AMD are failing, and why I feel bad for them.

[Humbug]

Haven't the 780 had the performance crown even over 290X ?

Nope only for Linus, because he still uses the stock Hawai cooler which gets hot and throttles down.

 

Anyway that was not my point.

Even if the 780 beats 290 in some situations and 780ti beats 290x it would be a small margin, no doubt AMD is competetive in GPUs. They are able to sell cards from budget options all the way upto 1000$ premium parts. They are more than competitive. If their upcoming new cards do not trade blows with the 980 it would be a big surprise as they always seem to deliver on GPUs. They will release the 380x, Nvidia will drop prices. AMD will launch the 390 and 390x, Nvidia will respond with fully unlocked Maxwell 980ti etc and the cycle continues... you get the picture.

 

CPUs is a different story, they cannot compete with Intel on performance so they are forced to sell almost all their CPUs under $200 with tiny margins. AMD has a lot riding on the upcoming Zen CPU architecture. If that is a failure they are in trouble. It doesn't need to beat Intel it just needs to be competitive so that they can sell it a reasonable margin and volume. Intel is a massive company with massive R&D. The only thing is that they too have hit a performance wall and their CPUs have not been getting much faster since sandy bridge. So while they have a lead they have not been able to make that lead bigger, which probably gives AMD some hope that they can come close.

[Mistersprinkles]

Even when AMD/Intel CPUs were pretty much exactly the same (286/386/486) and even when AMD was better (1st gen FX vs Pentium 4/Pentium D), Intel was more popular. Why? Because Intel has convinced people that it is "cool". They don't air as many commercials nowadays but back in the Pentium III and 4 days they were putting ads on TV 100X per day, every day. Those ads with blue man group and the clean-suit workers in the multi colored suits were really catchy. People saw these ads and said "Intel must be better than any other CPU". Not because it was true, but because AMD wasn't putting out ads for Athlons. They just never had the money to do it. Honestly, it's a miracle AMD has survived at all and not gone the way of Matrox, who also used to make CPUs, such as the absolutely horrendous "Millenium" CPUs. 

 

Intel has commercials with Blue Man group, Bunny suit men, Homer SImpson. AMD has... nothing. They just design chips. They don't even manufacture them themselves...

 

It was the smartest thing AMD ever did when they bought ATi. Without that purchase, AMD wouldn't have GPUs or APUs. They'd just have the FX line... and we all know how that would turn out.

 

Edit: Oops! Looks like AMD does make TV ads, but they spell out my point perfectly. Here's an AMD ad

(skip to 0:08)

 

And here's an Intel ad

 

If you were a layperson, which CPU looks cooler to you? Intel. Bam. 

[solarflare]

AMD will continue to have issues when their cpu market is so bad and inefficient. 

 

Overall if you break up their products the last few Quarters the GPU side of things has actually been making money. 

 

They also made $ on the PS4/Xbone deals but the issue is the losses on their CPU side of things keeps dragging down the bottom line. 

 

But they have cut losses alot in the last 2 years no one can deny that , amd was bleeding cash like a stuck pig every year prior to the 7xxx series releases. 

 

The retail pricing not responding to price drops properly has also eaten into their bottom line also. 

 

their cpu lines need to be price cut badly to increase sales quantity vs single sale prices at this point the only way they can sell CPU's is to cut Intels prices alot and try to sell quantity of them at a smaller percentage point. 

 

lets just hope AMD can get a decent CPU out soon with some nice efficiency and leave that thing unlocked to hook the OC crowd back to their side like in early 2000's. 

 

I can only hope when they do get out of this cpu slump that they keep pumping the R&D $ into it and not fall back way behind like before. 

 

as far as the GPU end of things i think they are just fine and plenty competitive. 

 

the 7xxx series smoked the nvidia 6xx series gpu's in basically every way imho. 

 

the 290/x gpu's are actually quite good and competed and sold very well vs nvidia's offerings even though they ran much hotter and are getting to the point of not being very efficient. 

 

but atleast the gpu lineup is competing performance wise in the market and the efficiency thing can be solved with die shrinks and what not so its not at all a bad position for them. 

 

the APU's are quite good right now. but they need to increase the mobile APU's performance quite abit if they want to compete in that segment. 

 

The 7970m / 8970m and the 290m are actually quite nice mobile gpu's the problem is when they are bundled with AMD APU's that bottleneck the darn gpu's people see that and give them horrible ratings "rightfully so" and thus the whole platform fails to sell well. 

 

I think if they could even just bring those apu performances up to the point where it just clears the bottle necking of the 290m you would see sales numbers of those combinations skyrocket. 

 

because its a cheaper solution than the 880m+intel CPU and performs quite close gpu wise for nearly $800 less .

 

So i guess what i mean is most of their stuff is nearly there but they need to execute better to gain the sales they could be getting. 

[shadowblitz3]

I'll still buy an R9 290X

[nick99n]

Not to mention the fanboys in every thread on every forum saying dont buy amd there drivers are crap.

i have to agree with this ..i see it every two days or even more frequent ,i use amd gpu for the last 2 years and the drivers are working well they gave me no bugs at all

the reason why i don't tell them they are wrong is because i don't want to start a war and even if i did they won't change their minds,so it is pointless 

[Jaytreaty17181]

I think once the 300 series comes out AMD will be doing very well for themselves. I am very excited to see what they have up their sleeve to battle the 900 series from Nvidia.

[nokturrduk84]

Hello everybody, I'm too young to have seen those glory days where AMD/Intel and ATI/Nvidia were always getting ahead of each other and the performance crown shifting from one 6 months to another and I'd like to know, what the hell happened ?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Intel and Nvidia seem to be so much ahead of AMD these days. So much that most people I know who are tech-savvy (might not as much as they pretend but I know a guy who owns a retail store and is quite a good cracker) are disregarding any product the red team has to offer without even comparing ! (Might be fanboyism, I don't know)

 

It seems to me on the GPU side of things that AMD has taken a more pro-sumer approach as a business plan than Nvidia who is mostly developping things for gamers (Shadowplay, Shield in-home streaming, Geforce Experience) I know AMD has its ones too like Raptor I think it's called but Nvidia was the first to implement these technologies as far as I'm aware of. Although, I have to admit that never settle forever is much better than what Nvidia is offering on the buy a card and get free games front.

 

Now on the CPU business, it just seems to me like Intel had better engineers or something, why doesn't AMD has 2011 equivalents ? Is it just a company direction choice ? Are Opterons as good as Xeons ?

 

To be clear, this is not a rant, nor am I a fanboy/hater. The fact that I own Intel and Nvidia products is because they were the better performing at the time of purchase)

 

I just want to know why AMD seems behind on the technology front (Although they might get to the next process node faster than Nvidia due to the rumors of samsung manufacturing their chips or somehting like that)

 

I am expressing possibilities that comes to my mind to explain to myself why they seem behind.

 

Any thoughts ?

 

Edit : It's also that I would love more competition to get better components at lower prices in order for us PC gamers to have a better general experience.

To be honest, their GPU side is a little better, but still loses against Nvidia. Their CPU is in a very bad shape. It's their fault. They don't even care about competition. They are happy with their 2nd position.

[wrath]

idk how you guys feel but whenever AMD comes with something new im the most excited for and hoping that they do something awsome

[Dan_Gtp]

We need both companies to compete, I do have a soft spot for AMD since they are the underdog, and ATi was Canadian, but it do currently use an Nvidia card.  It's all about the best bang for your buck for me, brand loyalty takes a back seat to that.

[Prokart2000]

no because they have the 3xx coming and samsung making the new cpus

[infigo]

I really hope AMD goes back in shape. The only reason that I have nvidia is that I built mitx and wanted a blower cooler. There were only nvidia cards available in Sweden with a blower cooler. Got nvidia for brother to because then we have same manufacture of cards the same life cycle. I have recommended AMD cards (they are often very valuable at 280x & 290 until 970 came) but friends had problem with aftermarket coolers on them (that was not AMDs fault but they get affected by it)

[SirBobson]

Many tech companies shares are falling in value including google, and nvidia (though only by a VERY tiny bit).

[Speedbird]

AMD is not failing. They are just taking their sweet time with the R9 3xx series and their new CPU architecture

Plot twist: AMD will do 4 jiggahertz with a 60W TDP.

[EvilLemur]

i think AMD is far from going down, they have fingers in may pies, IE, Xbox and Playstation.

 

also on the other hand they compete with alot of other big boys, nvidia on the graphics front, and intel on the cpu one. but you do have to admit. they make a gaming pc even more affordable. so like everything there are up's and down's and no matter how you look at it they still remain a threat until they go bankrupt.

[Joshua Ondangan]

well if they can bring out a power efficient refresh of r9 290x/290 and 2 new flagships that are better or equal in performance with 980 but in decent or better temp wise. it would be a good card.

[othertomperson]

I would love to objectively go out and build a PC based on whatever specs were the best for the "best build that makes sense for a gamer and not more" budget and have it be entirely an AMD build. This is the criteria I use for choosing parts and it nearly always results in an Intel/Nvidia build. I love AMD's preference for open standards. But if they are going to sit on old CPUs for two or three years and release three GPUs this generation that aren't simply rebranded relics from two and a bit years ago they are making diverging from Intel/Nvidia very difficult.

 

The R9 270 is their triumph in price to performance and makes real sense for people to buy. Or did before Maxwell crashed the prices of the GTX 760 and 770. One the CPU side of things the Pentium G3258 has rendered their budget hex cores irrelevant. The R9 295X2/R9 290X enjoyed a time as the only 4K solution that made sense, but the GTX 970 has taken that crown too, and will keep it as long as AMD sit on their hands with the 3XX series.

 

But I guess this is to be expected when their solution to their money woes a year ago was to save money on R&D.

[Guest]

I love AMD in PC's, I love Intel in laptops... AND EVERYBODY SHALL AGREE WITH ME!

[Altinn]

On an offtopic do  you guys think it is better to wait for R9 3xx or just buy and 970 now in the best bang for the buck option?

[Bensemus]

Even when AMD/Intel CPUs were pretty much exactly the same (286/386/486) and even when AMD was better (1st gen FX vs Pentium 4/Pentium D), Intel was more popular. Why? Because Intel has convinced people that it is "cool". They don't air as many commercials nowadays but back in the Pentium III and 4 days they were putting ads on TV 100X per day, every day. Those ads with blue man group and the clean-suit workers in the multi colored suits were really catchy. People saw these ads and said "Intel must be better than any other CPU". Not because it was true, but because AMD wasn't putting out ads for Athlons. They just never had the money to do it. Honestly, it's a miracle AMD has survived at all and not gone the way of Matrox, who also used to make CPUs, such as the absolutely horrendous "Millenium" CPUs. 

 

Intel has commercials with Blue Man group, Bunny suit men, Homer SImpson. AMD has... nothing. They just design chips. They don't even manufacture them themselves...

 

It was the smartest thing AMD ever did when they bought ATi. Without that purchase, AMD wouldn't have GPUs or APUs. They'd just have the FX line... and we all know how that would turn out.

 

Edit: Oops! Looks like AMD does make TV ads, but they spell out my point perfectly. Here's an AMD ad

(skip to 0:08)

 

And here's an Intel ad

 

If you were a layperson, which CPU looks cooler to you? Intel. Bam. 

To be fair the Simpson ad is more relevant to NA while the AMD ad is relevant to India. If we compaired ads targeted to the same reagion there might me little to no difference

[siaran]

I never tried, only thing I think Nvidia is missing right now is for the keyboard shortcut to switch between surround and 3 displays on. Not surround and 1 display on because I have to manually go into the configuration panel and edit it

 

Does AMD have that ?

 

Yes AMD does have definable keyboard shortcuts for eyefinity on/off / display setup switching. I have a six monitor setup and use it quite frequently.

[SSOB]

It's too soon to draw any conclusion IMO.

[mach]

I love AMD in PC's, I love Intel in laptops... AND EVERYBODY SHALL AGREE WITH ME!

I feel like AMD just gave up on mobile(laptop) market as a whole.

CPU side, nothing at all in mid-high performance range, the best they got is a little A10

GPU: while nvidia is busying with their maxwell, trying to push efficiency, AMD still lives in their own little world and keeps renaming their 7970m :huh:

[WhatComesAround]

This is sad, I mean what would happen if there was no more competition, there wouldn't be a need for dramatic advancements.

[WhatComesAround]

To be honest, their GPU side is a little better, but still loses against Nvidia. Their CPU is in a very bad shape. It's their fault. They don't even care about competition. They are happy with their 2nd position.

It would be good for Intel if they would stick around, I'm pretty sure that would keep Intel trying to stay ahead of AMD (Competition).

[tobben]

It would be good for Intel if they would stick around, I'm pretty sure that would keep Intel trying to stay ahead of AMD (Competition).

i honestly don't think intel has been worried about staying ahead of anyone for a long time

 

but yes i certainly want amd to continue existing, but they can't do so just for the sake of it. They got to bring their stuff to the table, seeing nvidia and intel have monopoly would be terrible.