Does AMD have any hope against Intel?

[Thala]

With windows 10 Microsoft will combine windows phone and windows RT, according to long standing rumors.A More recent rumor is that Microsoft will rebrand windows phone to windows mobile.

But you're obviously correct that the Windows on ARM war has already been fought to completion and WinRT isn't coming back.

Don't spread rumors, that do not even make sense. Naturally Windows Phone will inherit more of the code base from Windows. But there is no specific Windows RT code base, which could be "combined" with Windows Phone. As i explained above Windows RT is just Windows. It does not even matter how much code you move in between both code bases (Windows and Windows Phone), Windows RT is by definition Windows for ARM and not Windows Phone for ARM.

Second WinRT is a runtime environment, which was introduced with Windows 8. It is not directly related to Windows RT.

Third, the initial write-down aside, Windows RT is quite a success for Microsoft, both from the devices sold perspective as well as from store-usage statistics.

Finally, as stated above, Windows on ARM is of strategic importance. I'd go as far to say, Microsoft cannot afford of not having at least one model with Windows for ARM on the market.

 

[jpiniero]

To the extent that Windows 8.1 tablets took share from Windows 8.1 PCs with AMD processors, AMD may have been affected.

Go look at Amazon's top selling laptops. It's all Bay Trail. Intel has effectively killed off the Cats which is a huge problem for AMD since that was where they were having some success. I'm sure it's not contra-revenue for those like the tablets but surely the OEMs are getting a great deal. It's not like Bay Trail is some kind of substandard product anyway.

My guess is AMD will plod along until Wall Street tires of junk bonds and force AMD into bankruptcy. They aren't really a threat to anybody.

 

[Enigmoid]

You have to remember before you go on about intel stealing market share from AMD that more than just pricing matters. Intel has successfully built its image as a high end high quality company while AMD has generally done the opposite. Just think in the minds of a consumer, given two equal tablets one with an AMD chip, one with and Intel chip. Now with all the ads that intel runs and its branding, which do you think will get picked most often? Its the same with GPUs where Nvidia gets away with charging a markup over AMD offerings.

Simply put BT was good enough that many OEMs decided that they would sell more with intel branding. Regardless of subsidies, AMD would lose massive market share with the launch of BT, just look at how OEMs were still using old atom against Jaguar.

Can you link to that laptop?

A craptastic laptop with BT and bargin bin components under OEM win licensing could easily cost under $250.

 

[Thala]

You have to remember before you go on about intel stealing market share from AMD that more than just pricing matters.

So what? Price is an important component. Do you think Intel is doing this for fun? They are well aware that without subsidies they would not have a competitive product. This is the very reason Intel saw the need for subsidizing.
With other words, they made a product, which would otherwise not have been accepted by the market, artificially more attractive. This immediately hurts all competitors.

 

[chrisjames61]

To be honest, I want AMD gone. The sooner the better.

I have a huge vendetta against AMD. You see... I had AMD CPUs all my life, my first PC had an Athlon K7... then came the x64 stuff I had that too... Then I upgraded to a Phenom triple-core then to a Phenom II quad, never used an Intel CPU before as I was a huge AMD fan boy.

Then... My life was about to change, I decided to give in and try an Intel CPU for the first time... That CPU would be my i5-760. When I first used it, I was just shocked, utterly shocked, like as if someone took the blindfold away from my eyes and I finally saw the light. Everything was just so much faster and more responsive, games ran better, applications opened faster, everything, literally everything was better.

When the AMD eight-cores came out, literally the week it was released, I decided to buy a new system to support one, the FX-8150, thinking it would wreck the i5-760 with its "eight-awesome-AMD-cores". So when I was so excited to test my new system, I realized how bad it was compared to my older i5-760... Everything was slower, games ran worse, applications loaded slower... I literally wasted almost a thousand dollars on an entirely new system.

To this day, I'm pretty upset and have vowed NEVER to buy an AMD CPU ever again. Second thing I learned was to do extensive research on any product before purchasing, especially if I'm spending a lot of money.

So yes... I hate AMD and I hope it dies in hellfire!

/endrantandlifestory

So you are blaming an ill thought out impulse purchase on AMD? You hold vendettas against a company? How old are you? 16? Have you ever taken any responsibility for your own actions?

 

[Abwx]

You have to remember before you go on about intel stealing market share from AMD that more than just pricing matters. Intel has successfully built its image as a high end high quality company while AMD has generally done the opposite.

If this would be enough they wouldnt subside those chips, hey , they should sell at high price if this was true, seriously, this is a general statement with no relevance with the reality discussed here.

Just think in the minds of a consumer, given two equal tablets one with an AMD chip, one with and Intel chip. Now with all the ads that intel runs and its branding, which do you think will get picked most often? Its the same with GPUs where Nvidia gets away with charging a markup over AMD offerings.

That s total spin, we live in a world were information move extremely fast, it would had taken a few months for the general sentiment being that in tablets and small format AMD s offering is quite better, it s not like we are uninformed, so if information is available just make it sure that there s no information, that is, that the competition is absent.

Simply put BT was good enough that many OEMs decided that they would sell more with intel branding. Regardless of subsidies, AMD would lose massive market share with the launch of BT, just look at how OEMs were still using old atom against Jaguar.

Thanks for bothering for the consumers mind but honnesty would mandate to give them the choice and let them have an idea of what is currently good enough, isnt it...

BT has 10%/20% less IPC than a Bobcat in INT/FP and has inferior GPU, that s the reality of this chip, no OEM would use BT for a lot of usage given that it s one generation late in comparison with Mullins, their only reason to use it massively is that it s free and heavily subsided, getting one million chips will add 70 millions $ of subsides in your bottom line, not counting the free chips...

OEMs are not crazy, they know that tablets gaming usage is 32% of the time spent on thoses devices, why would they use a chip that is 2x inferior in this matter, that is, in the task the most practiced.?
Why would they rely to what is the equivalent of a badly shrinked Bobcat.?.

Can you link to that laptop?

A craptastic laptop with BT and bargin bin components under OEM win licensing could easily cost under $250.

HP does cheap things but generaly they are above average.

17", 500GB HDD, N3520, 4GB, W8.1, 290€ VAT exl, 349€ 20% VAT incl.

I saw it in a big chain store here, where PC prices are generaly quite exagerated in respect of what you get online...

 

[jpiniero]

A craptastic laptop with BT and bargin bin components under OEM win licensing could easily cost under $250.

The sub-250 ones don't seem that bad. Well, they do come with Windows 8 which is unfortunately a reality these days.

 

[Enigmoid]

If this would be enough they wouldnt subside those chips, hey , they should sell at high price if this was true, seriously, this is a general statement with no relevance with the reality discussed here.

Degrees, Not everything is black and white

That s total spin, we live in a world were information move extremely fast, it would had taken a few months for the general sentiment being that in tablets and small format AMD s offering is quite better, it s not like we are uninformed, so if information is available just make it sure that there s no information, that is, that the competition is absent.

Most consumers don't know or care. You are not most consumers.

Thanks for bothering for the consumers mind but honnesty would mandate to give them the choice and let them have an idea of what is currently good enough, isnt it...

But why spend the money

BT has 10%/20% less IPC than a Bobcat in INT/FP and has inferior GPU, that s the reality of this chip, no OEM would use BT for a lot of usage given that it s one generation late in comparison with Mullins, their only reason to use it massively is that it s free and heavily subsided, getting one million chips will add 70 millions $ of subsides in your bottom line, not counting the free chips...

OEMs are not crazy, they know that tablets gaming usage is 32% of the time spent on thoses devices, why would they use a chip that is 2x inferior in this matter, that is, in the task the most practiced.?
Why would they rely to what is the equivalent of a badly shrinked Bobcat.?.

BT generally clocks higher.

What percentage of those games actually need more GPU power? BT is pretty decent compared to low end ARM chips and more that sufficient for Angry Birds, candy crush, and other time wasting games.

Its not the subsidies (or whatever you want to call them), even before BT was released you never saw jaguar/bobcat in many tablets.

HP does cheap things but generaly they are above average.

17", 500GB HDD, N3520, 4GB, W8.1, 290€ VAT exl, 349€ 20% VAT incl.

I saw it in a big chain store here, where PC prices are generaly quite exagerated in respect of what you get online...

And I've seen many things like that in Canada. Its called moving old inventory out at a discount. Unless you can prove that the retailer is actually making money, rather than trying to cut losses on old stock or running a promotion to attract sales in another way (ie draw people into the store ) this point is not legitimate.

Besides what is your point? Laptops like that routinely sell at that price.

Here is a 15" E1-6010 HP craptop. Dual Jaguar at 1.35 ghz.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-15-g070nr-1.../dp/B00KCU5TIQ

http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/us/en/vwa/Laptops

$229 from HP direct.

Are AMD giving away their chips too?

http://store.hp.com/FranceStore/Merch/List.aspx?sel=PCNB&ctrl=f&fc_scrn_m40=1

Beema and BT are similarily priced.

 

[Arachnotronic]

So what? Price is an important component. Do you think Intel is doing this for fun? They are well aware that without subsidies they would not have a competitive product. This is the very reason Intel saw the need for subsidizing.
With other words, they made a product, which would otherwise not have been accepted by the market, artificially more attractive. This immediately hurts all competitors.

Strong companies can afford to correct mistakes like the BYT-T bill of materials issue while they work on next generation products to correct those issues. Intel did what it needed to do given the company's strategic imperative to gain share in the tablet market.

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

It's like former AMD microprocessor designer, Cliff Maier said ...

AMD is finished, or at least for their CPU division which is more relevant to this discussion however I also expect them to fall behind on integrated GPU performance too.

It's never exactly been the same for AMD ever since Conroe ...

 

[Abwx]

Most consumers don't know or care. You are not most consumers.

Neither you are, but for sure consumers care, do you buy items randomly?
No and that works for everybody, that said tell us who are those "most consumers" that do not seem to care what they are buying and what the good is worth, because by saying that they do not care you re doing as you re all the consumers...
Ironic.

But why spend the money

To get a better product, as i wrote :

a Mullins at 400$ would be much more desirable than a BT at 340-350.

Personaly i would opt for a Mullins, and you, what would you do.?.
You wouldnt care at all.?.
I would be curious of what other members think about this kind of opinion, do they also not care at all.

BT generally clocks higher.

Right but Mullins is not Bobcat, it also clock much higher, and BT has barely Bobcat GPU level.

What percentage of those games actually need more GPU power? BT is pretty decent compared to low end ARM chips and more that sufficient for Angry Birds, candy crush, and other time wasting games.

Ask those who tested the things and are not suspect of being AMD supporters :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36845328&postcount=3267

Its not the subsidies (or whatever you want to call them), even before BT was released you never saw jaguar/bobcat in many tablets.

You brought an interesting point but alas you failed to dig further, i ll do it for you, try to grasp the timing of the decisions in function of the events....

When AMD released the first batch of Kabinis/Temash Intel didnt react at all as those chips manufactured at TSMC didnt live up to expectations, that s why you did see no tablet design at the time,, so Intel thought that they would have at least a better perf/watt and CPU perfs in the lower power segment, so no contra revenues announced , nothing, since it wasnt needed apparently.

Thing is that AMD was manufacturing the second batchs at GF during summer 2013, in late august/ early september they got the first functional dies and they got good excellent results to the point that Mark Papermaster felt confident enough as to publicly claim in early October that they ll beat Intel in all areas with the new chips that were to be released 6 months later, the threat didnt escape to their competitor, exactly 5-6 weeks after Papermaster claims, and surely after even older infos from OEMs, they announced their contra revenues.

Of course that they werent stupid enough to wait for AMD to release the chips to announce their plan, it would had been blatant aknowledgment that AMD was directly targeted, so they decided to announce it the sooner possible so that people would trust their smoke screen pretense of the ARM waggon being the target, the rest you know it and Q3 numbers as well as the absence of Mullins Tablets just say that this chip and AMD were the real and main annoyance.

Besides what is your point? Laptops like that routinely sell at that price.

It was a brand new offering not a 2 months old item that needed to be cleared out of inventory...

 

[Abwx]

Intel did what it needed to do given the company's strategic imperative to gain share in the tablet market.

So anti competitive practices is what was needed to gain share in the W8 tablet market, that s the reality, and not the one of an innovating firm but of a quasi monopoly that manage to squueze out of market superior products and replace them with its inferior designs.

The big loser is the consumer that is forced to buy those bad quality items.

 

[AtenRa]

As iGPUs are increasing in size and being utilized more and more for Compute, AMD will gain an advantage over Intel. But only if they will have an advanced node process close to what Intel has at the time.
If AMD by 2016 will have a 14nm FF product, it could dominate the x86 APU market in performance.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

I'm telling you that benchmark scores does NOT translate to anything in reality.

Daily usage, browsing, and opening up applications = slower than my i5
Games = much worse, even stutters and just ridiculous frame dips than my i5

It was so bad I wanted to take a sledgehammer and smash it to pieces, video record it and send it to AMD to show them how upset I was. I ended up passing it to my mom in the end and taking back my i5-760 which I continued using until literally 2 days ago when I built my new system in my sig.

You're completely lost. Its not like I've never used an i5 760 or an FX before. A Lynnfield i5 is a sad, old 2.8 Ghz chip..... The Bulldozers may have been a huge disappointment, but they still will own a Lynnfield any day of the week.

It really isn't close..... I mean seriously:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/317/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8150_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-760.html

The benchmarks tell the whole story. You're not even in the same zip code.

Why don't you try living in the real world for a day, dude......

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

You just proved his point.

Exactly..... The FX stomped in pretty much every real world benchmark, excluding the last couple games..... When the AMD chip beats the Intel at even the Single Threaded benchmarks, drop the mic. To claim a Lynnfield i5 is an upgrade to an overclocked FX-8150, yeah I've got a bridge to sell you, too.

 

[Ryanrenesis]

LOL quotes cpuworld and synthetic benchmarks. WOW! That's really convincing source you have there!

90% of my PC is used for gaming so I really couldn't care less about anything over than gaming benchmarks.

Let me tell you this, the day you find me a game that runs better on an FX-8150 @ 4.4Ghz vs an i5-760 @ 4Ghz is the day I'll happily drown myself in a cup of water.

The FX-8150 was so horrid, it micro-stuttered. It stuttered in places that made no sense like looking at a wall. I would almost go as far as to say it was as bad as my old Phenom II Quad in gaming performance.

Like I said, AMD is a redactedfor gaming. Never again.




No profanity allowed in the tech side of the forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

You're completely lost. Its not like I've never used an i5 760 or an FX before. A Lynnfield i5 is a sad, old 2.8 Ghz chip..... The Bulldozers may have been a huge disappointment, but they still will own a Lynnfield any day of the week.

It really isn't close..... I mean seriously:
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/317/AMD_FX-Series_FX-8150_vs_Intel_Core_i5_i5-760.html

The benchmarks tell the whole story. You're not even in the same zip code.

Why don't you try living in the real world for a day, dude......

Wow ...

It couldn't even win on ALL fronts. It has weaker single threaded performance despite the fact that it has a higher clock, higher power consumption, bigger die size, and a smaller transistor feature size ...

What you've shown just makes Bulldozer look worse, not better ...

#Humiliating

 

[AtenRa]

The FX-8150 was so horrid, it micro-stuttered. It stuttered in places that made no sense like looking at a wall. I would almost go as far as to say it was as bad as my old Phenom II Quad in gaming performance.

Like I said, AMD is a shithole for gaming. Never again.

Exaggerating much ??

The following gaming benchmarks are from a 3 year old review i made.

There are games that run faster with Intel CPUs but i havent played a game that was unplayable with an OCed FX8150 so far.

 

[Ryanrenesis]

Interesting benchmark numbers. It might have been my 5770 I had at that time that truly made the game unplayable, in particular Crysis 2 was totally unplayable with the FX8150 + 5770. Civ 5 was also unplayable for the most part for me. I would later try SWTOR on it as well and in PvP it was a slideshow half of the time.

 

[AtenRa]

Civ 5 was also unplayable for the most part for me.

I have played Civ V with almost every CPU out there, the game could be played even with a dual core APU and Intel HD graphics. There is no way the FX8150 + HD7770 was unplayable.

There must be something else than CPU or GPU performance going on for that game to be unplayable.

 

[Ryanrenesis]

I have played Civ V with almost every CPU out there, the game could be played even with a dual core APU and Intel HD graphics. There is no way the FX8150 + HD7770 was unplayable.

There must be something else than CPU or GPU performance going on for that game to be unplayable.

It was not entirely unplayable. I mean, an average gamer could probably play just fine on it. But the stutters when moving the map around was terrible for me, I cannot take stutters whatsoever, seem to be really sensitive to them. If it stutters down below 30 FPS I usually deem that unplayable. Anything below 60 FPS is borderline unacceptable to me as well. If I don't have the money, I can usually bare with it... But that is why I upgraded from my previous i5-760 in fact (because I was dipping below 60 FPS and stuttering in the newer games).

 

[nenforcer]

Interesting benchmark numbers. It might have been my 5770 I had at that time that truly made the game unplayable, in particular Crysis 2 was totally unplayable with the FX8150 + 5770. Civ 5 was also unplayable for the most part for me. I would later try SWTOR on it as well and in PvP it was a slideshow half of the time.

Your argument is backed up by Anandtech's own benchmark utility in just the gaming results at the bottom.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/191?vs=434

Only StarCraft 2 performed better on the AMD FX-8150 and not by much.

As time has gone on however the .32nm Bulldozer FX-8150 cpu heavily favors multithreaded game engines and can pull ahead of the .40nm Lynnfield i5-750 / 760.

 

[Ryanrenesis]

Your argument is backed up by Anandtech's own benchmark utility in just the gaming results at the bottom.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/191?vs=434

Only StartCraft 2 performed better on the Intel i760 and this game is known to favor better single threaded performance.

As time has gone on however the .32nm Bulldozer FX-8150 cpu heavily favors multithreaded game engines and can pull ahead of the .40nm Lynnfield i5-750 / 760.

You mean only SC2 performed better on FX-8150, while the rest performed better on i5-760. This is also taking into consideration the i5-760 at stock. When the 760 is OC'd to 4Ghz it's honestly a totally different beast.

 

[chrisjames61]

How about this..I will blow every ones minds.. I like both companies and hate both companies equally. "LOL" I have both Intel and Amd systems and it is what it is, they are both just over priced toys. No need to get homicidal on that poor cpu. If you dont like it sell it and move on.The only time I get bent out of shape is, over price gouging as I just cant understand why and how its possible to charge $500-$1000 plus for a Cpu when it only costs a couple bucks to make them Guess you can call me a tight ass. you know what my favorite cpu's are?? the cheapest ones you can overclock the snot out of.Or ones where you can build a whole system for like $100 bucks like say the L5639,G3258,860K,5350. Lately I have been getting into Mini Pc builds like Raspberry Pi and hope to see AMD get into this market cause I think Mini Pc's are going to be the way of the future.Sorry To babble On...

A cpu never costs a "couple bucks to make". Advancing process nodes, building and running foundries, billions spent in R&D. This all is factored into the price of the end product. They have to sell in the multi-millions before they start getting a return on investment.

 

[Enigmoid]

Neither you are, but for sure consumers care, do you buy items randomly?
No and that works for everybody, that said tell us who are those "most consumers" that do not seem to care what they are buying and what the good is worth, because by saying that they do not care you re doing as you re all the consumers...
Ironic.

My point is most consumers do not make a perfectly educated decision based on economy. That is why Nvidia can away with charging higher prices for its GPUs.

To get a better product, as i wrote :

Which is meaningless from a business perspective if you do not get sufficient return on investment.

Personaly i would opt for a Mullins, and you, what would you do.?.
You wouldnt care at all.?.
I would be curious of what other members think about this kind of opinion, do they also not care at all.

If a mullins chip was $30-50 more than BT and the Mullins was the highest end chip (intel seems to be pushing the quads at lower price points so this really only applies at the high end) then I'd buy it. However, most consumers just want cheap, and hence the fantastic amount of low end crap that gets sold.

Right but Mullins is not Bobcat, it also clock much higher, and BT has barely Bobcat GPU level.

Personally I'd never play games (at least other than solitaire or minesweeper to kill time) on a tablet. That may be biasing my decision but neither GPU is capable of playing many heavier games at native resolution on miniumun.

Ask those who tested the things and are not suspect of being AMD supporters :

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36845328&postcount=3267

Few will attempt to play these sort of games on a tablet.

It was a brand new offering not a 2 months old item that needed to be cleared out of inventory...

And I have provided a link to HPs website and surprise surprise Beema is the same price. You can look in your regional HP page and you will find the same.

I understand what you are saying and undoubtedly BT has taken marketshare away from AMD. (As an aside is there a BOM difference between beema and BT in low end laptops?). But that is the way business works. AMD was never obligated to have any marketshare (nobody is obligated to have anything); business is business.