So what is AMD doing?

[Greenman]

Just read the thread about AMD stock taking a dump, and that got me to wondering what AMD is doing. The last new product I've heard about was AM2, and I still can't figure out why they even bothered with it. Do they have some new wizbang chip in the works? Or have they reached the limit of what they can do?
It's going to suck if I have to buy intel for my next upgrade.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: Greenman
Just read the thread about AMD stock taking a dump, and that got me to wondering what AMD is doing. The last new product I've heard about was AM2, and I still can't figure out why they even bothered with it. Do they have some new wizbang chip in the works? Or have they reached the limit of what they can do?
It's going to suck if I have to buy intel for my next upgrade.

AM2 is hardly a new product in the conventional sense. It's just a K8 with a DDR2 memory controller instead of DDR1, nothing fancy there, just a necessary step because DDR1 would make AMD's CPUs uncompetitive with regards to cost. K8L COULD be "some new wizbang chip" but we don't know enough about it to speculate just how much performance AMD will get out of it, though at least clock-for-clock parity with Core 2 is a given IMO (but this would not be enough considering its clocks will be lower than what Intel can get out of the 45nm parts). Whatever new architecture AMD can cook up for later could also be interesting, but AMD is being quite secretive about its future plans.

Regardless, I'd be hesitant to say that AMD is finished just because it's lost the performance lead for 6 months and won't regain it for at least 6 more months, it took Intel 3 years to get its act together, after all, and it came back with a vengace.

 

[Conky]

Right now it appears that AMD is sitting on their hands. Their latest offerings are 65nm versions of their old stuff which are lower-power users but not better overclockers.

I would like to see AMD make a comeback although it seems Intel has really leapfrogged the hell out of them. It's never good for one company to have the lead for too long... otherwise we end up with $1000 cpu's that don't do a whole lot.

Intel got lazy with the P3 and then AMD got lazy with their X2 64 series. I am so glad I didn't jump to AMD's X2 last summer... that would've really made me hate them to buy that right before the C2D's came out.

AMD is really gonna have to pull a rabbit out of their hats to surpass the C2D and now the Intel Quads. I really really hope they get their act together quick because competition is the CPU buyers best friend.

 

[Soulkeeper]

65nm vs. 45nm 90nm vs 65nm 130nm vs. 90nm
intel has a head start on them as far as fab capabilities go every step of the way, this makes it hard to compete on price/performance, especially for highend performance

 

[IntelUser2000]

Nobody knows what AMD is doing beyond the fact they are doing something. You can't come up a proper answer to a competitor's product because it takes years for a new architecture to come out. To catch up to competition, AMD/Intel would have to clock up their newer parts higher than they would have originally planned.

Right now it appears that AMD is sitting on their hands. Their latest offerings are 65nm versions of their old stuff which are lower-power users but not better overclockers.

If AMD is really sitting in their hands, it'll be impacted 4-5 years into the future since that's how long it takes for a new architecture to turn into a product. The current situation is really dictated from couple years ago.

Intel makes less revisions to their process tech than AMD does. What you see as a result is you see significant improvements from new Intel chips that get a process shrink, while you don't see that for AMD chips.

 

[nyker96]

I dont think AMD has any whiz chip since over a year ago, even the new 65nm isn't too hot either, they haven't had anything cool for at least 1.5 yrs. Just eating old capital from X2 design. I think the next big show piece is K8L in Q3/2007. But who knows may be by then Intel would have already out with something that makes K8L look bland. Too slow is what it is with them now. Must have gotten over confident with X2s which is really a good design for 2+ years ago. That just shows sitting on your butt and counting the cash can't last you forever.

 

[Greenman]

It's a pity really. I watched AMD go from a low end intel clone, to a market leader, then to an "also ran".

 

[theprodigalrebel]

They launched the expensive QuadFX platform which got panned by every reviewer - not one person in these forums (or most forums) has a QuadFX setup. Has an insane power draw.

They moved to a 65nm process but a quick look at Newegg reveals these CPUs aren't available yet (at least on everyone's favorite e-tailer). The die-shrink hasn't shown any benefits in the OC headroom either.

Their next big thing, K8L is supposed to show up in the second half of this year, IIRC. Nobody has any decent clue on how it will perform.

 

[Regs]

AMDs last real new product was the X2. It's hard for a consumer to buy an X2 when a core duo can offer better performance not only in conventional everyday use and single thread performance but also multi-tasking performance. The X2 didn't really have much time to mature or sell either and Intel knew it had to strike hard before it could really lift off.


AMD has been running dry on new product ever since the K8. If you want to include all the countless revisions and pointless upgrades - its hard to grow revenue.

k8L is there last saving grace for the next 2 or so years.

 

[Regs]

Oh yeah, this will help you:

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/09/16/amds-virtual-tradeshow-experience/

 

[Arcada]

So what is AMD doing?

Not much

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Regs
The X2 didn't really have much time to mature or sell either and Intel knew it had to strike hard before it could really lift off.

Sure it did, it was out for nearly two years before the C2D's came out. AMD just had them priced beyond what nearly everyone was willing to pay for them. I actually priced them about a year ago. The 4800 was going for ~$850, the 4600 was ~$700 or $750, the 4400 was ~$550, the 4200 was ~$475; all of those prices were newegg, IIRC.

AMD just priced themselves out of the market. Am I the only person who noticed how many Socket 939 X2's they sold, once their prices came down to more reasonable levels? Of course, I don't feel a bit sorry for them; it was their arrogance that kept their X2's from being installed in every PC sold for those two years, IMO.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Regs
The X2 didn't really have much time to mature or sell either and Intel knew it had to strike hard before it could really lift off.

Sure it did, it was out for nearly two years before the C2D's came out. AMD just had them priced beyond what nearly everyone was willing to pay for them. I actually priced them about a year ago. The 4800 was going for ~$850, the 4600 was ~$700 or $750, the 4400 was ~$550, the 4200 was ~$475; all of those prices were newegg, IIRC.

AMD just priced themselves out of the market. Am I the only person who noticed how many Socket 939 X2's they sold, once their prices came down to more reasonable levels? Of course, I don't feel a bit sorry for them; it was their arrogance that kept their X2's from being installed in every PC sold for those two years, IMO.

AMD didn't have the FAB capacity to lower the price before FAB36 started ramping up. Hell, we still saw shortages in November and that's with FAB36 going at full steam (or close enough, I guess).

 

[0roo0roo]

yea i read somewhere intel uses 300mm platters and amd uses 200? and intel has more fabs, so they are just pumping out cheap dual cores amd has a harder time taking the hit on dual cores extra size

 

[ahock]

In my opinion AMD got really really lazy when they had the K8 lead. Come to think of it, they have around 3 years of uncontested lead and they just thought Intel is sitting around. They must have anticipated then that Intel will release new architecture which they have design newer architecture to coincide with Core of Intel.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: Greenman
Just read the thread about AMD stock taking a dump, and that got me to wondering what AMD is doing. The last new product I've heard about was AM2, and I still can't figure out why they even bothered with it. Do they have some new wizbang chip in the works? Or have they reached the limit of what they can do?
It's going to suck if I have to buy intel for my next upgrade.

New chip is Barcelona (K10) which is due to be demoed this quarter for release in Q2 (many still think of this as the K8L, but that was invented by The Inq). It will be a new architecture that is backwards compatible to current sockets (though not all features will be available on current socket boards).
The list of improvements that we know of so far include:
32B Fetch
Enhanced Branch prediction
Out-of-order loads
Up to 4 DP FLOPS/cycle
Dual 128-bit SSE dataflow
Dual 128-bit loads/cycle
Additional HT links (HT-3)
Quad Crossbar
Enhanced power management

It should take the speed crown back from Intel, but only by 5-10% or so...but beware, it is still untested and should be considered vapor until we actually see one.
If it performs to spec, we should see
1. Integer performance on par with C2D
2. FP performance much better than C2D
3. Improved throughput from the higher speed HT and increased number of HT links
4. 16way mobos (but probably not until 2008)
5. Much better overclockability (though this depends partially on the DSL results of the new straining)
6. Quad core with direct connections
7. Very large L3 cache

 

[IntelUser2000]

Integer performance on par with C2D

FP performance will definitely be better than Core 2 Duo, but opposite is true with integer.

 

[NZ]

Isn't AM2 AMD's counter to the Core 2 Duo? and those two products are pretty competitive? Or is c2d just completely better than am2 that am2 isn't worth buying?

BTW: now that am2 is cheaper than c2d which is more bang for the buck?

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000

Integer performance on par with C2D

FP performance will definitely be better than Core 2 Duo, but opposite is true with integer.

I believe that Integer should be very close to C2D, mainly because of the OoO loads...
It's almost identical to Intel's "Memory Disambiguation". One caveat though...for the rare software setups that can actually perform 4 ops/clock, C2D will easily win on integer. However, I haven't even seen a software setup that can do better than 3 ops/clock (usually 2.5).

 

[IntelUser2000]

Isn't AM2 AMD's counter to the Core 2 Duo? and those two products are pretty competitive? Or is c2d just completely better than am2 that am2 isn't worth buying?

BTW: now that am2 is cheaper than c2d which is more bang for the buck?

Competitive in terms of performance?? Does greater than 20% advantage per clock that Core 2 Duo has over AM2 big enough of a difference?? On the top end, Core 2 Duo is even clocked slightly higher(2.93/2.8). It performs much better per clock than AM2 at stock, but it can even overclock much better.

At stock, E6600 is faster than FX-62.

The weak point of Core 2 Duo is it doesn't have a very good price point for low cost CPUs. It's starting to be remedied though.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: NZ
Isn't AM2 AMD's counter to the Core 2 Duo? and those two products are pretty competitive? Or is c2d just completely better than am2 that am2 isn't worth buying?

BTW: now that am2 is cheaper than c2d which is more bang for the buck?

No...AM2 was merely a socket change to allow compatability to future chips.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: NZ
Isn't AM2 AMD's counter to the Core 2 Duo? and those two products are pretty competitive? Or is c2d just completely better than am2 that am2 isn't worth buying?

BTW: now that am2 is cheaper than c2d which is more bang for the buck?

AM2 is no counter to C2D, it is merely for AMD to migrate their platforms to the DDR2 format. C2D is currently ahead in performance from the upper mid range to high end.

Bang for buck depends on which chip you're talking about, low end X2s and C2Ds are both excellent value for money, but C2Ds are superior at the $300 and above pricepoints.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: NZ
Isn't AM2 AMD's counter to the Core 2 Duo? and those two products are pretty competitive? Or is c2d just completely better than am2 that am2 isn't worth buying?

BTW: now that am2 is cheaper than c2d which is more bang for the buck?

AM2 is no counter to C2D, it is merely for AMD to migrate their platforms to the DDR2 format. C2D is currently ahead in performance from the upper mid range to high end.

Bang for buck depends on which chip you're talking about, low end X2s and C2Ds are both excellent value for money, but C2Ds are superior at the $300 and above pricepoints.

QFT

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: Viditor

Originally posted by: Greenman
Just read the thread about AMD stock taking a dump, and that got me to wondering what AMD is doing. The last new product I've heard about was AM2, and I still can't figure out why they even bothered with it. Do they have some new wizbang chip in the works? Or have they reached the limit of what they can do?
It's going to suck if I have to buy intel for my next upgrade.

New chip is Barcelona (K10) which is due to be demoed this quarter for release in Q2 (many still think of this as the K8L, but that was invented by The Inq). It will be a new architecture that is backwards compatible to current sockets (though not all features will be available on current socket boards).
The list of improvements that we know of so far include:
32B Fetch
Enhanced Branch prediction
Out-of-order loads
Up to 4 DP FLOPS/cycle
Dual 128-bit SSE dataflow
Dual 128-bit loads/cycle
Additional HT links (HT-3)
Quad Crossbar
Enhanced power management

It should take the speed crown back from Intel, but only by 5-10% or so...but beware, it is still untested and should be considered vapor until we actually see one.
If it performs to spec, we should see
1. Integer performance on par with C2D
2. FP performance much better than C2D
3. Improved throughput from the higher speed HT and increased number of HT links
4. 16way mobos (but probably not until 2008)
5. Much better overclockability (though this depends partially on the DSL results of the new straining)
6. Quad core with direct connections
7. Very large L3 cache

Nice to see you back Viditor, I noticed you went AWOL for a while.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I believe that Integer should be very close to C2D, mainly because of the OoO loads...
It's almost identical to Intel's "Memory Disambiguation". One caveat though...for the rare software setups that can actually perform 4 ops/clock, C2D will easily win on integer. However, I haven't even seen a software setup that can do better than 3 ops/clock (usually 2.5).

It'll be much closer than now for sure, but from what goes around, Memory Disambiguation can do speculative re-ordering of loads around both stores/loads, while Out-of-order loads can just reorder loads around loads and not stores: http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT060206035626

We'll see.

Intel did put a good core out that's for sure...