AMD Pushes Back Barcelona Launch till August...Sept??!!

[golem]

Originally posted by: hardwareking
@nemesis1-Why do u sound so eager to see AMD go down?

If anything we shud hope AMD comes back stronger then ever,its after thanks to them we have core based processors and even nehalem at the end of the tunnel,and if they go down,intel and nvidia won't have competitors and we'll get crap(overpriced anyway) like the 8800 ultra and its CPU equivalent
And we wont see stuff like the $266 quad core and its future equivalent either

But the signs aren't good,AMD shud really get their act together and release products on time or earlier,if they dont want to go down

Well Nemesis1 did say he had a short sale on AMD. But then again, Viditor is holding a lot of AMD stock.

BTW, since they disclosed their stock positions, I'm not accusing them of anything.

 

[golem]

Double Post

 

[apoppin]

i thought Zstream was an AMD supporter ... he can't hold a candle to Viditor's fantasies about amd's financial situation

No wonder Viditor never comes to Video ... his "arguments" wouldn't stand a chance

AMD *LOST* $700,000,000.00 ... in the first three months of THIS year - it is a well know fact

AMD was forced into some really "creative" financing which insures that they will be in a FAR worse situation than now if they can't repay on time

he can try and spin it all he likes .... but AMD *need* a VERY successful launch ... soon ... to even stay alive for another 6 months.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Originally posted by: hardwareking
@nemesis1-Why do u sound so eager to see AMD go down?

If anything we shud hope AMD comes back stronger then ever,its after thanks to them we have core based processors and even nehalem at the end of the tunnel,and if they go down,intel and nvidia won't have competitors and we'll get crap(overpriced anyway) like the 8800 ultra and its CPU equivalent
And we wont see stuff like the $266 quad core and its future equivalent either

But the signs aren't good,AMD shud really get their act together and release products on time or earlier,if they dont want to go down

Ya I know what you mean . Something like a $300 X2-3800.

I don't want to see AMD go out of business . But the AMD fan-Boys are spinning everthing when the facts show either nothing or just the opposoite of what there spinning.

How about just the facts man . Just the facts. Besides isn't NV entering the CPU market. As for Intel it is leaving the x-86 market with Geshner so NV should havesome good parts out by than none x-86 parts.

I am all for tech and Intel and NV seem to be the leaders so who cares if AMD goes by the way side as long as NV can step in .

 

[apoppin]

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2488/000119312507108224/d10q.htm

let see some "spin" on this:

Go here, put in AMD for the ticker symbol and hunt down the latest 10-Q report. Scroll down to P26, and look at the numbers.

Computing Solutions

Computing Solutions net revenue of $918 million in the first quarter of 2007 decreased 31 percent compared to net revenue of $1,337 million in the first quarter of 2006. The first quarter of 2006 did not include revenue from the sale of ATI chipsets. Net revenue decreased primarily as a result of a 32 percent decrease in average selling prices and a 15 percent decrease in unit shipments for our microprocessors as compared to the first quarter of 2006. Average selling prices for our microprocessors decreased due to competitive market conditions and aggressive pricing by our principal competitor. Moreover, our competitor offered quad-core multi-chip module processors during the first quarter of 2007, and since we did not offer quad-core products during this period, we discounted the selling price of certain of our competing products which adversely impacted our average selling prices, margins and profitability. Unit shipments for our microprocessors decreased for a number of reasons: we experienced lower demand for our microprocessors, in part because our competitor offered quad-core microprocessors during this period while we did not; we experienced a decrease in sales through our distributor channel; and we continued to experience challenges in the ability of our supply chain to deliver products in the right mix and on a timely basis. Sales through our distributors were adversely impacted in the first quarter of 2007 because we were not able to adequately meet their demand in the second half of 2006.

Computing Solutions net revenue of $918 million in the first quarter of 2007 decreased 38 percent compared to net revenue of $1,486 million in the fourth quarter of 2006 primarily as a result of a 37 percent decrease in unit shipments and a 10 percent decrease in average selling prices for our microprocessors as compared to the fourth quarter of 2006. Unit shipments for our microprocessors decreased for the reasons set forth above. Average selling prices for our microprocessors decreased due to continued aggressive pricing by our competitor and the competitive product environment discussed above.

Computing Solutions operating loss was $321 million in the first quarter of 2007 compared to operating income of $312 million in the first quarter of 2006. The decrease in operating results was primarily due to a 31 percent decrease in net revenues, an increase of $63 million in research and development expenses and an increase of $39 million in marketing, general and administrative expenses. Net revenue decreased for the reasons set forth above. Research and development expenses and marketing, general and administrative expenses increased for the reasons set forth under ?Expenses? below.

Computing Solutions operating loss was $321 million in the first quarter of 2007 compared to operating income of $65 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. The decrease in operating results was primarily due to a 38 percent decrease in net revenues, a $15 million increase in research and development expenses and a $25 million increase in marketing, general and administrative expenses. Net revenue decreased for the reasons set forth above. Research and development expenses and marketing, general and administrative expenses increased for the reasons set forth under ?Expenses? below.

Graphics

Graphics net revenue and operating loss in the first quarter of 2007 were $197 million and $35 million, respectively. Prior to the ATI acquisition, effective October 25, 2006, we did not sell comparable products.

Graphics net revenue of $197 million in the first quarter of 2007 increased 19 percent compared to net revenue of $166 million in the fourth quarter of 2006 as a result of a 54 percent increase in unit shipments. Unit shipments increased because the first quarter of 2007 reflected a full quarter (or 13 weeks) of revenue from sales of graphics products as compared to nine weeks of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2006. Average selling prices in the first quarter of 2007 decreased by 23 percent as compared to the fourth quarter of 2006 because of a mix shift to lower-end GPUs and an increasingly competitive product environment, particularly for GPU products.

 

[Zstream]

Originally posted by: apoppin
i thought Zstream was an AMD supporter ... he can't hold a candle to Viditor's fantasies about amd's financial situation

No wonder Viditor never comes to Video ... his "arguments" wouldn't stand a chance

AMD *LOST* $700,000,000.00 ... in the first three months of THIS year - it is a well know fact

AMD was forced into some really "creative" financing which insures that they will be in a FAR worse situation than now if they can't repay on time

he can try and spin it all he likes .... but AMD *need* a VERY successful launch ... soon ... to even stay alive for another 6 months.

"I thought Zstream was an AMD supporter ... he can't hold a candle to Viditor's fantasies about amd's financial situation."

I am a supporter of AMD, I support Intel, I supported Cyrix heavily back in the day. Now with my security camera setup I am loving via/Cyrix due to the amount of wattage being used. Setting up a remote pc that is pretty indestructible is real nice.

When people come up with an idea, which they really have zero proof of, make it a 100% factual statement it really annoys me. I have a rather bad temper and my thoughts are not placed in a post like I wish them to be.

With that being said AMD may have lost a large amount of money. You can not look at it the same way as losing the amount fighting Intel with a bad product. I think you are all mis-guided when you say AMD has a bad product. Intel has the performance crown but most pc buyers are not interested in the performance crown but rather a good pc at a good price. PC-World had a very good article last year, most people have little knowledge when they buy a pc.

AMD has to improve, I mean really improve when it comes to advertising. The problem is that employees at best buy recommend anything that Intel has which is a real disadvantage to the consumer. So yes, I do favor the underdog.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Zstream

Originally posted by: apoppin
i thought Zstream was an AMD supporter ... he can't hold a candle to Viditor's fantasies about amd's financial situation

No wonder Viditor never comes to Video ... his "arguments" wouldn't stand a chance

AMD *LOST* $700,000,000.00 ... in the first three months of THIS year - it is a well know fact

AMD was forced into some really "creative" financing which insures that they will be in a FAR worse situation than now if they can't repay on time

he can try and spin it all he likes .... but AMD *need* a VERY successful launch ... soon ... to even stay alive for another 6 months.

"I thought Zstream was an AMD supporter ... he can't hold a candle to Viditor's fantasies about amd's financial situation."

I am a supporter of AMD, I support Intel, I supported Cyrix heavily back in the day. Now with my security camera setup I am loving via/Cyrix due to the amount of wattage being used. Setting up a remote pc that is pretty indestructible is real nice.

When people come up with an idea, which they really have zero proof of, make it a 100% factual statement it really annoys me. I have a rather bad temper and my thoughts are not placed in a post like I wish them to be.

With that being said AMD may have lost a large amount of money. You can not look at it the same way as losing the amount fighting Intel with a bad product. I think you are all mis-guided when you say AMD has a bad product. Intel has the performance crown but most pc buyers are not interested in the performance crown but rather a good pc at a good price. PC-World had a very good article last year, most people have little knowledge when they buy a pc.

AMD has to improve, I mean really improve when it comes to advertising. The problem is that employees at best buy recommend anything that Intel has which is a real disadvantage to the consumer. So yes, I do favor the underdog.

i am unsure about your first point i bolded

as to the 2nd, i am 100% agreed with you that AMD has *excellent* products .. so you can NOT be talking to me ... i an geting a lot of flack [with you] for "supporting" HD2900xt ... i WANT one ... it is a competitive product to the GTS,

as to the 3rd, i came up with a [crazy] promotion to HELP amd ... so i am not sure why your ire would be directed at me.


please explain

 

[Nemesis 1]

I have always liked ATI better than NV. But it was because of IQ only . NV did a great job with their lastest GPU and the IQ is great . I tip my hat to the NV enginneers.

I agree the x2900 is a nice product and I will probabably buy the Intel X38 chipset M/B to use with Penryn and the 65 ATI X2950 in CF when released . I will skip Nehalem and buy Nehalem C.

 

[ahock]

I seriously believe that there is a problem with Barcelona. I tend to agree with Anand that AMD's excuses of not giving any information/benchmarks is because thay dont want Intel to react. Why would they give preview of their mobile processor where they should have done it with Barcelona? Last Nov or Dec 2006, they promised to showcase it but what they showed is a quad core with only task manager while Intel is consistent on at least running certain benchmarks to show that silicon is healthy.

Lame excuses are not helping them which right now they are seriously facing tough competition. Cash is dwindling, their are reducing their Capex and R&D expenses etc etc. They are not the same as AMD before wherein they can just release pathetic product which they can just flush it through the channel. They have big OEMs now which are so demanding of which I think they are having hard time coping with them.

Lastly, what will happen to ther case monopoly case they filed? Intel will surely make a big deal of these scenario.

 

[GFORCE100]

Guys and girls,

We can endlessly argue back and forth and during so we will encounter here vivid supporters of AMD, vivid supporters of Intel, fanboys, flamers, guess makers, educated guess makers, shareholders, business folks and finally realists.

I for one am a realist and as such just take the truth as it appears and that is AMD is in trouble and whether you love or hate AMD, it's got to be said the they aren't all singing all dancing right now regardless of the music one chimes to their ears.

Hector Ruiz is obviously a man with balls as he likes to take risks in splashing cash the company never really owned (liquid cash) and as such chose to place a burden on AMD that is none other than an increased bank loan. ATI piggybacking AMD's business and financial health is all but baggage one can place in the same category as the bank loan - it's all a burden of one form or another that's currently being heavier than one may desire.

I personally think and this is not some guess but a produce of having monitored AMD's performance since the Core 2 Duo launch that AMD will sooner or later have to publicly face up to the facts and admit they're in bad shape. It's like someone's marriage, even if you and your wife (or vice versa) are having a bad time, you still in most cases don't go telling all your friends about it and instead try and put on a smile. Hector is doing the same with AMD, ride the tide while it's possible and try to not stir up a smell around you as this may backfire you. In AMD's case this means it will hit them financially.

To design a processor it takes years, make this 3-4 years and even then, sometimes more. AMD simply thought Intel would continue its NetBurst and improve on it perhaps by 10-15% in the speed stakes. AMD hearing that Intel managed to fix the heat leakage at 45nm made this theory all the more believable. That's why they, AMD, never really needed to make their next architecture especially more powerful over the K8.

Real experts in microprocessor design don't come cheap, it's not the company with the best vision that wins but the company with the best vision and cash + internal politics to cook this recipe to success. R&D is not as cheap as chips, quite the contrary actually unless of course your R&D department is trying to design a new kite for kids.

Also, once advanced into the design of a new microprocessor, you cannot suddenly say we'll stick a little more here or cut some back here, it's not plasticine. Only extending caches is a valid option in these cases with the minimal disruption to getting the product to market. If your CPU performs at 100% and you suddenly want to be 115% efficient, you can't gain 15% extra speed (without increasing MHz) without majorly redoing the design.

So on the processor front alone we have here a situation where AMD does own a new CPU design but it's not as fast as AMD would like it to be. On a production front AMD can't charge a lot for its CPU's since Intel is controlling the pricing right now with the superior product. It will cost AMD more to make an average CPU at 65nm than it will cost Intel purely because most CPU's won't be made in AMD's fab but that of IBM or some other place. This will incur a charge per die of course and so the low end will get a squeeze in attainable profits.

Back in the days AMD also claimed that their product has a better thus faster ALU unit than the Pentium II in their K6 series. This is very similar to their claims about a faster FPU unit in Barcelona. In reality however, just what did this mean other than hot air? The K6 still was slower in FPU and in those days the Quake II engine did depend on FPU more than anything. These days it's SSE in DirectX 9+ and OpenGL 2.0. Of course I don't blame the marketing folks for trying to convince otherwise, after all they're here to make something seem great regardless whether it is or isn't.

Facts are facts and we shouldn't beat around the bush trying to pretend otherwise.

 

[apoppin]

good analysis

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: GFORCE100

So on the processor front alone we have here a situation where AMD does own a new CPU design but it's not as fast as AMD would like it to be.

And you base this on what exactly? As you yourself said, CPU designs aren't "plasticine". It's not like AMD can improve K10 significantly by delaying it. More likely than not, it's a production or distribution issue. Delaying a CPU's launch because it isn't "as fast as AMD would like it to be" doesn't make any sense. Furthermore, AMD has never lifted NDAs early to my knowledge. They kept K8 and its many revisions under wraps for as long as possible.

Furthermore, I have no idea why you think AMD decided to rest on their laurels out of the expectation that they would be facing more Netburst CPUs from Intel. AMD had to scrap at least one stab at K10 that involved a massively-parallel computing model that was determined to be inadequate when executing single-threaded applications. That cost them 6 months of design time. AMD's R&D is so small in comparison to Intel's that they have to execute perfectly all the time to stay on top of the market. They didn't, which is why they're struggling now.

 

[lyssword]

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2134597,00.asp
AMD claims manufacturing on time

 

[jhtrico1850]

That has nothing to do with Barcelona.

 

[lyssword]

I'm just going to give you time to read through it, it does say Barcelona too.

 

[spittledip]

Ah, here it is:

In addition, Sonderman told analysts that AMD is on schedule to produce its quad-core Opteron processors, codenamed "Barcelona," in volume at the Fab 36 facility by the middle of this year.

Hopefully it is true and not just PR

 

[apoppin]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39802

Speaking to analysts and investors, Tom Sonderman, who heads up manufacturing technology for the firm, said that it was on course to transition entirely to 65nm by the end of the year, and to start manufacturing on 45nm by the middle of next year.

This, he said, would mean that manufacturing would keep pace with Intel (although Intel transitioned to 65nm last year). Sonderman claimed that the delays in moving fully to 65nm were deliberate, and were part of DAAMIT's strategy for 'elegant efficiency', which means utilising existing process technology to its full before making additional investments.

that is what HE said ... here theInq continues with its OWN analysis:

This, roughly translated, means bleeding 90nm dry because there isn't enough cash to properly equip 65nm labs yet, we suspect. The lack of cash at the firm (caused by heavy Q1 losses through price cuts) has hurt its potential manufacturing capacity, and the problem has been exacerbated by the fact that Dell is demanding so many chips there aren't enough to be shipped out to retail, alienating traditional AMD customers like system builders and enthusiast DIY-ers.

Native quad-core server chip Barcelona will be produced, in volume, on 65nm by the middle of this year, Sonderman said. Since this is merely weeks away, it seems optimistic, given that AMD currently only has a single 65nm fab online. The second won't be ready until Q4, according to recent estimates from the company.

Meanwhile, as AMD ramps up 65nm production, Intel will be launching 45nm Penryn by the end of Q3. AMD claims that it is on track to launch 45nm processors by the middle of 2008, fully nine months later than Intel at the very least. This means that AMD will have merely a year with 65nm as its high-end production line, consequently, the technology could be phased down very quickly. Alternatively, it could mean that 45nm technology will be delayed as the company struggles to transition fabs for the second time in 12 months, leaving 65nm as the high end for more like 18 months. I know which bet my money's on.

Whilst AMD execs like Sonderman may claim that manufacturing is going exactly according to plan, every other aspect of the business suggests otherwise. Just yesterday, ATI announced that it will be continuing its contract with TSMC to produce graphics chips, and 65nm chips will be produced in factories in the Far East throughout this year. These chips were already supposed to be shipping in the form of the Radeon HD 2900 XTX, but manufacturing has again not worked out according to plan and the launch of such chips has been delayed, then delayed again.

DAAMIT must have been planning to consolidate GPU manufacturing in AMD fabs - after all, that's one of the big cost savings the pair could make to justify their business partnership, and preparations need to be put in place for GPU/CPU Fusion - but the renewal of the contract with TSMC suggests that this isn't going to be happening any time soon.

"part of AMD's Strategy"

exactly like they said with HD2900xt's delay and the "family FUD"

they haven't learned ... six months and even the fanboys will know it

 

[apoppin]

a little better news ... and theInq's own analysis of Barcelona's numbers:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39842

The hard numbers are 2200 for an 8 core (4 x 2) Opteron system vs 4000 for a 16 core (4 x 4) Barcelona, or about 1.82 scaling. On the surface, this looks pretty bad, but there are some bright spots.

First the bad, POV is a benchmark that scales really well, almost perfectly with core count. It is largely cache resident, and mainly needs raw number crunching power. POV should get much closer to 2x scaling merely going from 8 to 16 cores. That also discounts any improvement that Barcelona has over Opteron, so theoretically it should scale more than 2x. It didn't.

Back to the good. The CPUs were HE or 65W parts said to be running at the same clock speeds. Now 65W isn't a big trick with the Rev F Opterons, but 65W is a trick with a quad core Barcelona. Intel has a massively downclocked 50W Clovertown as well, so it can be done, but this is not a trivial thing.

Both systems were AMD reference platforms, big, loud and functional, but hardly speed demons. They are there to get things working solidly, not to win benchmarks. That should account for a little speed loss overall, especially as things got faster.

Where is the good? The point AMD was trying to make was not to win benches or show high end capability, but simply to show that with the current HE parts, Barcelona is a drop in upgrade with almost 100% performance increases. No more power, no more anything, just more speed.

If you consider that they both use HT 1.x, the same memory, the same power, and the same everything, 1.8x is not a bad upgrade. Going from an Intel 2C to 4C system can also get you similar scaling increases, it all depends on workload.

One other note about the benchmark itself, POV as downloaded uses a lot of x87 math. The x87 improvements from Opteron to Barcelona are somewhere between nothing and minimal. This is about the worst case scenario to show off a Barcelona, AMD has to have been mad to use it as a benchmark. Well either that or they are sandbagging.

In any case, since there are now numbers that can be worked back to a known starting point, the 8-way Opteron, I asked the good folk at the Inq Suburban Paris Research Labs (ISPRL ? pronounced like 'nonogenarian' if you were wondering) for a hard clock speed.

Simply working the numbers back gets you 1.6-1.7Ghz for the Opterons on a more performance tuned platform. All the tested numbers came up as 1.8Ghz, but we have reason to believe the demo boxes might have been a clock bin up from that.

In any case, you could do this with a store bought 1.8Ghz Opteron box so that is the numbers we will be going with. Any loss due to the platform would be equally reflected in both sets of numbers, so it seems like a fair comparison.

So now you know, 1.8GHz is doable now in a 65W AMD quad core. When HT3 parts come with Socket G, speeds will certainly improve, but you can look forward to at least a 1.8x increase with drop in parts.

 

[hardwareking]

so on the current platform,barcelona scales with increase in cores well enough but not as much as expected
But that shud be fixed when they release socket G?