News - Reports that AMD is up for sale are denied

[kingpotnoodle]

Balls just typed a load and lost it.

It's obvious that the average user knows nothing of the contents of his/her PC, most people can't tell the difference between an AMD/Intel CPU or a pixie drawing pictures - they still refer to their tower as the 'modem' and think iMacs are magical because there is no 'modem'.

Those people don't make buying decisions in corporate IT, they don't work for large OEMs when selecting components and they don't build their own PC at home. Most often they will ask someone else what to buy, even if that is just some kid in PC World.

If you are buying/designing a system then just buying whatever because it's currently "fast enough" is just plain lazy, the sensible buyer examines the intended purpose and picks the best product to ensure good service life... it might be imperceptible now but in 5 years time will it be so? A 20% performance advantage in your core tasks might then extend useful service life 12 months or so... (maybe, nothing is ever certain but there's a chance worth pursuing).

Then there is the public perception that generally Intel is better, and it's an easy recommendation that few would challenge in the real world thanks to brand image (AMD need better marketing, surely nobody can disagree on that?). If the PC world bloke says get the Intel machine it will confirm what most people think they know and they'll happily go along with it.

I picked two CPUs at a similar same price point, so therefore two that would be competing for a win in a similar budget... depending on the purpose either could be used, so then examining the benchmarks pertaining to that purpose would yield the winner. IMHO for a basic or office user the Intel CPU gets the win thanks to the lower power draw and single thread performance meaning it's quick in a small, quiet chassis, for a HTPC or something it's pretty evens, some might like the low power some might prefer the graphics, I'd be pretty split and it might come down to motherboard features or just whatever is in stock. For a gamer on a very tight budget it's an AMD win... etc etc... I could go on with loads of examples. Sure there are other comparisons at other price points and it won't always come out like that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Intel fanboy, I own AMD based machines, have had some in the past and would buy them again if what I wanted the system for was going to work better with an AMD CPU. I'd buy an AMD GPU if it was at the right price and won the right benchmarks for my liking...

Hell I know full well that a limited CPU is fine for some things, my cheapy-cheap Dell laptop has a 1.3GHz Turion I think... with an SSD and my usual well kept Windows install it's fine for simple stuff at the moment. What'll prompt that machine to go to eBay is the screen its terrible... actually another example of AMD getting a bit let down by being used in otherwise poor/cheap/budget hardware.

So unless you're trying to tell me that AMDs latest CPUs are slower than old Northwood P4s, I'd argue that Intel's measurable advantage is single-threaded performance is in fact utterly irrelevant in real world use.

I'm not a plonker, nobody would argue even the 3.4GHz HT Northwood P4 is anything great anymore, it's 8 years old! But if I was buying a NEW machine why would I not buy the theoretically best one for me at equal price? I might not see the difference with my eyes now but years down the line I might, or some new software might expose the difference...

So for office use, Intel's measurable heavy load power draw advantage is, again, utterly irrelevant

No it's not because you still have to design chassis to dissipate all theoretical heat, which leads to larger heavier chassis designs for higher power draw CPUs, it's not about TCO because yes many systems do spend 99% of their time idle. Small and quiet chassis are increasingly important to a lot of applications... and "sexy" little PCs are good for marketing...

...video playback and light gaming - where the Trinity trumps it big time.

How often do most of the world's PCs do that? Really in the office? That's one of AMD's problems in my view, where they score big wins it's not at something that is marketed well or always matters in shifting units. More raw CPU grunt is good to have in all scenarios even if it's not always noticed, light gaming power isn't so.


Back to my previous conclusions, AMD have some good advantages they need to trumpet around some more and if they could do that and just increase the single thread performance and reduce comparative load power then they would be in a much stronger competitive position and get more design wins and sales. Competition is a good thing, I'd hate to see AMD fail and diminish like Cyrix, IDT etc did in the 90s.

[kingpotnoodle]

Its called sarcasm! He cherry picks worse case scenarios(not the first time even),and then passes it off as the absolute truth. He then accuses others of doing the same! Hence my response is adequate,and he should take his own medicine.

Even with the last quote,he ninja edited after my reply too.

No I don't, I linked to a whole page of benchmarks for two CPUs which cost within a few £ of each other. Some of which favour the AMD CPU - I can't discuss every single one without droning on rather - I even said some favour AMD (7Zip)... don't you read more than the first 10 words? I don't pass off the absolute truth either, I litter my posts with "I would" or IMHO rather than "The whole world should" and "Everybody must do this" - you then attempt a shoot down as if I'm wrong and force your own opinion that AMD should be bought because it's good enough...


Sorry about the Ninja edit, my scatty brain always thinks of more to say after I submit... wasn't an intentional ninja edit.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

you then attempt a shoot down as if I'm wrong and force your own opinion that AMD should be bought because it's good enough...

Yawn,now your are trying to show that you are the victim.Meh. Try harder next time.

[kingpotnoodle]

Like cherry-picking full-load benchmarks when discussing basic office use?

You missed my point on that, I explained above... full-load does still matter even for machines which stay mostly idle because the system must still be designed to cope just in case it is fully loaded, which compromises a small design. You went off on a line about running costs whereas I was thinking more about chassis design... Office use is great with small VESA mounted ITX chassis, so small with little lightweight heatsinks would be advantageous, it's not cherry picking it's a genuine design concern.

[kingpotnoodle]

Yawn,now your are trying to show that you are the victim.Meh. Try harder next time.

Seriously, why am I a victim? I don't feel like one. The debate suffered not me.

[watercooled]

Light gaming and especially video playback, are very common tasks, as I thought would be fairly obvious? The point about the performance trade-off that everyone keeps trying to make, is very few demanding apps are single threaded, so it really doesn't matter, and more cores are likely to help more into the future if anything.

If you get into the HTPC side of things, AMD's IGP has a clear advantage over Intel's ATM. If you're adding a discrete card, it doesn't really matter what CPU you get but AMD CPUs actually tend to idle lower than Intel's which is more important for the vast majority of cases than slightly lower peak power draw.

Having max TDP being somewhat higher doesn't make any difference to anything but the smallest systems, which generally use laptop components anyway. OEMs tend to use the stock coolers or similar, so again there's no real advantage either way, both brands get the job done but are nothing special. 10% extra peak heat doesn't mean the case will be 10% heavier/larger, they just use the same one within a given bracket.

Edit: Just an example from a quick Amazon search:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-.../dp/B0070UP5QM
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Desktop.../dp/B007RMRD9A

They use that same case for a huge range of systems including a large range of CPU TDPs.

[scaryjim]

You missed my point ... I was thinking more about chassis design... Office use is great with small VESA mounted ITX chassis, so small with little lightweight heatsinks would be advantageous ...

A 65W CPU can easily be cooled safely in a small, light chassis. The stock cooler with AMDs 65W chips is no larger or heavier than the stock intel one. Plus, as I just said, anything from Atom up is good enough now - if heat and weight are a serious concern you use mobile chips - where again AMD have the same cost and graphics IP benefits, with Trinity chips that drop as low as 17W TDP and Brazos coming in below that. But actually most offices still use standard desktop chassis - it'll be a few years before vesa-mounted micro-PCs become the norm in most offices.

Nothing you've raised so far is actually a genuine shortcoming in any AMD chip. Several people have raised genuine rebuttals of your original argument, and so far you haven't actually addressed any of the points that have been raised.

AMDs only real problem at the minute is OEM and Developer relations, which Intel and NVidia have always been better at. Technologically and economically they are as competitive as they ever have been.

[kingpotnoodle]

Light gaming and especially video playback, are very common tasks, as I thought would be fairly obvious? The point about the performance trade-off that everyone keeps trying to make, is very few demanding apps are single threaded, so it really doesn't matter, and more cores are likely to help more into the future if anything.

They are common at home, not so in the corporate office... all we keep being told by the analysts is that consumers are going to tablets and mobile and only corporates still buy traditional PCs.

But anyway those advantages that AMD undeniably have in the right scenarios aren't winning them the sales to be that profitable, their marketing isn't working and they are just toddling along... so what do they need to do? I reckon counter the negatives with their own marketing and try to get better parity on per core performance.

[watercooled]

Mobile meaning laptops? In which case it's just different binned versions of the same chips.

[kingpotnoodle]

AMDs 65W best APU is the A10 5700. It's almost the same price as the 100W 5800K so really I should have spotted that for more even comparison to the 55W i3 3220. The problem being that puts the comparison as a little worse in those CPU benchmarks. Personally it wouldn't change my thoughts though, I'd still prefer the i3 for office usage but AMD for the cash strapped gamer.

I've got an i3 in my HTPC, one of the older ones that apparently suffers the 24p thing (unless drivers fixed it) - I wouldn't have known though, the odd random frame doesn't notice for me. Still I might well go for the AMD in an HTPC (in fact, damn you for planting ideas) but when I built that machine a year or more ago an i3 was the clear low power choice available.

Nothing you've raised so far is actually a genuine shortcoming in any AMD chip. Several people have raised genuine rebuttals of your original argument, and so far you haven't actually addressed any of the points that have been raised.

AMDs only real problem at the minute is OEM and Developer relations, which Intel and NVidia have always been better at. Technologically and economically they are as competitive as they ever have been.

No it's not shortcomings, that's the wrong word, AMD chips are great in the right scenario. The rebuttals are valid points of course, who says they're right either? It's all just opinions! I'm not arguing the chips are useless anyway I'm saying they aren't quite as good in some high volume market segments and thus fail to win those volume sales.

Couldn't agree more of their relations being flawed, been trying to say that in my less well written way.

Sorry another edit:

AMD aren't as technologically competitive as they have ever been, as I recall before Core 2 came out AMD were the very clear leaders in the performance segment vs Pentium 4 and any sensible enthusiast had an AMD system. The P4 was demonstrably worse in most benchmarks, ran hot and scaled poorly. Celerons in that era were right stinkers. But Intel had the best marketing and most aggressive tactics.

[kingpotnoodle]

Mobile meaning laptops? In which case it's just different binned versions of the same chips.

Tablets etc I really meant... I'm not sure how much I believe it but a lot of noise says the laptop/PC is being usurped in consumer hands by tablets, iPads, smartphones etc