jasonelmore :
amd vs nvidia is pretty simple
AMD wins in Price vs Performance
Nvidia wins in Performance per Watt.
Amd does it cheaper, but uses more power and creates more heat. that's why nvidia and intel dominate mobile gpu's
Comic you got rated down for the truth. I'd add also that NV/Intel own the top because they usually win period more often than not, and that is also why there's a "surcharge" so to speak. That surcharge doesn't just get perf claims it also comes with more R&D all around (drivers etc). Everyone makes mistakes, but these two make less of them and charge you for it. You don't see many complaining about compatibility, failures etc on INTEL boards (chipset and board intel I mean), which is why business builds a crapload of systems around them (reliability) in enterprise. They can more easily afford to pay for that "feature" (is WORKING properly really a feature? LOL). It's quite amazing AMD does as well as they do considering they don't make anywhere near what the other two do, and I hope that changes soon. But it won't until AMD stops pricing themselves to death. I think this year is shot though, as they appear to be about to take a 30-40% hit on cards due to build-up hoping mining would continue.
I'll say it again management is KILLING AMD, how dumb are these people running their great tech into the ground with bad business decisions? If management would quit doing stupid stuff they might make some real cash. Anyone reading about asics for scrypt etc should have known the party started ending in april and would be completely over in June (here we are!). Management made a stupid ATI deal (3x what should have been paid), made stupid WSA with GF over and over after being forced to give up their fabs (due to ATI stupid deal), completely missed the ball on ARM by 4-5yrs (should be on R5 like Tegra), blew it again now on mining, went console instead of CORE tech like cpus and gpus (drivers mostly got shafted, product ok but drivers for last gen still are not done, dx9/10 users appear screwed forever) etc. In the process they now have less R&D spending than NV (not even in the race with intel), and have 30% less engineering to come up with great products for next year etc. AMD has great employees, and amazingly they come up with some great products. But they get screwed by lack of resources to HELP their great stuff and end up having to sell for lower pricing vs. Intel/AMD. The layoffs happened over the last 3 years, and it takes about that time or more to come up with this stuff so we're about to see how bad it has hurt them probably at 20nm. Hawaii and the current APU's, etc were probably mostly done before those people left. I don't know how their going to compete with less people and now less R&D for this next wave of APU or GPU.
I don't see how AMD digs themselves out of this yet. Intel is coming for the GPU on the apu just to fight off ARM's advance on the low end (can't have ARM desktops take 21% like chromebooks already have, they have to stop this), and NV clearly did their homework on power for Maxwell so even if AMD has a decent answer NV has a lot of power to amp things up if needed to get a perf crown at higher wattage/heat at 20nm. They have a very tough road ahead, especially if management keeps attacking their profits in one way or another which will cause further drops in R&D (has been dropping for 4yrs) or worse the engineers getting cut again that actually make the stuff they can sell to begin with. They really need to get bought and in a hurry, backed by someone that can put more engineers and R&D cash to work. Otherwise, I fear AMD will end up losing the small pies they do have now to NV/Intel/ARM armada. The low-end (where AMD lives in apu) is ARM/Intel's new battleground and the bulk of revenues come here. GPU is never an easy race and isn't making tons of cash even now (with a huge hit seemingly looming in two weeks at the Quarter), so what will the be able to pile up serious profits with soon? Intel is willing to price AMD to death (accidentally) to slow ARM's progress on the low-end (practically giving away mobile chips at a Billion loss yearly now). NV has the R&D/profits/cash on hand (~3.7B - not counting the loan they took for new building that got delayed, assuming they'll just give that back or something, temporarily showing more debt and more cash than is real) to fight for a LONG time in GPU, so where will AMD get a 500mil profit surge from? Lots of competition in ARM servers hence samsung/NV giving it up for a bit (maybe Denver can serve that also, so no need for boulder? who knows), calxeda already belly up etc. That won't be a profit stream you can count on. What else is there? Consoles already both off 50%+ only after a quarter, probably worse this Q.
We should all be praying for them to get bought at this point so they can put out a LEADER product backed with the best drivers/support etc to help whatever product that is.