AMD Swings To Profit; Outlook Weak

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AMD's 4th quarter results were a "good news, bad news" scenario.

AMD on Tuesday reported a fourth-quarter profit of $89 million, or 12 cents a share, compared with a loss of $473 million, or 63 cents a share, for the year-earlier period. Revenue rose to $1.59 billion from $1.16 billion. Adjusted profit was 6 cents a share. Analysts polled by FactSet on average were expecting the chip maker to report a profit of 5 cents a share, on revenue of $1.54 billion. For the current quarter, AMD expects revenue to decrease by 16%, plus or minus 3%, sequentially.
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AMDs profits ont he GPU side will probabaly be tied to litecoin mining for this current quarter or at least until GPU mining isn't worth it anymore. Since you can't buy any god damn AMD cards at MSRP anymore thanks to the damn miners
 
That sounds like a ramp up for console chips, then a steady decrease over time. Not surprising if that is the case.
 
Wonder if they reported the $8 mil bribe to EA for integrating Mantle.

For a company that size that kind of net profit is frighteningly low.
 
Sollord said:
Since you can't buy any god damn AMD cards at MSRP anymore thanks to the damn miners
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I am wondering if the miners will carry the extra weight of those of us that are switching sides due to the price increase of AMD cards. I go for the best value for the buck. I prefer AMD, but if I can get a better performing (in games, not mining) card for less money, I'll do it. I'm buying new cards for my kids that are into gaming now, and they will be NVIDIA cards. They are cheaper for the same performance. If I could get a deal on an AMD card, I'd go that way. But, like you said - miners are driving the prices up on those.
 
Sollord said:
AMDs profits ont he GPU side will probabaly be tied to litecoin mining for this current quarter or at least until GPU mining isn't worth it anymore.
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Console chip revenue ("semi-custom SoC") is counted in the graphics and visualization division, and GV revenue was up 38% over the previous quarter, and Q3'13 revenue in that same division was almost double that in Q3'12.

No, the world doesn't revolve around mining, but AMD does seem to have found a better way to make some money finally. :p The negative of course is that AMD's computing solutions division (desktop/laptop chips) seems to have taken a hard hit last quarter, down 9% QoQ where Intel was up 11% QoQ in the same segment last quarter.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I am wondering if the miners will carry the extra weight of those of us that are switching sides due to the price increase of AMD cards. I go for the best value for the buck. I prefer AMD, but if I can get a better performing (in games, not mining) card for less money, I'll do it. I'm buying new cards for my kids that are into gaming now, and they will be NVIDIA cards. They are cheaper for the same performance. If I could get a deal on an AMD card, I'd go that way. But, like you said - miners are driving the prices up on those.
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My HD 6750 died suddenly for no apparently reason, and had to get a replacement card. I kept my HD 4670 around, so I used that in the mean time. A few months ago I could get a 6950 for $100, and now it's worth hundreds of dollars, WTF?

I settled for a HD 6850 for $100 used off Ebay. Relatively new, it was only used for 2 months. It's because AMD is the king of OpenCL, which does a far better job then CUDA. There are miners that use CUDA, but not as good as OpenCl on AMD. Eventually, even Nvidia cards will get good at mining with CUDA or OpenCL, and both will equally rise in price.

Right now is a very bad time to buy a new graphics card.
 
The smartest thing AMD did in the first decade of the 21st century is buy ATi. Back then there were so many critics of the purchase but hindsight is 20/20 and without ATi, AMD would probably be bankrupt right now with no chance of having the lock down on all three consoles and the mining market.

I havent bought anything with an AMD CPU in years. Since the X2 3800 days.
 
Ashbringer said:
I settled for a HD 6850 for $100 used off Ebay. Relatively new, it was only used for 2 months. It's because AMD is the king of OpenCL, which does a far better job then CUDA.
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You're confusing computing hashes, one type of workload and used in mining, with general GPGPU performance. Nvidia's massive HPC market share suggests that your claims do not fit the general case of a broad array of workloads. ;)
 
I don't see how the console side will help AMD in the long run.

Eventually the current design orders will taper off and become less of a profit center. NV experienced that with the PS3. After a while the profits just go away. It is great now for AMD as it finally gives them some black on the spreadsheet, especially with Asia-Pacific console market launching, but it won't be lasting revenue.

Hedging their bets on semi-custom SoC's seems like a rather limited approach as the potential customer base is small. After all how many customers are in the market for a new large custom x86 SoC? MS and Sony won't need one for years. They could possibly attempt to turn it into SFF book of business but even then the chances don't seem good.

I think the server side with new ARM-based Opteron's using SeaMicro's tech is more likely to help AMD in the long run. Hopefully that is where their future is bright. Too bad they can't beat Intel for the foreseeable future in CPU's.

GPU market will definitely be helped by mining but AMD needs long term profit generators.

Curious to see if AMD will expand its ARM based tech into the smart phone/mobile realm even though they are way behind the competition. Then again AMD's resources have been limited with a decade of restructuring, executive departures, the acquisition of ATI, and the spin-off of its manufacturing business. They might not be willing or able to play/gamble in that market.

At least they stopped the bleeding for the time being.
 
///AMG said:
The smartest thing AMD did in the first decade of the 21st century is buy ATi. Back then there were so many critics of the purchase but hindsight is 20/20 and without ATi, AMD would probably be bankrupt right now with no chance of having the lock down on all three consoles and the mining market.

I havent bought anything with an AMD CPU in years. Since the X2 3800 days.
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Been keeping Intel'$ junk out of my rig since my PIII 600. :D
 
Cr4ckm0nk3y said:
I don't see how the console side will help AMD in the long run.

Eventually the current design orders will taper off and become less of a profit center. NV experienced that with the PS3. After a while the profits just go away. It is great now for AMD as it finally gives them some black on the spreadsheet, especially with Asia-Pacific console market launching, but it won't be lasting revenue.

Hedging their bets on semi-custom SoC's seems like a rather limited approach as the potential customer base is small. After all how many customers are in the market for a new large custom x86 SoC? MS and Sony won't need one for years. They could possibly attempt to turn it into SFF book of business but even then the chances don't seem good.

I think the server side with new ARM-based Opteron's using SeaMicro's tech is more likely to help AMD in the long run. Hopefully that is where their future is bright. Too bad they can't beat Intel for the foreseeable future in CPU's.

GPU market will definitely be helped by mining but AMD needs long term profit generators.

Curious to see if AMD will expand its ARM based tech into the smart phone/mobile realm even though they are way behind the competition. Then again AMD's resources have been limited with a decade of restructuring, executive departures, the acquisition of ATI, and the spin-off of its manufacturing business. They might not be willing or able to play/gamble in that market.

At least they stopped the bleeding for the time being.
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It doesn't. They're manufacturing the custom chips for the consoles purely for a razor-margin if not simply break-even. Their hope was a marketing and perception bump for being "the brand in the consoles". Trouble is, most people buying a console don't really care. And most people NOT buying a console care even less.
 
pxc said:
No, the world doesn't revolve around mining, but AMD does seem to have found a better way to make some money finally.
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Mining is extremely volatile, that bubble could burst any moment for a variety of reasons so its not something I'd be pinning my bets on as a shareholder let alone as the CEO of AMD.
 
Ashbringer said:
My HD 6750 died suddenly for no apparently reason, and had to get a replacement card. I kept my HD 4670 around, so I used that in the mean time. A few months ago I could get a 6950 for $100, and now it's worth hundreds of dollars, WTF?

I settled for a HD 6850 for $100 used off Ebay. Relatively new, it was only used for 2 months. It's because AMD is the king of OpenCL, which does a far better job then CUDA. There are miners that use CUDA, but not as good as OpenCl on AMD. Eventually, even Nvidia cards will get good at mining with CUDA or OpenCL, and both will equally rise in price.

Right now is a very bad time to buy a new graphics card.
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I completely disagree. I am seeing GTX 580s for sale $100-120. thats sweeeet right there. I sold my 580 for a 6850 windforce and $40. it hashes almost as well as 580 (248 vs 264) but uses a lot less power and runs a lot cooler.
 
Squall_Rinoa89 said:
Ouch... Sucks for you then.. Intel > AMD >.<!

At least AMD is making some money.. now anyways tho for how long will it remain profitable?
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Intel is certainly better then AMD, but AMD is better for the price. An 8350 is cheaper then a i5, and for the most part, performs better. Quick look at Newegg shows the i5 3350P to be $20 more expensive then a FX 8230, and the 8 core chip would easily outperform the i5.

When Intel matters is in watts and MAX performance. The i5 is literally half the power consumption then the 8 core FX. Also, if you want faster then i7 is obviously the CPU for you, even though in some tests the 8 core FX chips can keep up decently. Which brings up single core performance vs multi-threaded. FX chips do well with lots of threads used, but not great with a single core, while Intel does better with single core performance.

Point is, if power consumption and MAX performance don't matter, then AMD is better. Which in most desktop computers it really doesn't matter. Laptops is a difference story, since power and heat are the most important factors. That's why AMD has such a hard time making profit, cause their CPUs aren't very efficient in laptops. But their APU's with their graphics makes up for that to some degree.

Keep in mind that while AMD is clearly not superior to Intel chips, AMD does have price and their graphics to make up for it. Once applications make better use of multi-core CPUs, then AMD may just gain the upper hand.
 
odditory said:
Mining is extremely volatile, that bubble could burst any moment for a variety of reasons so its not something I'd be pinning my bets on as a shareholder let alone as the CEO of AMD.
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I would be on a PR parade for crypto 24 hours a day if I was AMD. They are nuts to have not pushed that a bit harder.
 
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