Question who is most responsible for saving AMD

[positivedoppler]

It was only 5 years ago AMD ended the year 2.3 billion in debt, 780 million in cash, and under 4 billion in sale.
https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/AMD/financials/annual/balance-sheet
I still recall the excessive doom and gloom posts from a few members here who can no longer be found.

The AMD BR wagon was only 5 years ago, and now they are back and once again a serious threat to Intel and Nvidia, who do you think was the most responsible for saving the ship? Lisa Su, Rory Read, Jim Keller, Papermaster, etc..?

 

[Arkaign]

A ton of things coalescing together made for what we see today.

Lucky timing on selling their fabs, which were not competitive at the time, and since then have mostly failed to be good enough for cutting edge product (GloFo)

Solid planning and execution for pretty much the entire Zen series of releases.

VERY solid continued execution by TSMC. If TSMC had failed in the same series of ways GloFo did, it would have presented AMD with catastrophic barriers to remaining competitive.

Intel's combination of greed and incompetence cannot be underestimated. To go from leading edge process tech to rather disastrous stagnation and failure to meet plans and execution is absolutely a factor in presenting a wider market reality where Zen looks even better by contrast. Intel choosing to rerelease so many back to back refreshes without significant improvement and still charge the same prices was alarming well before 2017, it has only gone from looking greedy to looking incompetent since then. To have THOSE kinds of revenue numbers, a leadership position in semiconductor tech, and to not make sure their R&D fundamentals were beyond reproach is basically unforgivable from any reasonable perspective. Irretrievably bone headed to not have done better.

Only the fact that supply is so limited that both AMD and intel easily sell through the entirety of their produced inventory is hiding the sheer blunder that Intel has perpetrated, and the magnitude of the excellence of what AMD has achieved with a fraction of the resources.

Still it's a very hybrid answer deeper than any sole factor. Everything together made things what they are.

 

[Asterox]

AMD CEO Lisa Su is an actual engineer. He doctorate was in silicon-on-insulate mosfet design. She studied at MIT.

Intel CEO Bob Swan has a bachelor's in business management from U Buffalo.

So Lisa Su is like Nikola Tesla, and Bob Swan is something similar to Tomas Edison.Well ok, it can be compared like that i have no problems with this.

 

[beginner99]

Brian Kraznich?

Good one.

 

[uzzi38]

As an aside - you can make commments about process node and power efficiency, but why does it matter if AMD only match in power efficiency with a node jump? You're treating it like node jumps are easy to do, that they're just free performance or something. Staying a node ahead is an entirely valid way of maintaining a performance lead - and requires a significant amount of engineering and R&D to accomplish.

Conviniently enough, Wikichip just posted an article today saying the exact same thing.

7nm Boosted Zen 2 Capabilities but Doubled the Challenges

The transition to 7 nm greatly enhanced AMD silicon capabilities but introduced new drastic design challenges that required new place and route methodologies and wire engineering.

fuse.wikichip.org

Don't mock the amount of work that goes into getting a uArch into one of the smaller nodes. Which is exactly what you're doing by implying that AMD being a node ahead is some sort of sign of incompetency.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I should also probably reply to this.

If Intel had 8-core Ice Lake/Tiger Lake CPUs running at 5GHz at 95W TDP right now, no one would be talking about AMD.

Maybe not for desktop, but Zen 2 is still a killer product in the server space, and would have had an easy time of competing against Ice Lake-SP. In the mobile space, like Picasso, AMD would have been able to make major gains on the low end of things. Same for desktop - AMD would have just priced aiming for lower margins or aimed at content creators who want higher core counts.

Here's the thing - there is nothing about Ice Lake nor Tiger Lake that completely neutralise Zen 2. The power efficiency per core is just far too good, making them exceptional where you want to minimise power draw. Especially when compared to Ice/Tiger Lake, the both of which barely beat Intel's 14nm products in power efficiency;

We would have had a rather easy time talking about it

 

[thesmokingman]

AMD could have easily licensed GPUs from ATI just like Intel recently licensed AMD's one (Kaby Lake-G). And that would have cost them a LOT less then buying out ATI. And that would have left them not with an insane amount of debt but enough cash to take on Intel.

That would have changed their course of innovation, no more APU, no Mantle, no HSA, no console wins... etc etc.

 

[chrisjames61]

Brian Kraznich?

Maybe lol!

 

[chrisjames61]

Why the F would they do monolithic?

Why are you attacking the guy?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Ultimately, the customers who kept buying their junk products until they finally got their butts in gear.

Yup that’s me with my TWO crappy FX6300 purchases. Worst machine ever, unbelievable amount to motherboard failures. Thank god I purchased the Microcenter extended warranty.
That machine was a complete dog and I am amazed to this day it continues to disappoint me not being eligible for the 8300 settlement.

No contest, Hector Ruiz.

I say that brief interm guy who had the punchable frat boy face.
Can’t remember his name...

 

[CHADBOGA]

Yup that’s me with my TWO crappy FX6300 purchases. Worst machine ever, unbelievable amount to motherboard failures. Thank god I purchased the Microcenter extended warranty.
That machine was a complete dog and I am amazed to this day it continues to disappoint me not being eligible for the 8300 settlement.



I say that brief interm guy who had the punchable frat boy face.
Can’t remember his name...

Rory Read.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Rory Read.

Yup that’s him



Sort of explains why Dell is crappy now

 

[DrMrLordX]

For those of you saying Hector saved AMD, I largely disagree. He made the catastrophic assumption that Intel was going to continue to struggle with Netburst from 2006 onward. Spinning off the fabs would have been a more-convincing victory for AMD had Hector not put himself in charge of the new fab business and had he not effectively negotiated WSA that effectively made AMD a slave client to GF for years. Had AMD the option of dealing with Samsung or TSMC for better nodes, I think the arrangement would have been much healthier.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

For those of you saying Hector saved AMD, I largely disagree. He made the catastrophic assumption that Intel was going to continue to struggle with Netburst from 2006 onward. Spinning off the fabs would have been a more-convincing victory for AMD had Hector not put himself in charge of the new fab business and had he not effectively negotiated WSA that effectively made AMD a slave client to GF for years. Had AMD the option of dealing with Samsung or TSMC for better nodes, I think the arrangement would have been much healthier.

I assumed the Hector comment was sarcasm

 

[DrMrLordX]

I assumed the Hector comment was sarcasm

I hope so! But at least one poster seemed to think spinning off the fabs was a good idea.

 

[scannall]

I hope so! But at least one poster seemed to think spinning off the fabs was a good idea.

Spinning off the fabs wasn't a bad idea really. A fab can be a blessing, or a boat anchor. And that's what AMD's had become. But doing it with the WSA? That's what made it really bad.

 

[deathBOB]

Steve Jobs. Without the iPhone we don’t get the intensely competitive smartphone market we have today, and we don’t have contract fabs that can match or beat Intel.

 

[nicalandia]

the unsung heroes are the AMD Fans that kept purchasing their CPU(I for one purchased a FX 8320 coming from an X4 and held it to a 1700 saving enough for a 3700 when Zen 3 drops in), even when their tech was inferior. Now a days specially with Zen 2 being such a massive hit, everyone and their uncle are AMD Fans, but they will jump ship when Intel takes back their CPU lead by hook or by crook. You know who you are, we all know.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

the unsung heroes are the AMD Fans that kept purchasing their CPU(I for one purchased a FX 8320 coming from an X4 and held it to a 1700 saving enough for a 3700 when Zen 3 drops in), even when their tech was inferior. Now a days specially with Zen 2 being such a massive hit, everyone and their uncle are AMD Fans, but they will jump ship when Intel takes back their CPU lead by hook or by crook. You know who you are, we all know.

Yup that’s me

 

[nicalandia]

Yup that’s me

So you will turn your back on Amd when they are not Cool anymore?

 

[Fanatical Meat]

So you will turn your back on Amd when they are not Cool anymore?

If that means the FX poop show days return. Absolutely.
Not playing that game again.

 

[nicalandia]

If that means the FX poop show days return. Absolutely.
Not playing that game again.

thanks for proving my point.... Real AMD Fans stay with them through thick and through thin, but thanks for purchasing AMD CPUs for the time being, any business is good business.

 

[UsandThem]

If that means the FX poop show days return. Absolutely.
Not playing that game again.

Amen. Just like I recently went away from Intel because of all the security issues, I'd run away from AMD if they ever decided to release Bulldozer Version 2.0.

thanks for proving my point.... Real AMD Fans stay with them through thick and through thin, but thanks for purchasing AMD CPUs for the time being, any business is good business.

Sticking with a tech company when they release a bad product makes no sense to me.

I understand sticking with family and friends in tough times, but that does not transfer over to tech companies who I have no vested interest in (like owning stock).

 

[nicalandia]

I understand sticking with family and friends in tough times, but that does not transfer over to tech companies who I have no vested interest in (like owning stock).

I guess you don't know the meaning of being a Fan, here is for you: "an ardent admirer or enthusiast". My point was that true AMD fans are the one the kept AMD afloat long enough until they released Zen.

 

[UsandThem]

I guess you don't know the meaning of being a Fan, here is for you: "an ardent admirer or enthusiast". My point was that true AMD fans are the one the kept AMD afloat long enough until they released Zen.

Thanks for giving the definition as I wouldn't have been able to understand it otherwise.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

thanks for proving my point.... Real AMD Fans stay with them through thick and through thin, but thanks for purchasing AMD CPUs for the time being, any business is good business.

Yup I’m not hardcore like you.
I’m a noob.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Amen. Just like I recently went away from Intel because of all the security issues, I'd run away from AMD if they ever decided to release Bulldozer Version 2.0.

Sticking with a tech company when they release a bad product makes no sense to me.

I understand sticking with family and friends in tough times, but that does not transfer over to tech companies who I have no vested interest in (like owning stock).

Funny that was the main reason I came back to AMD after being completely disappointed with my FX6300 machine (and its constant failures).
Was going to go intel simply because I didn’t want to get on the motherboard failure train again and honestly I was pretty pissed about how AMD allowed board makers to make dumb barely functional claims
For example my 3rd motherboard was an Asus, box PROMINENTLY displayed 1080P integrated graphics. Awesome!
Turns out it was f-ing analog connection. No HDMI, no DVI.
Who the hell has a 1080P analog monitor...grrrr.....

Then I started reading about all the security problems with intel and how each patch slows them a little bit and no end game for these patches.

Consulted these forums and crappy motherboard fears disappeared.