AMD's position in the semiconductor market

[Aircoll]

I might be a little selfish for this topic but I need help from you guys to answer this question for my business assignment.

What is AMD doing in order to win over the market giants Intel and Nvidia? What strategies or factors are they using to win and how they are using it? Also give examples when possible.

I am in quite a pinch so it would be great if you guys could help me out.

[Aircoll]

6 minutes ago, rrubberr said:

They don't have one. They're trying to win the low end, but are being cut off at every turn. You might be able to make a case for the RX 480, but really? It's a bit of a joke in itself. Zen was supposed to be their comeback, yet we're comparing it to processors that are three years old and noting how 'impressive' it is that it can outperform the 4790k.

So basically AMD doesn't have a strategy, not even pricing and they are relying on old technology as their reference point? I thought that the RX 480 could be their secret weapon to get on the winning team but it wasn't is it?

4 minutes ago, rrubberr said:

 

I'd be glad to write you a paper on how far behind AMD is instead, though.

 

I'd actually love for you to do that if you are willing. 

[Naeaes]

As for now, they still have the consoles. Maybe, if Zen APUs can handle it, the upcoming generation if consoles will handle 4K gaming and bring AMD back in the game. And Apple hasn't released any computers recently. Who knows, they might go for the APUs too. With both consoles and Apple in their team, AMD would have a real chance. 

[Dietrichw]

They are focusing on custom designs like the consoles and starting with the low end GPU market and working up to the high end with Vega. On the CPU side they are making the best damn CPU they can and pricing it the best to fit into the market. Zen being slightly above Broadwell in IPC puts them in good standing to undercut Intel with a product that is a little behind skylake and kabylake but will have more cores to beat them out.

[Bhav]

Paper launches and hype are all they have at this point.

 

And no surprise that when, and if they manage to build a GPU thats (slightly) faster than a titan pascal, they will again claim to have the fastest graphics card ever made, and that they should know because they made that one too.

 

AMDs marketting is trash and mostly revolves around over hyping their products and then shit talking about Nvidia.

 

How many years has it been with AMDs paper launches claiming to have a better CPU than intel? Intel are 6 gwnerarions into their I series, and even the core duo and quad CPUs before then were unmatched by AMD, yet with every new paper launch they claimed they would now be better, until the benchmarks came along.

 

And then you have all the people who still defend AMD as a budget choice, when a £100 I3 outperforms their entire line of CPUs, but people are still too noob to realize that hyperthreading alone on an Intel dual core CPU is vastly superior to an AMD 6-8 core CPU in just about everything.

[Aircoll]

Reconsider everything said here, AMD has no strategy nor plan, relies on old tech as reference points, has a small market share in cpu and gpu markets, relies on application of their products in consoles, performance that is ridiculous and outgunned by both INTC and NVDA, in addition to false advertising and not being able to price products accordingly, it pretty much concludes to AMD is hopeless unless they do something. Would anyone want to advise or cook up a plan or strategy in order to raise AMD's position in the market? 

[Bhav]

5 minutes ago, Aircoll said:

Reconsider everything said here, AMD has no strategy nor plan, relies on old tech as reference points, has a small market share in cpu and gpu markets, relies on application of their products in consoles, performance that is ridiculous and outgunned by both INTC and NVDA, in addition to false advertising and not being able to price products accordingly, it pretty much concludes to AMD is hopeless unless they do something. Would anyone want to advise or cook up a plan or strategy in order to raise AMD's position in the market? 

Oh, how about releasing better poducts that are at least on par with Intel and Nvidia?

 

Otherise they just carry on trying to spoonfeed the shills that continue to buy their products.

[ATFink]

The only advantage I can find that AMD has is the fact that some monitors use FreeSync (which is open sourced software) to match the refresh rate of a monitor to the rate at which the GPU is producing frames. The competition, nVidia's GSync, requires extra hardware built into the monitor which increases the sale price of monitor using this technology by about $150 - $200 (this probably only effects a pathetically small portion of the market for GPU's anyways).

 

I know this because I have a FreeSync monitor and it is the only reason I am thinking about an AMD card (I recognize that people in my situation probably represent a small section of the market). I probably would not consider an AMD card otherwise.

 

Maybe research how FreeSync monitors sell versus GSync and regular monitors in the market and what card each person with their respective monitor uses? I don't know I'm grasping at straws here for AMD because I still want to see competition in the marketplace. It's a shame to see how far they've fallen.

[ATFink]

Just now, rrubberr said:

Do the smart thing and sell it. I don't forecast anything competitive for AMD for a few more years.

Nah, it's a great monitor (29 inch ultrawide IPS panel that has really impressed me for the $300 purchase price). I'm still using an nVidia card but it's old and I'm considering a new one. Freesync with an nVidia card doesn't (to my knowledge) negatively effect in game framerate... the card just ignores FreeSync (acts like any other monitor without either GSync or FreeSync).

[handymanshandle]

1 hour ago, rrubberr said:

The title is an impressive unintentional joke. They don't have one. They're trying to win the low end, but are being cut off at every turn. You might be able to make a case for the RX 480, but really? It's a bit of a joke in itself. Zen was supposed to be their comeback, yet we're comparing it to processors that are three years old and noting how 'impressive' it is that it can outperform the 4790k.

 

I'd be glad to write you a paper on how far behind AMD is instead, though.

AMD is focusing on the mainstream, yes. That's a good thing, and for AMD to come into i5 4690K/i7 4790K territory which is just ever so slightly behind the i5 6600K/i7 6700K.

The 480 is still a good GPU sure technically the 1060 is a bit faster.

[handymanshandle]

Right now though, AMD isn't in a good place on the CPU market. We need to wait for Zen CPUs to be reviewed before making any real solid claims. The hope is for it to come into Intel's current mainstream range. 

 

People more concerned with raw performance and in terms of performance in games that out right now and games that have been out for while now are more likely to go for the 1060 over the 480. Though I think the 480 is still reasonable.

[ATFink]

2 minutes ago, wcreek said:

AMD is focusing on the mainstream, yes. That's a good thing, and for AMD to come into i5 4690K/i7 4790K territory which is just ever so slightly behind the i5 6600K/i7 6700K.

The 480 is still a good GPU sure technically the 1060 is a bit faster.

They're still playing catchup, and it's hard to make much profit on cards/processors that have some fairly stiff competition (especially in the middle to low end of the market). NVidia and Intel have unarguably superior products (currently) and, as far as I can tell, will bankrupt AMD unless both companies decide to shoot themselves in the foot. Meanwhile the enthusiast grade and professional grade products nVidia and Intel crank out are cash cows. They have no direct competition and still seem to sell like hot-cakes. This allows nVidia and Intel to sit on a bunch of R&D money ready to squash AMD the moment they have a chance to comeback.

[ATFink]

28 minutes ago, rrubberr said:

Of course. The core issue with a 60 Hz Freesync or Gsync monitor is that, no matter how much we'd like to deny it, they do cost more, and for what? There's where the issue lies. A FreeSync screen capped at 60 Hz has one function: to compensate when the framerate falls, when the entire point of gaming hardware is to keep the framerate steady. It just caters to a nonexistent issue, and tries to create a market for itself where there really isn't one. Nvidia can trot out big name developers as they please to praise how amazing the technology is, but somehow I'm not impressed.

Mine's overclocked to 80 Hz (just saying) but really I bought it because it's a cheap yet reliable ultrawide. I didn't buy it for the FreeSync that just came with the deal as a possible bonus in case I ever decided to purchase an AMD gpu.

 

EDIT:

I'm not arguing with what you said because you are correct. I acknowledge that I am seriously part of the minority here. The only reason I am thinking about an AMD Card is because I don't want to spend $450 on a 1070 that won't ever dip below 80 Hz. With the games I play neither the 1060 or rx 480 will hold greater than 80 Hz at all times and the monitor I have, and enjoy, has a safety net for the under 80 fps performance that occurs.

 

I would recommend a 1060 over an rx 480 9 times out of 10, but I find myself in that 1 out of 10 scenario and I'm a ok with that.

Edited August 21, 2016 by ATFink
more context to previous statement

[handymanshandle]

6 minutes ago, rrubberr said:

Read the whole thread if you haven't. It's not competitive, and the media seems to like blowing these pathetic cringe-worthy achievements sickeningly out of proportion. 

Well I skimmed through it a bit better, I'm still not too sure of your point. Other than that currently AMD is dead in the water which even I acknowledge but I think the future could be better for them. Zen and Vega are looking promising. I mean I don't think Zen will quite be able to compete with Intel's extreme edition stuff but the mainstream stuff it will be able to. But what Zen could be is what Polaris has been is an insight to what AMD has to offer. Though Zen and Vega were started quite a few years ago so not too sure about that claim I just made though.

5 minutes ago, rrubberr said:

I'll make one now. Overclocking that 2.8 GHz heap to anything shy of 4.6 GHz isn't taking AMD back to the top in any sector. 480 is a mess in more ways than one.

Well AIB 480s seem to rectify the issues that the reference 480 suffered. Sapphire has seemingly done a good job at that. I mean there's really not much OC headroom on top of what Sapphire was able to get out of the 480 with their modifications but that's fine for most people I'm sure.

Just now, ATFink said:

They're still playing catchup, and it's hard to make much profit on cards/processors that have some fairly stiff competition (especially in the middle to low end of the market). NVidia and Intel have unarguably superior products (currently) and, as far as I can tell, will bankrupt AMD unless both companies decide to shoot themselves in the foot. Meanwhile the enthusiast grade and professional grade products nVidia and Intel crank out are cash cows. They have no direct competition and still seem to sell like hot-cakes. This allows nVidia and Intel to sit on a bunch of R&D money ready to squash AMD the moment they have a chance to comeback.

True. 

[vorticalbox]

2 hours ago, rrubberr said:

If we really want to get serious, though, AMD has no chance. I would really like to think that they do, but let's look at some facts.

 

Starting with prices, the money to be made is most definitely not in the low end. It's on $1200 prosumer / compensator cards like the Titan X. You're making more selling a defective Quadro chip for a premium than you ever will trying to undercut options from the competition (in this case, the real 1060). GCN is old and tired, and AMD hardly has the R&D budget to fix that. Nvidia's at the two GHz barrier, while AMD is up-clocking cards like the RX 480 past 1000 MHz after they realize that nobody in their right mind would buy a GPU clocked below a GHz in 2016. GCN is a hot mess, in the most literal sense of the term. Looking at big GCN, we see that the entire lineup is water-cooled, with air-cooled variants taking a VERY significant performance hit. 

 

The Titan Z speaks volumes about this. Running on air at reasonable temperatures and using about 450 watts, a mildly overclocked Titan Z will beat out AMD's water cooled dual GPU monstrosity r9 295x2, while using significantly less power. Meanwhile, AMD seems to have neglected cooling certain parts of the 295x2, as the VRM still reaches concerning temperatures. Sure that's an old example, but still very applicable. Fury X compared to Fury underperformed similarly (it is, of course, only a single core part), and nobody seems to have bought a Pro Duo to look at benchmark or power results from.

 

The top and bottom ends of AMD's lineup have power draw issues, and both are alleged to burn up PSU's and motherboards, the 295x2 burning up PSU's due to excessive top power req's, and the rx 480 supposedly overdrawing the PCI slot.

 

CPU's are even worse. Intel is an absolute behemoth, and could easily gobble up NV or AMD should they so desire. In currently released parts (not taking Zen into account), Intel has halved the process side, and absolutely stomps AMD in performance, across all price points and categories. Zen is supposed to change that, and in what might be little more than a press gimmick, they brought back the father of x86_64 to design their new Zen core. Meanwhile, we see the 8 core 16 thread variant of Zen underperforming three year old Intel parts, but, nope, AMD's makin' a comeback! 

 

Company representatives claim that Zen will outperform Intel's Broadwell-E series chips, but those are already dead and gone, and Intel's moved right along to Kaby Lake, into their optimization revision of their architecture; and I think we both know how that's going to go for AMD. AMD's competitor to this year's line from Intel MAY OR MAY NOT even arrive this year.

 

Consoles aren't going to save them; as soon as the morons at MSFT and Sony get their act together and realize that NVDA and INTC perform better in small packages and tight thermal envelopes AMD is done for. We've already seen dual 1080's in a laptop this year; the same configuration would easily fit in a console sized box, and though not cost effective (ie you couldn't charge $399 for it and make a profit), it would absolutely decimate the current gen, and likely the next gen, console offerings from either company.

 

But, let the numbers speak as they might. AMD has a puny market share in both consumer CPU and GPU markets, and is losing ground by the day. The competition's products are cooler, quieter, and better thought out than AMD's offerings.

 

So, in short, AMD has literally no competitive offerings to their rivals. They're barely turning a profit, while Nvidia and Intel rack up profits and dump more cash into R&D, speeding up their revision cycles until AMD is going to be another two... three... four generations behind. Ever since AMD bought ATI, it's been downhill; the company is spread too thin.

your first point is so far from being right its actually almost back around again, if you look at an financial information the hulk of income is from the low to mid range. A £2000 might make more money on a single card but the low end market moves masses more in term.of volume.

 

most companies use computers and they are always low end, excluding development companies which don't make up must of the global industry in terms of computer use.

 

basically the world is mostly client server based, one powerful server lots of low end clients.

 

also why would you compare a first gen zen to a 3rd revision from intel? Unfair to compare a new architecture to one that has numerous revisions.

 

though I do agree on the rest of your points, int and nv do have quite a lead over amd

[Bhav]

 

56 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

 

also why would you compare a first gen zen to a 3rd revision from intel? Unfair to compare a new architecture to one that has numerous revisions.

 

What, its unfair to compare a new CPU from 2016 / 2017 to one 3 generations behind from its competition?

 

So according to you, the Zen should only be compared against a first gen I5 / I7 from 6+ years ago?

[vorticalbox]

Just now, Bhav said:

 

What, its unfair to compare a new CPU from 2016 / 2017 to one 3 generations behind from its competition?

 

So according to you, the Zen should only be compared against a first gen I5 / I7 from 6+ years ago?

Well no but the intel currently has a few iterations since its inception, whereas zen is all zen and baby.  Not so much unfair but less comparable as it's has been tweaked since its first iteration which AMD are still on, either way AMD will still be as you put it 3 generations behind.

 

it's like if the PS4 was released now while xbox were on the one S, it's not as comparable as ps4 -> xbone. There is a reason AMD underclocked the intel CPUs to make it a like for like comparison