- Mar 3, 2017
- 1,747
- 6,598
- 136
Did you forget that the sales of Apple devices led to other strategic gains such as OS and ecosystem market share and buy in, which resulted in a closed ecosystem where Apple could take 30% from most software sales? A quarter of Apple's total revenue comes from software and services.Back in the day when iPhone had a $200 BOM and retailed for $800 that was considered a handsome margin. Somehow today a $70 BOM with a $700 retail is a company barely scraping by.
With a CPU you’re paying almost entirely for the R&D, at least I would thinkBack in the day when iPhone had a $200 BOM and retailed for $800 that was considered a handsome margin. Somehow today a $70 BOM with a $700 retail is a company barely scraping by.
The R&D is (or at least could be) amortized across all product lines using the CCD they designed for that gen. IIRC BOM typically does not contain those costs, but specifically the $70 figure was 2xCCD + 1xIOD + packaging (substrate)With a CPU you’re paying almost entirely for the R&D, at least I would think
Plus retailer margins, packaging, shipping etc.. not sure if that was worked into the BOM
The R&D is (or at least could be) amortized across all product lines using the CCD they designed for that gen. IIRC BOM typically does not contain those costs, but specifically the $70 figure was 2xCCD + 1xIOD + packaging (substrate)
Then you don't know how semiconductor margins work. Most top end parts for CPU/GPU have very high margins and even mid range parts will have decent margins but the cost of R&D is so high, companies need these margins to continue designing and making new chips. AMD is only somewhat profitable pricing their products at their current prices and doesn't have the same margins as Nvidia or Intel from 10 years ago.I have no idea how a 90% profit margin could be considered "very crappy profitability".

Guys, there's gross margins and then there's operating margins...
Revenue - COGS = Gross Margins. COGS = cost of goods sold, aka raw production costs.
But then you have operating expenses, which includes R&D, rent, electricity, salaries, and all the other overhead items, basically.
From AMD's last earnings statement, Gross Margins were 47% and Operating Margins were 1% (both are averaged across all segments). Note: This includes an expense item from acquiring Xilinx which dilutes the EPS.
If you want it broken down by segment, you'll have to look more closely at the tables. Make of this what you will.
View attachment 103592

Correct, hence my one note regarding Xilinx.AMD is still writing off huge amounts of money from their Xilinx and other acquisitions over the last few years to save on taxes. Their non-GAAP results are a much better reflection of how they are actually doing overall. Their operating income goes form $36M to $1.1B for the latest quarter with an operating margin of 21%, the vast majority of the difference being in depreciation/amortization accounting.
View attachment 103595
I don't know of any really good technical writeups on it, but, from living on the forums for years and looking at the task manager and programming tools monitoring the modern games I play, it's quite evident that it's rarely more than 2 physical cores that are pushed to near 100% usage in any modern game. Single threaded performance is VERY important for the first two cores, and still somewhat important in the next few. After that, they spend more of their time doing little more than waiting for system events or decompressing data.Do you maybe have an idea where to find such breakdown? How well threaded modern games are? And another thing that might bite Strix is Windows scheduler if by chance it will decide to move the time sensitive thread to Zen5c CCX then well... [Of course in ideal world that would not happen, but even 3 years after Alder Lake is on the market it's still not uncommon to find software with issues related to handling the E cores]
For the second bullet, would that mean Zen6 release in like 12-18 months from now, so mid-life kicker is not needed?
hmm I'm expecting Vanilla Zen 5 and X3D this year and maybe a refresh on 3nm in 2025 but not Zen 6 in 2025....I cam across this article saying 2025 release for Zen 6, which would be within 18 months of Zen 5 release. They say their source is AMD, but I have not seen any direct quotes from AMD about that.
![]()
AMD Zen 6 is "on track" for 2025 release - report claims - OC3D
Rumour has it that AMD Zen 6 CPUs are on track to release in 2025, giving the Ryzen 9000 series a shorter than expected shelf life.overclock3d.net

Not quite. They say that according to TechRadar AMD says that Zen 6 is on target for 2025.I cam across this article saying 2025 release for Zen 6, which would be within 18 months of Zen 5 release. They say their source is AMD, but I have not seen any direct quotes from AMD about that.
![]()
AMD Zen 6 is "on track" for 2025 release - report claims - OC3D
Rumour has it that AMD Zen 6 CPUs are on track to release in 2025, giving the Ryzen 9000 series a shorter than expected shelf life.overclock3d.net
AMD didn’t have anything of note to say at the LA event about its next-generation Zen 6 processors first mentioned at Computex 2024. We still don’t know much about the Zen 6 and Zen 6c architectures at the moment, only that they are still on track for a release in 2025.

I agree I think Zen 6 will tie into the release of DDR6.Zen6 in 2025 makes no sense.
AMD announced extended support for AM5 platform to 2027.
They can easily launch Zen6 in 2026 and launch refreshes/X3D in 2027 to support that claim. Why would they as a company want to hurry things up?
hmm I'm expecting Vanilla Zen 5 and X3D this year and maybe a refresh on 3nm in 2025 but not Zen 6 in 2025....
View attachment 103624
Not quite. They say that according to TechRadar AMD says that Zen 6 is on target for 2025.
From the linked TechRadar article;
A release could be anything... serverside included. And the way TechRadar mentions the 2025 date it sounds like it wasn't even part of AMD's Computex talking points, but referring to perhaps an earlier rumour.
"still on track for a release in 2025" - I'm scratching my head on this one... I can't remember any rumours to such an effect. MLID perhaps? An extrapolation of the Nirvana/Morpheus roadmap? Nirvana was 2023 - Morpheus 2024... so add a year to both... and hey you get a Zen 6 release in 2025. Centipede in action?
View attachment 103625
There was that article semi-recently that I'm pretty sure said desktop DDR6 wouldn't be ready until 2027, so I think Zen 6 will be the last DDR5 generation.I agree I think Zen 6 will tie into the release of DDR6.
However it doesn't mean we may not see some kinda of castrated version of Zen 6 for AM5 but doubting the 2025 release date.
Has anyone thought that there might be a Zen 6 on an MI product, like mi450x or something like that? It would support the needed margins.
Maybe they will pull a Zen5+, kind of like Zen1+ on the 2x00 series? Maybe (puts on tinfoil hat) it could be the rumored Zen5 that was meant for N3 finally getting released?
Yeah it's called Turin Dense and it's on N3e.it could be the rumored Zen5 that was meant for N3 finally getting released?
What's thatdesktop DDR6
What's that
Yep, that’s the future. It’s better than DIMMs
