Fudzilla: Bulldozer performance figures are in

[Cogman]

I subscribe to this viewpoint as well.

Unfortunately I see many of my fellow forum colleagues viewing the future as being of the "either/or" variety. Either Intel succeeds and everyone else (AMD/ARM/NV) die or else Intel fails and ARM succeeds.

I don't see it that way, I see plenty of TAM for everyone to find a seat at the table to do business.

I do not see Intel doing a DEC or a CRAY. (best technology and market leadership in the world and yet still managed to find a way to go bankrupt)

At the same time I don't see AMD going away, at worst they'll do a Chapter 11 equivalent to wipe away debt and restart the business clock (just as the airline and the auto industries succeed in doing) using their deep and vast IP portfolio and design teams to continue making competitive products.

Very true. I don't see any of these companies outright disappearing. The tech market is pretty much set in this aspect.

Heck, Intel won't let AMD die, just because the monopoly related fines and penalties would hurt much more than AMD eating a tiny portion of their market share.

One of my teachers was fond of pointing out the fact that during one of AMD's more difficult times, Intel basically gave them money to keep them afloat.

Intel's challenge, as had been duly noted by other posters, is to remain relevant in a world that increasingly relies on their smartphones to be their "good enough" personal computing devices.

I have a brother in-law who sells computers and for the past five years him and his laptop were inseperable. Every family function he'd have his laptop with him to find a place to log in and do whatever. I just got back from a near 3wk family vacation where I saw him every day and I did not once see him with his laptop. His smartphone has completely taken over and displaced his computing "needs" that his once inseperable laptop provided.

It was as night-and-day of a difference in terms of shifting computer usage behaviors as I could have ever imagined. Very stark and IMHO very telling of the future of PC's.

I see this being Intel's biggest "problem" but not something that will kill them. If things became dire enough, they would simply purchase some ARM licences just like everyone else and use their superior fabs to produce more lower power chips than the competition.

I just can't see a company like intel ever going belly up even in the next 20 or 30 years. They have a lot of engineering talent behind them and the capital to stay in business for a long time.

It will be interesting when (not if) they finally crack their way into the mobile device market.

The worst that will happen is that Intel will become a company that isn't the biggest kid on the block.

 

[Cogman]

Wrong, if AMD goes bankrupt, Intel would most likely split into several companies

Intel will never let AMD go bankrupt for that reason.

 

[bryanW1995]

In the short/medium term intel's prospects are certainly very strong, but remember that the high tech market changes quite rapidly. Intel will certainly be around in some form as long as there is demand for their IP, but eventually they'll lose a big bet, lose tons of market cap, and get gobbled up by the next google/apple/etc. I'd say 50 years more for them would have to be considered quite successful, though even that is so far in the future that there's simply no way to predict accurately.

 

[Cogman]

In the short/medium term intel's prospects are certainly very strong, but remember that the high tech market changes quite rapidly. Intel will certainly be around in some form as long as there is demand for their IP, but eventually they'll lose a big bet, lose tons of market cap, and get gobbled up by the next google/apple/etc. I'd say 50 years more for them would have to be considered quite successful, though even that is so far in the future that there's simply no way to predict accurately.

The high tech market USED to change quite rapidly. The current dynamic in the CPU market is pretty much the same as it has been for the last 15 years. Heck, companies like IBM have pretty much stayed in the same place for longer than that.

The days of "Hey, I can do this in my garage!" have been over since the 1990's

 

[radaja]

AMD's Facebook page today

 

[notty22]

AMD's Photos - Wall Photos

Photo 21 of 27 Back to Album · AMD's Photos · AMD's Profile

Wait a second !,,there it is ! How come no one can test it !

 

[Phynaz]

Wow, stay tuned, make sure you get your FREE AMD wallpaper.

Would somebody please fire the marketing staff. It's getting embarrassing to witness.

 

[RampantAndroid]

So Intel payed several settlements and fines just because they felt charitable?




Wrong, if AMD goes bankrupt, Intel would most likely split into several companies

No. If AMD goes under, someone buys up their patents and Intel suddenly is in trouble since AMD64...well, they might not be able to use it anymore.

 

[OCGuy]

What is in that box is the stepping that they were afraid to release.

I guess they gotta keep the investors happy by showing off a box...

 

[bart1975]

Any real game benchmarks with this yet?

 

[AnandThenMan]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm tired of announcements, facebook blurbs, tech events, more announcements, marketing slides, rumors.

Where is Bulldozer? Come on AMD at least give us a release date, not some vague "Q3" nonsense.

 

[frostedflakes]

At Computex they said 60-90 days after June 1, so sometime in August assuming it isn't delayed until October or whenever some of the rumors floating around say it might be.

 

[Nemesis 1]

No. If AMD goes under, someone buys up their patents and Intel suddenly is in trouble since AMD64...well, they might not be able to use it anymore.

Intel never ever loses x64 ever. Proof that they lose x64 .

 

[AnandThenMan]

Intel never ever loses x64 ever. Proof that they lose x64 .

The agreement between AMD and Intel is complex, but there are certainly scenarios where either could lose the x86 or x64 license. I recall a couple of years ago reading about how this could happen to either party, don't remember the exact details. If you really want to know, read the AMD/Intel agreement.

 

[Nemesis 1]

I have read it . As most here have everthing but what was withheld from public eyes . Intel recently wanted to make the entire agreement public knowledge AMD didn't want that . NO way can intel lose anything X86 related doesn't matter who came up with it . Once its X86 its intels. You think the door only swings one way . Thats a laugh!

 

[ed29a]

@ p0st 447 Please can someone give the above person some cheeese to go along with his constant whine. He knows nothing of Intels IB. or what constitues a monoply. Arm has made Intel a non monoply as they enter into notebooks and desktops. its not about x86 its about windows 8 now . NO more intel monopoly as x86 falls by the wayside. as the only windows operating system

My good sir, I am amazed at your posts, especially the ones filled with gibberish like the above. Did you at least move your mouse over the 'source' link and clicked on it? And if yes, did you bother reading it?

I guess not. But hey don't mind me and go back to your usual gibberish drivel that makes no sense.

 

[Idontcare]

I love mobile smart phones but to say they replace the functionality of a laptop is exaggerated. Sure you can cruise the web and use some apps for functionality, but the laptop will do so much more. Update a spreadshet on a phone? You can barely even read it. Efficiently fill-out a web-bsed form? Nope. The list goes on and on.

'Light' computing like web-browsing and checking your bank account balance are great functions to be replaced on a phone, but anything very detailed gets onerous quickly and will waste your time.

My fiance will spend 15 minutes filling out a form to order a pizza online when I could get up and do that on my PC in 3 minutes or just call them. The convenience often causes inefficiency because it 'can' do it.

I am not poo-pooing the tech, just saying that a smartphone is not a great replacement for most things. I love mine for light-browsing, email, and handy applications for weather, etc. but it has it's limits.

I'm not trying to make the case that people can use today's smartphones to displace traditional apps that require larger screens (netpads will do that) or faster GPU's (for gaming) or CPU's (workstations).

I'm talking about the observation that people, not so insignificant numbers of them, are willing to adjust their usage patterns for the convenience of downsizing their computing needs to whatever they can accomplish with a smartphone today...and then projecting that trend forward to comprehend the expected capabilities of smartphones in 4-5 yrs.

Your girlfriend being willing to dicker around with pizza ordering forms on her phone is a perfect example. My brother in-law is another. Its not that the smartphone necessarily makes it any easier, it is just that it is not so overly difficult that it becomes problematic.

It reminds me of the early days of the digital camera (in the sub-1Mpixel days) where there was no question that you were trading off picture quality by going digital for the convenience of having digital pictures.

Zoom forward a decade and you see convergence devices like camera's in the smartphone resulting in the same thing happening to digital camera market. Yes the optical path of a smartphone camera sucks ass compared to the quality of the optics in a Canon or Nikon digital camera, but users, millions of them, are willing to "settle" for that lack of quality just for the convenience of not having to pack around a second camera.

This is the dawn of the era of "good enough" computing capability in the form of a smartphone. I look at my 7yr old daughter and I realize that chances are rather slim that she'll even own a laptop in her lifetime unless she ends up in a technically demanding job environment such as engineering or programming.

What is in that box is the stepping that they were afraid to release.

I guess they gotta keep the investors happy by showing off a box...

It is sad to see this but I get this deja vu feeling from AMD's marketing of Bulldozer that reminds me of Nvidia's long long long pre-release marketing campaing that they did for Fermi.

 

[RampantAndroid]

The agreement between AMD and Intel is complex, but there are certainly scenarios where either could lose the x86 or x64 license. I recall a couple of years ago reading about how this could happen to either party, don't remember the exact details. If you really want to know, read the AMD/Intel agreement.

If AMD goes bankrupt, all agreements are renegotiated, I believe. Hence how Intel would lose it.

Intel has x86, AMD has the 64 bit extensions.

 

[Idontcare]

If AMD goes bankrupt, all agreements are renegotiated, I believe. Hence how Intel would lose it.

Intel has x86, AMD has the 64 bit extensions.

That's not expressly guaranteed unless there is a clause in the agreement explicitly dedicated to spelling out the terms and conditions of the agreement in the event of either party declaring bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy does not de facto nullify contracts and agreements across the board. It suspends the debt repayment obligations of the business entering into bankruptcy so they can renegotiate the terms and conditions of those debts.

Exiting bankruptcy, or more specifically the failure to do so, is the time when business contracts become null and void as a de facto standard of business and law.

The people/businesses who get screwed in the event of AMD declaring bankruptcy are the people/businesses who lent AMD money and/or own shares of AMD stock. Same as what happened to United Airlines and GM.

 

[Nemesis 1]

My good sir, I am amazed at your posts, especially the ones filled with gibberish like the above. Did you at least move your mouse over the 'source' link and clicked on it? And if yes, did you bother reading it?

I guess not. But hey don't mind me and go back to your usual gibberish drivel that makes no sense.

There is zero gibberish in my post. Intel executive and lawyers would have to be retarded to an out of court agreement were intel loses anything if AMD fails . Its that simple . AMD won the right to use and build X86 cpus the properity of Intel. Intel didn't lose everthing . They won threw agreement that they could use for the life of x86 any improvements AMD brought to the Table no matter AMDs fate . If they reached any other agreement. Intel would have been stupid to not let the courts decide at that time. But its your belief that Intels lawyers are dumber than AMDs . It would also seem you believe AMDs excutivies are smarter than intels . That really doesn't seem correct if I look at the 2 companies.

 

[AnandThenMan]

There is zero gibberish in my post. Intel executive and lawyers would have to be retarded to an out of court agreement were intel loses anything if AMD fails . Its that simple . AMD won the right to use and build X86 cpus the properity of Intel. Intel didn't lose everthing . They won threw agreement that they could use for the life of x86 any improvements AMD brought to the Table no matter AMDs fate . If they reached any other agreement. Intel would have been stupid to not let the courts decide at that time. But its your belief that Intels lawyers are dumber than AMDs . It would also seem you believe AMDs excutivies are smarter than intels . That really doesn't seem correct if I look at the 2 companies.

Aside from the fact that your post is a grammatical and spelling mess, you're stating opinion, not fact. Some people would consider it gibberish.

 

[Dribble]

I look at my 7yr old daughter and I realize that chances are rather slim that she'll even own a laptop in her lifetime unless she ends up in a technically demanding job environment such as engineering or programming.

I don't think laptops will go away, but the traditional heavyweight windows/x86 one might.

Google chrome books are the start of what most of them will become - everything you care about lives in the cloud, as does all your software, desktop and everything else. The laptop is just a viewing & processing device - sure it'll locally cache software and information but fundamentally it's all on some big server out there. You can go to another laptop, log in and everything will just work - you'll get your desktop, your programmes, etc. If your laptop dies you just buy another one, log in and you have lost nothing. There is no maintenance required by you - virus checkers, software updates, etc - that's all handled automatically. It all just works.

Techno control freak geeks will hate it but your average user will love it.

Anyway what powers these lightweight, cheap cloudbooks is still up for grabs. x86, ARM, who knows? What I suspect is they will just support both and people will buy whatever is best for them which probably boils down to whatever is the cheapest.

 

[Mr Vain]

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/06/22/amd-and-arm-join-forces-at-last/

Your link was broken.

That being said, the argument is based off of a LOT of speculation. Just a couple of marketing slides and "hey, these slides kind of look the same OMG, AMD AND ARM ARE TEAMING UP!!!!"

I'll believe it when I see it.

Charlie Demerjian insight is usually IMO more accurate than may others out there; he was right about many of Nvidia issues and intensions for one, earning him so much hate from Nvidia fan boys.

Have you read this other story?

ARM and AMD see eye to eye on GPU compute

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/06/21/arm-and-amd-see-eye-to-eye-on-gpu-compute/

 

[Idontcare]

Charlie Demerjian insight is usually IMO more accurate than may others out there; he was right about many of Nvidia issues and intensions for one, earning him so much hate from Nvidia fan boys.

Have you read this other story?

ARM and AMD see eye to eye on GPU compute

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/06/21/arm-and-amd-see-eye-to-eye-on-gpu-compute/

The notion that AMD would NOT seek to develop an ARM-based platform to complement their Bobcat-based platform should have died the moment Nvidia let it be known that they had Tegra and Project Denver in the works.

Any marketspace that Nvidia can penetrate so too can/should AMD. Having an ARM-based platform makes for easy competition against Nvidia in the pursuit of Nvidia's existing customers (I don't mean the end-user) and whatever TAM exists for the products that Nvidia aims to sell with an ARM coprocessor inside.

Who in their right mind at AMD would elect to stand idly by and let Nvidia have all the cake they can eat in the ARM market?

What was silly was the initial rumors that ARM and AMD were going to merge into one business entity. That notion defied all logic. But AMD taking out an ARM license and building products that compete with Tegra and Denver is a no-brainer to predict/expect.

 

[podspi]

Eh, I dunno if AMD making ARM chips would be a great idea. The market for ARM CPUs is incredibly competitive and it isn't clear that AMD would have any advantage in that market.

True, AMD is no longer enjoying the benefits of being in a growth market, BUT their marketshare is so low that it isn't very relevant, imho. What's the point in spending R&D resources (of which AMD does not have an abundance) to be yet another also-ran in the ARM market? Hell, I think even NV would have preferred to build an x86 chip, they just couldn't get the license, iirc. Luckily for them, ARM seems to be making headway. But they have quite an uphill battle. Charlie's article was on OpenCL, not ARM. It also looks to me like AMD is willing to allow their GPU tech to be bolted onto an ARM core. I feel that is the best way for them to go at this point.