AMD will launch AM4 platform in March 2016 says industry source

[scaryjim]

... why not undercut intel sell them for £100-150 ...

1) The wafers aren't going to be *that* cheap: current FX CPUs are made on a mature 32nm process with excellent yields. There's no way the new 14nm process will be cheaper per good die in its first outing.

2) As I mentioned previously, they need a high-margin product to start building back up the profitability.

3) One thing I didn't mention previously but has occurred to me since is that AMD don't have anywhere near the sales olume to pile high sell cheap. They've tried to do that in the past and ended up having to write down excess inventory. The PC market is inherently limited in size, and AMD have a VERY small slice of that at the moment. They're already the bargain option, but they're still not selling in the kind of volumes that make up for the low margins, and until they get a reputation for performance, they won't be. So that first round of Zen-based FX CPUs HAS to be performance competitive, and high margin. That's how they'll start winning back market share, and once they're in a position of strength they can consider taking the price war to Intel.

[Corky34]

the way they should play it is go cheap ... it's going to be as fast as what intel has now .. waffer size should be a lot cheaper .. so why not undercut intel sell them for £100-150 how many would buy a fast cheap setup knowing there next 3 upgrades will use the same board ?
the only cost they have is r&d they have atleast 3 companys that can produce the chip and if they ramp up production it only gets cheaper ..
intel could not at this stage compete they pay out way to much with all there founderys and eveything else ..

Trying to undercut someone with the finances of Intel is never going to work, Intel has big enough pockets to sell their products way under cost and for much longer.
AMD needs to give people a reason to buy their products other than price alone, be that higher IPC, lower power requirements, better iGPU, or ideally some combination of all three.

[shaithis]

Good luck AMD.

and they will need it.....so many have already given in and purchased an intel setup that will last them years (hell, I have 2 3-year-old IvyBridge setups that I see no reason to upgrade, baring a meltdown!) and they need to do something to get into a LOT of OEM machines to raise their profile again.

Looking forward to the benchmarks and hoping AMD put a cat among the pigeons

[Tabbykatze]

I have high expectations, I hope they are not let down!

[DanceswithUnix]

Trying to undercut someone with the finances of Intel is never going to work, Intel has big enough pockets to sell their products way under cost and for much longer.
AMD needs to give people a reason to buy their products other than price alone, be that higher IPC, lower power requirements, better iGPU, or ideally some combination of all three.

Hopefully Intel are still smarting at paying billions to get Atoms into tablets to try that sort of game again for a while.

[Corky34]

Did that cost them a lot then, you say it cost them billions but I'm going to guess that it was fairly inconsequential when compared to the $11.7 billion in profits they made last year.

[shaithis]

Did that cost them a lot then, you say it cost them billions but I'm going to guess that it was fairly inconsequential when compared to the $11.7 billion in profits they made last year.

I would think it was costly for one reason: They didn't really break into the market, which was the point of writing off the cost of the silicon.

[Corky34]

Well if their willing to write off billions trying to break into a particular market there's nothing stopping them doing the same to compete with AMD on prices, that's why IMO AMD would be foolish to try and compete with Intel on price alone.

[DanceswithUnix]

Did that cost them a lot then, you say it cost them billions but I'm going to guess that it was fairly inconsequential when compared to the $11.7 billion in profits they made last year.

Estimated $7B over two years. They can afford it, and if they had broken ARM in the process then it would have been worth every cent to them, but they didn't.

It might have bought them the time of looking relevant while Microsoft got their Windows 10 tablet act together which is back to using x86 Atom chips. But you could argue that was going to happen anyway. Either way, it seems the money could have been better spent.

[DanceswithUnix]

Well if their willing to write off billions trying to break into a particular market there's nothing stopping them doing the same to compete with AMD on prices, that's why IMO AMD would be foolish to try and compete with Intel on price alone.

Oh Intel can use much cheaper methods than contra revenue against AMD. It has worked plenty in the past: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/11/...intels-emails/

[Corky34]

True, but that was over a decade ago, Intel would never do something like that again, would they?

[mapesdhs]

"Finally! Awesome news! Great news! Zen next time for me! I want Zen now!"

Hate to ping a note of caution, but we've been here before. Have we all forgotten BD? Hyping what AMD is doing just because we *want* them to bring out something really good is unwise. I'd like to see Zen be strong competition aswell, but right now we have no idea how it will compare, what the pricing will be, how Intel will respond, etc., so it seems a bit odd for people to already say they'll be building a Zen system as soon as it comes out. I remember so many who said the same thing about BD.

It's one thing for tech fans who adhere to a notion of market balance to say they'll buy a Zen setup no matter what (I can understand that, it's fun to compare & contrast), but that's no rationale for concluding anything new from AMD will succeed in the market place in the long term.

I'd rather just wait & see what comes out, instead of prejudging due to wishful thinking. And anyone who thinks Intel is standing still while all this is going on is deluding themselves. Intel could have released an 8-core years ago if they'd wanted to (infact they did, SB-E is an 8-core with 2 cores disabled), but they didn't because there was no need to. Ditto the limitations with current top-end consumer CPUs. Yes it would be great if Zen turns out to be a really strong CPU with good characteristics on a decent platform, but let's not act like we already know that's the case when it's still months before the product launches.

Ian.

[Sumanji]

I'm also a little wary of AMD chipsets / drivers - they will take a little while to earn a reputation for stability, for sure. Intel OTOH have always been rock solid with their chipsets...

Not that I didn't enjoy the good old days of random nForce-related BSODs, but both my scalp and my patience are thinner these days

[Corky34]

Hyping what AMD is doing just because we *want* them to bring out something really good is unwise.

While i agree with the sentiment of not hyping something just because we *want* it to be good the hype in this instance is based not on what AMD are saying but based on what's known so far about ZEN core, from the fabrication process to the person who designed the chip everything points towards ZEN core being a winner, of course there's no way to know for sure until they're released and tested by independent third parties, but the signs are good so far.

[canopus72]

Excellent news. I am really looking for to 8 cores Zen. It means I can get rid of this sh*ttel 5820k I have had the misfortune of using.

[watercooled]

I'm also a little wary of AMD chipsets / drivers - they will take a little while to earn a reputation for stability, for sure. Intel OTOH have always been rock solid with their chipsets...

Not that I didn't enjoy the good old days of random nForce-related BSODs, but both my scalp and my patience are thinner these days

You don't recall Intel's 6 series SATA bug? Or the Haswell USB bug? Or the TSX extensions they had to retroactively withdraw from processors after they discovered a bug in its implementation? The latter of which is of limited impact to consumers, though.