Why have AMD APUs failed on the market?

[AtenRa]

Intel just offers a more cost effective solution for OEMs.

Dont think so,

AMD offers more features like Freesync, lower platform cost and higher iGPU performance at the same TDP even against 28W TDP Haswell GT3 (no eDRAM SKU)

A 512 iGPU 30W TDP Carrizo will be faster than A8-7600 at 45W TDP both in CPU and iGPU performance. If i was a big OEM/ODM i would invest in that SoC for All in Ones and small thin SFF desktops. The consumer will benefit from PCs like that if they had the choice.

Imagine a FreeSync 21-24" All in One 30W TDP 512 iGPU Quad Core Carrizo that can play almost every game at 900p and have more than enough CPU performance for everything else, heaven

From an OEM/ODM point of view is also heaven,
1: Less complex board due to SoC (no more chipsets) = lower cost both from the board and the lack of chipset.
2: 30W TDP = small HeatSink-Fan = Smaller/Thiner design = cheaper and more elegant.
3: No dGPU = smaller Heatsink-fan + less complex board + cheaper = win win win.
4: FreeSync = added feature = higher margin = more profit = Win Win Win Win

That All in One would be the best All in One both for the OEM/ODM and the Consumer.
For the OEM/ODM cheaper to produce than Intel Broadwell, Added Features like FreeSync and higher iGPU perofrmance at lower/same price.
For the Consumer, added features and higher iGPU performance at lower/equal price than the Intel Broadwell.

Just give the customer the choice

 

[ShintaiDK]

Dont think so,

AMD offers more features like Freesync, lower platform cost and higher iGPU performance at the same TDP even against 28W TDP Haswell GT3 (no eDRAM SKU)

Nobody cares about the GPU performance. And no, they dont offer lower cost. And they got worse performance/watt.

And you link a 45W desktop chip as your estimate for some odd reason with wild speculations again for the next upcoming "saviour". Havent you burned your fingers enough times on this?

 

[Idontcare]

Why have AMD APUs failed on the market?

Why does any product fail on the market?

From marketing, or the lack thereof.

Take the P4 for example. Sure it failed within the enthusiast market based on performance metrics alone. But Intel still sold billions and billions of dollars worth of them because of excellent marketing. (blue man group, Intel inside brand recognition, etc.)

As an enthusiast I desperately wanted an AMD X2, but AMD priced themselves way outside of my league at the time...marketing, among many other things, makes sure the products are priced as needed to gain traction in the market which is exactly what Intel did with the P4.

IMO AMD's products fail to gain market traction solely because their marketing team is lacking, not because the products are lacking.

(I suppose one could argue that the products are lacking if the goal of the product is for it to sell itself in absentia of an effective marketing team, but that doesn't actually get to the meat of the conundrum from a root-cause business operations standpoint)

 

[mrmt]

As an enthusiast I desperately wanted an AMD X2, but AMD priced themselves way outside of my league at the time...marketing, among many other things, makes sure the products are priced as needed to gain traction in the market which is exactly what Intel did with the P4.

But isn't the supply chain component being overlooked in this rationale?

I mean, AMD was capacity constrained at the time of the X2, so it had to sell the X2 for a very high price in order to maximize profits. But what if AMD had a completely different supply chain picture, one where they had capacity to spare? The X2 probably wouldn't fetch a high price, because there would be plenty of offers on the market, Intel would also bleed more share, because its products were less competitive by definition and consequently Intel would earn less money. Superior marketing works, but not to the point of making a decisively inferior product thrive against a capacity unconstrained competitor, because the other actors on the supply chain would care for themselves and go for the most profitable alternative, which would not be the P4 at the time.

AMD APUs OTOH is facing a somewhat similar environment but the other way around: The raw performanance of AMD processors isn't that bad, but it puts an extra burden on OEMs because of higher cooling requirements and higher manufacturing costs of their APU, and the slump on the PC market and the failed mobile push made sure that Intel has the capacity to supply very close to 100% of the PC market at a more competitive cost. It's a competitive nightmare to have the best competitor with the best cost structure and capacity to spare.

Buying Intel-only isn't a situation any OEM would like to be in. OEMs would *love* to have AMD and Intel competing on equal footing, both fighting to sell them processors with huge discounts involved, but despite being against their own interests in the long run, the cost landscape is so dire that they shun AMD and stick with Intel.

Marketing could indeed improve the position of AMD processors on the market, it could get AMD a cozy niche of die-hard AMD fans that would buy price-outrageous SKUs like NVidia has with the GTX980 and GTX Titan, granting them profits, but I don't think it would be enough to prevent them from losing a lot of market share as they are doing now.

 

[BigDaveX]

No, customers, yes.

People here push so much for "cpu performance" and its importance, yet don't give real examples of its importance.

The reality is that AMD should had been the market share leader, it has the best product, for the majority of people. Meaning, not the 15-25% of people that buy dGPU's every 3 darn years, *cough* or 5-8% that buy them yearly.

Those are the people that care about "performance", those are the people that makes sense to pay more then twice for less than twice the performance of the competing product.

Firstly, the only years AMD has clearly had better products than Intel overall were 2000-2001, and 2004-2006. The ship's kinda sailed on that one.

Secondly, if you're gonna pull the "AMD's CPUs are good enough!" argument, newsflash: Intel's CPUs are also good enough, use less power, and are more easily upgradeable to higher-end models.

Thirdly, what percentage of PC users do you suppose just don't give a damn at all about graphics performance? If you need any indication, Intel have been the graphics marketshare leaders more or less continuously since 2002. Did you know that? And up until about Sandy Bridge (probably even Ivy Bridge, in fact), their iGPUs were widely regarded as complete and utter jokes by anyone even vaguely knowledgeable about PCs.

 

[Phynaz]

Intel s mobile CPUs are not that good, they perform well thanks to draining only 100% more power than officaly specced, check the reviews above, particularlty the one of the "15W" Broadwell, a hint, it drain about 28W at the SoC level...

"Why have AMD APUs failed on the market?"

You're in the wrong thread.

 

[ElFenix]

IMO AMD's products fail to gain market traction solely because their marketing team is lacking, not because the products are lacking.

instead of money spent on the latest AAA games, AMD should have spent money on LoL points. co brand AMD APUs with LoL (which afaik runs great on kaveri), provide money to OEMs to splash LoL graphics and logos on the side of boxes, and run with it. it's the most popular game on earth. OEMs win because they're selling a box for $450 instead of $400, AMD wins because it's selling parts, etc.

 

[monstercameron]

instead of money spent on the latest AAA games, AMD should have spent money on LoL points. co brand AMD APUs with LoL (which afaik runs great on kaveri), provide money to OEMs to splash LoL graphics and logos on the side of boxes, and run with it. it's the most popular game on earth. OEMs win because they're selling a box for $450 instead of $400, AMD wins because it's selling parts, etc.

I fully agree with this, not to say that bf4 wasn't a nice tie in game or lego batman 3. ~$50 worth of riot points would have been great, I know a few guys that buy all the skins and are a little addicted to it.

 

[ironk]

To me, at least, I think this whole Apu thing basically caused confusion with people. If you're a gamer, why would you want a APU which will most likely disable its graphics portion if you were to insert a separate graphics card? Plus you can only use a certain graphics card and not another, and maybe some features will work (physx) and some won't. Then there is linux compatibility and AMD drivers too to consider.

Even if you aren't a gamer, you don't want to at least be able to upgrade the cpu and graphics portion separately occasionally too.

I don't think its a marketing failure or whatever since the Athlon XP's weren't marketed either and they did well. Its more about what it actually is and then pretending to be.

Until they get a "True" Apu that is transparent with its connection with its gpu portion, then I think these APU's are basically just a temporary SOC solution. Its basically at "test" for companies to see how they'd do.

 

[BigDaveX]

In fairness, Llano was a decent product, but it was released just a little too late. Had it been going up against Nehalem, which had no motherboard-side GPU options whatsoever on the quad-core models, and that clunky on-package-but-off-die iGPU/Northbridge set-up on the dual-core range (which effectively made it a Core 2 Duo with Hyper-Threading and a moderately better iGPU), it would have been a very compelling alternative.

I think what really caught AMD flat-footed was Sandy Bridge, which blew Llano and its successors out of the water in single-thread performance, was still very competitive in multi-thread, had much better power consumptions, and far more competently executed iGPUs than Intel's previous efforts. Ivy Bridge addressed its predecessor's feature shortfall and improved performance, and Haswell further closed the gap.

Had Intel continued on the same course they'd been treating their various integrated options since the dark days of the i810 in 1999, I'm sure AMD would have had more success with their APUs. Unfortunately, Intel started taking graphics a lot more seriously.

 

[lord_emperor]

Why have AMD APUs failed on the market?

IMO lack of marketing / better marketing by Intel.

I built two systems over the holiday season with A10-5800K APUs. Honestly they're good 4-core CPUs and graphics solutions for 90% of games and for what the clients got the price was unbeatable.

CPU was $100, motherboard was $65. You can get an Intel mobo for $65 as well but Intel's closest option is an i3 4160 at $140 plus a discrete GPU.

 

[DrMrLordX]

$100 for a 5800k? Ouch. That seems abnormally high, somehow. Well okay, it's the default NewEgg price, but NCIX has it for ~$87 until . . . tomorrow?

 

[MisterLilBig]

Secondly, if you're gonna pull the "AMD's CPUs are good enough!" argument, newsflash: Intel's CPUs are also good enough, use less power, and are more easily upgradeable to higher-end models.

Thirdly, what percentage of PC users do you suppose just don't give a damn at all about graphics performance? If you need any indication, Intel have been the graphics marketshare leaders more or less continuously since 2002. Did you know that? And up until about Sandy Bridge (probably even Ivy Bridge, in fact), their iGPUs were widely regarded as complete and utter jokes by anyone even vaguely knowledgeable about PCs.

To your "Secondly", AMD's APU are cheaper, use around the same power(currently) and perform way better in games at same and above resolutions and more compatible with DirectX/OpenGL versions, and the great majority of customers won't upgrade unless a few years passed.

To your "thirdly", most don't until they try to play a game and realise it just wont run at all because of lack of the feature to run, mainly DirectX/OpenGL version or because the framerate is a horrible slideshow, literally. And I know Intel has the majority share in graphics, that's the point of the topic.


The topic is about why AMD APU's failed. This isn't about high-end users or even mid-end users, I have a dGPU in my system after all, an AMD APU can do a more important thing than what an Intel APU does and that is, if the user would like to play a game, and most users do, an AMD APU has a higher probability of running it and then, run it better. That is fact. The Intel APU will Install programs faster, slightly faster, but that's about it.


Is installing a program 5-50% faster better than playing any game 2-3 times faster and with better quality, more important to 80% of users? Most people don't install that many large programs, most people will play some form of video game. faster and better video, faster and better gaming, AMD had the upper hand in that for years and it failed in the market. It was not because of a bad product, it was because of bad marketing and Intel being a genius at marketing.

I don't take Intel's credit away, but I wont say that their APU's are better where it matters, performance wise, when they aren't, and by the looks of it, Broadwell GT3e might reach high-end Kaveri in performance, doubtful but it might.

 

[shady28]

Well, I was going to try to challenge the apu fail thing, but...

I had to go to #15 on Amazon's top selling desktops to find an APU.

And that one sucked, a $480 AIO with an E2-3800 Kabini. That's a damn notebook Kabini, its GPU scores are in line with Z3745 Bay Trail. I doubt that AIO buyer will be a repeat AMD customer.

A year ago the top sellers were packed with APUs. AMD has some decent desktop APUs for the mainstream market but what is being sold by OEMs (low end / ultra-cheap APUs) is going to, or probably already has, trashed the APUs reputation but AMDs as well.

 

[frozentundra123456]

But if gaming performance is so important, AMDs very own solution of an Athlon x4 plus a hundred dollar discrete card offers another 50 to 100 percent boost in performance at a very minimal increase in price. And of course if you want the best performance you have to go with Intel plus discrete.

That is the problem for APUs they are a compromise solution. They make sense in a SFF that wont fit a discrete card that you still want to use for gaming, or for someone who wants to play games, but isnt willing to spend an additional 40 or 50 dollars more to be able to have a markedly better experience. Honestly, how large is that niche group?


This thread keeps getting off track, continually pounding the point that AMDs graphics is better than intels. But that is not really the point. The point is that they are so bandwidth and thermally limited that a much better gaming solution is available under almost every circumstance, while if you dont want to game, you dont really care about the igp.

 

[Ramses]

Are not the graphics the whole (functional/currently) point of an APU though?
It begs the question, how can less be more if the other part
of the equation (the CPU) is "enough"? There's power usage, heat and cost, but
beyond those things....

Folks who think the CPU part isn't enough prefer Intel.
Folks who think the Intel GPU is enough prefer Intel.
Folks who think the AMD CPU is enough prefer AMD.
Folks who prefer more GPU over CPU for a given dollar prefer AMD.

Isn't that about the jist of it?


If a person believes nobody cares about the GPU unless they are gaming, in which case they will buy a dGPU anyway,
then does it not beg the question why in hell are AMD AND Intel sticking these things in all these CPU's?
There are only so many conclusions to that one and they are all fairly obvious.


I don't think most folks have a clue who are buying pre-built computers by and large.
Keeps coming back to marketing far as I can tell. I don't see any reason at least some (a8+?) of AMD's APU's couldn't have sold decently, not amazingly, but decently, to the general public.

 

[Shivansps]

ANother example, i want to see a direct comparison of a G1840 vs A4-7300 there no reviews to be found.

 

[lord_emperor]

$100 for a 5800k? Ouch. That seems abnormally high, somehow. Well okay, it's the default NewEgg price, but NCIX has it for ~$87 until . . . tomorrow?

Canadian $ of course. There used to be a flag by my username. $100 was ncix's price over xmas.

 

[Ramses]

ANother example, i want to see a direct comparison of a G1840 vs A4-7300 there no reviews to be found.

Isn't it just more of the same though? Intel CPU faster, AMD GPU faster, etc, etc. Not that I'm condoning the data here but http://benchmarks-tests.com/cpu_processors/amd_a6-5400k_vs_intel_celeron_g1840/ looks reasonable.

 

[Shivansps]

Isn't it just more of the same though? Intel CPU faster, AMD GPU faster, etc, etc. Not that I'm condoning the data here but http://benchmarks-tests.com/cpu_processors/amd_a6-5400k_vs_intel_celeron_g1840/ looks reasonable.

No sure because the IGP on the 7300 its worse than the one on 5600K, and the turbo freq of the 7300 is superior to the 5600K.

So im not sure really. a 4ghz the 7300 has a real chance of matching the Celeron in cpu, and the igp of the 7300 its no more than the same present on AM1 with the additional of DC, we know that the celeron can beat the AM1 igp, but with DC? we could be in a case with 2 cpus exactly equal in everything, with the 7300 rig being a bit cheaper.

 

[Ramses]

Could be, all the automated comparison sites that have sprung up online seem just that, automated. Who knows how accurate they are.

 

[alexruiz]

As someone who builds and owns exclusively AMD, I'll tell you my take:

OEM systems:
Crap OEM designs, no way around it. The APUs need bandwidth to shine, and when the OEM systems come with single channel slow memory, the APU is starved. Furthermore, AMD cannot match the kickbacks the other guys are doing, so the APUs end in very poorly speced machines. I have been looking for months for a laptop replacement for my HP probook 6475b. A Beema in a 12.1" chassis with M.2 slot, IPS 1080p screen and backlit keyboard would be calling my name, if it existed. The closest thing to a decent design is the HP elitebook 725, but lacks the M.2 slot, and it is expensive.

In the OEM desktop systems it is a similar situation, the APUs go into the lowest speced systems, so the end users associate the poor performance to AMD, when in reality a system as poorly configured wouldn't be much faster with an i7-4790k instead. Now, in this regard of OEM desktop systems, AMD is not totally exempt of fault. If you give a low cost very low performing option to the OEM, they will take it everytime. The E2s and similar should not exist at all. Furthermore, the AM1 stuff should be Athlon quad cores 2GHz and above. But if you have a dual core at 1.3GHz for cheaper, the OEM will take it. Shady28 and other have already touched this point.


DIY Retail:
Price: The A10-7850k APU is a lovely piece if silicon, but at its current price, it is hard to pick it over a FX6300 + R7 250X combo that will run close in price to a A10-7850k + DDR3-2133 RAM. I am using a A10-7850k in my desktop now (had a FX8320 + HD7970, wasn't gaming at all so downsized) I got the Kaveri in one of those crazy MC bundles, but if had not been that way, I might have stayed with the FX8320 and probably change the video card. The A10-7700k is reaching parity in price, but needing faster ram to shine, it is a hard proposition for the DIYers. Until the APUs with a FM2+ mobo reach parity with a FX6300 with a AM3+ in price, they won''t sell that much.

Performance is perfectly fine, and before the pussy and his minions of fanboys come claiming that APUs are slow, for the vast majority of the population they are perfectly fine. They multitask better than the dual core of the blue camp that these fanboys try to push, and will perform better in typical household use (read: Like 50 facebook tabs open, have better hardware acceleration for flash, used in so many web games and better video decoding) Don't believe my claim? How about you go and use BOTH? Not scour the web for academic numbers and starcraft babbling, test drive them yourself in typical household use, see what you think.

An APU in a decently speced system will please almost any user. Heck, my Probook feels faster than my work machine (Dell precision M4800) and I know that benchmarks wise the M4800 should murder it. Both have SSDs, but something as simple as the right tweaks means that while one is dragged down by the corporate bloatware, the other one runs freely.

If you own an APU, have fun with it. If you don't, you want to try one.

 

[Shivansps]

BTW, Intel suffers the exact same problem with memory on its systems.

 

[Ramses]

As long as dual channel memory has been around, it's nobodies fault but whoever spec'd the system if performance is lower due to a lack of it at this point. Not AMD's fault, not Intel's fault. Ten or twelve years that stuff has been around at least on consumer PC's. Intel and AMD should both require it and make the damn things not function at all without.

 

[Abwx]

and the igp of the 7300 its no more than the same present on AM1 with the additional of DC, we know that the celeron can beat the AM1 igp, but with DC? we could be in a case with 2 cpus exactly equal in everything, with the 7300 rig being a bit cheaper.

Actualy it s above, with 192 SPs, that s the 6300/6320 wich have only 128.