mind share can translate to marketshare; AMD gains x86 marketshare

[monstercameron]

Game consoles helped Advanced Micro Devices pick up market share in x86 processors during the first quarter of this year, while rival Intel’s share dipped slightly.
AMD’s x86 processor market share was 16.9 percent, growing from 14.3 percent in the same quarter last year, according to a study by Mercury Research. Intel’s market share dipped to 82.8 percent from 85.2 percent in last year’s first quarter.

SOURCE: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2148620/game-consoles-spur-amds-x86-processor-market-share.html

 

[Centauri]

I'm really curious to see what AMD is going to be able to accomplish with Bulldozer over the next couple of years as they gain access to Samsung/GF's 14nm tech. Not to mention what it may mean for their ARM offerings.

 

[Nanophys]

Umm, I may be totally off base on this one, but doesn't this quote:

AMD x86 chips bought by Microsoft and Sony for use in their hot-selling game consoles accounted for 4 percent of AMD’s market share

Indicate that their laptop/desktop/mobile efforts actually lost market share to Intel? Of course there is the confounding effect that Intel is expanding into mobile so you can't immediate make comparisons just on laptop and desktop (and Intel is really expanding into the x86 tablet market which has essentially heretofore been non-existant), but it seems to me like given the above quote that excluding consoles (which have nothing to do with mindshare=marketshare) they're becoming more marginalized in other segments. I don't have the numbers that would allow for an apples to apples comparison.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Umm, I may be totally off base on this one, but doesn't this quote:



Indicate that their laptop/desktop/mobile efforts actually lost market share to Intel? Of course there is the confounding effect that Intel is expanding into mobile so you can't immediate make comparisons just on laptop and desktop, but it seems to me like given the above quote that excluding consoles (which have nothing to do with mindshare=marketshare) they're becoming more marginalized in other segments.

Correct. AMD is still in freefall in the PC segment. And they may be below 10% PC share before year end.

 

[Lepton87]

I'm really curious to see what AMD is going to be able to accomplish with Bulldozer over the next couple of years as they gain access to Samsung/GF's 14nm tech. Not to mention what it may mean for their ARM offerings.

Unfortunately Bulldozer isn't as efficient an architecture as is needed given AMD's significant disadvantage in access to cutting-edge process nodes. If you want to compete with a CPU build on a better process you need a better architecture not worse. Sadly I feel that AMD big core CPUs are done for Why wouldn't they announce the successor to Excavator if it weren't the case? I think they have pretty much given up on Bulldozer and are betting the farm on the Cat family and what's puzzling to me generic ARM solutions.

 

[Yuriman]

Unfortunately Bulldozer isn't as efficient an architecture as is needed given AMD's significant disadvantage in access to cutting-edge process nodes. If you want to compete with a CPU build on a better process you need a better architecture not worse. Sadly I feel that AMD big core CPUs are done for Why wouldn't they announce the successor to Excavator if it weren't the case? I think they have pretty much given up on Bulldozer and are betting the farm on the Cat family and what's puzzling to me generic ARM solutions.

Generic ARM solutions cost next to nothing to design... because they're basically already designed. Doesn't take much of an R&D budget to pair an off-the-shelf ARM design with a proprietary GPU and interconnect.

AMD is betting on HSA.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Correct. AMD is still in freefall in the PC segment. And they may be below 10% PC share before year end.

Yea, I agree. If you subtract the 4 percent from the console chips, which even AMD counts in the graphics segment I believe, they are like 2% down from last year.

Even then with all the hoopla about the console wins, they account for only 4% of the PC market, so basically a drop in the bucket, and a low margin one at that.

 

[monstercameron]

Unfortunately Bulldozer isn't as efficient an architecture as is needed given AMD's significant disadvantage in access to cutting-edge process nodes. If you want to compete with a CPU build on a better process you need a better architecture not worse. Sadly I feel that AMD big core CPUs are done for Why wouldn't they announce the successor to Excavator if it weren't the case? I think they have pretty much given up on Bulldozer and are betting the farm on the Cat family and what's puzzling to me generic ARM solutions.

A solution to the efficiency would be a smaller process node and also the fx chips are competitive, I don't know why so many decry its performance, when it performs well with optimized/multithreaded software.

Also steamroller has been improved, so a 4 module steamroller based fx with high enough clocks would be even better at 14nm.

 

[Nanophys]

Yea, I agree. If you subtract the 4 percent from the console chips, which even AMD counts in the graphics segment I believe, they are like 2% down from last year.

Even then with all the hoopla about the console wins, they account for only 4% of the PC market, so basically a drop in the bucket, and a low margin one at that.

4% definitely isn't a drop in the bucket because of how bit the bucket is. This is important for AMD, as even if it is low margin it can allow the R&D cost of chip design to be spread over more chips, improving the financials of the entire company. It's a wonderful shot in the arm for them, but they still need to execute in the rest of their segments.

 

[piesquared]

Nice. So as consoles continue to grow, and new products hit the market, AMD's x86 market share continues to go up. That's good news!

 

[Leyawiin]

Correct. AMD is still in freefall in the PC segment. And they may be below 10% PC share before year end.

Market share is market share regardless of the vehicle its delivered by. BTW, think your crystal ball is a little cracked.

 

[frozentundra123456]

A solution to the efficiency would be a smaller process node and also the fx chips are competitive, I don't know why so many decry its performance, when it performs well with optimized/multithreaded software.

Also steamroller has been improved, so a 4 module steamroller based fx with high enough clocks would be even better at 14nm.

You said it yourself. It is a very unbalanced chip. Competitive in multithreaded, but very uncompetitive in lightly threaded and single threaded tasks, which, despite what AMD supporters wish for, is still a very important metric. All the while using more power.

As to what will come at 14nm, who knows what or when we will see it. I dont think there is even a 14nm FX officially on the AMD roadmap.

 

[Jovec]

The competitiveness of the FX line is misleading because Intel and AMD aren't competing in the same race.

 

[DominionSeraph]

Market share is market share regardless of the vehicle its delivered by.

No it isn't. If you started putting 8088's in alarm clocks and car ECUs you'd have an explosion in the x86 market, but the fact they're x86 wouldn't mean anything.
Check your fanboyism: If AMD were to go on to win the PS5 and Xbox... er... Two, but with ARM designs, would you count that sudden loss in x86 market share as being relevant?

Consoles are their own ecosystem.

 

[Sweepr]

Umm, I may be totally off base on this one, but doesn't this quote:

Indicate that their laptop/desktop/mobile efforts actually lost market share to Intel?

Ouch, so much for the fanboy title. I wonder what are the real numbers without consoles included.

 

[monstercameron]

Ouch, so much for the fanboy title. I wonder what are the real numbers without consoles included.

I don't see how this is a "fanboy" title [that is what the ; is for] but anyway, I was under the impression that apus were counted under the graphics division.

 

[PPB]

No it isn't. If you started putting 8088's in alarm clocks and car ECUs you'd have an explosion in the x86 market, but the fact they're x86 wouldn't mean anything.
Check your fanboyism: If AMD were to go on to win the PS5 and Xbox... er... Two, but with ARM designs, would you count that sudden loss in x86 market share as being relevant?

Consoles are their own ecosystem.

Saving this quote for when Intel starts shipping their Quark/Edison SKUs.... if they come to ship then to anything at all really :whiste:

So now consoles cant count into marketshare, any other dubious "rule" the blue folks wanna add while we are at it?

 

[mrmt]

I don't see how this is a "fanboy" title [that is what the ; is for] but anyway, I was under the impression that apus were counted under the graphics division.

Yes, you are correct. Console sales are accrued in the GPU division.

If you purge the console sales, the drop they experienced in their CPU division (around 10%) is close to what you'll verify if you compare Q113 CPU sales (751MM) to Q114 (663MM). Those two percent in revenue should be caused by a slightly reduction in ASP, and changes in the product mix (they are selling more Kabini and APU than Visheras).

If anything, the title of the thread is wrong. Mind share isn't making AMD to gain market share on the x86 market. If anything, this might even backfire on AMD. This is the smallest generational leap in console history.

 

[OCGuy]

So they are counting the consoles? Oh man....

I'm not following the "mindshare" comment OP...help me out.

 

[AtenRa]

So they are counting the consoles? Oh man....

Total x86 market share means all x86, including Tablets, Smart phones, Embedded and Consoles.

 

[OCGuy]

Total x86 market share means all x86, including Tablets, Smart phones, Embedded and Consoles.

The data isn't the problem, it is the analysis. Both that PC World blog post and the OP seem to be drawing conclusions that are questionable.

 

[AtenRa]

The data isn't the problem, it is the analysis. Both that PC World blog post and the OP seem to be drawing conclusions that are questionable.

The OP only quoted the actual data, he didnt even made a commend.

Game consoles helped Advanced Micro Devices pick up market share in x86 processors during the first quarter of this year, while rival Intel’s share dipped slightly.
AMD’s x86 processor market share was 16.9 percent, growing from 14.3 percent in the same quarter last year, according to a study by Mercury Research. Intel’s market share dipped to 82.8 percent from 85.2 percent in last year’s first quarter.

On the other hand, you and others discarded the actual data.
The fact remains that AMD gained x86 market share with the help of the console sales, something that Intel didnt managed even with 5 millions Tablet sales.
And if AMD lost desktop/laptop market share, Intel suffered loses as well because even 5million tablet sales didnt help them retain their market share.
So why people react negatively only for AMD when in fact they raised their x86 market share but on the other side Intel lost market share??

 

[OCGuy]

The OP only quoted the actual data, he didnt even made a commend.

On the other hand, you and others discarded the actual data.
The fact remains that AMD gained x86 market share with the help of the console sales, something that Intel didnt managed even with 5 millions Tablet sales.
And if AMD lost desktop/laptop market share, Intel suffered loses as well because even 5million tablet sales didnt help them retain their market share.
So why people react negatively only for AMD when in fact they raised their x86 market share but on the other side Intel lost market share??

Intel didn't lose anything, since they aren't competing in the particular segment of x86 sales that watered down the statistics.

 

[AtenRa]

Intel didn't lose anything, since they aren't competing in the particular segment of x86 sales that watered down the statistics.

They lost total x86 market share,
Also, their Q1 2014 PC Client group Revenue declined Q to Q and YoY. PC market volume is decreasing Year over Year and both Intel and AMD suffers from that, it's not a secret. It is the very reason Intel is trying to force it self in the Mobile market after all.

 

[SPBHM]

the last thing I want to see is AMD in worse shape than they are right now, so consoles giving them some good news is great, like many I thought it was almost certain that consoles would not use x86 at some point,

but GPU and consoles excluded, you look at what they are offering and it's pretty sad, where is Opteron? AM3+ is frozen and hard to justify, Fm2+ (Kaveri) is not a good product because of pricing, availability and performance (not enough over Richland, also 128bit DDR3 is a bottleneck, OpenCL relevance is low), and about Kabini, I'm not sure if Kabini is going to have a much bigger impact compared to the old Bobcat things, let's wait and see.