Can AMD rebound?

[7beauties]

Having been a loyal AMD man, since I built my first PC in 2000 based on the 700Mhz
Athlon slot A proc, I'm saddened to see AMD fall so far. Their latest CPU architecture, what we know as the "Phenom," has been massively delayed, beset by the TLB erratum, and definitely less than phenominal, does anyone know of what lies ahead in AMD's roadmap? Will they ever turn the [/i]tide again and regain the performance crown that they enjoyed 2004-2005? I feel like I'm attending the wake of a dearly departed friend.

 

[SickBeast]

IMO they have a pretty good shot with the Fusion processor, if they can remain in business long enough to produce it in time.

The Phenom will go to 45nm this year, but all signs point to the fact that it will not even match the current intel 45nm offerings.

AMD needs a new CEO badly. If they can clean house at the management level, and keep those on their engineering staff that spearheaded K7/K8, they should be able to make a decent turnaround.

That said, if they mess up their next product launch (45nm Phenom), things won't be pretty.

 

[Foxery]

It's just a slow period for them, as the competition beat them soundly on this round of products. The next generation can put them back on track if it provides more solid competition vs Intel's next gen. Also, they are still making money off the high-end Opteron servers. Something about multi-socket Opteron systems scaling better than Xeons.

One bad year doesn't kill a company; they'll rebound.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

just a question, so AMD has been beaten by Intel in the consumer CPU dept for the past 3-4 years right? how long did AMD beat Intel in the same dept when they were on their Pentium 4? wasn't it also for 3-4 years?

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: 7beauties
Having been a loyal AMD man, since I built my first PC in 2000 based on the 700Mhz
Athlon slot A proc, I'm saddened to see AMD fall so far. Their latest CPU architecture, what we know as the "Phenom," has been massively delayed, beset by the TLB erratum, and definitely less than phenominal, does anyone know of what lies ahead in AMD's roadmap? Will they ever turn the [/i]tide again and regain the performance crown that they enjoyed 2004-2005? I feel like I'm attending the wake of a dearly departed friend.

To keep things in perspective, both Intel and AMD have had many disapointments like this in the past...
Remember that Phenom is still only a few months old.
How long was it between Willamette and Northwood?
Between Prescott and C2D?
Between Thoroughbred A and Thoroughbred B?

Of course AMD will regain the crown again (statistics pretty much assures us of that), but remember that it's much harder for them to do so than it is for Intel because of money...so it may take awhile (then again, maybe not).

Edit: LOUISSSSS mentions a good point as well...AMD is still extremely competitive in the server market. In fact, for Enterprise servers Intel doesn't even come out to play by comparison.

 

[nerp]

They'll hang in there and provide interesting alternatives. Don't freak out.

People thought AMD was dead a few times already. Still hasn't happened. And things were bleaker in the past.

 

[Ebichan]

I sure hope they can get something out since now there's no reasonable alternative to the e8400 or Q6600.

 

[amenx]

Problem with AMD is they're hemoraging money. Plus they're forced to sell their stuff at crushing prices, so they have less to devote to R & D to come up with something substantial to take on Intel (who are awash with cash).

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: amenx
Problem with AMD is they're hemoraging money. Plus they're forced to sell their stuff at crushing prices, so they have less to devote to R & D to come up with something substantial to take on Intel (who are awash with cash).

I agree with the concerns, they are disconcerting, but I thought that the money losses were more GAAP type accounting of depreciating and write-downs than true negative quarterly cash-flow.

If their cash-flow is net negative then that is problematic for the business.

Viditor can tell us. Viditor you out there?

 

[hooflung]

I still have AMD in my house. Next PC will be a phenom 45nm or bulldozer and a crossfire x motherboard.

 

[plonk420]

ditto. phenom (before the B3 benches came out) was ~4% slower than a C2D and 11% cheaper at x264 encodes, which is about the only processor intensive thing i do anymore (besides distributed computing as heat in the winter .... REALLY

 

[MarcVenice]

The phenoms are being priced pretty competetively right now. 45nm phenoms should run at higher speeds and use less power. AT is pretty much an enthusiast forum, the fact that 90% of the people here buys Intel doesn't mean that's what happens on a global scale. Performance wise AMD isn't doing to bad. Depending on how much they lose on these phenoms ( besides other products ), or how much profit they make, because they do have to sell them pretty cheap, AMD will survive for a little while longer, or not ?

 

[Rubycon]

I still have my FX60 system (at 3.0GHz) on an Asus AN832SLI deluxe. The biggest downfall of that system is the horrible NF4 chipset. CPU performs well given its two year age and runs reasonably cool.

I miss the socket7 days where you could buy the motherboard of your choice and choose any cpu you wanted whether intel, amd, cyrix, neXt86, winchip, etc.

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: Viditor
Of course AMD will regain the crown again (statistics pretty much assures us of that)

There's no "of course" and "assurance" here. It is by no means a guarantee that AMD will regain the crown again. The further out in the future you look, the more meaningless any statistics become (beyond the usual silliness of judging the future through the lens of the past) and the more of a wash it turns into.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: amenx
Problem with AMD is they're hemoraging money. Plus they're forced to sell their stuff at crushing prices, so they have less to devote to R & D to come up with something substantial to take on Intel (who are awash with cash).

I agree with the concerns, they are disconcerting, but I thought that the money losses were more GAAP type accounting of depreciating and write-downs than true negative quarterly cash-flow.

If their cash-flow is net negative then that is problematic for the business.

Viditor can tell us. Viditor you out there?

Quite correct IDC...AMD is about cash neutral at this point (certainly not hemmoraging).
The write downs in Q4 were from a reevaluation of ATI's original purchase price, not from an actual loss...

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: zsdersw

Originally posted by: Viditor
Of course AMD will regain the crown again (statistics pretty much assures us of that)

There's no "of course" and "assurance" here. It is by no means a guarantee that AMD will regain the crown again. The further out in the future you look, the more meaningless any statistics become (beyond the usual silliness of judging the future through the lens of the past) and the more of a wash it turns into.

Fair enough...it's certainly not a lock that either AMD or Intel will be performing in any particular way at any given time...and the farther out it is, the less is known.

Of course that cuts both ways...it's just as possible that Nehalem will arrive broken (it's happened many times before) as it is that Bulldozer will.

 

[GeezerMan]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
I still have my FX60 system (at 3.0GHz) on an Asus AN832SLI deluxe. The biggest downfall of that system is the horrible NF4 chipset. CPU performs well given its two year age and runs reasonably cool.

I miss the socket7 days where you could buy the motherboard of your choice and choose any cpu you wanted whether intel, amd, cyrix, neXt86, winchip, etc.

Wow, I think of the NF4 chipset as very good. I still have a 3800+ X2 running at 2.6GHz on a DFI SLI-DR Expert. It's one of the most stable setups I have tried.

 

[WTurner]

Some of you guys are smoking crack.

AMD has had the fastest retail CPUs from about 2001 through 2006. You will recall it was only half way through 2006 when Core 2 Duo was launched that Intel had anything remotely capable of matching the FX-60.

Some of you have selective memory.

I am not a fanboy, I buy whoever is faster when I am ready to buy. Right now thats Intel.

Also if you look at Anand's review of the new(er) Phenoms you will see the A64 X2 3.2Ghz CPU does just fine at every benchmark out pacing newer AMD and Intel chips in a few cases. I think for the price it's good for a budget build.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I just bought an AM2+ motherboard, should be here tomorrow, I'm looking forward to trying out one of these new B3 Phenoms.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Originally posted by: WTurner
Some of you guys are smoking crack.

AMD has had the fastest retail CPUs from about 2001 through 2006. You will recall it was only half way through 2006 when Core 2 Duo was launched that Intel had anything remotely capable of matching the FX-60.

Some of you have selective memory.

so it was mid-2006 when intel came out with the Core 2 architecture? which was their first cpu that beat out the fx-60? was it the e6600?

i too believe that amd will come back, they were always the underdog and have learned how to comeback from behind

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: WTurner
Some of you guys are smoking crack.

AMD has had the fastest retail CPUs from about 2001 through 2006. You will recall it was only half way through 2006 when Core 2 Duo was launched that Intel had anything remotely capable of matching the FX-60.

Some of you have selective memory.

AMD's first AMD64 Opteron came out in April 2003. In 2001 and 2002 Intel had the top processors.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: WTurner
Some of you guys are smoking crack.

AMD has had the fastest retail CPUs from about 2001 through 2006. You will recall it was only half way through 2006 when Core 2 Duo was launched that Intel had anything remotely capable of matching the FX-60.

Some of you have selective memory.
I am not a fanboy, I buy whoever is faster when I am ready to buy. Right now thats Intel.

Also if you look at Anand's review of the new(er) Phenoms you will see the A64 X2 3.2Ghz CPU does just fine at every benchmark out pacing newer AMD and Intel chips in a few cases. I think for the price it's good for a budget build.

Here's Anand's review in August 2002:
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1690&p=11

Final Words
We knew exactly how fast the 2.80GHz Pentium 4 was when we wrote about the Athlon XP 2600+ last week, but it was a matter of timing that kept us from commenting on it. As Intel regains the performance crown, some very interesting things begin to happen; for starters, now the 2.53GHz Pentium 4 drops to an affordable sub-$300 level to make room for the new 2.6GHz and 2.80GHz parts. This is obviously highly competitive with AMD's Athlon XP 2600+ although once you get into the lower price ranges the Athlon XP offers a much better value for your money.

AMD didn't really "clinch" the performance crown from Intel until they rolled out the FX-51 series and Intel shot themselves in the foot with 90nm Prescott's circa 2004. After that AMD kinda took off with their X2 series and ran with it for ~2 years until Core2 Duo release in July 2006.

Before that it was pretty much a leapfrog game where every other CPU release by Intel or AMD was just a smidgen faster than the competitors.

 

[Owls]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
The phenoms are being priced pretty competetively right now. 45nm phenoms should run at higher speeds and use less power. AT is pretty much an enthusiast forum, the fact that 90% of the people here buys Intel doesn't mean that's what happens on a global scale. Performance wise AMD isn't doing to bad. Depending on how much they lose on these phenoms ( besides other products ), or how much profit they make, because they do have to sell them pretty cheap, AMD will survive for a little while longer, or not ?

Just food for thought, when I go to Microcenter they are ALWAYS out of stock on the any C2D and Quad cores. Yet there are a pile of AMD chips sitting there.

Not trying to bait but just saying what I see.

 

[sutahz]

I believe the most valid points are that:
As consumers we focus on the consumer market. The corporate/server market is much different and AMD is doing well there.
We are enthusiasts, almost all of us are willing to overclock. Those who don't overclock, AMD isn't always the wrong choice.

 

[MarcVenice]

Originally posted by: Owls

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
The phenoms are being priced pretty competetively right now. 45nm phenoms should run at higher speeds and use less power. AT is pretty much an enthusiast forum, the fact that 90% of the people here buys Intel doesn't mean that's what happens on a global scale. Performance wise AMD isn't doing to bad. Depending on how much they lose on these phenoms ( besides other products ), or how much profit they make, because they do have to sell them pretty cheap, AMD will survive for a little while longer, or not ?

Just food for thought, when I go to Microcenter they are ALWAYS out of stock on the any C2D and Quad cores. Yet there are a pile of AMD chips sitting there.

Not trying to bait but just saying what I see.

Interesting, perhaps viditor can tell us abt CPU sales from AMD compared to Intel ? Or anyone else for that matter. Perhaps 90% of the people are buying Intel, I could be wrong too