AMD is awefully quiet about Barcelona, wonder if it's a good sign.

[nyker96]

just knows Sept-10 or around that time. no reports of what clocks the chip will debut at.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: nyker96
But whatever the outcome is, I think we can all agree that we do need a company like AMD to play up with Intel or else we'd be seeing 1000 dollar CPUs regularly like in the 386/486/Pentium I/II days. That was painful.

yes. I hope that I'm not buying a 3.0 ghz penryn quad core for $1000 in 18 mos...

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: MDme
been an AMD user for years after Pentium-II, and I've got to say that I'm waiting for Barc to see if I should go Penryn for my next upgrade....

Anyway, I think the recent developments point to bad signs from AMD....why?

1) why would Henri Richard quit AMD just days before the Barc launch? I mean, this is his time to "gloat" over intel if the Barc chips do crush Conroe/Penryn. His quitting seems to tell me that he doesn't want to face the industry in the eye when Barc fails to live up to the hype.

2) why would AMD continue to delay Barc if it were good? we already know what intel has, and if AMD (who's bleeding money right now) has a competitive product, why won't it release it, even just to prevent other companies and customers from jumping to the other side? This actually points to the clock scaling issue....AMD may have a clock-for-clock competitive chip but they can't scale it high enough to match the performance of the highest clocked C2D/C2Q chips. They are trying to respin the chip aggressively to get higher clocks/yields to compete but have probably overestimated their ability to clock the Barc chips....notice how the launch clocks are getting lower? Now they are trumpeting perf-per-watt not absolute performance.

3) AMD now is trumpeting it's "bulldozer" core. I think they know Barc will not be the saviour and thus would need something in the pipeline to keep hopes up.

I think the above is the most likely scenario. Barc may be "competitive" IPC wise and "perf-per-watt"-wise but "clock"-wise it just can't keep up with intel.

NOW the only exception to the above scenario would be:

1) This is all part of a grand AMD scheme: In september, they release 2.6Ghz Barcelonas which OC to 3+ Ghz and perform 20% better in integer and 40% better in FPU vs Conroe/Penryn....shock intel....and announce that Henri Richard had left his job because he was "promoted" for the great acting job that he did. Note that in contrast to the R600 launch, AMD never quoted benchmarks which claimed they would beat the G80....I think.

since barc is a server processor I don't think that there will be many people overclocking it. Seriously, the sad thing for amd is that even if they can release barc at 2.6 with a 20 % clock advantage vs conroe, intel would still dominate desktop until phenom was released. Also, there is no benefit to amd of holding info back since intel will have many months to measure barc perf before phenom is released and adjust their model lines accordingly. AMD is toast. Hopefully we'll all be able to buy 2.5 Ghz phenoms for $50 during the fire sale.

 

[firewolfsm]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyalSo yes, only at stock speed will AMD be the price/performance leader.

You do realize that only creeps like us overclock right? That's only a small fraction of a percentage of their sales.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: DesertCat

If they have a superior or competitive product, there's ZERO reason to be silent about it.

Actually I can think of a reason. We KNOW that Conroe already has plenty of headroom for speed increases IF Intel chooses to release them. IF AMD knows that they can release a competitive product to current Conroe processors but may be challenged to match a competitive part at higher speed grades of unreleased Conroes, it might be best to keep quiet for now. As a result, on release day AMD may be able to claim they have a competitive product or even marginally faster product than anything currently on the market AND it will take Intel a month or two to respond. In such a scenario it would very much be to AMD's benefit to "play possum" right up until launch and be near the top of the charts for a month or so. If Intel caught wind of it, we know they could respond with higher GHz Conroe part. The longer that is delayed the more money and accolades that AMD can receive.

I'm not saying that is the case. I suspect that AMD is truly struggling, but I can't rule out the possibility of the above scenario.

You do realize that you are arguing that AMD does not have a competitive product in the offing...if they did then there would not be any concern of Intel immediately releasing a competive product right after the K10 being released.

In other words there never is a good reason for not holding back the info IF you truly have a competitive product coming out.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Someone from AMD should read the Apple play book. Apple is the Master of HYPE, yet they still make a lot of $ on their products.

 

[bryanW1995]

let me preface this statement thusly: I do not own any apple stock. I do not own any apple products. I have NEVER owned any apple products. I don't like apple. I don't even like to EAT apples.

Having said that, apple does an excellent job at more than just hype. They make things that people want. They created 99cent song downloads and built the market for them single-handedly. They made the ipod. They make software that is so fantastic that people happily pay 2-3 X the cost of a normal PC just to use their great software. I know 2 people at work who immediately splurged for the iphone, and many more lust after one. Apple goes after a specific market but they do it very, very well.

 

[MDme]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: DesertCat

If they have a superior or competitive product, there's ZERO reason to be silent about it.

Actually I can think of a reason. We KNOW that Conroe already has plenty of headroom for speed increases IF Intel chooses to release them. IF AMD knows that they can release a competitive product to current Conroe processors but may be challenged to match a competitive part at higher speed grades of unreleased Conroes, it might be best to keep quiet for now. As a result, on release day AMD may be able to claim they have a competitive product or even marginally faster product than anything currently on the market AND it will take Intel a month or two to respond. In such a scenario it would very much be to AMD's benefit to "play possum" right up until launch and be near the top of the charts for a month or so. If Intel caught wind of it, we know they could respond with higher GHz Conroe part. The longer that is delayed the more money and accolades that AMD can receive.

I'm not saying that is the case. I suspect that AMD is truly struggling, but I can't rule out the possibility of the above scenario.

You do realize that you are arguing that AMD does not have a competitive product in the offing...if they did then there would not be any concern of Intel immediately releasing a competive product right after the K10 being released.

In other words there never is a good reason for not holding back the info IF you truly have a competitive product coming out.

you lost me there....too many double triple negatives...