S/A: AMD kills Kaveri, Steamroller, Excavator

[NTMBK]

Well, there goes the neighbourhood.

UPDATE: AMD have contacted S/A denying the story, and S/A have posted a retraction. Don't panic.

 

[ViRGE]

Frick.

This is one of those occasions I hope Charlie is wrong. But his AMD sources are usually good.

 

[inf64]

Killing off Kaveri makes zero sense. The design has been finished for some time and should be bread and butter in desktop business. Or AMD forgot that 50% of shipments they made last year was desktop? For EX core it might make sense but for SR core which was already finished and burned a lot of money (development,debugging,verification) it just makes no sense at all.

 

[NTMBK]

The only hope I have for AMD right now is that they might pull a Pentium M with Jaguar. Push their low power netbook/laptop core design into something powerful enough for a desktop.

 

[onething]

Well.... [frick].

No profanity in the tech forums
-ViRGE

 

[boxleitnerb]

Wait...what about x86? What about the desktop?

 

[mrmt]

Killing off Kaveri makes zero sense. The design has been finished for some time and should be bread and butter in desktop business. Or AMD forgot that 50% of shipments they made last year was desktop? For EX core it might make sense but for SR core which was already finished and burned a lot of money (development,debugging,verification) it just makes no sense at all.

It does. After reviewing their Q3 numbers I could not see this going any longer.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

The only hope I have for AMD right now is that they might pull a Pentium M with Jaguar. Push their low power netbook/laptop core design into something powerful enough for a desktop.

You know, that might not be a bad idea. Considering our Core ix's are advanced derivatives of the old mobile Banias/Dothan Pentium-M, AMD -could- pull something useful out of the Jaguar core + GCN-graphics. It actually makes sense to kill the "faildozer"-architecture now, rather then being shackled to it for the foreseeable future...

And if this means they got rid of the engineers responsible for the Bulldozer fiasco, are we really that much worse off...

Question is: Does AMD have the financials to survive until Jaguar is released...?

my 2c...

 

[lifeblood]

Well, this does answer the question as to whether Steamroller was going to be on AM3+ or not...

 

[Pilum]

Killing off Kaveri makes zero sense. The design has been finished for some time and should be bread and butter in desktop business. Or AMD forgot that 50% of shipments they made last year was desktop? For EX core it might make sense but for SR core which was already finished and burned a lot of money (development,debugging,verification) it just makes no sense at all.

Did it really pass final validation, or would more resources be needed to make it work? And how good would the yields be? How much profit could AMD expect to make while competing against HSW? Without answers to those questions we can't judge whether the decision makes sense or not.

 

[nehalem256]

The only hope I have for AMD right now is that they might pull a Pentium M with Jaguar. Push their low power netbook/laptop core design into something powerful enough for a desktop.

This seems unlikely. The Pentium M was in the same ballpark as Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 performance wise. There were even motherboards that allowed you to use it for desktop.

No one thinks about using a Bobcat to replace a Bulldozer nowadays.

And if you look at the core on a simplistic level it looks like half a bulldozer module that can only clock half as high.

 

[boxleitnerb]

We should keep in mind that this doesn't mean there won't be future CPUs and APUs on the desktop from AMD. Just not Steamroller, Excavator... based ones. Piledriver is still here and can be shrinked and improved with much less resources than it would take developing and taping out new designs.

 

[NTMBK]

This seems unlikely. The Pentium M was in the same ballpark as Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 performance wise. There were even motherboards that allowed you to use it for desktop.

No one thinks about using a Bobcat to replace a Bulldozer nowadays.

And if you look at the core on a simplistic level it looks like half a bulldozer module that can only clock half as high.

No, it's not likely. But we'll have to wait and see how Jaguar does.

As an aside, it's a real shame Microsoft crippled the Netbook market. Windows 7 Starter was bloody awful. 2GB RAM limit, no 64 bit version, disabling Aero (which meant disabling GPU acceleration). Bobcat's not a bad little chip when you run fully fledged Windows 7 with a decent amount of RAM on it.

 

[mrmt]

We should keep in mind that this doesn't mean there won't be future CPUs and APUs on the desktop from AMD. Just not Steamroller, Excavator... based ones. Piledriver is still here and can be shrinked and improved with much less resources than it would take developing and taping out new designs.

Charlie mentions lack of resources to work on two x86 cores at the same time. They have a roadmap for Kabini, so forget about any further Bulldozer developments.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

This seems unlikely. The Pentium M was in the same ballpark as Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 performance wise. There were even motherboards that allowed you to use it for desktop.

No one thinks about using a Bobcat to replace a Bulldozer nowadays.

And if you look at the core on a simplistic level it looks like half a bulldozer module that can only clock half as high.

Both yes and no. I know a lot of people who would be perfectly happy with a quad-core 2/2.5GHz Brazos with dual-channel DDR3-1600. Brazos's biggest weakness is that it only has a single-channel memory controller. Fix that and give it a higher clock + a 128 shader CGN core and you have a relatively low-power chip that's adequate for most tasks... excluding games...

As for Pentium-M performance, look here...

 

[jones377]

No, it's not likely. But we'll have to wait and see how Jaguar does.

As an aside, it's a real shame Microsoft crippled the Netbook market. Windows 7 Starter was bloody awful. 2GB RAM limit, no 64 bit version, disabling Aero (which meant disabling GPU acceleration). Bobcat's not a bad little chip when you run fully fledged Windows 7 with a decent amount of RAM on it.

The netbook market is already dead and buried by the tablets. AMD had practically nothing to launch with Win8 for tablets. Only a Brazos 2.0 @ 1GHz that got 1 design win? They needed a 28nm successor out a month ago but they cancelled it for whatever reason. When AMD finally launches Jaguar it will be without the Win8 launch vehicle and will just be yet another Win8 tablet chip. Probably a really good one but the market is already being established right now. Then it's a question of how well Win8 by itself will do in the tablet market. I think the jury is still out on that one.

Jaguar for low cost laptops could be different but again they really needed to launch with Win8 for maximum effect.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Charlie mentions lack of resources to work on two x86 cores at the same time. They have a roadmap for Kabini, so forget about any further Bulldozer developments.

At least they could shrink it, that wouldn't take too many resources, would it? Or do you expect they would stop shipping x86 CPUs and APUs altogether at some point?

 

[Tsavo]

So basically AMD are reduced to making tampons and mouse pads now?

 

[Ferzerp]

As much as I think AMD is in trouble, S/A? Really? You take anything from that site seriously?

 

[MisterMac]

That's hardcore.

I think ill go shop a piledriver for memory sake.



This is not like Cyrix - this is different imho.

End of an era - definately won't most agree to that?

 

[ViRGE]

As much as I think AMD is in trouble, S/A? Really? You take anything from that site seriously?

S/A is completely worthless for NVIDIA information, and generally worthless for Intel information. However Charlie has a number of moles/contacts over at AMD (he's still on good terms with AMD and gets invited to their events), and as a result his AMD news is usually accurate.

 

[mrmt]

At least they could shrink it, that wouldn't take too many resources, would it? Or do you expect they would stop shipping x86 CPUs and APUs altogether at some point?

I do.

 

[Ferzerp]

S/A is completely worthless for NVIDIA information, and generally worthless for Intel information. However Charlie has a number of moles/contacts over at AMD (he's still on good terms with AMD and gets invited to their events), and as a result his AMD news is usually accurate.

Would mean AMD is pulling out of the server market 100% if it is correct.

Still, wait until a decent source is available before assuming it is true.

 

[joshhedge]

Would mean AMD is pulling out of the server market 100% if it is correct.

Still, wait until a decent source is available before assuming it is true.

Well not really as they're introducing ARM based chips

 

[nforce4max]

If things really do keep going the way they are AM2/3 will be mentioned in the same breath as socket 3 and socket 8 by collectors. Oh well the party was good back when it was going strong but those times are long gone. Give it 10-20 years from now when ARM closes the gap and the software ecosystem is much better Intel likely won't be doing to well if the economy holds that long. In other news today 100,000 people are losing their jobs this month.