AMD in Danger
- Thread starter Zebo
- Start date
It's like politics. Sure you kind of see it coming. But there is nothing you can do about it so it's best not to get wound up.
To be honest I like to see them neck and neck it keeps prices down. But AMD DOES need to push further, I remember when AMD was nothing, and it has been cared for by people like us, not by multi-billion dollar marketing like Intel. I think AMD's problem is that it relies on word of mouth to much because it has brought it so far. AMD is still basically an enthuesiest processor and it shouldn't be. Considering the price and the avaliability it has no reason not to be main stream.
DrMrLordX
Lifer
- Apr 27, 2000
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I agree with the guy at The Register, mostly. I could care less about their corporate website(hey, it loads quickly at least), but I guess he has a point.
And as I sort-of-ranted in another thread, we really do need a 3 ghz(or at least 2.6 ghz) Athlon 64. In large quantities. On the 90 nm process. Show us you can do it, AMD. Force Intel's hand.
And as I sort-of-ranted in another thread, we really do need a 3 ghz(or at least 2.6 ghz) Athlon 64. In large quantities. On the 90 nm process. Show us you can do it, AMD. Force Intel's hand.
Cogman
Lifer
- Sep 19, 2000
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The only problem with that artical is it seams to ignore the fact that AMD's main profits are not from processors, But instead from Flash Ram. Why should AMD spend a considerable lump of money on higher research for a product that does not bring in the big bucks? Not that I dont think AMD should continue to make good cheap high quality processors.
- Aug 22, 2001
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Agreed, especially concerning AMD's marketing monkeys. I do think he fails to consider how events, be it through chance or design, have conspired against AMD in some aspects though. The delay of windows 64bit OS gives Intel the time to get a compatible processor for the desktop out. That's HUGE if it happens, because instead of the consumer seeing AMD64 systems with 64bit windows exclusively when they go computer shopping, they see offerings from both companies. Add to that Dell commercials pushing Intel's version but hard, and that takes the perception of industry leading innovation AMD could have profited from with shoppers out of the mix. It also hurts because it gives the buyer an Intel option which many will feel "safer" with. AMD loses sales because of circumstances beyond their control if that plays out, not because they fumbled away the opportunity.
This postulating about AMD needing to throw Intel into serious turmoil and force them to take their stop-gap plans and trash them, is definitely brilliant strategically, Tzu and Musashi are awesome teachers
He is probably dead on about AMD then having to face the hard fact that they are heavily outgunned and will soon be Intels' cannon fodder again too. But can AMD realistically be expected to school Intel so hard? 20% performance advantage? I just don't think given the resources Intel has at it's disposal, that is very likely. Intel isn't sitting on their hands either, and doubtless has multiple contingency plans they can implement if the tide of war turned so drastically. Certainly those contingencies might be enormously expensive for Intel, but if it becomes a war of attrition Intel will be a very heavy odds on favorite.
Avalon
Diamond Member
- Jul 16, 2001
- 7,571
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That was a good read. I believe some of the points in there are true, while I disagree with others. One thing that I disagree with is the statement that the AMD website doesn't look like a multi billion dollar company's website. Well, to me, it looks about the same as the Intel site
Except green instead of blue themed.
I do think AMD needs to release something higher clocked, though. I know they can release a 2.6ghz 130nm/90nm part right now if they really tried, and I think they should. It would give them a distinctive performance advantage over Intel's best, although not by a huge margin. They don't really need to hit 3ghz by the end of this year (although that would be outstanding, albeit nearly impossible), but they do need to keep the pace up. They are to be releasing a 4000+ chip soon for s939, and all the chip consists of is a 3800+ with 512kb more cache. Basically, it's just a locked FX-53. It's already been done, so to speak. Bleh :\
Except green instead of blue themed.
I do think AMD needs to release something higher clocked, though. I know they can release a 2.6ghz 130nm/90nm part right now if they really tried, and I think they should. It would give them a distinctive performance advantage over Intel's best, although not by a huge margin. They don't really need to hit 3ghz by the end of this year (although that would be outstanding, albeit nearly impossible), but they do need to keep the pace up. They are to be releasing a 4000+ chip soon for s939, and all the chip consists of is a 3800+ with 512kb more cache. Basically, it's just a locked FX-53. It's already been done, so to speak. Bleh :\
Hiya Zebo,
I dont think thats not true, especially for Linux users. As for windows the 64 bit OS is in beta version. Its only a matter of time until it comes out with a fully functional one
I dont think thats not true, especially for Linux users. As for windows the 64 bit OS is in beta version. Its only a matter of time until it comes out with a fully functional one
- Aug 22, 2001
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I don't want to think that because it's just another conspiracy theory without hard evidence. It's porbably just that MS knows the launch will be far more successful if it can be sold To Dell and other Major OEMs for their Intel compatible systems. If so, perhaps they will even take the opportunity to actually work most of the major bugs out before release, something they aren't exactly famous for
Regardless, it's got to be hurting AMD by not being able to market 64bit systems with 64bit windows while it's a one horse race. 
The article didn't took in acount that most of the time Athlon processors have been in the lead. Only P4C processors had a lead aover athlons XP, but how much did it last? Six months. Intel released P4C in March 2003, and AMD released A64 in September 2003. So P4 had a six month lead , due to the A64 delay, which was suppose to be released in February-March 2003. AMD is just waiting what's the best intel can do to unleash all the A64 power.
uhhh the inquirer hehe. They seem to be forgetting that amd has dual core cpus up there sleeves, along with 90nm cpus. Should the 90nm cpus oc awesome, intel is going to lose alot of buisiness, as they already are at 90nm, and still cant win, and then amd is gonna be dual core AND 90nm. Dual core will put HT to shame.
MDE
Lifer
- Jul 17, 2003
- 13,199
- 1
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I believe AMD has a couple of rabbits to pull out of their hat still. Remember how once they got competetive with the Athlon XP, Intel pulled HyperThreading out of nowhere, and then bumped the P4s bus speed? AMD has probably learned from this, and Socket 939 looks to be one of those rabbits, as one Athlon 64 core doesn't need dual channel RAM, but two surely will so AMD is pushing the socket out there now.
Allow me to retort. To be blunt, I think that article sucked.
all these points about amd's marketing are already known and painfully obvious by everyone who pays any attention to what is going in the processor world. the situation with their marketing has been the same for years. they continue to produce high performing parts and sell them for less than intels, but the public doesn't know that.
"AMD has the lead but only just. In most tests AMD wins but the margin is a small one and Intel is a relentless opponent. "
fx 53 loses to the 3.6 prescott or the 3.4 EE in almost no benchmarks at all. in many video games(ie doom 3) it flat out beats those intel processors into the ground. currently newegg does not have any 3.6 Ghz models and the lga 775 3.4 EE is $1,029, way more than the $850 FX 53 for less performance
"Perhaps the biggest problem that AMD has is its lack of aggression. When it has the lead over Intel, the firm has a history of becoming complacent. It is far too happy to be just ahead. That was certainly the case with the original Athlon. AMD would wait for Intel to release a Pentium III that matched the Athlon's clock speed and then release a faster processor....Pressing ahead with much faster processors could easily be a decisive move in the war with Intel. Where the "we're slightly faster" strategy puts some pressure on Intel, moving to a 3GHz processor would put AMD at a performance rating of about 4500+, a clear 20% ahead of the competition. That would bring all kinds of pressure to bear on Intel and could even cause something of an implosion for the larger firm. "
wtf does this mean? I think the firm has a history of strategically timing their product releases to maximize their sales and profit as they should. Yes AMD is having more trouble than they thought they would ramping clockspeed, but who isn't? According to estimates from a year or more ago Intel should have at least a 4 GHZ out now(3.6 is still not available), IBM was supposed to have the G5 up to 3 GHz a while ago(now they have 2.5 on watercooling). AMD is having the least ramping problems of anyone now. If AMD releases a 3 GHz 4500 by the end of the year, what does that do to the rest of the market? the price of everything else would have to be so low that amd could only make a profit on the 4500, and they are perfectly happy making a profit on an fx 53, and still being able to sell lower processors. there is no reason to release the 4500 now because they already are beating intel in the high end. why go from an ideal distribution of high to low end sales to sell less ultra high end, and they would be able to sell nothing else but the 4500 for the next year or so until they make another huge performance jump.
"There's worse to come. The current top of the Sempron range is the 3100+. But it is slower than an Athlon 64 2800+. Yes, 3100 is somehow slower than 2800. Where the marketing department spent years and millions of dollars convincing a sceptical press that the Performance Rating system was reasonable and logical, it has just blown all of the slowly built credibility completely out of the water. "
you are sooooooooooo dumb. do you know anything about which you speak? the sempron line is obviously designed (and named) to compete with a little thing called a celeron, not a p4 like the athlon 64 competes with. Ever notice how celerons absolutely suck compared with a p4 of the same clock speed? The sempron naming is amd following suit with intel at the name game. Semperon naming makes sense because you are not supposed to compare them to athlon 64's or p4's. intel is the one who's marketing of the celeron line makes no sense, and amd is giving the consumer a number they can accuratly compare.
"The next largest on the list is the lack of an AMD range of chipsets for its processors. There is the 8000 series of chips for the Opteron and that is it. The firm really seems to expect businesses to have complete confidence in VIA, SiS and nVidia chipsets. A simple look at the statistics of non-Intel chipsets used in Intel machines in business environments shows that to be a seriously flawed strategy. "
Are you serious? Maybe AMD decided that they are good at processors and will make processors. The fact is that these companies make great chipsets. If they didn't then why do amd systems perform better than intel in high end benchmarks? a recent Anandtech motherboard review reached a 1:1 memory frequency of 308 which is ddr 616, which is faster than they have gotten any memory or chipset on an intel platform to achieve. Maybe these companies think it is more profitable to put development into high end AMD chipsets than intel chipsets. Why should AMD get scolded for not making it's own chipsets? The other manufacturers obviously supply the necessary performance and have a well working technology deve,lopment relationship with AMD, so why enter such a competitive market and work against your co-developers?
well that's enough ranting for now
all these points about amd's marketing are already known and painfully obvious by everyone who pays any attention to what is going in the processor world. the situation with their marketing has been the same for years. they continue to produce high performing parts and sell them for less than intels, but the public doesn't know that.
"AMD has the lead but only just. In most tests AMD wins but the margin is a small one and Intel is a relentless opponent. "
fx 53 loses to the 3.6 prescott or the 3.4 EE in almost no benchmarks at all. in many video games(ie doom 3) it flat out beats those intel processors into the ground. currently newegg does not have any 3.6 Ghz models and the lga 775 3.4 EE is $1,029, way more than the $850 FX 53 for less performance
"Perhaps the biggest problem that AMD has is its lack of aggression. When it has the lead over Intel, the firm has a history of becoming complacent. It is far too happy to be just ahead. That was certainly the case with the original Athlon. AMD would wait for Intel to release a Pentium III that matched the Athlon's clock speed and then release a faster processor....Pressing ahead with much faster processors could easily be a decisive move in the war with Intel. Where the "we're slightly faster" strategy puts some pressure on Intel, moving to a 3GHz processor would put AMD at a performance rating of about 4500+, a clear 20% ahead of the competition. That would bring all kinds of pressure to bear on Intel and could even cause something of an implosion for the larger firm. "
wtf does this mean? I think the firm has a history of strategically timing their product releases to maximize their sales and profit as they should. Yes AMD is having more trouble than they thought they would ramping clockspeed, but who isn't? According to estimates from a year or more ago Intel should have at least a 4 GHZ out now(3.6 is still not available), IBM was supposed to have the G5 up to 3 GHz a while ago(now they have 2.5 on watercooling). AMD is having the least ramping problems of anyone now. If AMD releases a 3 GHz 4500 by the end of the year, what does that do to the rest of the market? the price of everything else would have to be so low that amd could only make a profit on the 4500, and they are perfectly happy making a profit on an fx 53, and still being able to sell lower processors. there is no reason to release the 4500 now because they already are beating intel in the high end. why go from an ideal distribution of high to low end sales to sell less ultra high end, and they would be able to sell nothing else but the 4500 for the next year or so until they make another huge performance jump.
"There's worse to come. The current top of the Sempron range is the 3100+. But it is slower than an Athlon 64 2800+. Yes, 3100 is somehow slower than 2800. Where the marketing department spent years and millions of dollars convincing a sceptical press that the Performance Rating system was reasonable and logical, it has just blown all of the slowly built credibility completely out of the water. "
you are sooooooooooo dumb. do you know anything about which you speak? the sempron line is obviously designed (and named) to compete with a little thing called a celeron, not a p4 like the athlon 64 competes with. Ever notice how celerons absolutely suck compared with a p4 of the same clock speed? The sempron naming is amd following suit with intel at the name game. Semperon naming makes sense because you are not supposed to compare them to athlon 64's or p4's. intel is the one who's marketing of the celeron line makes no sense, and amd is giving the consumer a number they can accuratly compare.
"The next largest on the list is the lack of an AMD range of chipsets for its processors. There is the 8000 series of chips for the Opteron and that is it. The firm really seems to expect businesses to have complete confidence in VIA, SiS and nVidia chipsets. A simple look at the statistics of non-Intel chipsets used in Intel machines in business environments shows that to be a seriously flawed strategy. "
Are you serious? Maybe AMD decided that they are good at processors and will make processors. The fact is that these companies make great chipsets. If they didn't then why do amd systems perform better than intel in high end benchmarks? a recent Anandtech motherboard review reached a 1:1 memory frequency of 308 which is ddr 616, which is faster than they have gotten any memory or chipset on an intel platform to achieve. Maybe these companies think it is more profitable to put development into high end AMD chipsets than intel chipsets. Why should AMD get scolded for not making it's own chipsets? The other manufacturers obviously supply the necessary performance and have a well working technology deve,lopment relationship with AMD, so why enter such a competitive market and work against your co-developers?
well that's enough ranting for now
Very nice post iwantanewcomputer.
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IMO the only thing AMD is in danger of is not being #1. Right now, they're whooping Intel's arse, and the sales are slowly but surely following. Intel has had to resort to shenanegans several times over the past year to keep up with AMD's mainstream parts in the benchmarks and to save face (P4 EE anyone?).
It is Intel who is on the ropes right now, and the ball is in their court. AMD had their plan (Hammer, X86-64, etc) and is following it through. Intel has to get it's s#!t together and decide if Netburst/P4 has enough juce left in it for the next couple of years, or if they have to go back to the drawing board with something more like a souped up Centrino to fight back.
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IMO the only thing AMD is in danger of is not being #1. Right now, they're whooping Intel's arse, and the sales are slowly but surely following. Intel has had to resort to shenanegans several times over the past year to keep up with AMD's mainstream parts in the benchmarks and to save face (P4 EE anyone?).
It is Intel who is on the ropes right now, and the ball is in their court. AMD had their plan (Hammer, X86-64, etc) and is following it through. Intel has to get it's s#!t together and decide if Netburst/P4 has enough juce left in it for the next couple of years, or if they have to go back to the drawing board with something more like a souped up Centrino to fight back.
My take on the article is that overall, it is realtively accurate. Some of the points are not very well make (the Sempron Rating for example isn't that big a deal IMO), but the overall tone I think is correct.
My take is that AMD has always been on the sidelines, doing just enough to stay afloat. They have had a great product for the last several years (I'm currently using a 3 year old XP 1800+), but they are still a tiny thorn in the paw of the lion that is Intel. My feeling is that AMD has not taken advantage of this performance advantage as well as they should have, and that will hurt them in the long run. They are sill not very well known, and by just keeping pace with Intel they don't really make it worthwhile for the average user to consider them as an option.
To really make inroads, AMD needs to get a forward looking chipset out there that people can buy and feel comfortable with for the next several years. IMO, that is one significant disadvantage to relying on others for your chipsets. I don't think DDR-2 memeory is that big a deal for AMD, but they really need to get a PCI-E board out there and get the 939 prices more in line with their performance (the low end 90nm chips seem to be performing closer to the next lower level 754 equivalent and are therefore over priced relative to their performance). Also, I think AMD has hurt themselves slightly with all these relatively new sockets. In the last year or so, they've gone from SKT A to 754, 939, 940, and pretty soon they'll have 939 with PCI-E. I think they would have been better off if they just went straight from 754 and 940 to a 939 PCI-E board.
So, I think the lack of a strong, obvious, forward looking standard, as well as being about the same price/performance of the P4 has made it very difficult for AMD to take advantage of their time on top of the benchmarks. Hopefully their excellent A64 architecture will be able to scale well for the next couple year to keep them competitive with Intel.
I guess that I don't feel AMD is in any danger, but on the consumer level it seems like they've been treading water (maybe that's not the case though).
-D'oh!
My take is that AMD has always been on the sidelines, doing just enough to stay afloat. They have had a great product for the last several years (I'm currently using a 3 year old XP 1800+), but they are still a tiny thorn in the paw of the lion that is Intel. My feeling is that AMD has not taken advantage of this performance advantage as well as they should have, and that will hurt them in the long run. They are sill not very well known, and by just keeping pace with Intel they don't really make it worthwhile for the average user to consider them as an option.
To really make inroads, AMD needs to get a forward looking chipset out there that people can buy and feel comfortable with for the next several years. IMO, that is one significant disadvantage to relying on others for your chipsets. I don't think DDR-2 memeory is that big a deal for AMD, but they really need to get a PCI-E board out there and get the 939 prices more in line with their performance (the low end 90nm chips seem to be performing closer to the next lower level 754 equivalent and are therefore over priced relative to their performance). Also, I think AMD has hurt themselves slightly with all these relatively new sockets. In the last year or so, they've gone from SKT A to 754, 939, 940, and pretty soon they'll have 939 with PCI-E. I think they would have been better off if they just went straight from 754 and 940 to a 939 PCI-E board.
So, I think the lack of a strong, obvious, forward looking standard, as well as being about the same price/performance of the P4 has made it very difficult for AMD to take advantage of their time on top of the benchmarks. Hopefully their excellent A64 architecture will be able to scale well for the next couple year to keep them competitive with Intel.
I guess that I don't feel AMD is in any danger, but on the consumer level it seems like they've been treading water (maybe that's not the case though).
-D'oh!
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,697
- 6,257
- 126
Yup, but what I find most ridiculous with the whole arguement of "AMD should pump out the highest speeds(mhz) possible" is that it makes no sense for AMD to do so. Part of the eason it's a dumb move for AMD is that it needs to stretch out sales of Competitive parts for as long as possible to improve its' Cash flow.
Another reason is that even if AMD skipped ahead to a 4700+(or other extremely high speed in comparison to Intel) processor, they couldn't possibly Manufacturer the numbers of processors to really "own" Intel in the only real way that counts, Market Share. Sure, they might enjoy a year or so of far superior performance, but eventually Intel would get something out that's competitive and with their superior Manufacturing capacity things would quickly return to normal Market Share levels.
I don't know what AMD's production capacity is, but I doubt that even if IBM gave AMD all its' capacity to AMD that AMD could provide 50% of the processor Demand. The best strategy for AMD is to stay the course. Remain competitive, steadily gain MarketShare and Manufacturing capacity. Throwing your absolute best onto the Market when you couldn't possibly meet demand and your main Competitor is lolligagging far behind(but picking up Sales on the Demand you can't meet) is just a foolish strategy for the longterm survival of a David against Goliath. If AMD keeps playing the game like they are, eventually they'll come out on top, but until they can assure themselves the top spot they need to play the game smart.
DrMrLordX
Lifer
- Apr 27, 2000
- 22,739
- 12,722
- 136
Sandorski. the main reason to produce something that would, as you said, "own" anything available from Intel is to
a). prove that they can do it
b). attract the attention of OEMs
Simple as that. A stable, low-supply, high-end CPU available for benchmarks would do the trick, as long as its clearly labeled as a non-enthusiast part. In other words, if they rest on the FX-53 for too long, they'll be sorry. They're going to need something more out of the 4000+ than what they're going to provide in order to stay convincingly on top.
And, let's face it, Intel is still winning some benchmarks, namely some encoding benchmarks along with 3DSMax benchmarks. AMD has yet to gain complete victory.
If they can, they should.
I agree that the need to meet demand, but they should be able to meet demand as long as they're selling all their different chips(and not just selling a ton of their theoretical uber high-end cpu). The point is to get across to people that "AMD chips are the fastest" so that demand for all their cpus will rise.
a). prove that they can do it
b). attract the attention of OEMs
Simple as that. A stable, low-supply, high-end CPU available for benchmarks would do the trick, as long as its clearly labeled as a non-enthusiast part. In other words, if they rest on the FX-53 for too long, they'll be sorry. They're going to need something more out of the 4000+ than what they're going to provide in order to stay convincingly on top.
And, let's face it, Intel is still winning some benchmarks, namely some encoding benchmarks along with 3DSMax benchmarks. AMD has yet to gain complete victory.
If they can, they should.
I agree that the need to meet demand, but they should be able to meet demand as long as they're selling all their different chips(and not just selling a ton of their theoretical uber high-end cpu). The point is to get across to people that "AMD chips are the fastest" so that demand for all their cpus will rise.
- Jul 29, 2001
- 39,398
- 19
- 81
iwantanewcomputer you make some good points but nitpicking. They have to utterly dominate performance just like DrMrLordX says because that all they can do. They can't market, and can't offer chips for sweetheart deals to OEM''s like intel who can afford to loose money for years just to retain market share if they choose. Performance, that's it, since they have higher fixed costs for each processor they sell and have no cash.
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