Is that it for AMD?

[abundantcores]

I have been a fan of the underdogs for many years. With i'm alarmed with the mass of AMD Doom and Gloom around the net.

Huge financial problems with some predicting imminent bankruptcy.

Loosing market share to Intel and Nvidia at an astonishing rate.

It all sounds very terminal.

I know AMD have not been able to match Intel on performance and power consumption for a long time now. But i have to say i'm please with the progress AMD made with the FX-8350 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328-15.html

So much so that i'm now willing to give up my 2 year old x6 1090T for one, but it also shows how far they still have to go before they catch up with Intel, and Intel have Haswell just around the corner which will no doubt put AMD back to Bulldozer vs Ivy Bridge.

The GPU side on paper looks so much better, the trade blows with Nvidia at every turn, you could even say AMD have a slight upper hand on performance with the latest 12.11 Drivers, i have to say i'm glad i went for the cheaper 7870 and not the GTX 660TI as the performance turned out to be same in the end.

Yet despite AMD's competitiveness in GPU's; Nvidia just chewed another a huge chunk out of AMD http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/11/14/amd-declines-on-gpu-losses-wells-sees-hope-in-cost-cuts-consoles/

So no mater what AMD do, or how good they are in comparison, they still loose massively.

It looks to me that AMD are on their death bed.

 

[darth pravus]

They will pick up. It went wrong when they sold their fab but in the GPU sector they will always have sales.

The problem is people see intel in the top end pc's and think their whole line is better when it's not always the case.

 

[ransu]

I have been (and still am... at least for a wile) an AMD fan. Intel surely makes the fastest and priciest processors out there. AMD have been good, but not at the top when we talk speed. Buying the FASTEST (yet affordable) AMD processors they have, has been my goal as a fan.
... so comes the year 2011 an a ne CEO steps up in AMD, announcing that "AMD won´t fight against INTEL when it comes to processor speed aymore"... and ... "There is ENOUGH computing power in every LAPTOP out there today".

Where has this guy been living the last 20 years? He matches up to the claimed (not sure if true) Bill Gates comment that "640k of RAM memory is enough for the future" (might be a misunderstood quote too..)

In spring 2012 AMD announces trinity A10 that could at least somehow compete against INTEL in the "mid class" laptop market INTE SPRING that is, and I saw some hope... then what happens... no release... release postponed... now we are in 11 - 2012 and a laptop company said the A10 might be ready in spring 2013... giving 1 year time for intel to beat A10 in speed and price if they wanted to from spring 2012, - nice new strategy.

It MIGHT be that Sony has a deal on a A10 version for the next playstation, not ure though, and my Q is, is it therefore that A10 asn´t been released yet? Or is it bcaus AMD wanted to sell away te "old" stuff like A4 that is stock piled, and hopefully get some money out of hat before A10 comes?

If AMD will focus on LOW power, LOW speed processor "as there is enough power already" accoring to some, then I will say it clearly as I can, GOODBYE AMD!

This i written on my new A8 Toshiba laptop, will this be my last AMD? Lets see.

 

[abundantcores]

Hybrid AMD A10 APU Sony PS4's have already been sent out to dev teams.

So thats Nintendo and now Sony bagged in GC's, the chances are Microsoft will also have some form of AMD tech inside to, no doubt that will help with revenue problems.

Hell it might even give AMD the edge when you think that future games will be developed based on AMD hardware, BF3 works very well on higher end AMD CPU's, as do Intel but there is none of the usual performance advantage.

In any case i feel that unless AMD can point to WOW reviews and say "we can match Intel at a lower price" they are doomed.
Its all people talk about and its all the only thing people point at when recommending a CPU, not that i blame them, i would do the same.
But at the same time when a game shows equal to Intel, like BF3. then its nothing to do with the CPU, its all GPU bottleneck despite the fact that the Frost Bite 2 Engine uses 8 cores, we know using all its cores AMD are easily a match for the 4 core / 4 core - 8 thread Intel's in performance.

So can they come good even if they actually do?
It just doesn't seem like they can.

Anyway, here is your A10 Laptop,- http://shop.amd.com/us/All/Detail/Notebook/ecx-Fry-US-7148032

Just can't find it for the UK, maybe ask AMD about it.

 

[technoholic]

I really have faith in this new CEO, Rory. He is, IMO, slowly re-building a solid strategy for the company.

In CPU business, yea they screwed up but they are turning back to the game in my opinion. I hope not too late, though.... I think their loss in market share was mainly relevant to their disappointing BD CPU. They followed a bad marketing strategy and spread false hope, then their "new" CPU didn't deliver. So they lost a big crowd from their own fan base. I think their GPU division also suffered from that failure. Then, there is also a huge fan base of Nvidia's Geforce family. Even if you provide them the god made GPU, they'd shed *** loads of their money to an Nvidia card, no matter how bad it performs.

 

[jerry6]

I have been a fan of the underdogs for many years. With i'm alarmed with the mass of AMD Doom and Gloom around the net.

Huge financial problems with some predicting imminent bankruptcy.

Loosing market share to Intel and Nvidia at an astonishing rate.

It all sounds very terminal.

I know AMD have not been able to match Intel on performance and power consumption for a long time now. But i have to say i'm please with the progress AMD made with the FX-8350 http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-8350-vishera-review,3328-15.html

So much so that i'm now willing to give up my 2 year old x6 1090T for one, but it also shows how far they still have to go before they catch up with Intel, and Intel have Haswell just around the corner which will no doubt put AMD back to Bulldozer vs Ivy Bridge.

The GPU side on paper looks so much better, the trade blows with Nvidia at every turn, you could even say AMD have a slight upper hand on performance with the latest 12.11 Drivers, i have to say i'm glad i went for the cheaper 7870 and not the GTX 660TI as the performance turned out to be same in the end.

Yet despite AMD's competitiveness in GPU's; Nvidia just chewed another a huge chunk out of AMD http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/11/14/amd-declines-on-gpu-losses-wells-sees-hope-in-cost-cuts-consoles/

So no mater what AMD do, or how good they are in comparison, they still loose massively.

It looks to me that AMD are on their death bed.

Blah blah blah blah , these stock analysts are no better than carnival fortune tellers , I hope AMD can survive .

 

[abundantcores]

lol... i love the way you put that.

 

[Blahman11]

AMD will survive. Worst case scenario methinks is that they pull out of the CPU market, their GPUs aren't doing that bad.

Anyways isn't there rumours that Samsung are interested? That's a big company, and a company who would give them access to DDR4 early no doubt. Samsung would use AMD APUs in their phones (it's possible) and the amount of Samsung phones I've seen at my college suggest that that would earn AMD a bomb.

Their APUs are the best package out there, intel's IGP performance sucks. Also aren't some of the previously CPU bound apps starting to make use of GPU acceleration now? That'll be advantage AMD if that is. And the fact that AMD has ATI shows that they will always be ahead in the GPU end of the APU.

Bulldozer hurt AMD badly, but Piledriver will pick AMD up. Those who bought an AM3+ board but didn't buy an bulldozer CPU will now buy a Piledriver FX. AMD has also priced their CPUs as such that they're starting to become the value for money company that they were with the Phenom iis. the FX4100 is £70 now, (I know it's bulldozer) and with it's unlocked multi you can overclock it to a level that challenges CPUs £30 more. I know it drains a lot more power but since when did a gamer (who is the most likely person to buy a CPU of that price) care about power draw? Does a few watts more make a difference really? I'd though the GPU would make more of a dent on the power bill, some need a 600watt+ PSU.

 

[mactronix]

I don't see them going anywhere. Intel need AMD so they wont let them go under. I can see a scenario where Intel purposely leave a segment alone so AMD can get a foot hold and get viable again.

If the above was not true (about them needing AMD that is) then there would never have been an X86 agreement.

Mactronix

 

[ransu]

Maxctronix - I also believe that INTEL will allow AMD to continue, without it, or if ARM is further developed for PCs aswell, there would be a monopoly sitation, disliked by EU and so on.

With the billions earned, Intel could easily end it´s I3 line and press down prices for 1-2 ears for the i7 line and force AMD into bancrupcy. So why haven´t they done that???? 😱

 

[abundantcores]

Steamroller (hate these stupid names, where did they get them from? A preschool?) and its promised performance improvement is a must, and a must on the AM 3+ socket.

AMD have put right the wrongs that was Bulldozer, Pilediver is what Bulldozer should have been (well almost) but Piledriver should have been Bulldozer at the time when Bulldozer was originally promised.

The FX-8350 is comparable to the 3570K, it out performs it in most tasks, the only really disadvantage it has is power consumption.

But now its a little late, AMD have to catch up to stay in contention with Haswell, and on the AM3+ socket to make it a cheap upgrade.

 

[jaguarskx]

With the billions earned, Intel could easily end it´s I3 line and press down prices for 1-2 ears for the i7 line and force AMD into bancrupcy. So why haven´t they done that???? 😱

Because doing so means Intel will earn less money. It's not about eliminating AMD. It's about maximizing their profits. If AMD fails as a company it won't be because Intel pushed them over the cliff in price war. The fate of AMD is in their own hands.

 

[abundantcores]

Because doing so means Intel will earn less money. It's not about eliminating AMD. It's about maximizing their profits. If AMD fails as a company it won't be because Intel pushed them over the cliff in price war. The fate of AMD is in their own hands.

By the very nature of making money Intel will do everything they can to push AMD into bankruptcy.

The most profitable situation to be in is to have the market entirely to yourself. Intel has paid off companies not to use AMD products in the past, they also blocked AMD's intrusion sets in their compilers to strangle AMD's performance artificially in software.

I wouldn't say AMD would never have done the same to Intel if they had the muscle.
But that's the point, the bigger you are to more effectively you can muscle others out.

AMD are not big enough to fight Intel, so yes its entirely their own doing, they should have been far more aggressive when they had the chance.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

The way I see it, AMD produces decent CPU's for the "common man" and Intel produces outstanding CPU's for the people that can afford the premium.

AMD (especially Phenom II and Piledriver) is "good enough", while Intel is more than enough for most (excellent performance that most will never see the benefit of).

AMD will survive because (especially in these economically tough times) a lot of people are looking for something that will "just do" and not break the bank, instead of something that's more than they really need and costs more because of it.

Having said that, I personally will always side with the "frontrunner". That may not always make the most sense fiscally, but it's just how I am.

On the GPU side of things, AMD is looking pretty good right now, performance wise (especially a 7950, which is a great value), so they can hang their hat on that, if nothing else.

 

[abundantcores]

The way I see it, AMD produces decent CPU's for the "common man" and Intel produces outstanding CPU's for the people that can afford the premium.

AMD (especially Phenom II and Piledriver) is "good enough", while Intel is more than enough for most (excellent performance that most will never see the benefit of).

AMD will survive because (especially in these economically tough times) a lot of people are looking for something that will "just do" and not break the bank, instead of something that's more than they really need and costs more because of it.

Having said that, I personally will always side with the "frontrunner". That may not always make the most sense fiscally, but it's just how I am.

On the GPU side of things, AMD is looking pretty good right now, performance wise (especially a 7950, which is a great value), so they can hang their hat on that, if nothing else.

AMD are aiming at a lower cost, but i don't think its a whole lot to do (class among man)

To me if you want to go SLI / CF then the 3770K is the chip for you, or if your a professional needing a high powered machine then the chip for you is the 6 core Intel i7 39##K.
If however your GPU is of the more common verity, something like a 7950 / GTX 670 and you play a verity of games, and you also use your computer for the garden verity productivity app's.
Then the FX-8### is a pretty clever choice.
Its just as fast as the i5 3570K in most modern games, the only games where it is behind the i5 is WOW and the like.... but even then your still getting way over the golden 60 FPS average, its also faster in most productivity app's while the Motherboard + CPU is significantly cheaper.

Personally i think its found a pretty clever place to be.

 

[DJDeCiBeL]

Its just as fast as the i5 3570K in most modern games, the only games where it is behind the i5 is WOW and the like....

It basically is, yes (the GPU heavy games close the gap considerably), but what I'm saying is that when I bought my 2500K, nothing from AMD could even come close to it.

Even now, there's nothing that AMD has that can beat it (in gaming) at stock speeds at my current 4.5 OC. I think that Steamroller has a chance of coming relatively close, but we shall see.

 

[abundantcores]

It basically is, yes (the GPU heavy games close the gap considerably), but what I'm saying is that when I bought my 2500K, nothing from AMD could even come close to it.

Even now, there's nothing that AMD has that can beat it (in gaming) at stock speeds at my current 4.5 OC. I think that Steamroller has a chance of coming relatively close, but we shall see.

Indeed, Steamroller has a problem though, its called Haswell.

I think (SR) should bring the core for core performance up to the 3570K, but no more. Haswell will up the stakes again.

I that's so at least AMD will only be 1 step behind, and not 2 or 3 like they were with Bulldozer.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

they also blocked AMD's intrusion sets in their compilers to strangle AMD's performance artificially in software.

Actually it was a case of Intel not optimizing for AMD in the code paths generated by their compiler, which I understand has tiny marketshare (maybe 10%) compared to Microsoft's and GCC and others..

Think about it - if you were Intel, and developed a compiler to help software companies take maximum advantage of all the new instructions offered by your CPUs, and spent millions of $$ doing so, why would you want to help your competition out for free?? AFAIK, Intel's compiler doesn't cripple AMD CPUs, it just doesn't support anything other than straight x86 code. AMD has had various versions of its own special instruction sets ever since 3D Now, including FMA4 with Bulldozer.
And there is nothing preventing AMD from doing the same as Intel and developing its own compiler that does support its own instruction sets.

From http://www.techspot.com/article/599-amd-rise-and-fall/page2.html:

The last seemingly ever-present factor in AMD's decline pertains to management, or the lack thereof. A conscious effort to abstain from advertising and a near total absence from the software side of the business makes for a curious example of how to deliberately handicap yourself in the semiconductor trade. This, allied with an enduring lack of strategic planning and an apathetic (at best) leadership seem to be the abiding portrait of a company run as a conglomeration of fiefdoms.

In a nutshell, computers are useless without both hardware and software. So it makes sense for a hardware developer like Intel and AMD to support the software side in order to keep growing the business. And that's one of the problems with AMD - they were too cheap to develop their own compiler or spend much time and $$ to help the software developers to code for their CPUs, even back 6-7 years ago when AMD was profitable and had $5.4 billion dollars to buy out ATI..

 

[abundantcores]

Actually it was a case of Intel not optimizing for AMD in the code paths generated by their compiler, which I understand has tiny marketshare (maybe 10%) compared to Microsoft's and GCC and others..

Think about it - if you were Intel, and developed a compiler to help software companies take maximum advantage of all the new instructions offered by your CPUs, and spent millions of $$ doing so, why would you want to help your competition out for free?? AFAIK, Intel's compiler doesn't cripple AMD CPUs, it just doesn't support anything other than straight x86 code. AMD has had various versions of its own special instruction sets ever since 3D Now, including FMA4 with Bulldozer.
And there is nothing preventing AMD from doing the same as Intel and developing its own compiler that does support its own instruction sets.

From http://www.techspot.com/article/599-amd-rise-and-fall/page2.html:

The last seemingly ever-present factor in AMD's decline pertains to management, or the lack thereof. A conscious effort to abstain from advertising and a near total absence from the software side of the business makes for a curious example of how to deliberately handicap yourself in the semiconductor trade. This, allied with an enduring lack of strategic planning and an apathetic (at best) leadership seem to be the abiding portrait of a company run as a conglomeration of fiefdoms.

In a nutshell, computers are useless without both hardware and software. So it makes sense for a hardware developer like Intel and AMD to support the software side in order to keep growing the business. And that's one of the problems with AMD - they were too cheap to develop their own compiler or spend much time and $$ to help the software developers to code for their CPUs, even back 6-7 years ago when AMD was profitable and had $5.4 billion dollars to buy out ATI..

I don't disagree with any of that.

The problem arose because Intel did not tell software developers that AMD's intrusion sets would not be used.

As a software developer you would want to know that your software would not work properly on anything but Intel, you wouldn't use the compiler if you had known that, for obvious reasons. Whats more you can't use two compilers for one piece of software, The compiler either works on all hardware or it doesn't. if it doesn't your customers need to know that.

Intel used your reasoning in its defense, and lost the court case with it. Intel's compilers had all the AMDx86_64 intrusions within it just like every other compiler, the difference being Intel's compiler didn't actually enact them once set.
AMD proved this in court.

 

[montosaurous]

If they blow the roadmap and don't release Steamroller until late 2014 quite possibly. I don't see them competing in the $150+ desktop market much longer. They want to move to servers and the mobile space.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

I don't disagree with any of that.

The problem arose because Intel did not tell software developers that AMD's intrusion sets would not be used.

As a software developer you would want to know that your software would not work properly on anything but Intel, you wouldn't use the compiler if you had known that, for obvious reasons. Whats more you can't use two compilers for one piece of software, The compiler either works on all hardware or it doesn't. if it doesn't your customers need to know that.

Intel used your reasoning in its defense, and lost the court case with it. Intel's compilers had all the AMDx86_64 intrusions within it just like every other compiler, the difference being Intel's compiler didn't actually enact them once set.
AMD proved this in court.

Not sure what you mean by "intrusions" - extensions or instructions?

Intel cross-licensed X64 from AMD as part of the X86 basic instruction set license to AMD. What I'm referring to are the extended instructions such as AMD's "3D Now" and FMA4 and stuff that is not any part of Intel's SSEx or AVX extensions. What Intel did was check the CPUID field and if it didn't find "GenuineIntel" or something like that, it would default to the basic X86 and maybe X64 instruction set, rather than make use of the extended instructions. While the AMD complaint was that Intel's compiler 'crippled' their CPUs, in fact the compiled software would run properly - it just wouldn't use any of the accelerated stuff like SSE or AVX. And I'm pretty sure that the software developers knew in full that Intel's compiler did not support non-Intel CPUs.

AMD's 3D Now was basically their answer to Intel's old MMX accelerator, except incompatible with it. So why would Intel support a non-compatible instruction set like that?

 

[mactronix]

Steamroller (hate these stupid names, where did they get them from? A preschool?) and its promised performance improvement is a must, and a must on the AM 3+ socket.

AMD have put right the wrongs that was Bulldozer, Pilediver is what Bulldozer should have been (well almost) but Piledriver should have been Bulldozer at the time when Bulldozer was originally promised.

The FX-8350 is comparable to the 3570K, it out performs it in most tasks, the only really disadvantage it has is power consumption.

But now its a little late, AMD have to catch up to stay in contention with Haswell, and on the AM3+ socket to make it a cheap upgrade.

As I was saying earlier I believe Intel will assist AMD in some way and it seems that they may well be doing so with the news that they could be switching to BGA after Haswell.

This would mean that you need a new system upgrade and cant just switch CPU's with Intel in future. To me that leaves the door open for AMD to continue to sell systems based on the LGA format, allowing users to upgrade their machines bit by bit.

Mactronix

 

[abundantcores]

Not sure what you mean by "intrusions" - extensions or instructions?

Intel cross-licensed X64 from AMD as part of the X86 basic instruction set license to AMD. What I'm referring to are the extended instructions such as AMD's "3D Now" and FMA4 and stuff that is not any part of Intel's SSEx or AVX extensions. What Intel did was check the CPUID field and if it didn't find "GenuineIntel" or something like that, it would default to the basic X86 and maybe X64 instruction set, rather than make use of the extended instructions. While the AMD complaint was that Intel's compiler 'crippled' their CPUs, in fact the compiled software would run properly - it just wouldn't use any of the accelerated stuff like SSE or AVX. And I'm pretty sure that the software developers knew in full that Intel's compiler did not support non-Intel CPUs.

AMD's 3D Now was basically their answer to Intel's old MMX accelerator, except incompatible with it. So why would Intel support a non-compatible instruction set like that?

What you are sure of and reality are two different things, You say "oh i'm sure they did know" the fact is they didn't.
I'm not a coder myself but my work involves me with coders, i had this conversation with them many times.
Its simply this, they did not know because they would have no reason to think setting the same instructions on both platforms would result in one platform over riding their settings because its not "GenuineIntel" whats more they would not have used the compiler had they known this because they would not want their software under-performing at any stage.
Its bad for business. Think about it.
AMD won the court case because they proved Intel was "deliberately misleading their customers"

 

[mactronix]

Sorry in advance as I realise this is a total noob thing to say,

Why don't coder's just code to a standard coding standard and leave the different CPU's to interpret the coding and use which instruction set they have to run the code ?
I believe that specifically coded for the hardware is faster, isn't doing so the same or similar to a company coding a game to run optimised on a Nvidia GPU ?
I guess you could say that its more important that a CPU runs to a standard than a graphics card.

@ abundantcore,

Was this an Intel compiler ? That is did Intel say hay guys our new chip works really well it has some great features, use this compiler ?
If they did then why on earth would a coder not check this compiler before using it ?

Sorry to interrupt I'm a little out of my depth here as my understanding of CPU instruction sets etc is very basic. just trying to learn and understand.

Mactronix

 

[fazers_on_stun]

What you are sure of and reality are two different things, You say "oh i'm sure they did know" the fact is they didn't.
I'm not a coder myself but my work involves me with coders, i had this conversation with them many times.
Its simply this, they did not know because they would have no reason to think setting the same instructions on both platforms would result in one platform over riding their settings because its not "GenuineIntel" whats more they would not have used the compiler had they known this because they would not want their software under-performing at any stage.
Its bad for business. Think about it.
AMD won the court case because they proved Intel was "deliberately misleading their customers"

I'm sure the big software devs knew it, they just didn't care as AMD by revenue was around 10% of the x86 market, plus there were plenty of other compilers to use - Microsoft has a far larger marketshare than Intel. Plus how much money did AMD contribute to Intel to develop the free Intel compiler anyway? That's right - nada.

Anyway, the FTC is not a court of law, and had Intel chosen to argue their point with the FTC via a court, IMO they would have won. However instead Intel agreed to warn users that their compiler does not optimize for certain non-Intel CPUs, for those devs who didn't RTFM 😛, in the AMD settlement of 3 years ago, which obviated AMD's various FTC complaints. I doubt Intel really cared that much as their compiler marketshare was pretty small and they really didn't need to cheat to come out on top of most benchmarks.