Overclocked Phenom II effect: AMD's 1Q'09 market share up to 21%

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: OCguy
Id be interested in how the conclusion was reached that overclocking was the reason they gained marketshare.

by: Theo Valich

It's Theo, which makes it questionable to call it news (at best) to begin with, and more appropriate to call it "speculation of the most optimistic nature" (also at best) and go from there.

While I wouldn't say that overclocking is the reason AMD gained marketshare, there is something of a correlation.

If the CPU overclocks well, the enthusiasts get excited. If the enthusiasts get excited about the chip, they recommend it when friends/associates ask them, "what should I look for in my new computer?"

Look back thru various AT threads, and see the posts that begin with, "I'm building a computer for my friend, the PC will not be overclocked, what CPU should I get?" Almost invariably, someone posts, "get a C2D, it overclocks better".

Here's from EE Times, which paints more of a bad-news/good-news picture:

Report: PC processors poised for growth Inventory burned off as first quarter fell 8.3 percent Rick Merritt EE Times (05/01/2009 8:24 PM EDT) SAN JOSE, Calif. ? PC processor makers have sold off "most of not all" their excess inventory that piled up due to the recession creating "the potential for positive growth" in the next three to six months, according to an upcoming report from Mercury Research (Cave Creek, Az.). PC processor sales declined 8.3 percent in the first three months of the year compared to the last quarter of 2008, said Dean McCarron, principal of Mercury. "The quarter-on-quarter decline is only slightly worse than the average seasonal drop of 7.4 percent," McCarron said. Notebook processors declined "far more" than desktop or server chips in the period. "Without the mobile downturn, the first quarter would have been much stronger than seasonal," he said. AMD gained nearly four percentage points of market share over archrival Intel Corp. in the quarter. However, "the quarter was defined by inventory adjustments, so the statistics do not necessarily reflect the actual state of the market or market share," he added. AMD had 20.9 percent of PC processor sales in the quarter, up from 17 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to Mercury. Intel's share declined from 82.1 percent in the fourth quarter to 78.2 percent in the first three months of 2009.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle
Ruiz resigned last year.

The new CEO must be pretty good. They could be better but I give them a 6.5/10 thus far. They had Ruiz's mess to clean up, unfortunately.

Dirk Meyer was one of the guys who designed the K7 and he is the CEO now.

I Am not sure if that makes him a good CEO as he just took over fairly recently, but so far so good...



Desktops appear to be dead. But I think they will make a comeback. I only have a laptop for the portability at work. I would want a desktop all the time for the larger monitor and keyboard.

People bought laptops because of the portability. Given the choice of 1 computer most people prefered the portability, event hough they lost out on the nicer keyboard or monitor (sure you can buy seperate ones, but a lot of people really dont do that and at that point why not just get a desktop).


That said with netbooks now and how cheap they are you can just buy a netbook AND a desktop. Or a desktop and a really nice smartphone.

So I think given the choice most people would rather buy a desktop and a netbook, than a laptop/notebook that makes a compromise compared to eithe rof the other 2. and seeing as a laptop/notebook costs probably more than a netbook + desktop (of same speed as the laptop) i think desktops might make a comeback.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
There is no way a laptop can be run 24/7@100% load and live long. The people where I work use them a lot, and over 50% of them die in a year, brand new Dell and HP machines.

50% of your coworkers should be fired. I've had an HP (AMD) and Acer (Intel) running 100% folding for 2 years, almost 24/7, and they're still going strong. They're on all the time because they are used as desktop computers.

I'm not even sure how you can break a laptop without dropping it. They don't overclock, they automatically underclock when overheating, and they have built-in UPS.

Id be interested in how the conclusion was reached that overclocking was the reason they gained marketshare.

Newegg.com AMD top sellers
-Phenom 9950 black edition
-Phenom II 940 black edition
-Phenom II 955 black edition

You can also try sorting them by best rating:
-Athlon 6000+ Windsor
-Phenom II 940 black edition
-Phenom 9850 black edition
-Athlon X2 7750 Kuma black edition

Ask yourself who buys AMD processors. I don't think Dell has any AMD systems and I've only seen a couple at Best Buy. AMD's entire market share is in servers and enthusiasts. The server people don't overclock, but enthusiasts do.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Markfw900
There is no way a laptop can be run 24/7@100% load and live long. The people where I work use them a lot, and over 50% of them die in a year, brand new Dell and HP machines.

50% of your coworkers should be fired. I've had an HP (AMD) and Acer (Intel) running 100% folding for 2 years, almost 24/7, and they're still going strong. They're on all the time because they are used as desktop computers.

I'm not even sure how you can break a laptop without dropping it. They don't overclock, they automatically underclock when overheating, and they have built-in UPS.

Id be interested in how the conclusion was reached that overclocking was the reason they gained marketshare.

Newegg.com AMD top sellers
-Phenom 9950 black edition
-Phenom II 940 black edition
-Phenom II 955 black edition

You can also try sorting them by best rating:
-Athlon 6000+ Windsor
-Phenom II 940 black edition
-Phenom 9850 black edition
-Athlon X2 7750 Kuma black edition

Ask yourself who buys AMD processors. I don't think Dell has any AMD systems and I've only seen a couple at Best Buy. AMD's entire market share is in servers and enthusiasts. The server people don't overclock, but enthusiasts do.

These people are financial analyst's, and these are work computers, owned and imaged by the company. The motherboard die, the keyboard die, and on occasion the hard drives die. Why would you fire someone when their hardware dies ? None of these failures are due to physical damage.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Id be interested in how the conclusion was reached that overclocking was the reason they gained marketshare.

Newegg.com AMD top sellers
-Phenom 9950 black edition
-Phenom II 940 black edition
-Phenom II 955 black edition

You can also try sorting them by best rating:
-Athlon 6000+ Windsor
-Phenom II 940 black edition
-Phenom 9850 black edition
-Athlon X2 7750 Kuma black edition

Ask yourself who buys AMD processors. I don't think Dell has any AMD systems and I've only seen a couple at Best Buy. AMD's entire market share is in servers and enthusiasts. The server people don't overclock, but enthusiasts do.

Sorry, that data does not support your conclusion to say the least.

Ive seen estimates of the amount of people who overclock, and it is rather low. To claim that of AMDs 20% marketshare, the non-server users are mostly "enthusiasts" is quite a stretch.

"Black edition" is a marketing moniker, much like Intel's Extreme Editions. You dont need EE Intel chips to reach above and beyond EE speeds. And not all people that purchased the BE chips did it to overclock.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
These people are financial analyst's, and these are work computers, owned and imaged by the company. The motherboard die, the keyboard die, and on occasion the hard drives die. Why would you fire someone when their hardware dies ? None of these failures are due to physical damage.

I just assumed that it's caused by abuse. The only problems I've seen on any laptop are hard drive failure, the screen backlight dies, or the battery stops holding charge. If the computer dies because it was dropped, that's one thing, but something is seriously wrong if hardware failures keep happening time after time.

 

[ShawnD1]

Ive seen estimates of amount of people who overclock, and it is rather low. To claim that of AMDs 20% marketshare, the non-server users are mostly "enthusiasts" is quite a stretch.

Possibly, but can you find even 1 store that sells AMD Phenom II computers? I can't check any US sites since they always forward me to the Canadian site, but I can tell you that Dell does not sell anything with an AMD processor. HP doesn't even say what brand their processors are, so I assume that means Intel. Acer has a lot of the old Phenom but not the Phenom II. Emachines is 100% AMD Sparta/Lima/Brisbane (no Phenom II).

The only place I know of where you can buy a Phenom II is from an online parts store like Newegg or Tiger Direct. Do you think people like your grandma and your uncle shop there? Of course not. People on sites like this shop there, and I would gamble to say that a significant percentage of the people here overclock their computers.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Ive seen estimates of amount of people who overclock, and it is rather low. To claim that of AMDs 20% marketshare, the non-server users are mostly "enthusiasts" is quite a stretch.

Possibly, but can you find even 1 store that sells AMD Phenom II computers? I can't check any US sites since they always forward me to the Canadian site, but I can tell you that Dell does not sell anything with an AMD processor. HP doesn't even say what brand their processors are, so I assume that means Intel. Acer has a lot of the old Phenom but not the Phenom II. Emachines is 100% AMD Sparta/Lima/Brisbane (no Phenom II).

The only place I know of where you can buy a Phenom II is from an online parts store like Newegg or Tiger Direct. Do you think people like your grandma and your uncle shop there? Of course not. People on sites like this shop there, and I would gamble to say that a significant percentage of the people here overclock their computers.

Best Buy sells only the Phenoms, not PhII's. The also have the Athlon 64.

Dell (US) only sells a few Athlon-based PCs, and no Phenoms.

 

[faxon]

Fry's doesnt have a single PH2 based prebuilt system for sale in the computers department. I checked yesterday when I was doing a price/performance comparison vs building a rig yourself from scratch on in store prices. Not only did they not have a single AMD system in anything except old K8 x2s, but the rigs that WERE C2Qs (all our gaming rigs are quads lol) cost like $1500-2500 for something i could build for a grand not including time and labor. On the flip side, i sell about 5 gaming systems a week in components, and right now were selling pretty much PH2s exclusively in that category, and judging by the number of CM V8s we sell (best cooler we stock) i would say everyone buying one is an overclocker. best part is we dont even have the 955 yet. these people are still paying $220 for a 940 in store lol

 

[frostedflakes]

AMD really cannot compete in the laptop market IMO, they need to focus on where they can compete (the desktop arena) instead of spreading themselves too thin. Maybe Fusion will change this, but for now they don't really have any mobile products to compete with Intel.

One thing I don't understand, though, is why they never tried to get into the HTPC market. Maybe not so much now, but for a while a low power dual core + 780G was absolutely fantastic for HTPCs and better than anything Intel offered. Market it as an HTPC platform, tout its benefits, and sell the OEMs on the idea. Just little stuff like this, I never understood why they don't take advantage of these opportunities.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
AMD really cannot compete in the laptop market IMO, they need to focus on where they can compete (the desktop arena) instead of spreading themselves too thin. Maybe Fusion will change this, but for now they don't really have any mobile products to compete with Intel.

One thing I don't understand, though, is why they never tried to get into the HTPC market. Maybe not so much now, but for a while a low power dual core + 780G was absolutely fantastic for HTPCs and better than anything Intel offered. Market it as an HTPC platform, tout its benefits, and sell the OEMs on the idea. Just little stuff like this, I never understood why they don't take advantage of these opportunities.

Are you saying market it as a "DVR in a box, no subscription, records all your TV shows, skips all the commercials"?

I've never seen any advert for anything like that; even a cardboard advert at OfficeMax or Fry's would be pretty effect in my opinion.

 

[frostedflakes]

I just meant market it in the same way that Intel has marketed Centrino for laptops. Give it a cool name and sell it as a platform (CPU + chipset, maybe partner with Realtek or others to include high quality audio chipsets and stuff like that as well) that is ideal for HTPCs (good media capabilities, low power, etc.).

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: frostedflakes
I just meant market it in the same way that Intel has marketed Centrino for laptops. Give it a cool name and sell it as a platform (CPU + chipset, maybe partner with Realtek or others to include high quality audio chipsets and stuff like that as well) that is ideal for HTPCs (good media capabilities, low power, etc.).

They do, kind of; AMD's advertising, in general, leaves much to be desired. AMD is currently using surveys and focus groups in an attempt to ramp it up, though.

 

[richierich1212]

Dell still sells the XPS 625 with the Phenom II 940 option. But with that price you're better off getting a Dell i7 system.

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[cusideabelincoln]

Hey an Athlon XP-M mention. So far the mobile Barton 2400+ has been my favorite chip: Overclocks like a champ (even though I think my motherboard has held it back a tiny bit) and is still running strong today even after four years of continous use.

 

[ShawnD1]

I know Newegg's best seller list doesn't support this, but it seems possible that the surge in AMD motherboard sales is helped by the low cost of overstocked Phenom 1 processors. Just now I picked out parts for a new server computer, and the CPU that felt like the best value (from either company) was the Phenom 9600. It's a quad core that costs the same as the Intel E5400. I picked the cheapest motherboard that had 1000mb ethernet, and it happened to have an AMD 7-series chipset, just like the article mentioned.