AMD: What happened?

[N4g4rok]

Now you can't beat Intel at any budget.

Right about now, no. But just after the release of SB, i still wasn't convinced.

 

[IlllI]

What the question really oughta be, is how pathetic it is that intel with all their resources, 10x the size of it's competitors, proven illegal tactics and cohersion with the defacto software provider of 95% of worldwide PC's and largest OEM's, taken 25 years and still haven't managed to outperform the competition by more than 10-20% in the traditional CPU space.

probably because they don't have to.

 

[formulav8]

I still can't believe Intel only got a slap on the wrist for they're antics.

 

[frozentundra123456]

These thread titles are amuzing. It's classic manipulation, just like in the main stream media, politics, etc. They introduce a premise, and then the puppets propagate the message to suit their agenda.

What the question really oughta be, is how pathetic it is that intel with all their resources, 10x the size of it's competitors, proven illegal tactics and cohersion with the defacto software provider of 95% of worldwide PC's and largest OEM's, taken 25 years and still haven't managed to outperform the competition by more than 10-20% in the traditional CPU space. Graphics of course is another matter. But hey, everyone on this forum already knows all about it, and as long as legitimate enthusiast continue to bend over to marketing and investor interests that benefit from your manipulation they'll laugh all the way to the bank (not that I believe there are many enthusiasts actually left). The message is clear and i'm sure many see it, regardless of whether or not they choose to express their opinion.

You can hate on Intel all you want, but where would we be if we only had AMD cpus?
Way behind in performance and going downhill instead of improving.

 

[pelov]

I still can't believe Intel only got a slap on the wrist for they're antics.

It's not uncommon to see a corporation or corporations involved in illegal means and nature to walk away having benefited more from said activities than they lost in lawsuits and settlements.

This is just one I stumbled across a couple weeks ago, but it's unfortunately more common than most would think and often nobody hears a thing about it

Having said that, it doesn't justify why AMD has messed up so bad on the CPU side. To state that it's more difficult for them than for Intel is certainly true, but they were also the side that gave us the X2, the AMD64, the IMC and now GCN. Bulldozer wasn't just a slight miss-step, it was poorly thought out from both the architectural standpoint as well as the execution. Opting to go with a gate-first approach on an architecture requiring over 4.5ghz stock clocks on a brand new 32nm fab process and an ugly amount of slow cache doesn't point to just a GloFo problem, it actually points directly to the engineers. There's good reason people were saying the sky was falling, and it's because they're very very far behind as far as IPC goes.

 

[Arachnotronic]

In the APU world, the CPU core speed becomes less and less important.

 

[Obsoleet]

I was happy with PhenomII, even if it was beaten by Intel's stuff. Should've just kept that and turned it into a hybrid APU and called it a day. I think they finally said they're giving up on competing with Intel, good idea but 1 CPU design too late. Hopefully all the research on BD wasn't wasted.
Perhaps it'll lend itself well to full CPU/GPU integration.

 

[Gs dewd]

Amd will rebound. They have been here before. And it wasn't that long ago when intel was eating Amd's dust. The 2 will flip flop just like Nvidia and Ati/Amd does in the graphics market. When Amd released the A64 they had the market cornered for awhile with the only true 64 bit proc. It's a chess game and right now Intel is making better moves. I'm not going to turn around and swap all my systems out for Intel just because Amd is down. Just got to remember that not everyone out there is a power user and what Amd is offering up will take care of most people. Bulldozer is young and needs to mature.

 

[Vesku]

Premature to slam the CMT design of Bulldozer, Intel's HT was pretty poor on the P4 but look at it now.

Bulldozer wasn't just a slight miss-step, it was poorly thought out from both the architectural standpoint as well as the execution. Opting to go with a gate-first approach on an architecture requiring over 4.5ghz stock clocks on a brand new 32nm fab process and an ugly amount of slow cache doesn't point to just a GloFo problem, it actually points directly to the engineers. There's good reason people were saying the sky was falling, and it's because they're very very far behind as far as IPC goes.

 

[Rvenger]

You can hate on Intel all you want, but where would we be if we only had AMD cpus?
Way behind in performance and going downhill instead of improving.

If it wasn't for AMD we wouldn't have moar cores! No seriously, we would probably be on 20ghz on netburst single core architecture.

 

[sandorski]

If it wasn't for AMD we wouldn't have moar cores! No seriously, we would probably be on 4ghz on netburst single core architecture.

fixed

More Cores is because of the ghz wall. Top speeds have only moved 1gz(ish) in approx 10 years now.

 

[Obsoleet]

Amd will rebound. They have been here before. And it wasn't that long ago when intel was eating Amd's dust. The 2 will flip flop just like Nvidia and Ati/Amd does in the graphics market. When Amd released the A64 they had the market cornered for awhile with the only true 64 bit proc. It's a chess game and right now Intel is making better moves. I'm not going to turn around and swap all my systems out for Intel just because Amd is down. Just got to remember that not everyone out there is a power user and what Amd is offering up will take care of most people. Bulldozer is young and needs to mature.

It will take care of 90% of the users here too. There are some here how legimately need the power of the latest i5 or i7. But "power users" are few and far between, most of these guys build rigs they don't really use, or need. I have plenty of friends like that.

My own rig, is more than I need, and has more power than I can utilize and my rig is used for multiple purposes, it's the only way I can justify it. It's a desktop, gaming machine, HTPC and media streamer.. I try to max out the machine as much as possible to get the most value out of it, but pretty weak excuses for quadcore + 8gb ram + 160gb ssd in my mind.

 

[exar333]

These thread titles are amuzing. It's classic manipulation, just like in the main stream media, politics, etc. They introduce a premise, and then the puppets propagate the message to suit their agenda.

What the question really oughta be, is how pathetic it is that intel with all their resources, 10x the size of it's competitors, proven illegal tactics and cohersion with the defacto software provider of 95% of worldwide PC's and largest OEM's, taken 25 years and still haven't managed to outperform the competition by more than 10-20% in the traditional CPU space. Graphics of course is another matter. But hey, everyone on this forum already knows all about it, and as long as legitimate enthusiast continue to bend over to marketing and investor interests that benefit from your manipulation they'll laugh all the way to the bank (not that I believe there are many enthusiasts actually left). The message is clear and i'm sure many see it, regardless of whether or not they choose to express their opinion.

Because neither Intel or AMD owe you anything, regardless of what you think. They exist to make money, and that is what Intel does. If their approach did not make money, they would likely change their strategy. CPU performance does not come out of the thin air, process tech takes time to research and apply. I am sure Intel has slow-played things at times, but keep in mind that a company like Intel has multiple projects happening at the same time, and with what we saw happen during the P4 debacle, it takes time to re-tool an approach.

I definitely do not condone their business practices either, but in business you (1) let a product speak for itself (rarely a good idea BTW) (2) market a great product or (3) polish a turd. #3 usually neccessitates either 'sweetening the deal' to your suppliers/buyers or strong-arming them. Sometimes one works better than the other...AMD has relied on #1 MUCH more than it should have over the years. They should have gone for the throat of Intel when they had A64, but they didn't. They slow-played their advantage and let Intel get back in the game. It's easy to market a good product (A64, core) and challenging to market a bad one (P4, BD).

 

[formulav8]

You don't have to be an outright greedy gut to make lots of money. You don't have to view people as nothing more than a herd of cattle to make lots of money. Money should never be put above people.

 

[exar333]

You don't have to be an outright greedy gut to make lots of money. You don't have to view people as nothing more than a herd of cattle to make lots of money. Money should never be put above people.

Where is this coming from?

 

[formulav8]

No where? Just wanting to whine alittle

 

[frozentundra123456]

You don't have to be an outright greedy gut to make lots of money. You don't have to view people as nothing more than a herd of cattle to make lots of money. Money should never be put above people.

Everyone has their share of beliefs about the way the world "should" be, but they dont always conform to the real world. I may be cynical, but I doubt that very many businesses put consideration for people above making money.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It will take care of 90% of the users here too. There are some here how legimately need the power of the latest i5 or i7. But "power users" are few and far between, most of these guys build rigs they don't really use, or need. I have plenty of friends like that.

My own rig, is more than I need, and has more power than I can utilize and my rig is used for multiple purposes, it's the only way I can justify it. It's a desktop, gaming machine, HTPC and media streamer.. I try to max out the machine as much as possible to get the most value out of it, but pretty weak excuses for quadcore + 8gb ram + 160gb ssd in my mind.

Ahh, the old "AMD is good enough" argument. This was probably true at one time, as they offered good performance for the price at the low end. I dont think even that is true now, as a Sandy Bridge Pentium can compete (at least in gaming) with a AMD quad core.

 

[exar333]

Ahh, the old "AMD is good enough" argument. This was probably true at one time, as they offered good performance for the price at the low end. I dont think even that is true now, as a Sandy Bridge Pentium can compete (at least in gaming) with a AMD quad core.

Shhhh! You can't say things like that. Remember how the P4 was so slow it couldn't even be used, and that a single P4 build could heat an entire factory? Now we don't need 'fancy Intel quad-cores' or even fast Intel dual-cores when a PhII will do just fine.

Not the same at all...

 

[exar333]

Right about now, no. But just after the release of SB, i still wasn't convinced.

True. PhII was still a great sub $175 option. With SB-based Pentiums and Celerons around now, it's hard to recommend AMD for anyone who is doing a brand-new build.

 

[Maximilian]

Premature to slam the CMT design of Bulldozer, Intel's HT was pretty poor on the P4 but look at it now.

Wasent really HT that was lousy it was simply that most things back then were not multi threaded so made little use of it.

 

[Vesku]

Wasent really HT that was lousy it was simply that most things back then were not multi threaded so made little use of it.

Pretty sure the P4 implementation of HT was just not that great. These things don't just pop into existence fully developed.

 

[exdeath]

AMD did the same thing Intel did that allowed AMD tp stomp a mud hole in Intel with beating them to the 1 GHz race with the TBird and then dropping the Athlon 64 FX bomb. They got over confident and sat on their asses and tried to stretch out, rehash, repackage, and resell old technology over and over again as new products thinking they had the cat in the bag while the competition was busy redesigning from ground up. Once you're on the bottom it's hard to recover due to lack of income for R&D for said ground up redesign, then it's only about survival.

Though these days I'm starting to think AMD's above successes were just random flukes... sigh. Still I have to give kudos to Intel. Despite no serious competition from AMD, they continue to crank out steal after steal like quad core 3+ GHz CPUs for under $200! Unreal. Unlike AMD, Intel learned their lesson with PIII/P4. Rather than sitting idle at the top taking a break while well in the lead, they continue to innovate and push faster and better chips and better the industry even when nobody asked for them and without much serious competition forcing them to do anything at all. We could easily still be sitting at Core 2 Duos/Quads for $900. If Intel keeps this up, it will be almost impossible for AMD to generate the income needed to recover and pull off a Athlon 64 FX again.

I still have one older machine with a single core FX-55 o/c to 3.2 GHz on water cooling. It was an incredible machine in it's time. But all the new stuff has been Intel only since around Core 2.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Pretty sure the P4 implementation of HT was just not that great. These things don't just pop into existence fully developed.

I don't think either Pentium 4's Hyperthreading or Bulldozer's Multi-threading was bad at all. It was hobbled by the overall architecture.

Pentium 4 was actually quite narrow, something that doesn't work well with SMT. It's hard to say something conclusive about Bulldozer, but it also went the narrow route. It seems the idea of taking out execution units for a minimal performance loss(due to low utilization rates) don't work so well in practice.

 

[bononos]

Can Intel/AMD quickly turn things around on a dime? I doubt it.
Intel is still coasting along very well on its Core architecture which debuted in 2006. It had bad years previously with its P4 line 2000-2008. The Athlon 64 X2's had their genesis in the Athlon, tweaked into the Athlon XP, then more tweaking into the Athlon 64's.