AMD to Cut 5% of Workforce

[ShintaiDK]

And we all know how hard it has been to get hold of one of those in many markets. Intel aren't pushing it, they are pushing the much cheaper to manufacture Skylake chips.

The 5775C is a perfect demonstration of what Intel could do if they had competition. If AMD were competing again, you can be damn sure Intel would find a way to ship a Skylake "Extreme Edition" with an enormous eDRAM cache and maximum CPU clocks at 95W, and doing it at a price that could compete with AMD's CPUs. They could do that today if they wanted, but they don't want to. They want to sit on that fat profit margin.

It's good business, as it's what makes sense in a monopoly. But that doesn't make it not suck for consumers.

Its just as easy or hard to get as a Skylake chip.

Why stop at EDRAM? if AMD the great savior was competitive. We would all have 6700K with GT4, 32GB HMC attached and a PCH integrated. All for the price of 100$ in the spirit of competition.

Now tell me again, how did the price go in the GPU segment with competition? What did AMD do there again? Was it raising the prices? And who tried to sell a 7850K for 173$ at launch?

Shows again and again that this competition argument is nothing but BS.

 

[mrmt]

The 5775C is a perfect demonstration of what Intel could do if they had competition. If AMD were competing again, you can be damn sure Intel would find a way to ship a Skylake "Extreme Edition" with an enormous eDRAM cache and maximum CPU clocks at 95W, and doing it at a price that could compete with AMD's CPUs.

Or maybe they would concede this market for AMD and would focus on other markets.

Not even AMD is thinking on the desktop, what we are seeing is the recycling of AMD old strategy: Design a server SKU and sell the trash silicon that didn't make it on the consumer market.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Or maybe they would concede this market for AMD and would focus on other markets.

Not even AMD is thinking on the desktop, what we are seeing is the recycling of AMD old strategy: Design a server SKU and sell the trash silicon that didn't make it on the consumer market.

Oh, you mean like Intel is doing with x99? At least if AMD does it with Zen, it will be the most current processor, not 2 generations old.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Oh, you mean like Intel is doing with x99? At least if AMD does it with Zen, it will be the most current processor, not 2 generations old.

FX vs Carrizo is 2 generations today.

 

[NTMBK]

Its just as easy or hard to get as a Skylake chip.

Why stop at EDRAM? if AMD the great savior was competitive. We would all have 6700K with GT4, 32GB HMC attached and a PCH integrated. All for the price of 100$ in the spirit of competition.

You keep on knocking down that straw man... There's a reason why I chose an example which Intel itself has already demonstrated that it is capable of delivering. This isn't some pie in the sky fantasy, this is what Intel could be already doing.

Now tell me again, how did the price go in the GPU segment with competition? What did AMD do there again? Was it raising the prices? And who tried to sell a 7850K for 173$ at launch?

GPU prices have plummeted and performance increased massively since 2011. In Dec 2011 AMD launched the 7970 at $550, you now get the same performance in an R9 380 at ~$200. The $550 is an R9 Fury, a significantly faster card. And all of this is achieved at the exact same 28nm node, without Intel's benefit of jumping to 14nm. Just look at the jump from NVidia's 680 to 980, again over the same period of time: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1348?vs=1351

I'm not really seeing your argument here.

EDIT: Need evidence for the power of competition? Look at NVidia's Titan strategy. When they know that AMD has no competing card, they sell a $1000 card. As soon as AMD has a competitor ready, NVidia releases an equivalent card at $650.

 

[ultimatebob]

Desktop is dying, we know that.

How is the performance/watt improvement in mobile and server over that timeframe? Its quite significant isn't it? And this is what customers want.

Yeah, desktop CPU development has been stagnating for several years now. Faster and more power efficient mobile CPU architecture is where all of the R&D money is going now.

Intel has made a lot of improvements in that area, and AMD hasn't been able to keep up.

 

[ShintaiDK]

GPU prices have plummeted and performance increased massively since 2011. In Dec 2011 AMD launched the 7970 at $550, you now get the same performance in an R9 380 at ~$200. The $550 is an R9 Fury, a significantly faster card. And all of this is achieved at the exact same 28nm node, without Intel's benefit of jumping to 14nm. Just look at the jump from NVidia's 680 to 980, again over the same period of time: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1348?vs=1351

I'm not really seeing your argument here.

EDIT: Need evidence for the power of competition? Look at NVidia's Titan strategy. When they know that AMD has no competing card, they sell a $1000 card. As soon as AMD has a competitor ready, NVidia releases an equivalent card at $650.

Of course you dont see it because you dont want to. 550$ gave you a high end AMD card. Now its 650$. And AMD originally wanted 850$ for it if we are to believe rumours.

AMD used the 300 series to make price increases on its rebrands as well.

NVidia is doing the exact same as AMD when it can or must. Higher and higher cost.

And funny you can only compare 28nm cards in the entire period dont you think? I mean competition and all we should see 14/16nm cards now shouldn't we? Or maybe there are other factors at play than competition.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Yeah, desktop CPU development has been stagnating for several years now. Faster and more power efficient mobile CPU architecture is where all of the R&D money is going now.

Intel has made a lot of improvements in that area, and AMD hasn't been able to keep up.

I don't think its that they can't keep up -- it's that they never anticipated the market shift towards mobile. Their performance uArch (Bulldozer) was never intended for mobile -- and is still somewhat poorly suited for it even after all the revisions (Carizzo). Zen really is long overdue.

 

[NTMBK]

Of course you dont see it because you dont want to. 550$ gave you a high end AMD card. Now its 650$. And AMD originally wanted 850$ for it if we are to believe rumours.

And that slightly higher price offers a massively higher level of performance. You either get the same performance for less than half the price, or over double the performance for the same price.

AMD used the 300 series to make price increases on its rebrands as well.

NVidia is doing the exact same as AMD when it can or must. Higher and higher cost.

You are focusing on individual spikes in a bumpy curve. Look at the overall trend, and it is a massive improvement in perf/$ over the past 4 years, the kind of improvement that we can only fantasise about in CPUs.

And funny you can only compare 28nm cards in the entire period dont you think? I mean competition and all we should see 14/16nm cards now shouldn't we? Or maybe there are other factors at play than competition.

Of course there are other factors; nobody is denying that. If Intel's fabs were independent from the design company and open to competitors (instead of vertically integrated), perhaps we would have seen those 14nm GPUs by now. But within these external constraints, AMD and NVidia have delivered massive improvements in value to customers.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The overall trend for GPUs is higher cost. Despite of competition.

Because the issue is the limited volume.

 

[NTMBK]

The overall trend for GPUs is higher cost. Despite of competition.

Because the issue is the limited volume.

The range of available GPUs has increased- higher end GPUs are now available which cost more, but you can still buy a midrange GPU at the same price range as a 2011 card, which offers massively improved performance over the 2011 card. These higher end "halo" cards have appeared because the demand for them exists, but the lower price points have not disappeared.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Its just as easy or hard to get as a Skylake chip.

Seriously??

Microcenter in my area has 10+ of the i7 6700k in stock and doesnt even list the broadwell.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Seriously??

Microcenter in my area has 10+ of the i7 6700k in stock and doesnt even list the broadwell.

Microcenter dont list all chips do they? And why do we have to look on a single shop?

Their Haswell lineup for example:
http://www.microcenter.com/search/s...ocessors/CPUs-:-Computer-Parts-:-Micro-Center

I assume we can conclude from your point of view that the rest of the Haswell chips dont exist?

 

[NTMBK]

Microcenter dont list all chips do they? And why do we have to look on a single shop?

Their Haswell lineup for example:
http://www.microcenter.com/search/s...ocessors/CPUs-:-Computer-Parts-:-Micro-Center

I assume we can conclude from your point of view that the rest of the Haswell chips dont exist?

And once again, you wildly exaggerate a point in an attempt to discredit it... your claim was that it was "just as easy or hard" to obtain. From your Haswell search, we can safely conclude that it is not just as easy to obtain the more unusual Haswell parts as it is to obtain the more common ones, which are stocked by Microcenter.

 

[ShintaiDK]

And once again, you wildly exaggerate a point in an attempt to discredit it... your claim was that it was "just as easy or hard" to obtain. From your Haswell search, we can safely conclude that it is not just as easy to obtain the more unusual Haswell parts as it is to obtain the more common ones, which are stocked by Microcenter.

It was you making the claim to begin with with Broadwell-C. That the cherry picking of a store that didn't have it began is another matter. But its a chip you can buy pretty much everywhere despite the claim.

But again, this is a thread about AMD.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I don't think its that they can't keep up -- it's that they never anticipated the market shift towards mobile. Their performance uArch (Bulldozer) was never intended for mobile -- and is still somewhat poorly suited for it even after all the revisions (Carizzo). Zen really is long overdue.

AMD was on the right path with K8. It had problems competing with Pentium-M. But it was clear that AMD knew its benefits in the server TCO. And performance/watt was an essential key metric.

The big question is how they went from that to what we see now.

AMDs desire in the server segment seems to be what always defeats them. Its their evil nemesis. This is also why people worry deeply about the graphics division. It will always be something AMD see´s as inferior to its CPU division. And inside the CPU segment there is essentially only room for server ambitions.

 

[AtenRa]

ShintaiDK cut the BS,

You know very well if Intel had competition from AMD at the $300 market today the Core i7 6700K was not going to be at $350 without even including a Heat-sink.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It was you making the claim to begin with with Broadwell-C. That the cherry picking of a store that didn't have it began is another matter. But its a chip you can buy pretty much everywhere despite the claim.

But again, this is a thread about AMD.

Cherry picking?? Really??? OK, you are right. Hardly anyone buys computer supplies from Microcenter. I just cherry-picked it because I want Intel to look bad.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Cherry picking?? Really??? OK, you are right. Hardly anyone buys computer supplies from Microcenter. I just cherry-picked it because I want Intel to look bad.

Dont act like it wasn't your intention. And from their online selection, they dont sell all SKUs of even regular models.

just like this isn't all AMDs SKUs either:
http://www.microcenter.com/category/4294966995,4294965455/AMD-Processors

 

[frozentundra123456]

Dont act like it wasn't your intention. And from their online selection, they dont sell all SKUs of even regular models.

just like this isn't all AMDs SKUs either:
http://www.microcenter.com/category/4294966995,4294965455/AMD-Processors

So now you are a mind reader as well? If you can discern my intentions over the internet, maybe you should go on a TV talent show. I am done with this. I used to enjoy your posts, even though your allegiances were obvious. But lately, your obsession with attacking anyone who makes the least criticism of Intel is just....weird.

 

[Arachnotronic]

The causes of it is that the desktop is becoming a no-man's land in terms of applications tailored for it, so even if Intel went with an ultra-fast desktop CPU tomorrow the majority of consumers would shun it big time.

Sad but true :/

 

[Arachnotronic]

Bit of chicken and egg logic there Is it "Intel isn't improving desktop because no-one is buying it" or "No-one is buying desktop because Intel isn't improving it"?

I don't think that the majority of consumers would run out to buy new desktops tomorrow even if there were a big step function improvement in performance.

I mean, I would and I am sure plenty of folks here would, but the mainstream consumers -- the ones that drive the volume -- wouldn't care.

How do I know they wouldn't care? Well, simple. I know a lot of people who are happily running systems with Core 2 Duo/Lynnfield processors that haven't bothered to upgrade because their usage models just aren't that demanding.

These people will upgrade once their computers break, and they will just buy whatever is being sold at an attractive price at the time.

This is the unfortunate reality of the PC market.

Believe it or not, the enthusiast market is one of the few bright spots in the PC market. Despite the complaints that Intel hasn't advanced its mainstream CPUs that much, the upgrade cycles among PC enthusiasts is much shorter than the typical consumer's and they buy a relatively rich mix of products.

This is why you are seeing Intel focus on trying to improve the value proposition of their enthusiast chips -- because enthusiasts are probably one of the few subsets of the PC buying population that are willing to pay for performance/upgrades.

 

[ShintaiDK]

To add to that, Q3 looks the same same in shrinkage:
http://techreport.com/news/29172/report-pc-shipments-fell-7-7-year-on-year-in-the-past-quarter

 

[cytg111]

So now you are a mind reader as well? If you can discern my intentions over the internet, maybe you should go on a TV talent show. I am done with this. I used to enjoy your posts, even though your allegiances were obvious. But lately, your obsession with attacking anyone who makes the least criticism of Intel is just....weird.

The secret to understanding shintai(and his alts) is that he believes everything he writes. Think about it for one second. Everything.
(I know .. right?)

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

The secret to understanding shintai(and his alts) is that he believes everything he writes. Think about it for one second. Everything.
(I know .. right?)

I hate to jump on the bandwagon -- but Intel 1151 chips do seem pretty damn rare in my neck of the woods. Many of the unlocked sku's are constantly sold out on Newegg (which by my guess is among the highest volume online sellers in the USA).

I'm starting to wonder if the yields are not as rosy as Intel would have us believe -- because these chips remain pretty difficult to buy. Either that -- or demand is huge for a desktop product (which I'd say is somewhat unlikely given that PC's in general are still in decline).