What if AMD went bankrupt?

[sailer]

Tell you what, let's everybody cough up $130 or so and buy an AMD 5000+ BE. Then we can all have done a small part to keep AMD alive, have the current best cpu that AMD currently makes, and then we can say that it wasn't our fault if things go bad. Of course, for the comparitively small number of sales that we would make, it might stave off problems for AMD for a day or two, but we can say we tried. Anybody think that's really going to happen? :lol:

 

[Grimmy]

. o O (but I wanna Q6600 to play with)

 

[sailer]

5000+ BE is the best cpu AMD makes? Riiiiiight. Ever heard of Phenom? Its smokes the X2 core and the bug is something 99.9% of end users will never encounter a problem with. If you read the THG article about it you would know that the fix can be disabled and the 9500 actually offers better performance per dollar than the Q6600. Whoda known?

EDIT: I've been looking for the article to post a link but I cant find it. Must not have been thg. Can someone help me out with the link?

Yes, I've heard too much of Phenom. In my opinion the 5000+ BE is the best cpu that AMD currently makes. The 5000+ BE can be overclocked to 3300-3500 mhz on air. How far can a Phenom be overclocked and remain stable, or not outright crash? In the various benches that I've seen, the Phenom falls behind when matched against a fair number of the AM2 chips.

Yes, Tom's did an article where it showed that core for core, a Phenom could best an underclocked 6000+ chip.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/19/amd_phenom_athlon_64_x2/

That's right, Tom's had to underclock the 6000+ to 2600 mhz to get it to perform badly enough that the Phenom could beat it. If the 6000+ had been running at its stock speed of 3000 mhz, it should have beaten Phenom handily. Since the 5000+ Be can be overclocked to 3300-3500 mhz, it should beat the Phenom even more, and this is why I consider the 5000+ BE as AMD's best currecnt chip.

Besides all this, I thought you were an AMD fan. I'd think you'd be happy that there is an AMD chip out there that performs halfway decent.

 

[caamsa]

what if AMD went bankrupt?
wow...just think how that would change the face of places like tom's forums...
people might actually start posting relevant topics and threads!!!

Word!

 

[OlSkoolChopper]

$7.02! Yippeeeeeeee! Six! Six! We want Six! Pretty soon I'll be able to buy AMD by trading them for an old Shovelhead that needs a rebuld, a battery from an AMF FLH and a rusty peanut tank! Then I'll be the new Hector and if you guys make fun of me, I'll come here and kick your a$$es!

 

[jaguarskx]

IF AMD were to find the need to file for bankruptcy, and that's a big IF, the government would step in to ensure their stability and keep them in business.

Mind elaborating why the government would step into the picture to ensure AMD remains solvant?

1. AMD doesn't have that large of a workforce where if everyone was suddenly lost thier job the unemployment rate would be negatively impacted in a substancial way.

2. The products which AMD provides do not negatively affect a large number of both general consumers and business, financially speaking. As an example, if a large bank like Citibank were to be on the brink of collapse from the sub-prime crysis then the government would step in because:

a. A significant percentage of the US population would loose their savings. (The gov't only insures up to $100k in the savings account.)
b. Many people would loose thier mortgage, thus they can no longer payoff the debt on thier homes and become homeless.
c. Business relies on the credit extended by Citibank to finance thier operations. Thus, the collapse of Citibank can cause a substancial number to companies across all industries to cut back on thier operation. This in turn means higher unemployee.
d. The failure of a large bank will also have substantial negative impact in the financial market which will cause a rippling effect across all industries.

AMD's demise will affect some OEMs and their own employees. But it will not have a substantial rippling effect across the entire economy. The local economies will be somewhat affected, but it will definitely not have a national effect.

Were AMD to suddenly implode, I really, really doubt the government would step in. If Intel suddenly makes a grab for AMD's CPU intellectual and physical assets and nVidia makes a sudden grab for ATI's aassets, then the FTC would step in and say no because that would means both the CPU and GPU market would become a monopoly.

An interest spin would be if Intel were to grab ATI's assets and nVdia were to grab AMD's CPU assets. You will still still have competition in both the CPU and GPU market between Intel and nVidia. But I don't really see that happening.

 

[OlSkoolChopper]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=7462

Bank of America analyst Sumit Dhanda is projecting anything but a happy New Year for AMD.

The analyst in a research note Monday, kicked off 2008 by downgrading AMD to “sell” and projected “more pain ahead.” Dhanda’s rating change comes amid a broader call on the semiconductor industry, but AMD took the brunt of the hit.

Here’s Dhanda’s argument:

It can get worse and Barcelona isn’t a savior. Dhanda says that AMD is likely to lose more market share. The analyst writes:

Irrespective of whether AMD will be able to deliver on its promise to ramp the much-delayed Barcelona platform in volumes by 1Q08/2Q08, we believe Barcelona will do very little to stem the share losses AMD will likely witness in servers and desktops vs. Intel’s more competitive line-up.

Add it up and AMD shares are expected to get whacked in 2008 even though the stock fell 62 percent in 2007.

AMD’s costs are too high. Higher material costs and depreciation are likely to put the kibosh on profitability, says Dhanda. On the parts front, Dhanda notes that quad-core components are more expensive. This point is notable since it implies that quad-core chips from AMD won’t command enough of a premium to offset an increase in component inflation.

AMD’s current profit target is too optimistic for 2008. Dhanda expects a motherboard correction and a weaker than expected first half outlook.

AMD IS MINE! MUAHAHAHAHAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

 

[speedbird]

$7.02! Yippeeeeeeee! Six! Six! We want Six! Pretty soon I'll be able to buy AMD by trading them for an old Shovelhead that needs a rebuld, a battery from an AMF FLH and a rusty peanut tank! Then I'll be the new Hector and if you guys make fun of me, I'll come here and kick your a$$es!

Does Intel pay you or something?

 

[Grimmy]

Ahhh... err... what??? Where's my check man!! I never got paid...

 

[OlSkoolChopper]

Does Intel pay you or something?

Well, I could come here to discus the technological advantges of the K10 platform and how Intel can't possibly keep up or ever hope to compete with the Barcy/Phenom jugernaut, but I'll leave that to the AMD fanbois sufering from premature dementia and ejaculaton. I'd rather kick AMD in the face while they're down. It's more fun.

 

[speedbird]

I suppose that's to be expected from someone who has an Intel Fanboy Yorkie bar Avatar :lol:

 

[sailer]

Ahhh... err... what??? Where's my check man!! I never got paid...

Your check is in the very same place that a lot of check's are. You've surely heard (or given) that famous line:

"The check is in the mail".

 

[OlSkoolChopper]

I suppose that's to be expected from someone who has an Intel Fanboy Yorkie bar Avatar :lol:

Hey, Yorkies are delicios and nutritious and good for you. Better than K10s. They're not good for anything.

 

[rodney_ws]

I had a Pentium I 90 Mhz processor that had a floating point bug.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug

It happens... didn't change my opinion of the company and to the best of my knowledge it didn't cause my any harm... be it direct or indirect. That system was a beast at playing Ultima 7... and honestly, that's all I cared about. As best I understand the AMD "bug" (or whatever you want to call it) can be left uncorrected without any consequences for a vast majority of the users out there. Why are people making such a big deal out of this? Had Phenom come out early or even on time, I imagine this wouldn't have been made into such a huge issue, but because of the delays some people seem to have been expecting perfect silicon.

 

[yomamafor1]

What are you talking about? Your statement makes no sense. If AMD were to financially implode the justice department, FTC, and EU will not be able to do anything.

While I hope it will happen as you said, but I'm sure FTC and EU will come up with something to accuse Intel of monopolistic behavior. Even if AMD imploded, no one would simply let AMD slip away.

Bankruptcy does not automatically mean the company will die. It will go into receivership, and payoff their creditors. AMD will only be dissolved if it can no longer earn enough net revenue to payoff their creditors. At that point AMD will die. The creditors will sell off AMD's assets to recover as much money as possible.

The FTC may or may not allow Intel and nVidia purchase the CPU / GPU assets, but if no other company is willing to step up to the plate to buyout the assets (both intellectual & physical), then that could be a remote possibility.

One thing for sure is if AMD were to file for bankruptcy, the share price will plummet, turning AMD into essentially a penny stock company. This will be bad for the investors, but it doesn't really have any impact on AMD itself. This would be an opportunity for AMD to buy back large amounts of shares to turn itself into a private company in the extreme case. Depending on the number of outstanding shares it also allows another company to acquire a majority ownership of AMD stock and take over the company (debt and all), but this is unlikely.

I believe AMD will probably be heavily subsidized by government (Germany? New York?), and companies a like, before it goes belly up. No one wants a single company to rule the entire market. OEMs have just learned the benefit of having AMD around, and that is to keep Intel's pricing in check. So for now, AMD won't go away in a while, but it will remain a distant second from Intel.

Sadly, AMD/ATI is now worth around what ATI used to be before it was acquired by AMD. In my opinion, it is the GPU division (ATI) that will be carrying AMD for a while until it can get it's CPU division back on track.

Hopefully Hector is smart enough to give its GPU division more R&D money, for now. At the moment, AMD do not have any competitive CPU product on the market (Barcelona won't be ready until Q1, or even Q2). IMO, K10 is more or less a failed design, that lacks too many important features. They need to refocus on their next architecture, Bulldozer, if they want to take off as a CPU company again. With Harpertown/Yorkfield/Wolfdale launching very soon, and Nehalem on the horizon, AMD will likely fall further behind. It is very crucial for them to rethink their position on the market, and open new markets.

 

[yomamafor1]

Yes, I've heard too much of Phenom. In my opinion the 5000+ BE is the best cpu that AMD currently makes. The 5000+ BE can be overclocked to 3300-3500 mhz on air. How far can a Phenom be overclocked and remain stable, or not outright crash? In the various benches that I've seen, the Phenom falls behind when matched against a fair number of the AM2 chips.

Yes, Tom's did an article where it showed that core for core, a Phenom could best an underclocked 6000+ chip.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/19/amd_phenom_athlon_64_x2/

That's right, Tom's had to underclock the 6000+ to 2600 mhz to get it to perform badly enough that the Phenom could beat it. If the 6000+ had been running at its stock speed of 3000 mhz, it should have beaten Phenom handily. Since the 5000+ Be can be overclocked to 3300-3500 mhz, it should beat the Phenom even more, and this is why I consider the 5000+ BE as AMD's best currecnt chip.

Besides all this, I thought you were an AMD fan. I'd think you'd be happy that there is an AMD chip out there that performs halfway decent.

And what's worse, is that the fastest Phenom you can buy at the moment is Phenom 9600, which only runs at a measly 2.3Ghz. Therefore, I completely agree that 5000+ BE is the best chip AMD has in its arsenal, at the moment

 

[hcforde]

The German Government has already pumped 320Million into AMd to keep it going. You also have to think of the number of servers that AMD services. Consumer products are not the only thing it has its hand in. Consider embedded products, special oem devices, servers, , military products, super computers etc all have to be serviced and upgraded with AMD processors on a world wide basis. sometimes a company is to big or important to allow them to fail. The cost of failure(to the business community it serves) is greater than the cost to prop them up and subsidize them. The U.S does it more than you realize.

 

[mundungus]

I want to answer the question what if? It seems that evey thread in the cpu section has at least one reply with the same warning that we better hope that AMD never goes tits up because then intel will go back to selling netburst chips for $5K a pop while banging our wives with the our kids watching, or something to that effect.

I think that what most people miss is that Intel will always have competition, namely from itself. People will want a reason to upgrade. If they are not offered a superior product than the one that they have, there is no reason to buy. If the prices are not attractive enough then people won't buy in enough volume for Intel to grow.

That being said, I don't think there will be any long period of time when Intel has no competition. If AMD were to die, something would fill the void, most likely an AMD carcuss + some top tech firm hybred.

 

[OlSkoolChopper]

while banging our wives with the our kids watching.

Er... so? Doesn't everyone?

 

[jonisginger]

I think it's a more logical choice that Nvidia would buy them. It would get them into processors (which they want) and they could part out ATI eliminating their top competition.

That my friend is a very sensible comment! Thank you!

Though, I am not sure whether AMD would just be left to rot, Intel would then have 100% market share, which is just crazy. If that was to happen, then some restrictions would be applied to Intel.

 

[uk_gangsta]

IF AMD GO BANKRUPT I WILL TOP MYSELF THERE WILL BE NO POINT LIVING ANYMORE

 

[Scotteq]

.....because then intel will go back to selling netburst chips for $5K a pop while banging our wives with the our kids watching....

Of course, the after effects of this would be highly dependent on your current marital status. I can imagine the delight if Intel were banging the ex-wife in front of the kids: The Alimony payments would cease, the kids would be home where they belong, and the vid would be duly uploaded....

Hmmm... Not a bad idea, really... I think a *LOT* of guys would pay Intel $5k for that.

 

[jonisginger]

Well, well, thats a err rather supportive comment. GANGSTA FTW

AMD just need to get through this bad patch that is all.

 

[OlSkoolChopper]

IF AMD GO BANKRUPT I WILL TOP MYSELF THERE WILL BE NO POINT LIVING ANYMORE

Who says AMD fans are irrational? :lol:

BTW, Market Cap at $3.9 Bil. I've got clients who have a stash that's worht more than that. Maybe I should ask one of them to buy AMD for me.

 

[jonisginger]

PROVE IT CHOPPER