Poor AMD

[Wingznut]

"MHz ratings for the past few years have been over-rated anyways. Benchmarks are the only true guides of speed any more..."

But Joe-Average consumer doesn't look at benchmarks. He looks at price, mhz, and brand recognition. That fact cannot be argued with.


erub... I'm a Fab Technician, one of the guys in the bunny suits. I work in Photolithography, to be more specific.

 

[Modus]

AMD isn't stupid. Why should they treat themselves like fodder and try to compete clock-for-clock with the P4? It won't be possible, not even for Palomino. Intel's P4 is as much a step forward for CPU marketing as it for CPU engineering. It will be a major coup for Intel when their 2.0 GHz P4 goes up against a (faster and cheaper) 1.6 GHz Palomino. The mass of igornant Dell and Compaq buyers will gobble up promises of record setting performance and "better Internet experiences", while completely igonoring the fact that AMD, as always, offers a faster and cheaper product.

AMD is not trying to compete clock-for-clock because they know it's a lost cause with any Athlon core. They will have to remold their entire marketing plan around the idea of educating people about the true performance of high MHz Pentium 4 parts in relation to the Athlon. Failing that, they will have to adopt the dreaded PR-rating system, whereby a 1.2 GHz Thunderbird133 would be re-labled Athlon PR1.5. This has historically backfired for others such as Cyrix, as consumers are wary of anything that glosses over true technical specifications.

I propose a solution: rename the Pentium4 1.5 GHz to the Pentium4 PR 1.2

Modus

 

[Wingznut]

So you agree that average consumers purchase based on mhz...

So, if AMD could release a faster cpu, then what possible advantage would they have not to? If it's true that they could ship 1.6ghz cpus today, then that would be such a coup for them. Have a faster mhz PC, with faster benchmarks, at a lower price. Consumers would jump all over that! I can't think of a possible reason they'd delay something like that, by choice, like they are saying.

And I completely agree... AMD is not stupid.

 

[Remnant2]

On reflection, I would say that yields probably aren't all that bad on the top end parts. Why? Because of the HUGE availability of 1.2ghz parts.

I just did a quick pricewatch comparison. There are 9 pages of Tbird 1.2s, more than any of the other Athlon processors. They are also priced dirt cheaply. Taken together, I can only see that this means that yields and binsplits must be very good. Taking the # of pages of price entries as the frequency distribution, this is implying that the peak of the curve is right at 1.2ghz, which implies that there should be a considerable number of processors yielding above this, that aren't in the market yet. Sure enough, there are already 2 pages of 1.3ghz processors listed, and the part hasn't even been announced yet!

Of course, the power consumpution/heat issues might skew the curve a bit, at 1.3ghz+, my hunch is that at those speeds the Tbird won't be a neat OEM solution, as they prefer to use rather basic HS+fan combos that likely won't meet the thermal requirements.

Palomino is the wildcard here. Rumors have been all over the map, from only slight power reduction, to significant IPC and freqmax increases, plus lower power requirements. Only time will sort out what's true, I guess..

 

[geeman]

what's the difference, raising the current athlon to 1.4 or 1.5 ghz, would have little impact on system performance. I think releasing a palomino at 1.4 or 1.5 ghz, will be better since it will reduce power consumption and heat and quiet down the athlon system. After all most system performance today is vid card limited.

 

[Degenerate]

<< AMD isn't stupid. Why should they treat themselves like fodder and try to compete clock-for-clock with the P4? It won't be possible, not even for Palomino. Intel's P4 is as much a step forward for CPU marketing as it for CPU engineering. It will be a major coup for Intel when their 2.0 GHz P4 goes up against a (faster and cheaper) 1.6 GHz Palomino. The mass of igornant Dell and Compaq buyers will gobble up promises of record setting performance and &quot;better Internet experiences&quot;, while completely igonoring the fact that AMD, as always, offers a faster and cheaper product. >>




Compaq is already using AMD CPU's

 

[han888]

and again, amd is not stupid, if they really can make a smp cpu or release the 1.6ghz cpu, they should release it as soon as possible to against the p4! why they must delay? there is not a good reason if u say because of the 1.2ghz amd can beat the p4 or bla bla, may be the late of amd technology cause it!


===============================
&quot;i am not speaking for intel corp&quot;

 

[sandorski]

Lol! Ok peeps, AMD will/can do whatever it wants, just because you disagree don't mean a thing.

Recession may not be here, but we couldn't possibly get closer without being in one. This is why things are slowing down in the cpu race. Why release a higher bin when the current cpu's may stop selling for economic reasons? Bragging rights? That doesn't make a lot of sense, besides AMD can take this time to tie up a few loose ends such as 266 cpu availability, MP chipsets, getting Palamino to production, and what not. AMD probably could release higher speeds on the current core, but the last thing they need is to push it too far like Intel did with the PIII.

 

[han888]

Why release a higher bin when the current cpu's may stop selling for economic reasons?

sandosrki, do u finish your degree yet? or you are still high school student ?

 

[blaster31]

Han888 said:

<< and again, amd is not stupid, if they really can make a smp cpu or release the 1.6ghz cpu, they >>



Heres a perspective on why this might be the case.
-----------------------
With little new coming out of Intel recently, all eyes seem to be focused on AMD. Much has been speculated about the delays of the Palomino, and what is might mean. AMD insists that there are no design or manufacturing issues, and if one can take that at face value there seems to only be one possible explanation left. This would be that AMD is controlling the pace of new introductions, and it is in their best interests to keep the pace much slower than it has been the past several years.

It also appears that AMD is feeling much more comfortable about their
dominance of the desktop space, and has decided to focus more of their
efforts on the mobile market. This would explain why the mobile Palomino and Morgan processors will appear before the desktop versions. In fact, I would not be surprised to see a new AMD roadmap in the near future that reflects this mentality. Though the high-end server market provides a nice profit margin, the volume is relatively small, and it appears that AMD is being patient and methodical. If they can break into the mobile market in a significant way, there is much less pressure to do well immediately in the tough and conservative server market.

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT032001040406

This is from Dean Kent's March Industry Update.

 

[ragiepew]

No offense to anyone here on this board but all those stating that AMD has no reason NOT to release faster tbirds are failing to see their reason. Its not all about having the fastest (MHz) chip out, sure consumers look at that, but if AMD can already sell all the Athlons (at whatever MHz) they can make, why dilute (sp?) the market and bring out faster chips. Doing that would decrease sales of their lower clocked and also tempt Intel to release a faster chips. AMD knows that Intel can (and will release) a faster chip and they know that they CANNOT keep up in MHz, so why start a speed war!?. All of you are saying that the consumer buys on MHz... if they start a MHz war again w/ Intel, they may get themselves in a bigger hole then they are now. I think the assumption of them slowing down to perfect their processes and/or concentrate on the mobile market is a good one... there are higher profits there. Another thing they may be trying to do is not speed up intel... but instead slow them down from releasing faster chips in order to kill time until Hammer debuts. They have already stated Hammer will debut @ 2GHz (or faster) and that will be their competition for p4 (and Itanium).

Anyway, those are just my opinions, but you have to realize... those execs at AMD (and at Intel) are some smart guys... they dont make millions of dollars by making dumb decision... and most likely they know more about the market than any one of us due.

 

[murdock2525]

In all reality why would they make anything faster for the public anyway ? Other than gamers very little of the computing world has anything faster than 700-800-- and a hell of a bunch are still running P111's at 450- 550 or so. Until software really NEEDS that kind of processing power it would be a waste of time to rush the production of this stuff for a couple hundred thousand hotrodders.
I foressee a smaller company, or division to keep the hotrodders happy. It'll be eons before offices are generally sitting on 1.5+gig machines.

 

[Soccerman]

ragiepew

well said, I totally agree, AMD has looked into the future that they see. if they release this, Intel will release this, and the profits will be lower.

the people on these boards simply want AMD to release the Palomino, a faster fsb/memory (200/200 baby!) and get going while they have money!

the people at AMD simply look at it from the greedy green point of view. you have two options, less money for R&amp;D (which is especially important when there are idiots announcing problems with the economy when there really weren't any, thus they cause the very problem they announce), but more customer loyalty (in this industry, the people on these forums DO make an impact on the general public), or more money, and losing some face to the crowd asking for more.

 

[Vrangel]

<< there are idiots announcing problems with the economy when there really weren't any, >>


How about changing your icon from penguin to an ostrich.

 

[sandorski]

Han: Huh?

 

[jeffrey]

this is the article that started the thread. i root for amd, even though i use a pIII. just wanted amd to keep it up from last year, but i guess no tech company is holding up too well

Text

 

[NOS440]

Boy was that a eye full.

 

[Rectalfier]

More Like Poor Intel:

&quot;AMD's president Hector Ruiz recently said that AMD doesn't feel particularly pushed to release the next speed grade Athlon processor, because the current flagship at 1.2 GHz was well able to compete against Intel's Pentium 4 at 1.5 GHz. Some very smart people concluded that in reality AMD's upcoming Athlon 1300/1333 was not ready for launch. I can only say that I happen to know extremely well when AMD started shipping Athlon 1333 samples to 1st tier reviewers. Be assured that Athlon 1333 is reality for well over a month. Right now there doesn't seem the slightest problem to produce even faster Athlon or Duron processors. I suggest that those doubters stop warming up old stories and start doing their homework instead. If I try hard to remember stories of processors unfit for release it's not AMD that comes to my mind.

From an engineering standpoint, Athlon 1.3 GHz is 'simply' a refined version of the previous Athlon processors with 'Thunderbird' core. No major features have been added and the manufacturing process has not been changed either. The newly released Athlon is still a 'Thunderbird'.&quot;

Link

AMD may or may not be able to supply 1.6Ghz now, but they could have easily supplied 1.33Ghz over a month ago according to Tom.

 

[han888]

&quot;AMD's president Hector Ruiz recently said that AMD doesn't feel particularly pushed to release the next speed grade Athlon processor, because the current flagship at 1.2 GHz was well able to compete against Intel's Pentium 4 at 1.5 GHz hehehehehe, oh...... nooooooo, /me ask to amd's president &quot; have u finish your degree?&quot; what degree?

just thinking if amd can release the 1.5ghz cpu and beat p4-1.5ghz, of course people will go to amd 1.5ghz cpu because of the cheaper prices and performance, we need a new technology man, dont want to stuck into old technology! it's make more better if amd's president said &quot; sorry, we can not make the 1.6ghz cpu &quot; rather than &quot;because the current flagship at 1.2 GHz was well able to compete against Intel's Pentium 4 at 1.5 GHz&quot;

 

[Degenerate]

People, generally go buy computers with higher mhz. that is the normal everyday people who dont come up to these forums. So why don't amd pang down the 1.6 if you say they have one?? beacuse they weel know that Intel will bang down their 1.7 and 2.0. note that this P4, well the 0.13 is here to stay a and reach 10ghz. Amd knows well that Intel can bang down a chip at any speed. with Amd's 1.3 today, intel will be likely to release the 1.7 very rapidly.

And alsong as Intels adds remain, there will control much of the market. (apart from the critisisms of the p4)

 

[Degenerate]

oh i also saw that palomios may be comeing much later that june july from anandtech's 1.4ghz article.

Go intel, slap em hard and fry them with their &quot;hot&quot; 1.3

 

[Degenerate]

From cNET:





<< At the same time, AMD has slightly delayed other products to suit market conditions and its own internal strategic plans. A desktop version of Palomino, an enhanced version of Athlon that will run faster, will now come out in the third quarter. Morgan, a similarly enhanced version of the budget Duron processor, also has been delayed until the third quarter. Originally, both chips were due in the fourth quarter of 2000, later pushed back to the first half of this year. confirmed earlier reports that Palomino-based notebooks won't emerge until the second quarter, rather than this month. AMD executives said the chipmaker chose to push back the desktop chips so that the company can first focus its efforts on bringing the chips to market in notebooks as well as workstations and servers. >>



There we go.[L=]http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-5211175.html?tag=mn_hd[/L]

 

[Smbu]

&quot;just thinking if amd can release the 1.5ghz cpu and beat p4-1.5ghz, of course people will go to amd 1.5ghz cpu because of the cheaper prices and performance&quot;

If AMD did that then Intel could easily ramp up the top speed grade of the P4 to 1.6, or 1.7ghz area and retake the fastest mhz crown.

 

[TravisBickle]

just go over to www.electic.com to see how AMD is killing Intel in the eyes of the hardware enthusiast community

edit: think this links works now!

 

[Soccerman]

it's been mentioned that Palomino has been delayed monstrously.

there are two problems here. AMD needs palomino to achieve low power usage for the portable market, so either this update isn't good enough to get down to acceptable levels, or they don't have the palomino ready.

I'm inclined to believe it is the former.

though if AMD delays the Palomino that much, we might not even SEE a Palomino, but rather a Thoroughbred in it's place?

why do I personally want a Palomino? well simply so that I can overclock it to much higher levels, without worrying about heat. Though a Thoroughbred would be a beautiful thing rather then the Palomino! couple that with a .13 micron die shrink, and we got at least 'some' competition for the P4.