How bad of shape is AMD really in?

[MeepLikesToBuildPc's]

No. Their gpu's are just as good as Nvidia and sometimes even better in price to performance. They still own the worlds fastest dual GPU, the 295x2. All the consoles contract them for their GPUs. Their 3xx series seems boss.

They are recovering, not dying

nope, thats TiTAN Z

[alphaproject]

I wonder if they just focused on making GPU's only if that would pull them in a good light. Let the CPU's just die out.... and make the absolute best GPUS possible. Something that Nvidia would be in awe of... I can dream right. I agree though that the AMD drivers kill the raw performance of the games.

 

My system just runs better on Nvidia. Just by uninstalling the AMD crap...everything felt much better. Shadowplay seems much better as well compared to AMD's capture software.

[Dude]

If AMD's new GPUs suck and if they don't release new CPUs in a year or so and if neither of those improve on "AMD stereotypes" like overheating and mass power consumption and shitty drivers, then they're fucked.

[EpicNeuron]

they are in a bad position, but nividia will not push this further. The last thing they want is a monopolie.. it's legally not a good position to be in. so.. 

[PaulKolby]

Until this whole Samsung story I just assumed they were well off without a problem. Then I was doing research on Zen and everyone on the internet is acting like if Zen doesn't deliever, AMD will die. Are they really in that bad of shape?

The fact that their processors are in just about every low end PC on the market, PS4, and Xbox ONE makes it seem like they would be doing pretty good. Are they really dying?

very bad

[Guest]

Since AMD has been hemorrhaging money, I'd like to know what do you guys think AMD should focus on to survive and be profitable again? Steve Jobs came back to a failing Apple in 1992 and brought it back again by focusing on the "creative industry"(coding, photo/video editing, etc.) and "education." How about AMD?

[EarthboundHero]

Hopefully Zen next year.

[Godlygamer23]

APUs maybe.

[dadasmithywinkle]

Better CPU's and better GPU's. 

 

They need an enthusiast line-up like Intel, a direct competitor to X99. They also need a direct competitor to Z97. At the moment, their best CPU line, the 8000 is about as good as Intel's i5 series.

For APU's, they need to make the central CPU's stronger.

 

As far as GPU's, they only need to release a 980 and a 970 competitor with a price  $100 below each.

 

They can do it. It'll just take time.

[keepcalmcarryon]

In the game of quantity vs quality. If AMD can't win nvidia in quality they should try pricing their graphic card so the consumer gets a better value for their money. If they can manage that in sure they'll stay afloat.

[Guest]

Just to add to the title's question, are there any other features the "Zen" APU needs to have to help "revive" AMD? I'm thinking "Dual Graphics/Crossfire" (Onboard + Discrete Graphics)?

[Guest]

haven't they already done this with the r9 295X2

[JamGorby]

Two things I'd like to bring up. 

1. New/faster tech will not automatically save AMD. 

If these things are released and compete well with, or even beat, their competitors it doesn't necessarily mean AMD will suddenly be successful again. Do they have the money for PR and marketing? How are they going to let the general consumer know about the advantages of these products? They can't simply release a product, at this point, and let the benchmarks do the talking. They have to convince the general consumer and OEMs that their products are viable again. Public perception is a big part of marketability. AMD is not perceived well by the general public. People like (most) of us actually account for a small part of the tech consumer market. So targeting the high end market, the people who actually care about benchmarks and such, may have a trickle down effect of giving AMD's potential improvements a bit more visibility, but I doubt it will be a substitute for a good marketing and PR strategy. They need to change their perception of cheapness. I can only speak for the consumer side. I don't pay much attention to the server/workstation side of things. But, from my limited perspective, the struggle appears to be the same there for them as well. 

2. Desktop APU's are not the answer, and are likely a problem. 

APU's cannot be a solid future for AMD and it's funny how they don't seem to realize this. The average budget PC buyer is not a gamer and couldn't be bothered to know what kind of GPU capabilities is in their sub $500 laptops which seems to be the only market where the APU's are actually selling. In the desktop world, they run the risk of competing with themselves by making APU's any more powerful. They will never be able to make an APU with GPU capabilities better than their lowest tier card in that particular generation. Doing so would negate their entry level video card market. I think it's a road they should stop trying to go down lest they unleash the wrath of Intel, who isn't in any other segment of the GPU market thus have no limits on how powerful they could make an iGPU. It would be an arms race AMD would have no choice but to lose. The strategy is a dead end for anything other than the entry level where it should stay. $100+ APU's for the desktop need to go away. 

Edit: Either that, or junk like the r7240/250 class of products needs to go away. 

All of this is going to be compounded by the fact that PC sales in general are bad right now. Calling it an uphill battle is an understatement. 
 

[Dabombinable]

Two things I'd like to bring up. 

1. New/faster tech will not automatically save AMD. 

If these things are released and compete well with, or even beat, their competitors it doesn't necessarily mean AMD will suddenly be successful again. Do they have the money for PR and marketing? How are they going to let the general consumer know about the advantages of these products? They can't simply release a product, at this point, and let the benchmarks do the talking. They have to convince the general consumer and OEMs that their products are viable again. Public perception is a big part of marketability. AMD is not perceived well by the general public. People like (most) of us actually account for a small part of the tech consumer market. So targeting the high end market, the people who actually care about benchmarks and such, may have a trickle down effect of giving AMD's potential improvements a bit more visibility, but I doubt it will be a substitute for a good marketing and PR strategy. They need to change their perception of cheapness. I can only speak for the consumer side. I don't pay much attention to the server/workstation side of things. But, from my limited perspective, the struggle appears to be the same there for them as well. 

2. Desktop APU's are not the answer, and are likely a problem. 

APU's cannot be a solid future for AMD and it's funny how they don't seem to realize this. The average budget PC buyer is not a gamer and couldn't be bothered to know what kind of GPU capabilities is in their sub $500 laptops which seems to be the only market where the APU's are actually selling. In the desktop world, they run the risk of competing with themselves by making APU's any more powerful. They will never be able to make an APU with GPU capabilities better than their lowest tier card in that particular generation. Doing so would negate their entry level video card market. I think it's a road they should stop trying to go down lest they unleash the wrath of Intel, who isn't in any other segment of the GPU market thus have no limits on how powerful they could make an iGPU. It would be an arms race AMD would have no choice but to lose. The strategy is a dead end for anything other than the entry level where it should stay. $100+ APU's for the desktop need to go away. 

Edit: Either that, or junk like the r7240/250 class of products needs to go away. 

All of this is going to be compounded by the fact that PC sales in general are bad right now. Calling it an uphill battle is an understatement. 

 

The way I see things, AMD plateaued in 2008 then went progressively from bad to worse. And PC's have gotten to a point that a new computer isn't really worth anything to an average computer user as their older ones do everything they need flawlessly. (An example of that are my family members, I'm the only one running  hardware that's classed as above mid range, being a high end gaming rig upgrade from a 2001 high end PIII gaming rig. Most are still running Northwood Pentium 4's or Celeron D's with 512-1GB RAM (don't ask me how they manage with those ancient rigs, but they do)..

[JamGorby]

The way I see things, AMD plateaued in 2008 then went progressively from bad to worse. And PC's have gotten to a point that a new computer isn't really worth anything to an average computer user as their older ones do everything they need flawlessly. (An example of that are my family members, I'm the only one running  hardware that's classed as above mid range, being a high end gaming rig upgrade from a 2001 high end PIII gaming rig. Most are still running Northwood Pentium 4's or Celeron D's with 512-1GB RAM (don't ask me how they manage with those ancient rigs, but they do)..

Right on. A lot of people are also replacing desktops and even laptops with tablets.

I did recently come across a PC that was so slow it was struggling to do even basic browsing. What did the lady opt to do about it? We found used parts and brought her up to spec with mainstream 2007 standards. Even laying out the price of a small Kabini build turned her off. 

I don't remember now what the CPU she was rocking was. I have it in a box somewhere. Single core Athlon 2150e or something like that. Now she has a 4200+ and a whopping 4 GB of DDR2. Sad thing is, it plays farmville which is all she cared about. 

Everyone else (her friends and such) were trying to get her to buy a tablet. So SoC's based on ARM might help AMD. But they're also going to go swimming in a very large pond full of many fish. 

I'm not saying it's impossible for them, but it will be interesting to see what happens. As hard as I try not to be a fanboy, my recent switch to team blue made me feel a little bit dirty inside. lol 

 

[Dabombinable]

Right on. A lot of people are also replacing desktops and even laptops with tablets.

I did recently come across a PC that was so slow it was struggling to do even basic browsing. What did the lady opt to do about it? We found used parts and brought her up to spec with mainstream 2007 standards. Even laying out the price of a small Kabini build turned her off. 

I don't remember now what the CPU she was rocking was. I have it in a box somewhere. Single core Athlon 2150e or something like that. Now she has a 4200+ and a whopping 4 GB of DDR2. Sad thing is, it plays farmville which is all she cared about. 

Everyone else (her friends and such) were trying to get her to buy a tablet. So SoC's based on ARM might help AMD. But they're also going to go swimming in a very large pond full of many fish. 

I'm not saying it's impossible for them, but it will be interesting to see what happens. As hard as I try not to be a fanboy, my recent switch to team blue made me feel a little bit dirty inside. lol 

 

With the stable, and safe, OC I managed on my Core 2 Duo E8500. For only 15 dollars total (the rest of the rig was given-Pentium 4 desktop with dead HDD) I had it running at 4.4GHz and matching my i5 4440 when it only had 2 cores enabled. If I hadn't killed the CPU (stupidity on a socket modded board) I'd have sold it for $300 (including 320GB HDD, 4GB RAM, GTX 650 TI OC 2GB) and bought an i5 4770k as a long term upgrade for my i5 4440.

[Phillyphries]

AMD has way too many assets for it to close its doors before it is either:

 

A.) Bailed out by the government similar to some auto companies in the USA

B.) Merged/bought by another large semiconductor company.

 

Strongly believe the latter will happen, but that's only if the new AMD architectures on the CPU side fail again on the market. Hopefully, they don't. I'm waiting till 2016 for a nice upgrade haha

[Teemo4Life]

There cpu are crAp and Intel is smashing them and forever will

[Dabombinable]

There cpu are crAp and Intel is smashing them and forever will

You'd have been laughed out of the forum if we were back in the 90's, AMD's 386 DX-40 dominated all CPU until the 486 DX 66 came out, they closely traded blows with Intel afterwards until AMD fucked up their FX line and decided that going with a unique architecture designed with a long pipeline and overclocking headroom (also found on a Pentium 4, but they weren't a total fuck up since Intel had them in production for years, until long pipelines and high overclocks proved too weak compared to the Core/Core 2 range). Long story short: They thought that going along a similar path to Intel was a good idea. It wasn't however as Intel had already discovered years before that high overclocks don't mean anything if overclocking yields no real benefits.

[Opcode]

There cpu are crAp and Intel is smashing them and forever will

What happened to K8 vs P68? What's happening right now with Mullins? AMD is stronger than Intel as we speak in other segments. Don't count them out just because they hit a rough road with Bulldozer. AMD has a few projects in the works that could spell doomsday for Intel in some segments (K12).

[JamGorby]

You'd have been laughed out of the forum if we were back in the 90's, AMD's 386 DX-40 dominated all CPU until the 486 DX 66 came out, they closely traded blows with Intel afterwards until AMD fucked up their FX line and decided that going with a unique architecture designed with a long pipeline and overclocking headroom (also found on a Pentium 4, but they weren't a total fuck up since Intel had them in production for years, until long pipelines and high overclocks proved too weak compared to the Core/Core 2 range). Long story short: They thought that going along a similar path to Intel was a good idea. It wasn't however as Intel had already discovered years before that high overclocks don't mean anything if overclocking yields no real benefits.

They had 3 screw ups really. Their acquisition of ATI, and the Phenom TLB bug on top of what you just mentioned. 

It could be argued that their ATI acquisition could have been a flawless victory had it not been for the other two mistakes. 

The Bulldozer faff is most confusing. Didn't anyone in AMD's engineering department at the time have access to a Netburst Pentium? 

It's almost like someone went "Wow, look at those things. They run hot, they're slow. The prefetch mis-prediction penalty is atrocious. WE NEED ONE TOO!!!" lol

[mr moose]

Don't believe the hype you read on internet forums.  Too many sheep and not enough clues. Look at the profit/loss statements over the last ten years and decide for yourself.

 

Personally I can't think of another company that has been in such poor shape for such a length of time and not gone under or been bought out.

[JamGorby]

Don't believe the hype you read on internet forums.  Too many sheep and not enough clues. Look at the profit/loss statements over the last ten years and decide for yourself.

 

Personally I can't think of another company that has been in such poor shape for such a length of time and not gone under or been bought out.

Pre-Steve Jobs (part II) Apple. 

[Opcode]

They had 3 screw ups really. Their acquisition of ATI, and the Phenom TLB bug on top of what you just mentioned. 

It could be argued that their ATI acquisition could have been a flawless victory had it not been for the other two mistakes. 

The Bulldozer faff is most confusing. Didn't anyone in AMD's engineering department at the time have access to a Netburst Pentium? 

It's almost like someone went "Wow, look at those things. They run hot, they're slow. The prefetch mis-prediction penalty is atrocious. WE NEED ONE TOO!!!" lol

It also could be argued that the purchase of ATI was a long term investment. It was an expensive buy although it has been shedding AMD money in some areas. APU's account for 70% of the companies total revenue which wouldn't of been possible without the acquisition of that IP. AMD is stacking inventory as we speak for the next batch of consoles for the holiday season which will help the company greatly as they tack on more clientele and with the ban of consoles in China being lifted (untapped $10 billion dollar market). They may not be making a bazillion dollars off the acquisition right now but over time it will eventually pay for itself.

[Dabombinable]

They had 3 screw ups really. Their acquisition of ATI, and the Phenom TLB bug on top of what you just mentioned. 

It could be argued that their ATI acquisition could have been a flawless victory had it not been for the other two mistakes. 

The Bulldozer faff is most confusing. Didn't anyone in AMD's engineering department at the time have access to a Netburst Pentium? 

It's almost like someone went "Wow, look at those things. They run hot, they're slow. The prefetch mis-prediction penalty is atrocious. WE NEED ONE TOO!!!" lol

Yep, except they didn't go with the hyperthreading route, which would have helped a lot.