Is this the end for AMD?

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Just hang in there till Piednoel retires then your back in with a chance Amd

 

[cbn]

I think the "pie" will continue to grow. However, I will agree that AMD going into SoC is risky. They are behind the curve already, and dont have a lot of resources to throw at the problem.

How much would a chinese ARM SOC design firm cost them?

Maybe they can partner with Lenovo and grow that direction?

P.S. Whether AMD people like ARM or not, couldn't acquiring a small SOC design firm help them in other ways? Maybe some of that skill could in some way transfer over to AMD's x86 integration efforts?

 

[Revolution 11]

I think this has been mentioned before but the numbers may have been skewed that shows the GPU side to be making less profit than it is. Something like R&D of APUs charged to GPUs but profit from APUs not grouped with GPUs. Dont quote me on that but it is something like that I think.

This is worth mentioning again. As for AMD reducing their GPU division, that is a silly decision. AMD's greatest asset (besides their x86 license) is their familiarity in GPUs.

 

[Idontcare]

How much would a chinese ARM SOC design firm cost them?

Answer: Not much. But that's because that's all they are worth.

There's a reason so many other ARM design houses do their work internally. If it was as simple of a matter as nabbing some chinese design firm then thats what everyone would be doing.

 

[cbn]

Answer: Not much. But that's because that's all they are worth.

There's a reason so many other ARM design houses do their work internally. If it was as simple of a matter as nabbing some chinese design firm then thats what everyone would be doing.

I just hope AMD has acquired some kind of SOC expert to begin evaluating all these variables (including SOC related patents) I do not understand.

At the moment I just can't see how AMD can avoid designing SOCs in the future.

 

[Idontcare]

I just hope AMD has acquired some kind of SOC expert to begin evaluating all these variables (including SOC related patents) I do not understand.

At the moment I just can't see how AMD can avoid designing SOCs in the future.

You might be underestimating AMD. They've been designing and fielding SOC's for years, the Geode for example was a SOC.

But you hit on the key - acquiring "experts", as in hiring talent away from their existing employers.

This is why they had the layoffs, to get the cashflow to throw at new employees with the skillset AMD needs. Rremember they said it was necessary so they could hire more people in strategic areas.

 

[Googer]

This is why they had the layoffs, to get the cashflow to throw at new employees with the skillset AMD needs. Rremember they said it was necessary so they could hire more people in strategic areas.

Good engineering, not good marketing sells more product.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Good engineering, not good marketing sells more product.

Very rarely true, with the P4 being a recent example.

 

[apoppin]

Very rarely true, with the P4 being a recent example.

Apple has excellent marketing. Their engineering is nothing special other than it works OK. Are they a anomaly?

i think AMD could really benefit by good good marketing and PR; and not the viral crap that they allowed to be marketed to the tech forums for years.
:whiste:

 

[cotak13]

Apple has excellent marketing. Their engineering is nothing special other than it works OK. Are they a anomaly?

i think AMD could really benefit by good good marketing and PR; and not the viral crap that they allowed to be marketed to the tech forums for years.
:whiste:

Completely different sectors you can't compare a company like apple which sells to the consumer directly vs AMD which sells to people like Apple.

Marketing, sales and the general act of building up a brand is of up most importance when you are selling directly to consumers. Somethings that the rest like HP etc never really understand nor bothered to do. They just compete on price.

For the parts vendors it's much more about if you meet the time, price and features traget of companies like Apple, HP and Dell. That's a different kind of marketing where image is secondary and build up by meeting your obligation rather than showing off fancy ads.

If you take a random person off the street and ask them what computer they'd like more than 90% of the time you'll hear "apple" or "microsoft". They wouldn't say "I want an Intel CPU with Nvidia/AMD graphics".

And as for the "enthusiast" community? Well if everyone's honest they'd spend their own money on the "best" they can get. And how do you find out what's best? On sites like Anand etc.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Apple has excellent marketing. Their engineering is nothing special other than it works OK. Are they a anomaly?

No, I think for the most part, marketing seems to win the day. As you pointed out, Apple is one example but there are others. The P4, for example -- it outsold anything AMD had despite being, for the most part, inferior to the Athlons and Athlon 64s of the time. I can go back farther to the 80s and point to the Amiga as a superior platform that was bungled and mismanaged by an incompetent corporation (Commodore).

 

[formulav8]

1) AMD will completely remove itself from high-end x86 CPU designs,
2) AMD will completely remove itself from high-end GPU designs, and,
3) The savings from #1 and #2 will be redirected to Fusion/Bobcat/low-power devices with a focus on low-power all-in-one CPUs with embedded graphics, and/or possibly a development of a new CPU architecture designed by AMD to compete in smartphones/tablets.

That

See how happy the fancies will be in a couple years when/if AMD is out of the upper mainstream/enthusiest sector.

 

[formulav8]

Good engineering, not good marketing sells more product.

Used to be for sure, but not really so in key markets anymore. Most markets are heavy in compeition these days offering generally similar features, ect. and it is the ones that has the best perception by consumers that wins the day.

 

[cbn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4LCsT96Ikw

The only video I could find searching "Rory Read" and "AMD"

It really does sound like Rory Read wants AMD to be "first to market" in something.

I believe that AMD could completely transform by 2020, but what steps are they going to make over the coming years to ensure this happens?

 

[cbn]

Everywhere I look I see B940 notebook for $300. I cant even see how they make any money on them. After you subtract the cost of the cpu and OS, you only got like $150 to work with. How the heck does $150 buy a chassis, a screen, a battery, a HDD, 3-4GB of RAM, a keyboard, a trackpad, an AC adapter, and $10 worth of packaging? lol

The price of the OS and x86 CPU is one reason I think ARM has an advantage to scale up from mobile.

However, this advantage may lessen somewhat if Vendors have to start charging for copies of Android.

 

[Cerb]

No, I think for the most part, marketing seems to win the day. As you pointed out, Apple is one example but there are others. The P4, for example -- it outsold anything AMD had despite being, for the most part, inferior to the Athlons and Athlon 64s of the time. I can go back farther to the 80s and point to the Amiga as a superior platform that was bungled and mismanaged by an incompetent corporation (Commodore).

AMD could only produce so many CPUs. There were several times during the Athlon, Athlon64, and Athlon64 X2 days, when every one they put out was being snatched up right away. Intel mindshare was a factor, but AMD not being able to prepare for such major success was also quite a factor.

 

[smartpatrol]

AMD could only produce so many CPUs. There were several times during the Athlon, Athlon64, and Athlon64 X2 days, when every one they put out was being snatched up right away. Intel mindshare was a factor, but AMD not being able to prepare for such major success was also quite a factor.

Intel priced their CPUs in such a way that they were effectively paying OEMs like Dell not to use AMD chips. I believe that was the true reason Intel vastly outsold AMD despite having an inferior product.

 

[LiuKangBakinPie]

Can anyone still remember this

AMD's Latest Is a Winner Bigger cache boosts performance of Athlon XP 3000+ processor.

AMD's New Athlon features a 512KB L2 cache.AMD has won its game of "cache up" with Intel. The newest Athlon XP processors, code-named Barton, have double the Level 2 cache of previous models. Our first tests show the results: Barton-based Athlon XP 3000+ systems flew through productivity work, just topping the fastest Pentium 4 systems we've tested. AMD-based PCs also continue to triumph in the pricing contest, often selling for hundreds less than comparably configured P4 computers.
Record Breakers

We tested three high-end PCs carrying the Athlon XP 3000+: Polywell's $2155 Poly 880NF2-3000; Sys Technology's $3153 Sys Performance 3000+; and Falcon Northwest's $3275 Mach V Athlon XP 3000+. All of them had 1GB of 333-MHz DDR memory and a slew of high-end components, including ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card. The Polywell and Falcon machines ran Windows XP Home while the Sys ran Windows XP Professional (a negligible factor in our PC WorldBench 4 tests). Polywell sent a preproduction unit; the other two PCs were shipping models.

The Sys PC raced in with a score of 137 on our benchmark--the fastest result of any system to date. The Polywell checked in at 136; the Falcon, at 134--all insignificant performance differences.

By comparison, the zippiest 3.06-GHz P4 system we've tested, a previously reviewed $2860 Sys unit with 512MB of 1.066-GHz RDRAM, scored 132, just slightly lower than our top-performing Athlon XP 3000+ system.

Three additional 3.06-GHz P4 systems equipped with 1GB of memory that we tested for the January hyperthreading story averaged 121. That means the top Athlon XP PC scored about 13 percent higher, a noticeable difference.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/109580/amds_latest_is_a_winner.html
lol

 

[exar333]

Good engineering, not good marketing sells more product.

I take it you do not work in a business field...

 

[RussianSensation]

Ladies and gents, brace yourselves for the "end of an era" tomorrow. If AMD goes all-in into smartphone/tablets on us, the AMD as "we know it" will be no more

I just hope Rory understands the monumental mountain in front of him of taking on not just Intel but the Qualcomms, Samsungs, TIs of this world, and well ultimately a competitor even more vicious than Intel -> Apple!

 

[cbn]

The irony is that AMD bought ATI to differentiate themselves from Intel.

Unfortunately, With Intel bottlenecking Windows with Poor GPUs for so long there was no reason for MS to aggressively develop their own GPGPU API.

This left Nvidia by itself to innovate with CUDA in order to survive, while AMD was left with OPEN CL as it only hope.

The question is will MS invest more in an easy to use GPGPU API? Or are Intel GPUs still going to be pretty bad at GPGPU for some time to come?

 

[ocre]

The irony is that AMD bought ATI to differentiate themselves from Intel.

Unfortunately, With Intel bottlenecking Windows with Poor GPUs for so long there was no reason for MS to aggressively develop their own GPGPU API.

This left Nvidia by itself to innovate with CUDA in order to survive, while AMD was left with OPEN CL as it only hope.

The question is will MS invest more in an easy to use GPGPU API? Or are Intel GPUs still going to be pretty bad at GPGPU for some time to come?

Yea but nobody on the forums got it. They hated on Nvidia for pushing these things. They claimed Nvidia was wrong for it even.

I find it terribly funny that Semiacurrate is hating on AMD now. They claimed everything Nvidia was doing as all wrong. Wrong design path, bla bla. Now they claim AMD is about to go ARM. Nvidia was blasted by them for this. AMDs new gpu design is going the fermi direction, well wasnt this the complete wrong direction according to them.

I think semi acurrated is shaking in their boots, they about to loss their funding!!! I hate to say it, but i would love to see that crap site go!

Apple has excellent marketing. Their engineering is nothing special other than it works OK. Are they a anomaly?

i think AMD could really benefit by good good marketing and PR; and not the viral crap that they allowed to be marketed to the tech forums for years.
:whiste:

Man it would be sooo nice! Real forums again! woot

 

[ocre]

Completely different sectors you can't compare a company like apple which sells to the consumer directly vs AMD which sells to people like Apple.

Marketing, sales and the general act of building up a brand is of up most importance when you are selling directly to consumers. Somethings that the rest like HP etc never really understand nor bothered to do. They just compete on price.

For the parts vendors it's much more about if you meet the time, price and features traget of companies like Apple, HP and Dell. That's a different kind of marketing where image is secondary and build up by meeting your obligation rather than showing off fancy ads.

If you take a random person off the street and ask them what computer they'd like more than 90% of the time you'll hear "apple" or "microsoft". They wouldn't say "I want an Intel CPU with Nvidia/AMD graphics".


And as for the "enthusiast" community? Well if everyone's honest they'd spend their own money on the "best" they can get. And how do you find out what's best? On sites like Anand etc.

i see you point but cant agree really. They arent like APple but they so sell directly to customers too, more than you realize.

Their GPUs completely go against your point. Their CPUs and motherboards are sold in huge amounts to individuals as well.

 

[cbn]

Yea but nobody on the forums got it. They hated on Nvidia for pushing these things. They claimed Nvidia was wrong for it even.

I wonder if it is too late for AMD (or anyone buying AMD) to do their own proprietary GPGPU API/Implementation for the Radeon GPU?

Is Nvidia reaching a saturation point in their CUDA development? (Thus allowing AMD to close the gap while they are on the fast learning curve)

 

[kazryv]

Hopefully for video cards they can still manage to be relevant, they seem to be ahead of the curve lately.