The Rise and Fall of AMD.

[Phynaz]

AMD has a huge advantage over Intel regarding integrated graphics

Which so far hasn't translated into increased sales. It appears to be that integrated graphics aren't much of a selling point.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Which so far hasn't translated into increased sales. It appears to be that integrated graphics aren't much of a selling point.

Its rather turned into decreased sales. Unsellable APUs...

 

[frozentundra123456]

If you believe this . Than I assume you are putting all the money you can into AMD stock . ARE you ? If not Why? Is the big picture for AMD improving or Degrading? Will AMD have A phone chip in 2013. Will AMD have a compelling Tablet chip that offers 10 hours usage in 2013 . Honda isn't it . As haswell will stomp all over the highend AMD tablet chip. If they can get design wins . In quanity. AMD is over thats all there is to it .

I have a Honda too, wont fit in a tablet, but gets 30+ mpg on the highway.

Seriously, I am retired, so dont have money to invest in the market. But as I said in another thread, if I had money to speculate with, I would perhaps risk some on AMD. Long term, I dont see them as a great company, but if they dont go bankrupt I could see the stock cycling to the 5-8 dollar range, which would be the time to dump it and wait for the next low.

Edit: I know Shintai, it could be a value trap!!! That is why I would only do it with money I could afford to lose.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Which so far hasn't translated into increased sales. It appears to be that integrated graphics aren't much of a selling point.

Their graphics might be more of a selling point on tablets since they dont really do much CPU intensive work, and mainly are useful for content consumption. The problem is they have to get the power envelope down, and BD was a step in the wrong direction for that, while intel is moving ahead rapidly in performance per watt.

I thought the APU concept was great when AMD started touting it in what, 2007 or something like that. I couldnt wait to be able to just go into a big box store and buy an AMD APU computer and start gaming. Problem is, Llano was delayed, the CPU portion was mediocre, and the graphics never really got good enough to beat a low-mid range discrete card or compensate for the CPU performance.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I know Shintai, it could be a value trap!!! That is why I would only do it with money I could afford to lose.

Could be? Its certain that its a value trap. Unless a miracle happens. Unfortunately those dont happen often. And someone else tends to know better.

 

[Farmer]

AMD was became relevant at K7/Athlon I (1999) and dominant at Athlon XP (2001). First to 1GHz. Then Athlon 64 (2003) and X2 (2005). They were very competitive up until Core 2 (2006/7), when the performance gap flipped between Intel and AMD. This is partly due to NetBurst/P4 being a failure.

Then again, the market as changed a lot. In 2000, desktop computers dominated the market, laptops second. There were no mobile devices to speak of. Nowadays, desktop computers are almost negligible, mobile devices dominant.

 

[Arkaign]

I have no idea if anyone else noticed this, but I've found what seems to be a significant error in the article :

"When the K6 hit shelves in 1997, it represented a viable alternative to the Pentium MMX, and while Intel continued to stumble along with its underwhelming Netburst architecture, the K6 went from strength to strength -- from a 233Mhz speed in the initial stepping, to 300MHz for the "Little Foot" revision in January 1998, 350MHz in the "Chomper" K6-2 of May 1998 and 550MHz in September 1998 with the "Chomper Extended" revision."

??? Netburst didn't come out for years to come after what they're talking about. K6 faced off with Pentium MMX, K6-2 Faced off against Pentium II, and K6-3 faced off against Pentium III Katmai, as far as timeframe goes.

As far as performance, the K6 and PMMX were rough equals at same clock speeds, K6-2 was a bit slower than P2 but much more affordable and ran pretty good. K6-3 was not quite there (3dnow meant that some titles like Quake2 ran great, others hit or miss) but considering the value were not a bad choice really compared to the super expensive P3s. The real star at the time were the Celeron 300A OC Mendocino chips though, at 450mhz with core synchronous cache, they were as fast as 450mhz PII/PIII for the most part, and definitely faster than K6-3, for little $$.

Imho the K6 heralded the 'decent' era of AMD, and they were low-priced but respectable chips. The K7 was what brought them to fully equal status with Intel as far as raw CPU performance overall, with Thunderbird and AXP cementing that status. Then off course the slippage towards the end of AXP (all benches were basically lost once P4C arrived), which wasn't too long before A64 & A64X2 came and gave them their sole golden era.

Overall the article seems amateurish and simplistic, though the overall (obvious) story of AMD having good times and bad times is for the most part accurate.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Overall the article seems amateurish and simplistic, though the overall (obvious) story of AMD having good times and bad times is for the most part accurate.

Its written by a forum member. Migth explain why it aint more polished.

This article was contributed by Graham Singer, better known in TechSpot's community as dividebyzero. We are very grateful for Graham's contribution and more than anything it makes us proud to show off our reader's clever insights into the tech industry.

 

[Abwx]

I have no idea if anyone else noticed this, but I've found what seems to be a significant error in the article :

As aknowledged by the post above , with a division by zero everything become possible , even time travel in parralel worlds....

 

[Idontcare]

I have no idea if anyone else noticed this, but I've found what seems to be a significant error in the article :

"When the K6 hit shelves in 1997, it represented a viable alternative to the Pentium MMX, and while Intel continued to stumble along with its underwhelming Netburst architecture, the K6 went from strength to strength -- from a 233Mhz speed in the initial stepping, to 300MHz for the "Little Foot" revision in January 1998, 350MHz in the "Chomper" K6-2 of May 1998 and 550MHz in September 1998 with the "Chomper Extended" revision."

??? Netburst didn't come out for years to come after what they're talking about. K6 faced off with Pentium MMX, K6-2 Faced off against Pentium II, and K6-3 faced off against Pentium III Katmai, as far as timeframe goes.

As far as performance, the K6 and PMMX were rough equals at same clock speeds, K6-2 was a bit slower than P2 but much more affordable and ran pretty good. K6-3 was not quite there (3dnow meant that some titles like Quake2 ran great, others hit or miss) but considering the value were not a bad choice really compared to the super expensive P3s. The real star at the time were the Celeron 300A OC Mendocino chips though, at 450mhz with core synchronous cache, they were as fast as 450mhz PII/PIII for the most part, and definitely faster than K6-3, for little $$.

Imho the K6 heralded the 'decent' era of AMD, and they were low-priced but respectable chips. The K7 was what brought them to fully equal status with Intel as far as raw CPU performance overall, with Thunderbird and AXP cementing that status. Then off course the slippage towards the end of AXP (all benches were basically lost once P4C arrived), which wasn't too long before A64 & A64X2 came and gave them their sole golden era.

Overall the article seems amateurish and simplistic, though the overall (obvious) story of AMD having good times and bad times is for the most part accurate.

Yeah, even before the K6 (acquired by purchasing NexGen), AMD was generally neck-and-neck with Intel's offerings from the 286 onwards. Sometimes they were a tiny bit ahead (486 with 2x the L1$ for example) and other time they were slightly behind (486 DX4-133 that was billed as a PR75 to compete with the Pentium 75 for example) but the performance was generally always there as was the price.

They truly slipped with the K5 which was why they scrambled to recover by buying Nexgen. And when Nexgen's designed were running out of steam in terms of the internal rehashes (K6-2 and K6-III) they went on a massive hiring binge to bring in as many DEC Alpha engineers as possible (led by Dirk Meyers who eventually became CEO) to design the K7 Athlon which continued their performance parity with Intel and eventually enabled their performance superiority once paired with SOI process technology.

It wasn't until Hector Ruiz and Dirk Meyers as CEO and VP decided to milk 90nm and pull back the throttle on 65nm development along with Phenom development that AMD seeded its eventual downfall. They truly rested on their proverbial laurels and it bit them in the proverbial ass.

 

[poohbear]

To be perfectly honest i noticed no difference between my 2500k @ 4.4ghz & my PhenomII X-6 @ 3.7ghz. Its not like they're that behind. The average user also would never notice a difference. So this "AMD lost the performance crown" nonsense is irrelevant to 99% of consumers out there especially since progroms have'nt gotten any more demanding in the past 5 years.

Even in games i didnt notice any difference AT ALL cause i game with max ingame settings @ 1080 & my gtx 670 is a beast.

 

[phenomkid7]

To be perfectly honest i noticed no difference between my 2500k @ 4.4ghz & my PhenomII X-6 @ 3.7ghz. Its not like they're that behind.

K. Well I have news...they're behind. So behind that they're going to quit, soon.

The average user also would never notice a difference. So this "AMD lost the performance crown" nonsense is irrelevant to 99% of consumers

The average user is out there buying tablets....that is causing this monumental shift in the industry. Go back under your rock? The "average user" does not care about HPC...they are not the consumers of your core i7s and FX-8000s. Enthusiast and power users are the market here...

YHPM. This antagonism needs to come to an end if you wish to continue posting here. Status quo will not do
-ViRGE

 

[Idontcare]

K. Well I have news...they're behind. So behind that they're going to quit, soon.



The average user is out there buying tablets....that is causing this monumental shift in the industry. Go back under your rock? The "average user" does not care about HPC...they are not the consumers of your core i7s and FX-8000s. Enthusiast and power users are the market here...

Dude, why so antagonistic with the posting rhetoric? You can say the same message but be a little more tactful about it and it would still get the message across without generating so much needless animosity.

 

[TechAZ]

K. Well I have news...they're behind. So behind that they're going to quit, soon.



The average user is out there buying tablets....that is causing this monumental shift in the industry. Go back under your rock? The "average user" does not care about HPC...they are not the consumers of your core i7s and FX-8000s. Enthusiast and power users are the market here...

The average user buys their computer from Best Buy. They don't really know the difference between Intel and AMD. If they do look at any of the specs they look for ghz and how many cores it has.

The average user is an exponentially larger base than the people who compare benchmarks of Intel and AMD.

 

[SpeedTester]

The average user buys their computer from Best Buy. They don't really know the difference between Intel and AMD. If they do look at any of the specs they look for ghz and how many cores it has.

The average user is an exponentially larger base than the people who compare benchmarks of Intel and AMD.

That's exactly what I was thinking too. Staples and Best buy have a ton of systems and people buy them like crazy.

 

[Qianglong]

Its rather turned into decreased sales. Unsellable APUs...

OR even denting their own discrete graphics sales....

 

[Jaydip]

Isn't their GPU division bleeding marketshare and revenue?

It flip flops all the time,losing discreet share is not much of a risk but on the other hand losing mobile share was a big blow.They need to come out with some thing better than enduro.

 

[Jaydip]

Which so far hasn't translated into increased sales. It appears to be that integrated graphics aren't much of a selling point.

It is not selling well because it has superior graphics?I don't think so.Considering HD4000 gains share in each steam survey your point is inaccurate.

 

[Markfw]

I hear you. I just thought it was a interesting article.

Im not baiting no one. People on the forums say worse things.
I apologize, I understand your feeling towards my post. sorry but still a good article. thx Markfw900,, gg

I was not responding to you, but the guy I quoted

 

[Phynaz]

It is not selling well because it has superior graphics?I don't think so.Considering HD4000 gains share in each steam survey your point is inaccurate.

Where did I say that?

What in the world does HD4000 have to do with this? Steam survey? Well of course there are gains in the HD4000 install base, it's people buying Intel chips instead of AMD.

 

[Jaydip]

Where did I say that?

What in the world does HD4000 have to do with this? Steam survey? Well of course there are gains in the HD4000 install base, it's people buying Intel chips instead of AMD.

It means that people settle for even as crap as HD4000.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It is not selling well because it has superior graphics?I don't think so.Considering HD4000 gains share in each steam survey your point is inaccurate.

Trinity is not selling well because it uses more power, has worse CPU performance, and the graphics is better than needed for the average user, but not really adequate for gaming or other graphical intensive tasks. And as APUs get better, they are still behind a low/mid range discrete card because the discrete cards keep improving as well. Not to mention that in the Big Box stores the trinity systems I have seen have been overpriced such that you could get an i5 and add a discrete card for nearly the same price or maybe even less than a trinity system.

 

[Jaydip]

That kinda sucks.I thought it was competing with i3 regarding price not i5.

 

[lOl_lol_lOl]

AMD Haters are making the same transition as the apple sheep did years ago. Once the Intel IGP surpasses any current-gen APU offerings from AMD they'll be all over this board "Wheres your AMD NAO!, LMFAO Irrelevant!".

 

[jihe]

These doom and gloom threads are becoming quite boring actually.AMD has survived thus far and they are not going anywhere anytime soon.

They sure are going nowhere