OEMs make it hard for AMD.

[Mr Evil]

I saw this posted in a comment on Hacker News earlier:

- Head over to dell.com and search for Products->Desktops->For Home (already forced into one choice I don't want to make, Home vs Work)

- Look at the AMD options. Threadripper is listed under processors, so pick that (noting in passing that "AMD Radeon" is somehow also listed as a processor option, and remind yourself this is one of the largest PC retailers in the world not knowing the difference between a CPU and GPU.)

- Get presented with 12 options, none of which are ThreadRipper machines.

- Notice the box at top right that says "Sort By" is set to "Lowest Price". Change it to sort by "Relevance". Finally a ThreadRipper model shows up - but only in 2nd place after an Intel system (!)

No wonder AMD never seem to gain the market share they deserve during the times they have better processors. I verified myself that it really is this awful, but only if I set the location to United States; if set it to United Kingdom then I see actual ThreadRipper systems at the top.

 

[Tryad]

Yikes....

I wonder how they go about addressing this. Part of me feels like its the vendors responsibility. But if the vendor doesn't care enough, perhaps some of the responsibility is with the people at AMD to reach out and get stuff like this addressed.

 

[Panino Manino]

Practically none of the AMD options work.

 

[UsandThem]

Practically none of the AMD options work.

Please elaborate........

 

[Rifter]

So intel is probably bribing dell again, is anyone surprised?

 

[Markfw]

Please elaborate........

I tried it, yea, messed up. I click threadripper, and first real quick I see a 1 close to that like its selected, then the screen clears, and most of the PC;'s have Intel processors, or the ancient A<D (bad) ones. Then I click Ryzen, and the same thing happens.

And not one Ryzen or threadripper in the list. The AMD cpu's (what little there are ) are A5 something or A6 something.

Its definitely messed up.

 

[coercitiv]

Please elaborate........

Filters don't work properly for the AMD products. I wouldn't read much into it, it's probably a bug.

 

[Arkaign]

It's bad. To be fair, the Dell website overall is an absolute trash fire. The best way to get in to what you want is to literally Google in using specific terms after some research.

For example, 'dell Alienware threadripper' gets you to the right page.

Same with 'dell Ryzen Inspiron'

I'm struggling to think of a worse major company website.

 

[Markfw]

The help has no options, as AVA is automated and does not allow questions or feedback, and the "ask a live rep" only has options for buying or tech support wants your dell model number.

 

[Sgt. York]

To be fair, the average person going to the Dell site to buy a computer is probably more familiar with the name Intel than they are AMD or Threadripper.

 

[Arkaign]

To be fair, the average person going to the Dell site to buy a computer is probably more familiar with the name Intel than they are AMD or Threadripper.

Even if you want an Intel PC, the Dell site is a catastrophe in terms of finding and sorting through the options. There are things I can only find by googling into them rather than their Edited UI and hall of mirrors layout.

I think they need to burn their website to the ground and start over.

C'mon man, you know you're not supposed to use 4 letter words here.

AT Moderator ElFenix

 

[LikeLinus]

I now have (2) AMD set-ups in my house and I'm VERY happy with them. But I've raised this problem in another thread and basically got trashed for the opinion. Intel owns 90%+ of the market share. We here on the forums realize that AMD is churning out some great CPUs, but the issue is Intel owns the market. I hate to use car analogy, but It's like saying Hyundai is going to take over the market in a year because they offer a decent car with 100k warranty. No one wants to buy a Kia!!!!! Even if they match a Honda/Toyota/whatever. It takes years to actually establish a name and 1-2 years of good CPUS doesn't matter.

I totally realize that AMD has good CPUs on their hands, but be realistic, Intel owns the market and the mass general public knows the brand name. They also don't understand 7nm vs 14nm.

Don't get me wrong. I have a 2700x and 2600x (thanks mark!) in my homelab and son's computer. But I understand how marketing works and these chips aren't even on the market yet.

That said, I'm glad to see the 3000 series and will be buying one to play with. Yes, my wife thinks I'm crazy for having a 42U rack with all this crap, lol.

 

[sandorski]

Filters don't work properly for the AMD products. I wouldn't read much into it, it's probably a bug.

Probably part of the Security Patches running on Dell's Intel based Servers...

 

[Khato]

Filters don't work properly for the AMD products. I wouldn't read much into it, it's probably a bug.

Doesn't take too longer to test each of the Processor options. Only Intel Pentium, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 work. The 8th Gen Intel Core and Intel Core i9 options show the same non-functional behavior as the AMD options.

 

[moinmoin]

I honestly believe AMD doesn't care that much about gross cases like Dell. OEMs are naturally slow to move. But at the speed AMD introduces more cores and better performance where Intel stagnates the demand for its products will increase. OEMs not willing to fulfill said demand will more and more lose out to competitors that actually do.

For AMD itself the datacenter market is by far the most important, and there they already have good working partnerships with essentially all cloud service providers. And to expand the audience, in the last quarter conference call Su mentioned that they are in progress tof expanding their in-house sales force to contact all Fortune 500 companies directly, circumventing OEM/ODMs.

So yes, OEMs appear to behave illogical considering the market changes. But in the end it will be their own loss.

 

[chrisjames61]

And to think Dell actually pioneered the process of selling direct to the consumer via the internet. Shows you how companies just eventually get so big and everything just goes down the toilet.

 

[Shmee]

I would attribute that to incompetence rather than malice on the part of dell.

 

[Mockingbird]

I think the reason that OEMs are slow to adopt AMD (at least for the dektop) is that AMD only has a few processors that has integrated GPUs and they are all low end.

 

[lobz]

To be fair, the average person going to the Dell site to buy a computer is probably more familiar with the name Intel than they are AMD or Threadripper.

to be even fairer, if it stays the same after Ryzen 3000 goes to sale, it probably is going to be Dell's loss, not AMD's

 

[beginner99]

I would attribute that to incompetence rather than malice on the part of dell.

Yeah and let's be honest: dell, hp and the likes make their money by selling overpriced "business" models to companies and not from average Joe visiting their page.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Probably part of the Security Patches running on Dell's Intel based Servers...

That's some fine security they've got there. Keeps out that AMD virus.

If Dell wants to lose business then fine. Eventually people in business cases will notice AMD hardware going up in the server room and start asking questions about why they are still getting Intel hardware, especially when they haven't been able to get many major increases in performance or features in months/years via upgrades. I feel pretty bad for anyone trying to navigate Intel's bizarre minefield of mobile CPU options.

 

[LTC8K6]

Has anyone asked Dell what's going on?

Or would that generate laughter?

 

[B-Riz]

I now have (2) AMD set-ups in my house and I'm VERY happy with them. But I've raised this problem in another thread and basically got trashed for the opinion. Intel owns 90%+ of the market share. We here on the forums realize that AMD is churning out some great CPUs, but the issue is Intel owns the market. I hate to use car analogy, but It's like saying Hyundai is going to take over the market in a year because they offer a decent car with 100k warranty. No one wants to buy a Kia!!!!! Even if they match a Honda/Toyota/whatever. It takes years to actually establish a name and 1-2 years of good CPUS doesn't matter.

I totally realize that AMD has good CPUs on their hands, but be realistic, Intel owns the market and the mass general public knows the brand name. They also don't understand 7nm vs 14nm.

Don't get me wrong. I have a 2700x and 2600x (thanks mark!) in my homelab and son's computer. But I understand how marketing works and these chips aren't even on the market yet.

That said, I'm glad to see the 3000 series and will be buying one to play with. Yes, my wife thinks I'm crazy for having a 42U rack with all this crap, lol.

My co-worker, who is not enthusiastic like us, but still into tech, is going to get a Zen2 workstation for home use based on my recommendation.

Not a PC gamer, but does a lot of other things, VM stuff, where AMD is such a great value.

 

[B-Riz]

And to think Dell actually pioneered the process of selling direct to the consumer via the internet. Shows you how companies just eventually get so big and everything just goes down the toilet.

Lol, can we resurrect Gateway with the cow print boxes, but with fair prices and a good website?

 

[jpiniero]

I honestly believe AMD doesn't care that much about gross cases like Dell. OEMs are naturally slow to move. But at the speed AMD introduces more cores and better performance where Intel stagnates the demand for its products will increase. OEMs not willing to fulfill said demand will more and more lose out to competitors that actually do.

You overestimate how much companies care. Hell, even Smeltdown didn't seem to have much of an effect on Intel's client sales; only really the shortage. And it's going to be tough to compel them to switch on just more cores when most of the workloads is not much more than Office and Chrome.

The Cloud is another story, and that's why AMD is focusing their efforts there.