What if hammer flops?

[billyjak]

The Government will not allow Intel to Monopolize the CPU Industry, Before that happens they will bail AMD out until they get on their feet.
It happened when Chrysler went under in the late 80's, the Government came through and now they're doing well.
I don't think the Hammer will flop though as years of research and development should make them very competitive.
The Athlon was ahead of Intel when it came out.
AMD will always be the under dog in the eyes of the public, mainley due to Intels rigorous advertising schemes
They will not go away for a long time.
The Hammer will be just what the doctor ordered. I beleive it will surprise many.
AMD just needs to launch an agressive advertising campaign.
The old motto appies, you have to spend money to make money.

 

[NeilPeart]

I don't think it will flop either. However, the question was "what if hammer flops," not "will the hammer flop."

 

[SaintGeorge]

Yeah your right about the advertising. For a long time AMD had a much better chip in the Athlon that Intels offering at the current time, holding the fastest chip slot and the best price / performance chips too with Intel making sales only through the big brand name.

The fact is the biggest proportion of PC buyers don't actually knowjack about computers, and when in doubt people go for the better known brand. AMD has finnaly done well with the change to XP---- ratings, because its just to hard explaining to so many people that a 1.4 ghz athlon could be faster than a 1.5ghz Pentium 4.

With a name like Hammer (or have they changed it to opteron now? or was it the other way round? *brain fails*) and all the new selling points hopefully AMD can get some good advertising in.

Shouldn't be too hard to think up something better than a few stupid blue men with some lightbulbs lol.

Mark

 

[Wingznut]

With a name like Hammer (or have they changed it to opteron now? or was it the other way round? *brain fails*)

ClawHammer will carry the Athlon name. SledgeHammer will be Opteron. So, neither one will be branded as "Hammer".

 

[Wolfsraider]

i hope things go very well for amd and the hammer and that intel pushes the bar higher quicker and that amd returns an even better and faster product "how else will we see true marvels in the computing industry."
i look forward to the years ahead. where will the technology lead? the computers we use now (although able to do many tasks)still aren't capable of many forseable functions.as the industry grows so will the abilities and speeds.as will my upgrading options

eagerly waiting to see what these future new products bring

 

[imgod2u]

Originally posted by: NTB

Originally posted by: imgod2u
Well, going for the "budget" thing is basically what AMD is doing now. It's not doing them a lotta good. Among the Joe Sixpack market, Intel reigns supreme due to its OEM ties. AMD's thriving market has been the enthusiaste market. If they release a poor processor that isn't capable of scaling and at its top scale can't match a P4 at the relatively lower end of its scale, then they'll loose the enthusiaste market. Even if Intel's prices are overinflated, people will still buy the lower end and overclock it. More than likely AMD will drop back to its flash memory business (the fab in Texas is still there I think). But I think the hype of 64-bit for Hammer will be more than just the desktop market. The workstation market could prove to be very lucridous indeed for AMD's Hammer. And I think Hammer has the potential to woops all of the Xeons out there since the workstation market can indeed utilize 64-bit integers and larger flat memory addresses.

I think the word you're looking for is lucrative

As for the original question, it would seem to me that AMD is betting alot on the hammer; but even if it flops I doubt that the company will go the way of the dodo. They still have their Flash buisness to fall back on, along with future revisions of their current processors (ie Barton). If the chip does flop, as has been said before, they can probably drag the Barton chip's lifespan out a little to buy themselves some time. Quite honestly though, I doubt that the Hammer will flop, baring some major disaster like a scaling problem. There's too much going for it, not the least of which is the ability to run legacy 32bit code natively - something Intel's itanium seems to have problems with.

just my 2 cents.

Nate

Ya, I never learned too good to splel.
Anyway I tend to disagree on the Itanium part. It's market aim is at the high end server market which run practically no legacy 32-bit apps. It's not like it was for the workstation market or anything. The reason Itanium didn't go off is because:
1. Intel is not as recognized in the server market.
2. Itanium didn't offer enough of a performance increase to justify platform switching for most IT departments.
3. Not a lot of software were ported for it due to part 2 and 1.

 

[DeschutesCore]

AMD has been in business a very long time, and they've been doing processors since at least the 80287. They've always been the alternative at the minimum and the better choice every now and then. They won't flop.

In the event I'm way off here, they do have other avenues and fabs. They'll be ok one way or the other.

DC

 

[Rainsford]

While this is an interesting thread, I think the same discussion could be made about Intel. Both Intel and AMD put all their eggs in one basket so to speak, Intel just has further to fall. If either company released a processor that was a complete flop (ie, the other company had a processor that was much faster and cheaper) and they couldn't fix the problem in a reasonable amount of time, that company would fall so fast it would be amazing. But this probably wouldn't happen since the two companies have shown themselves to both be very good companies that release excellent products.

 

[PH0ENIX]

*cough*P3 1.13*cough*

what?

I didn't say anything...

 

[AmdEmAll]

AMD has some Major debt that needs to be payed off. If hammer fails then they really would have trouble staying alive for much longer. I was reading there 2001 annual report today and it really looked like they need hammer to be really successful. Now I see no reason so far that it won't be successful but you never know. I think if AMD really gets into trouble that someone will buy them, maybe IBM? The company is really doing a lot of R & D lately which is really good. In 2001 they had 1090 patents granted (14 th), 1997 they had 271. Obviously they are hard at work. Also remember that PC processors are only 50% of there business. The other is ic circuits & flash memory.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

I too think that AMD really needs to pull it out for things to turn around at the company. Fortunately Hammer represents a far superior processor than even the Athlon did at the time. The great thing about Hammer is that it can be marketed to corporations. The same really can't be said of the Athlon. Everyone knows the money is in corporate IT. If AMD began to have trouble keeping marketshare against Intel their best move IMO is to give up the desktop completely and support flash and server based computing. The fact that the Hammer is both 32 and 64-bit capable is certainly a great selling point for cost-conscience business. Then, once they get on their feet again financially they could get back into the desktop arena. That's all just hypothetical drivel though...at least for the next 4 months or so.

 

[ElFenix]

they'd probably get bought out. heck, maybe dell would want to go mano a mano with intel or something crazy.

 

[peter7921]

Originally posted by: motoamd

Originally posted by: WarCon

Originally posted by: BDawg

Originally posted by: sean2002
What would happen to AMD if their hammer line is a flop, like being unable to scale clock speeds very well, or poor performance, wht would happen to AMD

Hammer CAN'T flop. It has a 512-bit GPU, 256-bit memory bus, support for 3 monitors and 10-bit color. There is no way anything will touch it!

I mean, for the love of God man, surround gaming!

What????

HUH?!

I remember reading somewhere that AMD did not increase the pipeline by that much

Wasn't it by 2 or 3 from 10?

yes it was increased by two the Hammer is 12 steps. The Athlon and Pentium 3 are ten steps. The Pentium 4 is 20 steps.

 

[ST4RCUTTER]

yes it was increased by two the Hammer is 12 steps. The Athlon and Pentium 3 are ten steps. The Pentium 4 is 20 steps. - peter7921


That's not exactly accurate. The Hammer is very much an extension to the current Palomino core as far as the pipeline. The current Palo pipe uses an 11-stage integer pipeline and a 15-stage floating point pipe...so the Hammer is extended to a 13-stage integer and 17-stage FP pipeline. In a perfect world that would translate to an increase of about 20% core clock over existing .13um Athlons or ~400Mhz. I doubt we'll see a 2.4Ghz K8 at introduction though. More likely 2.0Ghz give or take.

 

[Gstanfor]

AMD is placing all their eggs in the Hammer basket. They have done so without regard for the present state of computing, as Intel has gained a lot of their fallen market back. I hope they will release the Barton-based AthlonXP (with the 512KB L2 cache and 166MHz DDR FSB) soon. This will satisfy many users while AMD puts the finishing touches on their new baby. I sincerely hope that the Hammer is successful, as AMD fortunes are riding on the success/failure of the new chip. If the Hammer does indeed fail, then AMD will recede; I don't think they will fold completely, but their clout and recognition will severely decrease.

AMD really don't have much choice other than to concentrate almost exclusively upon Hammer. They simply don't have sufficient resources to actively develop Athlon further and Hammer at the same time.
We can thank Intel for that. AMD would be a far wealthier company than it is now if it had not had to fight baseless legal battles from intel over the years at great expense (nearly all of those battles were eventually resolved in AMD's favour), had to contend with Intel trying to force the motherboard manufacturers into not supporting Slot-A motherboards when the Athlon was first introduced, and advertising deals between vendors and Intel whereby Intel will only contribute to the cost of the advertisement if AMD products/systems are not mentioned in the advertisement.

AMD just needs to launch an agressive advertising campaign.
The old motto appies, you have to spend money to make money.

Yes, this is one thing about AMD that has troubled me for a long time, though Intel can accept a large portion of the blame here also, both through restricting potential AMD profits and through advertising deals that are conditional upon advertising partners not advertising AMD systems/components if they wish Intel to contribute to the cost of the advertisement.

Commodore (makers of the C64 and the Amiga) were a company that hardly did any advertising. They had excellent products at the time and they sold well, but, could have sold far better also. Hardly anybody who was not a computer enthusiast or knew one would have had a clue about the company or their products.

Greg

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: billyjak
The Government will not allow Intel to Monopolize the CPU Industry, Before that happens they will bail AMD out until they get on their feet.
It happened when Chrysler went under in the late 80's, the Government came through and now they're doing well.
I don't think the Hammer will flop though as years of research and development should make them very competitive.
The Athlon was ahead of Intel when it came out.
AMD will always be the under dog in the eyes of the public, mainley due to Intels rigorous advertising schemes
They will not go away for a long time.
The Hammer will be just what the doctor ordered. I beleive it will surprise many.
AMD just needs to launch an agressive advertising campaign.
The old motto appies, you have to spend money to make money.

I really can't believe that no one replied to this tripe. The government doesn't care if AMD goes out of business NOR should they. Intel would NOT have a monopoly if AMD goes out of business NOR would it matter if they did. Trusts in and of themselves are NOT illegal.

 

[imgod2u]

Regulated trusts are not illegal. However, Intel currently is not under any major government regulation, so they cannot form a monopoly legally.

As for the pipeline length of the K7, K8, P7 and P6 cores. The P6 core (in the P3 and P2) had a 13-stage integer pipeline to my knowledge (not sure about the FP pipelines). The K7 had 10 (or was it 11) for integer and 15 for FP. The P4, as everyone knows, has a 20-stage integer pipeline. The K8 will add 2 more stages in the pipeline to the existing K7 design (both to the integer and FP). However, there is one thing I should note. The additional stages are extra functions inside the pipeline. An extra "packing" function if I recall correctly. This is not like splitting a complex stage into multiple stages (which is what increases scalability). Adding extra functions, if anything, would actually reduce scalability if the function is more complex that the other functions. I'm not sure whether both of the extra stages added were towards this new packing function or whether only one was used for this and the other was split from a complex function in another stage of the pipeline. If so, then scalability would improve I guess, albeit not by much.
I think AMD's hoping that SOI will help scalability more than any real work on the pipelines. That and the shift to .09 micron transistor length would help. Realistically, I wouldn't even expect Hammer to reach 3 GHz and if so, not beyond it. The core simply wasn't designed as a scaling machine.

 

[piasabird]

There are still other processors out there. Granted nothing near the P4 or the Athlon. Via still makes the C processors which are comparable to Celeron PIII. Besides if it was going to flop you would know something by now, because they already are selling the 64 bit Server processors.

What I would consider is what if it is 10 or 20% faster than the P4?

On a side note, I wonder how they will make memory fast enough to keep up with it. DDR is suppose to top out at DDR 500.

 

[rahvin]

Originally posted by: imgod2u
Regulated trusts are not illegal. However, Intel currently is not under any major government regulation, so they cannot form a monopoly legally.

Hello and welcome to US Trust Law 101:

Our subject today is Trusts. Trusts in and of themselves are not illegal, regulation has nothing to do with it. Creating a monopoly is not illegal. An illegal trust is a trust that uses a monopoly in one market to oppose free market forces in another market and to monopolize that second market. This is basis of the microsoft anti-trust suit and has been the basis of every trust busting trial on record.

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Besides if it was going to flop you would know something by now, because they already are selling the 64 bit Server processors.

Eh? AMD? I think you are mistaken.