So What happened to AMD processors?

[DomS]

I built a computer in 2005 or so, and kept track of what was going on with processors until early 2007. Now I see that Intel dominates everything....wtf happened to AMD??

 

[covert24]

they were subject to destruction by the intel overlords. AMD now works for Intel producing coffee for the fab workers. you've been out of the loop for far too long....

 

[edplayer]

they got a reality show on VH-1 and spent too much time with the hoes instead of designing cpus. Now they are behind, their stock tanked, the show was cancelled and they got the herpes.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: edplayer
they got a reality show on VH-1 and spent too much time with the hoes instead of designing cpus. Now they are behind, their stock tanked, the show was cancelled and they got the herpes.

Thats good, I got a good laugh out of that one....

Seriously, AMD was my favorite in 2005, but they F'ed up, and now they really are a second class cpu company.....(for the moment)

 

[AshPhoenix]

Deneb looks promising, however.

 

[myocardia]

This man happened to AMD. He could run Microsoft into bankruptcy in a few months. AMD hired him after he came within a few months of bankrupting Motorola.

 

[dorion]

AMD is just having a P4 stage. They'll come out of it. AMD can recover, and atleast become competitive on the high end.

 

[nerp]

AMD is already doing some interesting things. Take a look at the 780G chipset. It's one of the best chipsets to hit the market in some time. Low power, fast as heck, amazing for HTPC use. Heck, the HD3200 IGP is good enough to play games with. Will make for some nice puma based laptops.

Their "e" series CPUs are pretty snazzy, they've got 22w cpus coming out shortly, deneb looks decent, etc. And have you noticed ATI causing nvidia to scramble lately? They're rebadging cards and dealing with recalls while AMD just released the 4670 which at $79 goes beyond midrange at super cheap pricing. 20w less than a 9600gt? Performance on par with a 3870? No extra power plug needed? Silent cooling possibilities? Killer FPS at decent resolutions WITH AA turned on? Rock stable/solid drivers?

Sure, their CPUs seem to be a generation behind Intel right now and with Nehalem around the corner, things seem to be staying that way. But look at AMD/ATI's offerings as a whole and you'll see some very compelling solutions.

 

[betasub]

What happened in a year-and-a-half? Time passed, things change. And in the PC hardware industry things tend to change more quickly than in many other sectors.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: DomS
I built a computer in 2005 or so, and kept track of what was going on with processors until early 2007. Now I see that Intel dominates everything....wtf happened to AMD??

If everything means mid/high end desk top and low end server only, then I guess that would be true. But AMD (until we see multi socket Nehalems) is still dominant or at the very least they are very very competitive in the HPC area and low end desktops/mobiles.
To answer your question, it's the same thing that happened to Intel when AMD first became dominant...

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: DomS
wtf happened to AMD??

Well that's the problem. Nothing happened. They are selling the same cpus since 2005. Of course , they've added ddr2 on their mobos, but nothing more. The performance of the cpus stagnated. Then they've released some bad quad cores and now they struggle to keep their heads up.
There is still some bread to eat for AMD in low end market and HTPC, but absolutely nothing in the high end area.

Intel was in this position in 2005 for example. Lets hope that Deneb brings the sun on the AMD street once again. 🙂

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: error8
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Then they've released some bad quad cores and now they struggle to keep their heads up.
There is still some bread to eat for AMD in low end market and HTPC, but absolutely nothing in the high end area.

Intel was in this position in 2005 for example. Lets hope that Deneb brings the sun on the AMD street once again. 🙂

First, they are in no way bad quad cores...they just aren't as good as the C2Qs...
Second, that HPC is the high end of the server market.
Multi socket systems (over 2 sockets) are still the advantage of AMD

 

[error8]

Originally posted by: Viditor


First, they are in no way bad quad cores...they just aren't as good as the C2Qs...

Well if they are worse then their C2Qs counterparts, then they're "bad". 😉

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: Viditor


First, they are in no way bad quad cores...they just aren't as good as the C2Qs...

Well if they are worse then their C2Qs counterparts, then they're "bad". 😉

Actually, they did release bad cpus...remember the erratum/TLB logic bug present on the early Phenom 9500/9600/9700? They had to go to a new chip revision (B3) to eliminate that problem.

 

[Proteusza]

AMD had a good few months, or even a year, of losing badly to both Nvidia and Intel at the same time. They have now come out at least equal to Nvidia with their 4800 series, which forced Nvidia to drop their prices. As for Intel.... they compete well on price, but not really performance. They have good chipsets, and apparently the new SB750 southbridge opens a lot of overclocking headroom for Phenom chips, although no one knows why.

I think Nehalem vs Shanghai could be very interesting - both launch at about the same time.

 

[XBoxLPU]

Originally posted by: nerp
AMD is already doing some interesting things. Take a look at the 780G chipset. It's one of the best chipsets to hit the market in some time. Low power, fast as heck, amazing for HTPC use. Heck, the HD3200 IGP is good enough to play games with. Will make for some nice puma based laptops.

Their "e" series CPUs are pretty snazzy, they've got 22w cpus coming out shortly, deneb looks decent, etc. And have you noticed ATI causing nvidia to scramble lately? They're rebadging cards and dealing with recalls while AMD just released the 4670 which at $79 goes beyond midrange at super cheap pricing. 20w less than a 9600gt? Performance on par with a 3870? No extra power plug needed? Silent cooling possibilities? Killer FPS at decent resolutions WITH AA turned on? Rock stable/solid drivers?

Sure, their CPUs seem to be a generation behind Intel right now and with Nehalem around the corner, things seem to be staying that way. But look at AMD/ATI's offerings as a whole and you'll see some very compelling solutions.

Originally posted by: dorion
AMD is just having a P4 stage. They'll come out of it. AMD can recover, and atleast become competitive on the high end.

Some very interesting CPU chips in the future for AMD but there is no indication that they will be competitive with Intel offerings. I just don't see AMD gaining ground on Intel within the next few years, when they were dominant back in the day there were always one step ahead of Intel. But today, Intel is in that position and given the size/power of Intel they are going to be very hard to wrestle that top spot away from them.

Looking at 2010, I honestly don't see software advancing to the point to where we logical need 12 cores(Magny-Cours). While it is very early to start judging Intel/AMD's future CPUs, Intel has built a solid foundation from Nehalem and their tock in 2010 is looking very promising.

However I must say AMD's strengths are in the Server and chipset markets

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Denithor

Originally posted by: error8

Originally posted by: Viditor


First, they are in no way bad quad cores...they just aren't as good as the C2Qs...

Well if they are worse then their C2Qs counterparts, then they're "bad". 😉

Actually, they did release bad cpus...remember the erratum/TLB logic bug present on the early Phenom 9500/9600/9700? They had to go to a new chip revision (B3) to eliminate that problem.

Best thing that could have happened for Intel's PR machine was that B2 stepping TLB errata.

Soundly beating the Phenom in IPC as well as GHz and power consumption helps the gross margins...but finally getting that Pentium FDIV bug and Preshott "zingers" off their backs is going to help from here out as much as it ever hurt.

From here on out, until Intel makes their next major snafu (could be 10yrs, doesn't matter), everyone will refer to AMD when referring to buggy chips and quality control, etc. Just as for decades people always used Intel FDIV bug as the prime example of QC snafu.

Intel is forgiven all past transgressions thanks to AMD's stumble. Ruiz bagged another milestone on his path to beat Barret in every CEO metric of success. (big shoes for Meyers to fill)

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: XBoxLPU

Originally posted by: nerp
AMD is already doing some interesting things. Take a look at the 780G chipset. It's one of the best chipsets to hit the market in some time. Low power, fast as heck, amazing for HTPC use. Heck, the HD3200 IGP is good enough to play games with. Will make for some nice puma based laptops.

Their "e" series CPUs are pretty snazzy, they've got 22w cpus coming out shortly, deneb looks decent, etc. And have you noticed ATI causing nvidia to scramble lately? They're rebadging cards and dealing with recalls while AMD just released the 4670 which at $79 goes beyond midrange at super cheap pricing. 20w less than a 9600gt? Performance on par with a 3870? No extra power plug needed? Silent cooling possibilities? Killer FPS at decent resolutions WITH AA turned on? Rock stable/solid drivers?

Sure, their CPUs seem to be a generation behind Intel right now and with Nehalem around the corner, things seem to be staying that way. But look at AMD/ATI's offerings as a whole and you'll see some very compelling solutions.

Originally posted by: dorion
AMD is just having a P4 stage. They'll come out of it. AMD can recover, and atleast become competitive on the high end.

Some very interesting CPU chips in the future for AMD but there is no indication that they will be competitive with Intel offerings. I just don't see AMD gaining ground on Intel within the next few years, when they were dominant back in the day there were always one step ahead of Intel. But today, Intel is in that position and given the size/power of Intel they are going to be very hard to wrestle that top spot away from them.

Looking at 2010, I honestly don't see software advancing to the point to where we logical need 12 cores(Magny-Cours). While it is very early to start judging Intel/AMD's future CPUs, Intel has built a solid foundation from Nehalem and their tock in 2010 is looking very promising.

However I must say AMD's strengths are in the Server and chipset markets

We as end users may not need 12 cores, but that doesn't mean they aren't useful/necessary.
Dunnington is Intel's 6-core Core 2 architecture server processor. It's not being released to end users though, because you're right, we don't really need it.
But that doesn't mean it isn't needed (therwise they wouldn't make it, obviously).

AMD might have problems depending on how nicely Nehalem scales in multi-socket servers though, because if their performance doesn't improve and Intel manages to improve per core performance as well as scaling performance, AMD might end up in a bit of trouble in the high end.

 

[IdaGno]

Originally posted by: DomS....wtf happened to AMD??

AMD Engineers

 

[taltamir]

hi now, the AMD engineers (those who weren't laid off) are not at fault here... hector ruin is the one who was driving them into the ground while giving himself massive multi million dollar raises....

 

[OCGuy]

I love the "well....look at the GPUS!" response. I guess you have to cling to something.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
I love the "well....look at the GPUS!" response. I guess you have to cling to something.

Noticing a company's strength in one area doesn't make us blind to weaknesses in another. Not everyone thinks in black and white, which you seem to be doing in this case. Ignoring the fact that Intel's IGP and chipset options are looking pretty weaktastic next to AMDs right now is "clinging" too. An objective observer can say that Intel has better CPUs and AMD has better chipsets. AMD isn't JUST in the CPU business.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
I love the "well....look at the GPUS!" response. I guess you have to cling to something.

Noticing a company's strength in one area doesn't make us blind to weaknesses in another. Not everyone thinks in black and white, which you seem to be doing in this case. Ignoring the fact that Intel's IGP and chipset options are looking pretty weaktastic next to AMDs right now is "clinging" too. An objective observer can say that Intel has better CPUs and AMD has better chipsets. AMD isn't JUST in the CPU business.

Thread title: So What happened to AMD processors?

 

[exar333]

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
I love the "well....look at the GPUS!" response. I guess you have to cling to something.

Noticing a company's strength in one area doesn't make us blind to weaknesses in another. Not everyone thinks in black and white, which you seem to be doing in this case. Ignoring the fact that Intel's IGP and chipset options are looking pretty weaktastic next to AMDs right now is "clinging" too. An objective observer can say that Intel has better CPUs and AMD has better chipsets. AMD isn't JUST in the CPU business.

I am not sure if I would say AMD has better chipsets. They DO have better low-power chipsets (that are actually available) and their IGP is much better than Intel's. Intel is still the leader with chipsets overall though.

 

[waffleironhead]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: nerp

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
I love the "well....look at the GPUS!" response. I guess you have to cling to something.

Noticing a company's strength in one area doesn't make us blind to weaknesses in another. Not everyone thinks in black and white, which you seem to be doing in this case. Ignoring the fact that Intel's IGP and chipset options are looking pretty weaktastic next to AMDs right now is "clinging" too. An objective observer can say that Intel has better CPUs and AMD has better chipsets. AMD isn't JUST in the CPU business.

Thread title: So What happened to AMD processors?

GPU? Graphic Processing unit?
CPU? Central Processing unit?

😉