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So how does AMD pull this one through?

D

desura

Diamond Member
I can think of a few scenarios...

- Miracle R&D. Unlikely, but possible. Maybe Intel will do some crazy x86/ARM mashup that will utterly face plant, giving the tried and true AMD designs to go through

- ATI gets greater prominence, AMD chip R&D is reduced, relegated to bargain bin status. If that ever happened, I'd anticipate that the Fusion series would be the only offerings.

- Gets acquired by some other company, say, Samsung? I mean, the AMD designs are pretty darn advanced, it's just the Intel ones are more.

- Simply dies, liquidated.
 
I think all thats really needed is for APUs to gain acceptance.

Once AMD starts makeing APUs that are akin to 7850's.....
ALOT of people wont bother with discrete cards anymore.

It ll basically kill off the intire low-end segment (then it becomes Intel IGP vs AMDs ~7850 level IGP).

The problem is AMD has done a poor job so far,
it should have been far far ahead of where it is (IGP performance wise) by now.

Even now the "only" reason we re soon to see a APU with a ~7850 iGPU (IGP) will be because they made the design for the PS4 and decided to also make it into something PC users could buy.

So finally we ll get APUs that arnt memory starved, and faster enough to actually matter.

Why? because of the PS4 and its research budget, designing that chip.
Motherboards with GDDR5 system memory for PCs is gonna be nice.

I suspect AMD winning the consol contracts is gonna pay itself back many fold.
 
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If AMD has a Steamroller core that's at least mildly competitive, manages to gain decent market share with Temash and Kabini, and actually has their APUs mean something more than just being a CPU with a GPU rubbed up against it (as in actually exploiting the GPU), I can see AMD having a good year. But I don't think they'll amount to being more than just a thorn in Intel's side ever again.
 
Isn't Intel focusing on the whole APU concept (just not in name) with the heavily increased graphics on Haswell? I'm guessing they're going to continue going in this direction with the desire for more powerful graphics on the Atom and other tablet processors. I think AMD just needs to be cheaper than Intel or offer performance close to it to stay in the game. I'm sure they're going to shrink over the next few years but that doesn't mean they're finished.
 
I think AMD already realized rather than fighting a head-to-head performance battle with Intel which they will definitely lose, it would be far more easier for a console like PS4 to become an effective "gaming PC" platform than actual PCs themselves to lock out Intel out of mainstream gaming market.

All Sony needs to do is to slap in the usual browser, IM clients and media player will satisfy 90+% of the gamers out there; all those don't need much CPU power to begin with. Sony can even go one step further by offering faster PS4s while keep the original console functionality entirely intact, if needed. The same people can use their cheapo x86 whatever laptop or a 5+ year old desktop for their sole MS Office needs. Methinks it is precisely the PS4 threat why Valve is making a Steambox at this time.
 
desura said:
I can think of a few scenarios...

- Miracle R&D. Unlikely, but possible. Maybe Intel will do some crazy x86/ARM mashup that will utterly face plant, giving the tried and true AMD designs to go through

- ATI gets greater prominence, AMD chip R&D is reduced, relegated to bargain bin status. If that ever happened, I'd anticipate that the Fusion series would be the only offerings.

- Gets acquired by some other company, say, Samsung? I mean, the AMD designs are pretty darn advanced, it's just the Intel ones are more.

- Simply dies, liquidated.
Click to expand...

I don't know if it would/will be the savior of AMD, but I am quite confident that Intel will eventually do a massive faceplant. No company in the history of companies has managed to avoid that fate.
 
Idontcare said:
I don't know if it would/will be the savior of AMD, but I am quite confident that Intel will eventually do a massive faceplant. No company in the history of companies has managed to avoid that fate.
Click to expand...

Even the Pentium 4 wasn't *that* bad.

Anyways, IIRC, the Pentium Cores are based off of the P3, so basically if Intel had decided to keep with the P3 it would have done well enough.
 
Arkadrel said:
I think all thats really needed is for APUs to gain acceptance.

Once AMD starts makeing APUs that are akin to 7850's.....
ALOT of people wont bother with discrete cards anymore.

It ll basically kill off the intire low-end segment (then it becomes Intel IGP vs AMDs ~7850 level IGP).

The problem is AMD has done a poor job so far,
it should have been far far ahead of where it is (IGP performance wise) by now.

Even now the "only" reason we re soon to see a APU with a ~7850 iGPU (IGP) will be because they made the design for the PS4 and decided to also make it into something PC users could buy.

So finally we ll get APUs that arnt memory starved, and faster enough to actually matter.

Why? because of the PS4 and its research budget, designing that chip.
Motherboards with GDDR5 system memory for PCs is gonna be nice.

I suspect AMD winning the consol contracts is gonna pay itself back many fold.
Click to expand...

Isnt Kaveri supposed to have only 512 SPs? That is only 7750 level assuming no bandwidth restrictions and the same clocks. HD7850 is already 28nm and the TDP is 130 watts for the gpu alone. Its hard to see how they can put that level of performance in an APU and leave any power budget for a cpu, even if they totally resolve the bandwidth issues.
 
StrangerGuy said:
I think AMD already realized rather than fighting a head-to-head performance battle with Intel which they will definitely lose, it would be far more easier for a console like PS4 to become an effective "gaming PC" platform than actual PCs themselves to lock out Intel out of mainstream gaming market.

All Sony needs to do is to slap in the usual browser, IM clients and media player will satisfy 90+% of the gamers out there; all those don't need much CPU power to begin with. Sony can even go one step further by offering faster PS4s while keep the original console functionality entirely intact, if needed. The same people can use their cheapo x86 whatever laptop or a 5+ year old desktop for their sole MS Office needs. Methinks it is precisely the PS4 threat why Valve is making a Steambox at this time.
Click to expand...

Competition from consoles may be part of the reason Valve is making a Steambox, if in fact it ever comes to the market. Another reason is probably that they want to control the market from top to bottom, trying to eliminate competition from other download services by making a cheap, dedicated platform that is limited to steam games.
 
frozentundra123456 said:
Competition from consoles may be part of the reason Valve is making a Steambox, if in fact it ever comes to the market. Another reason is probably that they want to control the market from top to bottom, trying to eliminate competition from other download services by making a cheap, dedicated platform that is limited to steam games.
Click to expand...

I thought that the SteamBox was supposed to be "open".
 
frozentundra123456 said:
Isnt Kaveri supposed to have only 512 SPs? That is only 7750 level assuming no bandwidth restrictions and the same clocks. HD7850 is already 28nm and the TDP is 130 watts for the gpu alone. Its hard to see how they can put that level of performance in an APU and leave any power budget for a cpu, even if they totally resolve the bandwidth issues.
Click to expand...

I do not expect AMD to have any advantage in low power graphics when "Haswell" hits, and I firmly expect Intel to deal the finishing blow with "Broadwell". Intel has more than enough transistors at that level (14nm v.s. AMD's 28nm) to brute force blow AMD out of the water, while maintaining the required gross margin profile to make it worth it.

AMD is smart to try to do semi-custom APUs for embedded applications, because in the PC space it has no chance in hell of being competitive with Intel.
 
Idontcare said:
I don't know if it would/will be the savior of AMD, but I am quite confident that Intel will eventually do a massive faceplant. No company in the history of companies has managed to avoid that fate.
Click to expand...

LOL!!! The imagery of a huge, stuffy engineering company doing a faceplant made me giggle. Maybe Intel's super secret 'smart shoelaces' project to thwart Apple's smart watch will be a step too far.
 
Bad weather is to be expected in the business ocean but the Gloflo WSA has been a perfect storm. Consider that 90% or so of the financial loss in 2012 was WSA related. Besides, the total cost of building at Gloflo is much higher than at TSMC so under an arms' length arrangement, AMD would have made money in 2012.

Its a major burden that hasn't entirely reared its head - beyond the next 4 quarters, nobody actually knows how much AMD has to buy from GF during the FOLLOWING 10 years - we do know its exclusive so regardless of GF's competence (or lack thereof), AMD is stuck - its not inconceivable that they would design the greatest processor and still go bankrupt because GF couldn't build it.

Complete disclosure would likely cause the share price to tank, and most of the remaining key staff to leave. Being conflicted and <insert adjective of choice here>, the current BoD will not address this until the company is past the point of no return. SOP.

There may be 1 loophole: an investor takes a 40% position ($800MM?), forces a vote on spinning off ATI to shareholders, and then restructures AMD.

Otherwise, despite the best efforts of the spinmeisters in renaming gaming consoles "embedded devices", the writing is on the tablet - AMD is going down.

//rant
 
the x86 license and current tech AMD has under it's IP alone is worth keeping it going.

This is oddly similar to interstate bakeries and the twinkies and such names - the IP will keep the products coming out. If AMD goes down someone will pick up the gauntlet.

AMD type processors and video cards will keep coming out, even if the company goes down. There's just too much opportunity there to pass by.
 
pablo87 said:
Bad weather is to be expected in the business ocean but the Gloflo WSA has been a perfect storm. Consider that 90% or so of the financial loss in 2012 was WSA related. Besides, the total cost of building at Gloflo is much higher than at TSMC so under an arms' length arrangement, AMD would have made money in 2012.

Its a major burden that hasn't entirely reared its head - beyond the next 4 quarters, nobody actually knows how much AMD has to buy from GF during the FOLLOWING 10 years - we do know its exclusive so regardless of GF's competence (or lack thereof), AMD is stuck - its not inconceivable that they would design the greatest processor and still go bankrupt because GF couldn't build it.

Complete disclosure would likely cause the share price to tank, and most of the remaining key staff to leave. Being conflicted and <insert adjective of choice here>, the current BoD will not address this until the company is past the point of no return. SOP.

There may be 1 loophole: an investor takes a 40% position ($800MM?), forces a vote on spinning off ATI to shareholders, and then restructures AMD.

Otherwise, despite the best efforts of the spinmeisters in renaming gaming consoles "embedded devices", the writing is on the tablet - AMD is going down.

//rant
Click to expand...

I don't know why so many posters on these forums see spinning off ATi as viable or desirable. If they wanted to make money from their graphics IP, the better route would be to start licensing it to others to be integrated into SoCs- I'm sure Samsung would kill to get their hands on something as advanced as GCN.
 
pablo87 said:
There may be 1 loophole: an investor takes a 40% position ($800MM?), forces a vote on spinning off ATI to shareholders, and then restructures AMD.
Click to expand...

That would trigger covenants on the license agreement with Intel, on the issued debt *and* with GLF (GPUs soon to be part of the WSA too) so what is a 800 million soon becomes a 2.8 billion + litigation with Intel and your foundry partner + whatever money AMD needs for restructuring.
 
Someone explain the whole Global Foundries thing pls.

Like, why did AMD think that spinning it off was a good idea? Seems to me that immediately, you have higher costs after spin-off, and since all that AMD does is make chips, it would make sense to keep that in-house.

I mean, they could always take contracts with other firms like apparently GF is doing with Qualcomm. Might even end up making more money that way, by taking contract orders from the various ARM manufacturing chips, become like TMSC.

Was it b/c they needed capital?
 
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