And then, buying ATi when they did was a mistake. Sure, it is all that is keeping them afloat now, but that money could have been better spent then for marketing and R & D...
 
This guy(Rory Read) is a freak'n idiot! If anyone wants to save AMD, they need to oust this CEO and fast!
 
Completely INCORECT STORY TITLE!

AMD is NOT moving away from X86 processors nor PCs. Mr. Gruener should educate himself before penning such tripe.

It's a complete disservice to mislead consumers with such inaccurate and misleading claims.
 
AMD needs to stop milking incremental gains in its APU graphics, they need to dominate in this area. AMD you need an APU graphics that will secure dominance all the way past Broadwell. AMD does not have the engineering resources to compete with Intel tit for tat! AMD needs to engineer an APU that will ensure continued sales with little or no extra engineering cost, except in the power useage area. If AMD can do this with the only area it has a lead in, Graphics, then they can live to fight another day!
 
AMD needs to partner with ARM, to market an ARM/Radeon based APU design. The GCN architecture is superior to Kepler when it comes to FP, and competes fairly when it comes to video and gaming, so AMD already has best-in-breed GPU technology that they can bring to bear in the mobile space. Where they cannot compete on CPU efficiency, ARM is the best-in-breed technology. Combine those together, and all of a sudden AMD is licensing their GPU technology across a market that has, what, 6 billion potential customers?

That's one side they should focus on. The other side is server GPGPUs. With the advent of 3D support in Hyper-V (RemoteFX), VMware and VirtualBox, it becomes possible to serve up 3D processing rather than have it local on each workstation or desktop. From what I've seen the efficiency isn't great - 1/2 to 1/3 - but that will improve as chipsets, CPUs, GPUs and O/Ss evolve to virtualize the hardware more efficiently.

I expect that just as DVR boxes are upgrades today from standard cable STBs, soon cable-provided gaming boxes will also be available upgrades. Those gaming boxes will probably comprise components similar to an XBOX 360 minus the DVD drive and plus a couple of premium-capable digital cable tuners. Microsoft already sees this eventuality and has patented consoles with tuners to protect its share of the console market, but it wouldn't surprise me if the cable cos found a way around that patent. But boxes from either source need a GPU, and that is where AMD should want to play. NV already blew its reputation with most OEMs after the solder material snafu, so this is AMD's market to lose.
 
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