FEATURED AMD Seems to Effectively Give Up (For High-End CPUs)

[hokiealumnus]

At AMD's Financial Analyst day, Anand has seen the light. It is not a light we here will like seeing very much.

From a product standpoint, AMD is really focusing on its mainstream and entry level APUs. Rory didn't come out and say it here but no where in AMD's future direction is a focus on the high-end x86 CPU space.

Reference.

In other words...

The days of AMD chasing Intel for the high-end desktop market are done though. That war is officially over.

Reference.

To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. This is bad. For the consumer mostly but also for AMD fans. It's no secret that Intel rules the performance roost by many metrics and Bulldozer didn't do enough to close that gap. But to just let them have it and for there to be no competition in that segment...

It's a sad day.

 

[trents]

One also wonders if the motherboard companies will start backing away from the enthusiast board market on the AMD side and leave us with essentially OEM products that you can't overclock.

 

[EarthDog]

My goodness. The writing was on tbe wall on this..but its sad to see it in print essentially. Looks like I should start saving my dolkars for high end cpus.

 

[keny]

This is not good news for AMD users (like myself),looks like the next upgrade is going by the way of intel, unless AMD start bringing out some smoking APU's in the near future "but i doubt it"

 

[TorqueRanger]

Well amd fans are screwed for now... I just don't understand how come they made a big deal out of the BD coming out and it was just a huge flop to kick intel butt...

 

[David]

There was talk years and years ago when AMD were on the rocks a couple of times, about how competition was necessary for CPU manufacturers. I think AMD haven't been really that competitive for a while, and that it shows in the formulaic and seemingly quite boring Sandy Bridge overclocking. Bin chips, keep the one that has the highest wall, tweak the BCLK...

 

[capttripppp]

That's a darn shame. Now Intel is going to have a monopoly and I wouldn't be surprised to see their products go up in cost now that there will not be any more competition

 

[EarthDog]

Intel does not have a monopoly. AMD is still making CPU's, just not high end ones.

That said the price will likely not drop on Intel's higher end stuff and only go up Technology. will likely not progress as fast in that segment due to the lack of competition in that specific market segment.

 

[hokiealumnus]

If nothing else, at least their APUs seem to still retain the fun no-cold-bug feature. Our own TsunamiJuan managed over 6GHz with the latest unlocked APU. There's at least a small bright side - what they do plan to focus on is still overclock-able.

Depending on your outlook, AMD gave up on the high-end long ago. They haven't had a $500-$1000 CPU in a very long time. So I suppose it's part of interpreting what is high-end...if the 2500K/2600K (and their Ivy Bridge counterparts) are mid-range, perhaps AMD will still compete.

....but if those are considered high-end, we're in trouble. If AMD gives up completely in the mid/mainstream segment too, Intel can basically set prices wherever they want.

At least they're moving forward with Piledriver. Maybe they can get somewhere close to Ivy with the new FX line.

 

[capttripppp]

I understand Intel doesn't have a monopoly, but this will kind of open the door for them. Which I hope does not happen. In my own mind this kind of sets the stage for AMD to focus solely on their gpus/apus, and phase out the cpus (aside from their server lines). But again, I am also not so in the know. That was just my take on it. And I completely forgot about Piledriver! There is still alot that can be said/done, and I did jump the gun a little on saying that Intel will have a monopoly. Upon reflection, Intel does pretty much own the whole of the enthusiast market as it is now. AMD has a small piece of that pie, but not alot. Nothing to be done accept sitting and watching and waiting

 

[Bluefalcon13]

tbh, this is not anything new. AMD as been focusing on value vs king of the hill for years now, since the AM2/C2D days. All they are saying is what we already know... the will continue to focus their products and develop for the market segments they compete in and start expanding in the low-power arena. The FX line will still be there, and I would put money on the fact that as long as the FX line exists, there will be unlocked versions for those who are willing to pay a bit extra for it. Until their cores can compete clock for clock with Intel, they will not have any ground to stand on for a 1000 buck CPU.

I personally feel AMD tends to fit my budget better than Intel, and will continue to buy their products until I feel otherwise. I have a laptop that has an i7-2720qm in it, and it doesn't perform different at all in the applications I run on my desktop (games). I know technologically, its better, but until my 955 BE, or whatever CPU I am running on the system that fits my budget (AMD), I will not jump ship and change platforms, as there is no point. Personally, I like the progressive nature of AMD's platform a lot... I don't rebuild and do a full new system every year with a massive budget, but instead upgrade parts here and there.

My current motherboard will most likely support piledriver, and if not, most likely, the piledriver chip set will support my current process, so there is an upgrade path for me. If you have the budget for 1000 buck CPUs, I can understand the disappointment though...

 

[manu2b]

I might finally grab a FX8150, since it's going to be a collector!

 

[freeagent]

This is sad.

I knew Intel was useing Alien technology

I read somewhere we are about 250 years ahead of our time, I believe it to an extent.

Remember how badly AMD kicked Intels butt? Then Conroe came and changed things, I think AMD was just about to counter punch until i7 dropped. Thats some freaky stuff right there because my computer, is stronger then anyone I know in person, outside of folks on here. And to some of you, it would be considered slow

Sad to see them go. Hopefully they will come back once the pressure is off of them to come up with something to compete with. Or hopefully something will drop when you see the first desktop intel cpu retail for 2k

 

[Bobnova]

AMD can place the blame pretty squarely on the CEO during the Athlon64 vs P4 years where AMD was winning, but profits were not rolled back into R&D.
Result? No new architectures.

Intel dumped a ton into R&D and voila, Conroe!

It didn't help that Intel was using wildly unfair business practices. I've heard that AMD tried to give HP 1m CPUs and HP said "nah man, sorry" because if they built AMD systems their Intel CPU/chipset prices would go through the roof.

 

[freeagent]

AMD can place the blame pretty squarely on the CEO during the Athlon64 vs P4 years where AMD was winning, but profits were not rolled back into R&D.
Result? No new architectures.

Intel dumped a ton into R&D and voila, Conroe!

It didn't help that Intel was using wildly unfair business practices. I've heard that AMD tried to give HP 1m CPUs and HP said "nah man, sorry" because if they built AMD systems their Intel CPU/chipset prices would go through the roof.

Lol yes, then there was all of that too

Its still a shame. Well, hopefully they will have some time to fix their drivers now!

 

[trekky]

This is sad.

I knew Intel was useing Alien technology

I read somewhere we are about 250 years ahead of our time, I believe it to an extent.

Remember how badly AMD kicked Intels butt? Then Conroe came and changed things, I think AMD was just about to counter punch until i7 dropped. Thats some freaky stuff right there because my computer, is stronger then anyone I know in person, outside of folks on here. And to some of you, it would be considered slow

Sad to see them go. Hopefully they will come back once the pressure is off of them to come up with something to compete with. Or hopefully something will drop when you see the first desktop intel cpu retail for 2k

Not Alien technology, future human technology (about 900 year ahead if you time yourself on star trek) http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Future's_End_(episode)
remember the episode when voyager gets pulled back in time by the guy from the future trying to kill them and the guy crashes and a hippy find the ship and makes computers out of it

OH and EDIT: what will i buy now! i love AMD!!

 

[Neuromancer]

I do not see much changing. As the current lineup of AMD cpus is not considered high-end. So if they stay the course, they are focusing on budget line up processors.

8 cores for $300? Yep they did it

Granted they did it wrong and marketed it as a 8 core CPU instead of marketing it as a quad core with 4 extra hardware assisted threads. Could have called it Double threading or something.

Mobo manufacturers wont stop making AMD boards either. There is still going to be a demand for AMD products and especially overclocking.

 

[Pinky]

Let's assume we didn't have Intel, and whatever is currently available from AMD was all we could use. Would we 'get by' with just that? Yes.

They're not out of the picture, you just need to refocus your eyes. The reality of the picture being painted here is that the mhz/ghz wars are over, and it's about power consumption and usefulness. I find my AMD computer to be very useful, and I could probably 'upgrade' sometime soon to an Intel setup. But I won't. It does everything I need, and more (heavy music production). I'm considering getting a faster processor at some point as the prices fall. No rush though.

In general processors in the past couple years have exceeded most people's day to day needs. Heck, look at what the Tablets are running and what they accomplish for everyday computing.

 

[TsunamiJuan]

My understanding is that production wise its wiser to move your high end desktop chips under the control of your server/workstation production lines, so that the falloff from those processes can be utilized to reduce overall manufacturing cost.

So this might be whats going on since they have recently reorganized the server division to split away from the midrange/economy/low voltage models. Considering that the majority of the market these days is not in the high end desktops, but Low voltage/wattage, portable devices like ultrabooks, phones, embedded devices and tablets. AMD currently holds more of the embedded x86 market than most realize, but this has fallen off some in the last year or so due to the atom encroaching on the territory. With the atom however failing to pick up much performance the llanos are pushing it back again.

Personally i am not gonna write off AMD's role yet, i think they are just doing what they can to focus on reclaiming market rank in the coming years, so they can be less short on funds when it comes to competing with intel in the high end desktop arena. Which on the last major revision of there chips over almost 3 years have been somewhat gimped. Due to a lack of funding for Cache. Which has crippled the performance of many a design.

 

[manu2b]

Wow, words of wise men on the 2 above posts!

They both speak for me.