Does AMD has some future?

[juanrga]

Call me 6 months before Zen releases.

. AMD has a long way to go before zen and based on past performance will stumble. But what if they do not ? What if the next gen gpu is a hit and kaveri refresh is ok. there semii custom work could add another few billion more to there balance sheet next year. This is a new amd under dr sue and i am starting to like it.

New GPU will be a meh! It will focus on 4K which is a niche market of a niche market and will not change bad numbers of the GPU division. Kaveri refresh will be another meh! even will disappoint to those expecting a real refresh. I don't know from where you get the semi custom billion datum.

Finally, this is not a new AMD. Lisa Su was choose by Rory Read as second aboard, just to succeed him on departure. She will continue the long term plan invented by Rory: semicustom and embedded.

Xbox 1 refresh, Nintendo and other oems getting into nuc products. it could easily be another 2 bill in revenue seeing as you pointed out clients are paying amd to develop semi custom designs. or am i misquoting you?

AMD has two design wins for K12/Zen and only one is gaming. Clients are paying the R&D for the custom chips. According to AMD those wins will produce about $1 billion on revenue during a period of three years starting on 2016. This averages to about $300 millons per year, which is peanuts.

I was not even thinking about k12/zen but puma/carrizo.

Puma/Carrizo will be outdated in the mentioned period 2016--2018.

 

[jdwii]

Call me 6 months before Zen releases.

. AMD has a long way to go before zen and based on past performance will stumble. But what if they do not ? What if the next gen gpu is a hit and kaveri refresh is ok. there semii custom work could add another few billion more to there balance sheet next year. This is a new amd under dr sue and i am starting to like it.

New GPU will be a meh! It will focus on 4K which is a niche market of a niche market and will not change bad numbers of the GPU division. Kaveri refresh will be another meh! even will disappoint to those expecting a real refresh. I don't know from where you get the semi custom billion datum.

Finally, this is not a new AMD. Lisa Su was choose by Rory Read as second aboard, just to succeed him on departure. She will continue the long term plan invented by Rory: semicustom and embedded.

Xbox 1 refresh, Nintendo and other oems getting into nuc products. it could easily be another 2 bill in revenue seeing as you pointed out clients are paying amd to develop semi custom designs. or am i misquoting you?

Consoles are very low margin, and have very low overall sales.

Lets face it, the PS2, the top selling console of all time, sold only 155 Million or so. To put that in perspective, PCs sell about 30 Million per MONTH. So in half a year, PCs sell as much as the PS2 over it's lifespan. The PS3/360? About 200 Million combined over an 8 year period, or about 25 Million per year, or about ONE MONTHS WORTH OF PC SALES.

Likewise, margins on the parts are very low, since consoles aren't selling much above their cost to produce. AMD can't be making more then $20 of profit per part. So while the sales numbers look nice, the actual profit consoles are making AMD is minuscule in the grand scheme of things. That's why the same people here who were predicting consoles would bail out AMD still have no answer for why AMD is still in the red, despite consoles. Don't get me wrong, they'll make a few Billion in revenue over the course of the sales, but lets face it, $4 Billion over 10 years isn't that impressive: 400 Million per year, or $132 Million per quarter. For a company the size of AMD, it's really not that much.

Plus, I suspect I'm being very generous on the margins.

You do realize that the majority of PCs are not used for gaming, right?

Not to use the appeal to authority fallacy but yes gamer is actually a professional and fully understands this.

His point was Amd focusing on the console market doesn't mean much when the general PC market is MUCH MUCH bigger. Hey Gaming PC's are great for things outside of gaming.

 

[juanrga]

yes but puma/carrizo is available in the interim until then, for all the reasons i stated. multiple revenue streams.

Puma/Carrizo are barely competitive now and will provide small revenue. In fact I expect new finantial loses from the CPU group for all of 2015.

That is the reason why AMD is developing K12/Zen. If the flagship products K12/Zen, the products are supposed to save the company, the products that are supposed to bring a "comeback" will be only providing revenue of $300 million per year, then AMD doesn't have a bright future.

In fact $300 million per year will barely pay R&D expenses and will be not enough to pay the rest of bills of the company. Aka expect further cancellation of projects, additional cuts on R&D, more fired people... for the future.

 

[-Fran-]

yes but puma/carrizo is available in the interim until then, for all the reasons i stated. multiple revenue streams.

Puma/Carrizo are barely competitive now and will provide small revenue. In fact I expect new finantial loses from the CPU group for all of 2015.

That is the reason why AMD is developing K12/Zen. If the flagship products K12/Zen, the products are supposed to save the company, the products that are supposed to bring a "comeback" will be only providing revenue of $300 million per year, then AMD doesn't have a bright future.

In fact $300 million per year will barely pay R&D expenses and will be not enough to pay the rest of bills of the company. Aka expect further cancellation of projects, additional cuts on R&D, more fired people... for the future.

You're assuming that will be the only revenue stream they'll have. That's a fat assumption and most likely very wrong. They're still selling stuff and it all adds up. Like I said securing revenue is more than just the instant money they get in. It allows for further planning. It is very different when you're betting production costs on something you don't know it will sell (please see Intel and nVidia) whereas placing money when you do know the income you'll get it gives you a LOT of flexibility. That flexibility is making AMD catch some fresh air. Now, I am not arguing it's enough money, because I do agree somewhat, but it's a very different expectation to have than what Intel and nVidia are doing.

Cheers!

 

[juanrga]

yes but puma/carrizo is available in the interim until then, for all the reasons i stated. multiple revenue streams.

Puma/Carrizo are barely competitive now and will provide small revenue. In fact I expect new finantial loses from the CPU group for all of 2015.

That is the reason why AMD is developing K12/Zen. If the flagship products K12/Zen, the products are supposed to save the company, the products that are supposed to bring a "comeback" will be only providing revenue of $300 million per year, then AMD doesn't have a bright future.

In fact $300 million per year will barely pay R&D expenses and will be not enough to pay the rest of bills of the company. Aka expect further cancellation of projects, additional cuts on R&D, more fired people... for the future.

You're assuming that will be the only revenue stream they'll have. That's a fat assumption and most likely very wrong.

I am not assuming that. I am assuming that most revenue in 2016--2018 will be coming from the new products (K12/Zen); otherwise makes no sense to develop them.

Good thing amd makes more than 300 million a quarter to keep the lights on right. What projects do you think will be cancelled ? carrizo =done, kaveri refresh =almost done, 300x=done. there might be small unknown ones that may be cancelled but having multiple revenue streams means if one fails it s only a small percentage and not the whole market.

I am not discussing if they can pay the electric bill today, but if they can in near future. The same about canceled projects. I am discussing 2016--2018 projects not 2015 projects.

 

[juanrga]

^^^^ i know you are juan but i am trying to show you amd is not putting all there eggs in one basket. (zen) like they did with BD. by securing relatively small contracts now they will have multiple revenue streams to build upon going into 2016. 390x will be big, 20nm with hbm will create even more interest in what amd can do with zen.

AMD is putting all the eggs on K12/Zen. Your mention of 300 series is irrelevant by two reasons: first, I am discussing the period 2016--2018, not 2015; second, the 300 series will not change AMD finances significantly.

The 300 series would help AMD to gain a bit of market share on 2015 but nothing spectacular. The GPU division will continue in bag shape forever...

 

[gamerk316]

Call me 6 months before Zen releases.

. AMD has a long way to go before zen and based on past performance will stumble. But what if they do not ? What if the next gen gpu is a hit and kaveri refresh is ok. there semii custom work could add another few billion more to there balance sheet next year. This is a new amd under dr sue and i am starting to like it.

New GPU will be a meh! It will focus on 4K which is a niche market of a niche market and will not change bad numbers of the GPU division. Kaveri refresh will be another meh! even will disappoint to those expecting a real refresh. I don't know from where you get the semi custom billion datum.

Finally, this is not a new AMD. Lisa Su was choose by Rory Read as second aboard, just to succeed him on departure. She will continue the long term plan invented by Rory: semicustom and embedded.

Xbox 1 refresh, Nintendo and other oems getting into nuc products. it could easily be another 2 bill in revenue seeing as you pointed out clients are paying amd to develop semi custom designs. or am i misquoting you?

Consoles are very low margin, and have very low overall sales.

Lets face it, the PS2, the top selling console of all time, sold only 155 Million or so. To put that in perspective, PCs sell about 30 Million per MONTH. So in half a year, PCs sell as much as the PS2 over it's lifespan. The PS3/360? About 200 Million combined over an 8 year period, or about 25 Million per year, or about ONE MONTHS WORTH OF PC SALES.

Likewise, margins on the parts are very low, since consoles aren't selling much above their cost to produce. AMD can't be making more then $20 of profit per part. So while the sales numbers look nice, the actual profit consoles are making AMD is minuscule in the grand scheme of things. That's why the same people here who were predicting consoles would bail out AMD still have no answer for why AMD is still in the red, despite consoles. Don't get me wrong, they'll make a few Billion in revenue over the course of the sales, but lets face it, $4 Billion over 10 years isn't that impressive: 400 Million per year, or $132 Million per quarter. For a company the size of AMD, it's really not that much.

Plus, I suspect I'm being very generous on the margins.

You do realize that the majority of PCs are not used for gaming, right?

Yes. But lets face it: If AMD sold more APUs PC side, the vast differences in sales would dwarf the profits they make console side.

That's my entire point: It's a nice steady revenue stream, but console sales aren't bailing out AMD.

 

[juanrga]

it is relevant because you were adamant it was to be built on a 28nm node, and would be a flop. further apostatizing amd is done for.

Are you referring to the 300 series? If yes, my "The 300 series would help AMD to gain a bit of market share on 2015 but nothing spectacular. The GPU division will continue in bag shape forever..." is irrelevant to if AMD uses 28nm or 20nm.

 

[8350rocks]

Juan, it just occurred to me, your prophecies are doomed to fail for the following reasons:

Your management has no qualifications in the industry you speculate in.

Your Speculation firm (juanrga inc.) has no corporate credit rating at all.

Your R&D budget is well below the national average.

Your product (predictions) tend to be obtuse or off base and lean toward wildly inaccurate on occasions.

In addition, your brand is not well thought of in the community or industry you are trying to put your foot into.

/AMD argument thread.

 

[juanrga]

And further clarifications on the early rumors about the chinese company

http://www.vrworld.com/2015/02/09/amds-real-china-play-strategic-investment/

BLX is not buying AMD, but will be making "strategic investments into AMD".

 

[-Fran-]

BUT AMD IS DOOMED, WHY ANYONE WOULD WANT TO INVEST IN IT?!!! /sarcasm

Now, seriously, I hope they do something nice with that money.

Cheers!

 

[Cazalan]

AMD announced 2 semi-custom wins but they alluded to more. Obviously they need a lot more semi-custom sales. Also the 333mil or so a year will be added revenue as the Xbone/PS4 consoles will continue to sell in 2016.

The investment could add a major twist. Especially if it involves another semi-custom win.

 

[juanrga]

And further clarifications on the early rumors about the chinese company

http://www.vrworld.com/2015/02/09/amds-real-china-play-strategic-investment/

BLX is not buying AMD, but will be making "strategic investments into AMD".

But when 2016-2018 ? No These investments are set to begin immediately

Your question is solved in the article: 2015--2016.

AMD announced 2 semi-custom wins but they alluded to more. Obviously they need a lot more semi-custom sales. Also the 333mil or so a year will be added revenue as the Xbone/PS4 consoles will continue to sell in 2016.

How many revenue will Xbone/PS4 generate in 2016--2018?

 

[8350rocks]

And further clarifications on the early rumors about the chinese company

http://www.vrworld.com/2015/02/09/amds-real-china-play-strategic-investment/

BLX is not buying AMD, but will be making "strategic investments into AMD".

But when 2016-2018 ? No These investments are set to begin immediately

Your question is solved in the article: 2015--2016.

AMD announced 2 semi-custom wins but they alluded to more. Obviously they need a lot more semi-custom sales. Also the 333mil or so a year will be added revenue as the Xbone/PS4 consoles will continue to sell in 2016.

How many revenue will Xbone/PS4 generate in 2016--2018?

Considerably more than the consoles NVidia and Intel are involved in...

Oh, wait...they are not involved at all...

LOL!!!!

 

[jdwii]

Yeah instead they are in higher margin markets like i don't know servers?^^^ Consoles are for peasants and all Amd is doing is getting crackers from them.

 

[8350rocks]

Yeah instead they are in higher margin markets like i don't know servers?^^^ Consoles are for peasants and all Amd is doing is getting crackers from them.

Except that AMD can re-enter the server market, and have vendors asking them to do so. While the aforementioned parties cannot just enter the console market.

 

[jdwii]

Yeah instead they are in higher margin markets like i don't know servers?^^^ Consoles are for peasants and all Amd is doing is getting crackers from them.

Except that AMD can re-enter the server market, and have vendors asking them to do so. While the aforementioned parties cannot just enter the console market.

But when will they actually be in those markets that actually earn them real money. This console stuff isn't enough to give them enough money for research.

 

[bmacsys]

Juan, it just occurred to me, your prophecies are doomed to fail for the following reasons:

Your management has no qualifications in the industry you speculate in.

Your Speculation firm (juanrga inc.) has no corporate credit rating at all.

Your R&D budget is well below the national average.

Your product (predictions) tend to be obtuse or off base and lean toward wildly inaccurate on occasions.

In addition, your brand is not well thought of in the community or industry you are trying to put your foot into.

/AMD argument thread.

I hope you are kidding about the speculation firm? Someone would pay an internet troll like him for information? That is hilarious!

 

[jdwii]

Usually the one trying to sell us stuff is the real troll. Happen before on these fourms about a upcomming product someone within Amd promoted it like crazy on their "free time".

However neither of them are doing that i just think brand loyally is like a religion, as soon as someone provides actual creditable evidence to claim they are wrong they get emotional about it instead of logical.

 

[Cazalan]

How many revenue will Xbone/PS4 generate in 2016--2018?

Both the PS3 and 360 hit 80+M units each. Also the China market is open leading to sales higher than the prior generation consoles. Console sales typically peak in the 3rd or 4th year so the 2016-2018 should be quite good.

2014 PS4 ~9.3M
2014 XBO ~7.7M

17M total units and a BOM price of $105 that is 1.785 B a year. Say 5B conservatively over 2016-2018.

 

[jdwii]

http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/

Its like i know the author myself. I don't however but i did these same tests with these same CPU's and saw the same results. Its so unbelievable its much easier to call it fake then except it as reality as some do in those comments.

 

[juanrga]

Nice resume about buyout rumor and cash infusion

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2015/02/10/amd-little-chance-of-buyout-says-citi-cash-infusion-possible/

The overall rating doesn't change instead and is maintained on "sell" because "We expect AMD’s core microprocessor business to remain under pressure due to its inferior performing products relative to Intel."

 

[juanrga]

Yeah instead they are in higher margin markets like i don't know servers?^^^ Consoles are for peasants and all Amd is doing is getting crackers from them.

Except that AMD can re-enter the server market, and have vendors asking them to do so. While the aforementioned parties cannot just enter the console market.

You are confused. First, AMD has never abandoned the server market, therefore your "re-enter" makes no sense. According to AMD, some x86 vendors have asked AMD to release new competitive products because today the x86 vendors only can chose between Intel or Intel.

One thing is vendors' desire to get another choice in x86, another thing is if AMD will be competitive again on the server market and the response is a sound "no". AMD lacks the resources to compete with Intel and are spinning towards ARM and dense servers. This is why K12 is at the center of AMD plans to recover some server market share. They chose ARMv8 because gives architectural advantage over x86-64. I estimate the ISA gives AMD an advantage of about 20--30%. Kanter disagrees and claims it is 10%.

AMD expect to recover about 15% market share by 2018 or so. I think they are being overoptimistic, but even in their best case scenario AMD will be a minority player.

Second, neither Intel nor Nvidia are interested in traditional consoles because it is a low-margin market in recession. Both Intel and Nvidia are interested in high-performance Steam Machines, both are working actively with Valve and the first prototypes used hardware from Intel and Nvidia. Some of the more powerful Steam Machines pack a Core i7 processor, a Nvidia Titan GPU, and 1TB of SSD storage on a small enclosure.

 

[juanrga]

http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/

Its like i know the author myself. I don't however but i did these same tests with these same CPU's and saw the same results. Its so unbelievable its much easier to call it fake then except it as reality as some do in those comments.

And your point ? we already knew i3 haswell was a great gaming cpu compared to amd's 4 yr old design. Ask yourself why they did not use games like BF4, Fc4 or Dragon Age Inquisition. Games that a majority of people play, that would be relevant. Or better yet compare integrated graphics but we already know amd trashes intel in that department so it would be a unfair comparison. .

The title of the article given by jdwii is pretty simple "The Best CPU for the Money". It is not the authors fault if AMD FX-8320E is based in ancient tech. The authors compare what is available on the stores.

It is funny that you mention integrated graphics because the FX-8320E has none and thus the Haswell i3/i5 also win in this aspect. Of course everyone agrees that AMD has APUs with better integrated graphics (*), but that was not the point of the CPU roundup.

If, moreover, you want move the discussion to what most people play, just check what hardware people uses to play

75--79% :: Intel
21--25% :: AMD

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/processormfg/

(*) A question relevant for this thread is if Intel will caught AMD. I think Intel Skylake will outperform Kaveri on integrated graphics.

 

[juanrga]

How many revenue will Xbone/PS4 generate in 2016--2018?

Both the PS3 and 360 hit 80+M units each. Also the China market is open leading to sales higher than the prior generation consoles. Console sales typically peak in the 3rd or 4th year so the 2016-2018 should be quite good.

2014 PS4 ~9.3M
2014 XBO ~7.7M

17M total units and a BOM price of $105 that is 1.785 B a year. Say 5B conservatively over 2016-2018.

Consoles sales tradittionally peak the first year. This means 2014 for AMD. However AMD is optimist and claims that they expect console sales will peak on 2015. I am not so optimist, but in any case console sales will be lower on 2016--2018 due to multiple factors: steam machines, mobile gaming,...

But let us take your 51M total units as an unreachable limit number. That is about 1B profit over 2016--2018. Even assuming the 100% of the profit is spent on R&D, that is still one order of magnitude smaller than competence. Again numbers confirm that AMD doesn't have future except as the new VIA.