(gamersnexus) AMD: "FX is Not EOL" & Why What We Need in a CPU is Changing

[Gikaseixas]

AMD is in a fight for survival and they're spreading themselves way too thin already, so it's not a case of being smart, it's a limitation issue. Some projects cannot be implemented and executed due to financial restrictions and with industry insiders proclaiming the eminent end of the PC era, they need to adjust accordingly. This is why you see a focus on lower performing sku's. Intel has them beat on pretty much every efficiency metric when it comes to high end cpus.

 

[nenforcer]

It's not a good thing for sales when your top 7 high performance chips (FX 8120, 8150, 8320, 8350, 9000 series) only run on 3 motherboards

ASSRock Xtreme 9
Gigabyte UD7
ASUS Crosshair V Formula

one of which isn't even stocked by the major etailers.

 

[Spawne32]

It's not a good thing for sales when your top 7 high performance chips (FX 8120, 8150, 8320, 8350, 9000 series) only run on 3 motherboards

ASSRock Xtreme 9
Gigabyte UD7
ASUS Crosshair V Formula

one of which isn't even stocked by the major etailers.

basically this

 

[mrmt]

It's not a good thing for sales when your top 7 high performance chips (FX 8120, 8150, 8320, 8350, 9000 series) only run on 3 motherboards

ASSRock Xtreme 9
Gigabyte UD7
ASUS Crosshair V Formula

Think about margins here. Why you as an OEM would design and order a MB for AMD furnaces? Everything must be rated for 220W, VRM, sockets, circuits, etc. To add insult to the injury, the TAM you are going to achieve is very, very small. So why bother with FX?

 

[NaroonGTX]

Not to mention FX sells a lot less than AMD's APU's do in comparison. There's the quote from AMD themselves where they said FX accounted for 30% of processor shipments with APU's accounting for the other 70%. Since then it's probably even more lop-sided now.

 

[rtsurfer]

Think about margins here. Why you as an OEM would design and order a MB for AMD furnaces? Everything must be rated for 220W, VRM, sockets, circuits, etc. To add insult to the injury, the TAM you are going to achieve is very, very small. So why bother with FX?

Well they are rated for 220W but at 4.8 ~5 Ghz..

Intel chips when OCed to such frequencies, do get close to that much power consumption.

I am OC my 4770K and at 4.4 Ghz at 1.250V it is drawing 142W according to AI suite.

Think about if I run it at 4.8Ghz, it is going to get close to 200W (my chip most probably wont hit 4.8).

Plus Intel extreme edition processors are rated for 130W at stock. Think about when people OC them.

Moral of the story is, making 220W MOBOs is not unheard of.
It might not take a couple of 10~20$ off MOBO makers profit, the processor not perform as well at high frequency, but it is still not a bad buisness Idea.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Well they are rated for 220W but at 4.8 ~5 Ghz..

Intel chips when OCed to such frequencies, do get close to that much power consumption.

I am OC my 4770K and at 4.4 Ghz at 1.250V it is drawing 142W according to AI suite.

Think about if I run it at 4.8Ghz, it is going to get close to 200W (my chip most probably wont hit 4.8).

Plus Intel extreme edition processors are rated for 130W at stock. Think about when people OC them.

Moral of the story is, making 220W MOBOs is not unheard of.
It might not take a couple of 10~20$ off MOBO makers profit, the processor not perform as well at high frequency, but it is still not a bad buisness Idea.

I think you mix OC and warranty covered operation together.

 

[JDG1980]

It's not a good thing for sales when your top 7 high performance chips (FX 8120, 8150, 8320, 8350, 9000 series) only run on 3 motherboards

ASSRock Xtreme 9
Gigabyte UD7
ASUS Crosshair V Formula

one of which isn't even stocked by the major etailers.

What? This doesn't correspond with the official documentation, nor have I seen similar claims anywhere else. Asus says that all of their 990FX-based boards (Crosshair V Formula-Z, Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 and M5A99FX Pro R2.0) support the 9000 series FX chips. And even the 970-series boards (e.g. M5A97 R2.0) have everything up to the 8350 in the official compatibility chart. Gigabyte has a 970-based board that is supposed to support the 9000 series (though it's not on the official compatibility list on their site) and officially supports everything up to and including the 8350.

 

[rtsurfer]

I think you mix OC and warranty covered operation together.

I don't think OCing processors VOIDs MOBO warranty(Makes no sense as all the MOBO manufacturers show off their MOBOs OC features) ??
As that was the point I was arguing.

I also wanted to make a point about Haswells power consumption as I was pretty suprised when I saw those.

 

[mrmt]

Plus Intel extreme edition processors are rated for 130W at stock. Think about when people OC them.

The price bracket of those two processors is completely different. While X79 board have no competitions, 220W boards to AMD FX must compete against 150W Z87 boards. You are throwing high capacity components in a board aimed at the mainstream market.

 

[AtenRa]

The price bracket of those two processors is completely different. While X79 board have no competitions, 220W boards to AMD FX must compete against 150W Z87 boards. You are throwing high capacity components in a board aimed at the mainstream market.

You do realize that ASUS M5A99FX Pro 2.0 and Crosshair V Formula-Z that both support the FX9000 today, were created and released before even AMD launched the FX9000 series. And even ASUS Crosshair V Formula could overclock the FX8150 at 4.7-4.8 or even 5GHz in 2011.

I can tell you that even the M5A97 R2.0 could support at least the FX9370 if AMD wanted those processors in cheap motherboards.

 

[rtsurfer]

The price bracket of those two processors is completely different. While X79 board have no competitions, 220W boards to AMD FX must compete against 150W Z87 boards. You are throwing high capacity components in a board aimed at the mainstream market.

I know the extreme edition Intel processors are a different price bracket than mainstream Z87 .

What I saying is that I dont think all AMD FX processors require 220W boards.
AMD FX processors which run at 4.6+Ghz require high end motherboards.
OCed 8320, 8350 & 9000 series.
Heck there are people on Overclock.net running 4.8GHz on the 99FX Pro R2.

Going 4.6+ Ghz on FX series demands an atleast decent quality board.

Plus the most expensive AMD board Crosshair V Formula is 220$.
One of the most popular Haswell mainstream board the Asus Z87 Pro costs 185$ right now.

35$ more is not that bad considering AMD doesn't change sockets every year.
Although AM3+ is EOL right now.

You get 4.8 ~ 5Ghz on Asus Sabertooth board and it costs the same as Z87 Pro and dont want to shell money for halo boards.
It is a myth that you require a 200$ board for FX.



To summarize, as I told you before that mainstream Intel processors when OCed could draw close to 200W and most regular Intel MOBOs handle that. If the manufacturers can use these kinds of components on Intel MOBOs than they can do it for AMD aswell.

 

[Phynaz]

I can tell you that even the M5A97 R2.0 could support at least the FX9370 if AMD wanted those processors in cheap motherboards.

You are saying AMD dictates to board manufacturers which CPUs they can support on their boards depending upon the price of the board.

As usual, have any citations?

 

[AtenRa]

You are saying AMD dictates to board manufacturers which CPUs they can support on their boards depending upon the price of the board.

As usual, have any citations?

AMD gave the specifications to the Motherboard manufacturers. If a Motherboard design doesn't fulfill the technical specifications provided by AMD, then the motherboard manufacturer will not support the CPU on that Motherboard Model. Simple as that.

 

[Ajay]

AMD gave the specifications to the Motherboard manufacturers. If a Motherboard design doesn't fulfill the technical specifications provided by AMD, then the motherboard manufacturer will not support the CPU on that Motherboard Model. Simple as that.

Actually, it seemed like MSI was a bit confused on the tech specs for BD. It seems to have soured them a fair bit on AMD. It seems like AMD has done a better job with the current line of APUs.

 

[Ajay]

LOLZ!

I think the reason for BD using CMT was that AMD couldn't get 8 PII cores on the original 45nm process. Even if AMD had tried to put 8 PII derivative cores on 32nm, it would have been at the cost of clocks speed, ST or both. Six beefier Husky cores w/L3$ on 32nm would have been interesting. Oh well...

 

[Phynaz]

AMD gave the specifications to the Motherboard manufacturers. If a Motherboard design doesn't fulfill the technical specifications provided by AMD, then the motherboard manufacturer will not support the CPU on that Motherboard Model. Simple as that.

That doesn't explain

if AMD wanted those processors in cheap motherboards.

 

[AtenRa]

That doesn't explain

If AMD FX9000 specs talk about the support of only 990FX and 8+ VRM phase motherboards, you immediately discount all 760G/880G/970/990 AM3+ motherboards. Easy as that
Also, Motherboard manufacturers would like a high-end CPU to be paired with High-End Mobo, they have higher margins on 990FX motherboards than Lower-end mobos.
Plus, it gives customers another reason to buy a new 990FX motherboard and not go for the 970/990 chipset boards.

 

[Leyawiin]

I read something on TechPowerUP that this 970 Gigabyte board supports them. Its an 8+2.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...ard-with-fx-9590-support.188890/#post-2959511
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128651

 

[NaroonGTX]

I think the reason for BD using CMT was that AMD couldn't get 8 PII cores on the original 45nm process. Even if AMD had tried to put 8 PII derivative cores on 32nm, it would have been at the cost of clocks speed, ST or both. Six beefier Husky cores w/L3$ on 32nm would have been interesting. Oh well...

The Bulldozer and CMT concepts were in development for quite some time before the hexacore K8 dies even came out. CMT was being discussed before even the first Greyhound chips released. They went ahead and released Bulldozer to get it out the way, because they knew they had nothing left for K8 (Llano was the last part based on this uarch and the uarch itself hit a wall).

 

[mikk]

http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhet/17995-amd-forbereder-kabini-for-stationara-datorer-med-sockel-fs1b

Roadmap confirmed by sweclockers. They have a couple of more slides.

 

[Sweepr]

http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhet/17995-amd-forbereder-kabini-for-stationara-datorer-med-sockel-fs1b

Roadmap confirmed by sweclockers. They have a couple of more slides.

Thanks for posting.
I'll add them to the roadmap thread.

 

[inf64]

IMO it was counter productive move by that pr guy to deny the roadmap that was obviously not fake...

 

[ShintaiDK]

IMO it was counter productive move by that pr guy to deny the roadmap that was obviously not fake...

I keep wondering how everyone in their marketing division is not fired yet. They have basicly made a constant line of screwups the last 10 years.

 

[Leyawiin]

IMO it was counter productive move by that pr guy to deny the roadmap that was obviously not fake...

It was so intricate and contain so much esoteric information that it would be impossible for the layman to construct in 30 minutes with Gimp. Yeah, uh-huh.