Read more.Continues to execute long term strategy with powerful 'Zen' processors on roadmap.
Read more.Continues to execute long term strategy with powerful 'Zen' processors on roadmap.
Surely expectations must have been pretty low to start with?
They really really need Zen to come good.
the worrying thing for AMD is that the likelihood is that Intel has a chip tucked away in the lab that can do the same sort of performance jump that zen can on haswell/skylake etc but they haven't brought it out due to not needing to.
It's also telling that if those 40% gains are real zen will only really bring AMD level with intel on a clock per clock basis, they need to bring something that out that blows Intel away for a year or two, like the old s939 chips did
Actually, for the vast majority of consumer PCs, they don't - they already have way more performance in the bag then they'll ever need. What they need to go is get more of the major OEMs releasing well-built products with their chips in them. There's still an overwhelming groundswell of opinion amongst the general computer-buying public that you need to have an Intel processor. AMD's biggest problem is consumer inertia. Even if they released a halo product with twice the performance of Intel's enthusiast platform, the average bloke in the street would still equate PC with Intel. Whilst AMD will still push the general PC market and try to get their APUs into mainstream consumer products, I think they've actually made the right choice in focussing on their semi-custom business. Zen will probably make most difference to their server sales, and having a higher performance core to offer the semi-custom business could end up being hugely profitable - after all, that's the line of business that's growing most at the minute. In the future we could easily end up with far more devices containing AMD-made processors than actually have AMD stickers on them: and that white label business could easily float the company.
Pleiades (17-07-2015)
Part of what made S939 look so good was that P4 was so bad.
So while the noises around Zen are all the right ones, I can't see how it is going to be any better than i7, because i7 isn't bad.
On the positive side, I think the current FX chips have a tarnished image to the point that some sort of re-release is needed to make people look at AMD again, so Zen should do that.
The fact that the 8350 is now more expensive than it was when I bought mine a couple of years ago might not be helping their sales figures mind.
I would hope there isn't much in that, especially when you see how much the price of i5/i7 has gone up in the same period.
The main problem I see is that the vast majority of people either buy OEM (and therefore get Intel) or they build for gaming (where benchmarks show Intel as being superior - of course this may change with Windows 10 out there but it's going to be a slow process waiting for DX12 to become the norm - and even then if there is nothing to differentiate performance, people will understandably look at other factors - Price and Power draw).
They will need some serious marketing work to get their CPUs into OEM machines and they will need a very good performing chip to get into gaming machines.
Lets not forget that when they last held the CPU crown, they still struggled to get chips into OEMs.
Last edited by shaithis; 17-07-2015 at 12:06 PM.
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This is BS. They better get their asses working and forcing OEMs to get more AMD products. They are pretty non-existent, everywhere you look you see Intel. So where's the surprise with the earnings?
Didn't I read this a week or two ago?
1.6ghz 16 core 45w beast please.
I can give you a hint why they've gone up in the last year:
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?fr...to=GBP&view=1Y
The exchange rate was also a fair bit lower between September and November 2012 which may have impacted some of the UK stock bought a couple of years ago. There may also have been taxation changes that have impacted UK prices, not too sure on that one. It's not quite as bad as comparisons back to 2008 (when the dollar was properly in the toilet), but exchange rate fluctuations do impact the retail price of electronics in the UK.
Of course, those fluctuations will affect Intel as well, but those fluctuations are more noticeable in the price-sensitive end of the market that AMD are viewed as occupying - AMD are meant to be the value-for-money choice so small price fluctuations will have a larger perceived impact.
Lee H (17-07-2015)
AMD need an equivalent of "Intel inside" before the general public (Hexus readers who remember ten-year old triumphs like the Athlon 64x2 are not a fair cross-section of shoppers) consider them as anything but a downmarket option.
It is nowhere near as simple to compare AMD based laptops with Intel as it is to compare Intel processor series, and I suspect most buyers won't make the effort, and that manufacturers and resellers may make the same judgement when designing a product range.
For consumers you're right they don't need the high end halo chip but if you're looking for a pc and the store sales person (if they're any good) or the magazine review is saying that xyz chip is a cut down version of the 'best chip on the market' it helps. The sad thing is desktop pc's are a dying product for a lot of people.
Intel have the best cpu at the moment and the one area where AMD are ahead, ie APU they're being caught up VERY quickly by intel so AMD needs a true halo product to get some of it's reputation back in my view.
OEM's are a simple bunch really, they're not going to sell a product which people don't want, most people don't want a 'lesser' product which AMD is from a consumer perspective. It doesn't matter if AMD has a better APU if their battery life sucks on laptops or you read reviews where the cpu is 20-30% slower doing certain tasks but costs the same as another intel product that does the same task quicker but has weaker gaming graphics. The gpu can only do so much at pulling in a person to buy a laptop or desktop and with the way skylake is shaping up AMD might not even be able to rely on that aspect of their APU.
Consumers are getting more savvy with tech because it is such a common commodity now and a lot of people know that Intel are literally just running away with performance at the moment.
Now don't get me wrong I like AMD and we need them but they're not doing anything to make people chose them, or 'push prices down', how many times has a new intel cpu been released and you thought, damn I wish that was cheaper or it was worth upgrading from a 2500k cpu....you then realise it's ultimately down to the fact AMD is literally in no mans land.
I was quite shocked when my dad went to PC World for a light gaming capable laptop and got sold something with an AMD APU in it, so they do get recommended and sold.
I suspect part of AMD's problem here is that I often get told when asking what a machine is going to be used for to work out what spec a build should be, that it will "never ever get used for games". It is always a lie (just look at the number of Intel graphics machines in the Steam stats), but strictly speaking if I go with the spec I am given the extra cost of integrated graphics of an APU is a handicap. If the Athlons had *reduced* integrated graphics rather than none, then that would be viable.
Kind of like Henry Ford's comment that "If I asked the customers what they wanted, they would ask for a stronger horse" (that was the gist and I think it was him, not looked it up to check). People don't know what they want, so even if what AMD sells is what they need they won't buy it.
Last edited by DanceswithUnix; 17-07-2015 at 08:46 PM.
Pleiades (17-07-2015)
AMD's problem is that they aren't advertising themselves well for general public to know about their existence in the market. That's why Intel and Nvidia have an edge because all the newcomers go after their products instead if AMD's as ignorant casuals do what they always do ignore researching and go after the mediocre products from Intel side and then Nvidia so that's why AMD is getting hurt from their mistakes that were made in the past with the bulldozer and it wasn't strong as piledriver. Although AMD's flagship cards were capable of beating Nvidia's offerings AMD still loses because they don't market themselves well. In terms of price and performance they are good and needed in the market for the competition. We don't want either side to completly win just come up with better products for us consumers but as long the general consumer doesn't get an ad from AMD then they won't know which is a better option to begin with
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