AMD, Roy Taylor, the Nano, and the Press @ [H]

[niconx]

The Nano makes, no sense, it costs more than a 980, it's slower than a 980, has worse frame times than a 980, and uses more power than a 980, and for some reason it is small. I see AMD is still on the gimmick train.

 

[supermodelthriller]

I just don't get why nVidia nutswingers keep bitching over and over and over about AMD pricing ad nauseam. It is infuriating at best, pathetic at worst.
My advice to nVidia nutswingers is to NOT buy "overpriced" AMD video cards, and launch themselves into stfu land.

Seriously, PLEASE STFU about AMD video card prices..........

 

[MavericK]

I just don't get why nVidia nutswingers keep bitching over and over and over about AMD pricing ad nauseam. It is infuriating at best, pathetic at worst.
My advice to nVidia nutswingers is to NOT buy "overpriced" AMD video cards, and launch themselves into stfu land.

Seriously, PLEASE STFU about AMD video card prices..........

Just stop. You're only embarrassing yourself further.

 

[supermodelthriller]

nVidia cards are indeed superior to AMD cards at this time. AMD cards are overpriced and inferior to nVidia cards.

Any chance this proclamation will stop nVidia swingers from bitching about AMD card prices.....not a chance.

 

[fanboy]

These people are hoping all this fuss makes us forget about the major jackass pricing of top end Nvidia cards and the people that buy them lol.. but yes they are superior in the black box program called Gameworks if one cares for that type of gaming,

 

[ChosenUno]

You sound a lot like the guy who showed up at my house from a "green energy" type company trying to get me to swap over my power to solar/wind for only $3 more a month based on my current usage. Just sign up with us and the power company will only get your electricity from our renewable sources!

Funniest thing, having swapped out some old bulbs I use the most for LEDs, I save about $3-5 bucks a month compared to last year. The bulbs have already paid for themselves. Now some save the earth type dude who is really trying to sucker people into paying his salary wants me to pay $3 more a month to save the earth even more. All while ignoring where those solar panels come from or the batteries that are needed to make solar or wind work. The irony gets worse when you think of all the birds who get chopped up by windmills. But they don't matter. Stop logging to save the spotted owls but screw the birds, we need windmills! Well, #birdlivesmatter!

10w is not a big deal in the home/small business market until you stop the real power suckers elsewhere like cable boxes.

Let's do some simple math:

Let's say you're faced with a choice of an Intel-based system on 45w and an AMD-based system on 65w. Your job is to deploy around 200 PCs with such configurations.

How much energy are you saving by going Intel? 20w x 200 = 4Kw. Per hour. With the average being 12c/kwh, that's 48c/hour. Let's say you're gonna run them for 10 hours a day, that's nearly $5 a day saved on power. Over the lifetime of the machines (typically 5-10 years in office settings I'd imagine, sometimes much longer), that's around $9K to $18K saved over the course of the machines' lifetime by shaving 20w.

We're also discounting the fact that we'll have to cool 4Kwh of heat less. Air conditioning isn't free, it's pretty expensive. Especially in hot countries.

 

[StormClaw]

I don't get where the entitlement "YOU MUST SEND US A FREE CARD!" come from.

 

[Dayaks]

I don't get where the entitlement "YOU MUST SEND US A FREE CARD!" come from.

I think it's probably more about the card coming a few days early and the overall message behind cherry picking review sites than the "free" part.

A lot of reviews ignored the 970 exists which is the main competitor...

 

['47 Knucklehead]

I may be wrong, but it appears that since the restructuring of AMD/Radeon Technology Group, AMD Roy has been muzzled.

https://twitter.com/amd_roy

 

[EQvet80]

The problem is, that while new leadership for those products may be what AMD needs for the company to get their heads out of their ass with regards to video cards... actually making a difference is going to take a while since they still have to deal with everything currently in the pipeline while getting a new strategy started.

Yeah, I'm currently using a 970. Yeah, I've ignored AMD/ATI for a few years now. But I've used AMD and ATI products in the past and been happy with them. Even if I don't specifically buy any AMD products in say... the next 3 years, I still want solid competition in the marketplace(rather than the market get dominated by a company letting its products get stagnant while prices continue to rise. I honestly wish there were still a third solid competitor around).

If Koduri is competent, one of the first intelligent things he could accomplish quickly, is trying to get this Roy idiot under control.

Amen to that brother, Roy is a complete tool..

 

[GilmourD]

I just don't get why nVidia nutswingers keep bitching over and over and over about AMD pricing ad nauseam. It is infuriating at best, pathetic at worst.
My advice to nVidia nutswingers is to NOT buy "overpriced" AMD video cards, and launch themselves into stfu land.

Seriously, PLEASE STFU about AMD video card prices..........

Oh, Roy... This is how we nVidia people swing our nuts.

 

[ManofGod]

Just stop. You're only embarrassing yourself further.

I consider the 980Ti to be over priced as well regardless of the fact that people are willing to buy it. Strangely enough though, I consider the Titan X to be where it is at if you plan on keeping a card for a long time to come. (Yes, $999 is expensive unless you break it down over 4 years which is what I would do.)

 

[Nenu]

I consider the 980Ti to be over priced as well regardless of the fact that people are willing to buy it. Strangely enough though, I consider the Titan X to be where it is at if you plan on keeping a card for a long time to come. (Yes, $999 is expensive unless you break it down over 4 years which is what I would do.)

Unless you feel 6GB ram on the ti is not enough up to 4 years, I would consider the ti the better value over the same period.
The performance difference between the 2 is pretty small and the amount you save will let you upgrade earlier.

You could use part of the money you save to improve the cooling and get higher performance than the Titan X and still come out ahead.

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

I may be wrong, but it appears that since the restructuring of AMD/Radeon Technology Group, AMD Roy has been muzzled.

Well deserved.
Regardless of how you feel about the whole situation, those tweets were unacceptable. Can't believe some people are actually commending Roy on this one. He finally went too far.

 

[venom4u]

One thing that keeps driving me nuts is that Roy and press keep saying that Roy created nvidia's "The Way It's Meant To Be Played". Roy had nothing to do with creating it. It was created in the FX5800 days. Roy didn't even have anything to do with game publishers and developers till Geforce 8800 2-3 years after the program was created. The program was well under way and doing find by Geforce 8800. That's the reason why nothing like that has been created even close to what the Nvidia program has. Because the people that created it still work at Nvidia.

 

[FrgMstr]

I don't get where the entitlement "YOU MUST SEND US A FREE CARD!" come from.

Please quote me on anything close that. Nano is already purchased with two mITX cases to test in. The fact is that I have not complained once.

 

[Richthofen]

Please, Kyle been pissing off AMD, Intel, and Nvidia for the past 15 years and yet he is still here.

Exactly what i thought I can still remember when Kyle pissed at Nvidia. Really AMD needs all the good press they can get. They run out of Money These days and their customer base is shrinking big time. The way their PR/Marketing department handled this whole Thing is a complete disaster. However it does not surprise me. It has been a Long time ago when AMD delivered a smooth Launch. In the past years they shoot themselves always with something in the Foot, e.g. heat, noise, bad Efficiency, wrong pricing, late to the Party, bad Drivers or very often availability issues.

All i can say is this: It is very hard work to perform a straight Forward and fluent Launch with a good product at the right Price and with good Drivers and availability. But on the other Hand it is very easy to destroy that Picture with one simple mistake. And this whole Thing was one of them. It definately cost AMD Sympathie of the already shrinking customer base. Exactly what they don't Need at the Moment.

 

[DPI]

AMD_Roy needs to be giveth his walking papers. How they gave a Bill Nye the science guy impersonator the run of multi million dollar product launches - ones that AMD really needed to go smoothly at this critical, make-or-break time in their history - is anyone's guess.

 

[Commander Suzdal]

I don't get where the entitlement "YOU MUST SEND US A FREE CARD!" come from.

You misunderstand how this works. Review sites get pre-release review units, which they return when their reviews are published. Often these cards will go out again, to less-popular review sites. They are not some form or bribery, pay-off, or entitlement. They are sent to review sites ahead of the launch so that reviews can be written and published in time for launch day.

This is ALL to the benefit of the manufacturers, not the reviewers. [H]ardocp is one of the top review sites in the world. To stiff them is stupid. If you know they are going to give your product a bad review, it's because you have a bad product. The solution is not to try and dodge them by denying them pre-release product, but to make whatever changes you must to improve your product's value to potential customers.

And after all this, it won't work anyway, because [H] has bought one for themselves and will publish a comprehensive review anyway, just a week or so behind other sites. In fact, their negative review may stand out even more for being published on a different schedule than the others, heightened by anticipation created by the delay.

I seriously doubt AMD will reap enough cheap dirty sales off the "it's not very good but we'll give it an award anyway" launch day reviews from the other sites to justify what they've done.

 

[Nihilus1]

This message has been deleted by Nihilus1

 

[TaintedSquirrel]

It would be super chill if they'd lend it out to TR or TPU when they're done with it.

 

[geok1ng]

Only violence begets comprehension.
nano is a stillborn failure. let us look forward to the dual-GPU solution, when and if it comes out.

 

[travbrad]

TechPowerUp, Tech Report, and [H] I believe are the ones known right now.

Looking at some of the sites that did get a Nano to review it's clear why AMD picked them. They do little things to make the Nano look better. For example the Guru3dreview they have some charts at the top of the page comparing the Nano and Fury X to the regular 980 (a card that is $100 cheaper) rather than comparing it to the 980ti (which is the same price). If you look further down the page they did test it against the 980ti, but at a first glance to someone who isn't as well-informed it looks like AMD comes out ahead of Nvidia. They also have minimum FPS and frametime information on completely separate pages later in the review, when those are actually the most representative benchmarks of how the game will feel when you play it.

AMD wants "fair" reviews the same way Fox News is "fair and balanced"

 

[noko]

Looking at some of the sites that did get a Nano to review it's clear why AMD picked them. They do little things to make the Nano look better. For example the Guru3dreview they have some charts at the top of the page comparing the Nano and Fury X to the regular 980 (a card that is $100 cheaper) rather than comparing it to the 980ti (which is the same price). If you look further down the page they did test it against the 980ti, but at a first glance to someone who isn't as well-informed it looks like AMD comes out ahead of Nvidia. They also have minimum FPS and frametime information on completely separate pages later in the review, when those are actually the most representative benchmarks of how the game will feel when you play it.

AMD wants "fair" reviews the same way Fox News is "fair and balanced"

980 and Nano has about the same power envelope , 980Ti uses more power, for a really small case this can be an issue. Still if one is OK for a bigger case, power supply etc. then they should go for it.

If you OC any of the cards, you do what? Increase power envelope, noise etc. The Nano seems to be able to OC just fine as well but how well in a very small case is the question. So if you OC the mini970, do the same with Nano. Nano if you increase PowerTune percent will automatically clock higher it seems. HardOCP appears to be the only one actually going to test the Nano in a small case - go figure.

 

[tybert7]

I may be wrong, but it appears that since the restructuring of AMD/Radeon Technology Group, AMD Roy has been muzzled.

https://twitter.com/amd_roy

It probably has something to do with negative responses from people on twitter. We all know people can be extremely nasty there, and there are plenty of small men who jump on the hate bandwagon that don't think for themselves and just pile onto others because someone else they know said something negative about them. I guarantee everyone here if we had access to Roys twitter feed, the level of hate being spewed towards him over this "flap" would seem completely over the top.

Even some people here want him fired, so easy to deal out death and judgment are they.

 

[Derangel]

It probably has something to do with negative responses from people on twitter. We all know people can be extremely nasty there, and there are plenty of small men who jump on the hate bandwagon that don't think for themselves and just pile onto others because someone else they know said something negative about them. I guarantee everyone here if we had access to Roys twitter feed, the level of hate being spewed towards him over this "flap" would seem completely over the top.

Even some people here want him fired, so easy to deal out death and judgment are they.

I don't entirely disagree with you but Roy's attitude is not something AMD should be displaying to the public. If he can't control the way he talks on social media then he shouldn't talk on social media.

 

[5E7EN]

Very unique situation - self-confessed a-hole, likeable regardless for being pretty honest, also an unabashed hardware fan, has site known for realistic reviewing, respected by many and quoted by many. AMD, now known for employing a-holes, not so likeable, needs good press but allows court jester to dictate and present 'fair' policy. Signs of desperation? Hmmmm. Would have thought transparency to be AMDs way of differentiating itself from the opposition but it's almost like they expected 'unfair' reviews...seems like a total lack of confidence in their own product. Price and paper launches aside, Nano Is an interesting piece of kit. Surely, given [H]s history, whatever review may have come before this strange approach would have been balanced and informative. Now, regardless of what is written, the Roy stain will temper the usual enthusiasm and may be yet another nail in the coffin AMD seems to have built for themselves. Only having 2 real alternatives when considering PC gaming is sobering enough. If this current trend continues...Lord help us.

 

[travbrad]

980 and Nano has about the same power envelope , 980Ti uses more power, for a really small case this can be an issue. Still if one is OK for a bigger case, power supply etc. then they should go for it.

If you OC any of the cards, you do what? Increase power envelope, noise etc. The Nano seems to be able to OC just fine as well but how well in a very small case is the question. So if you OC the mini970, do the same with Nano. Nano if you increase PowerTune percent will automatically clock higher it seems. HardOCP appears to be the only one actually going to test the Nano in a small case - go figure.

Why did they include the Fury X in those same charts then? That watercooler won't easily fit in a "really small case" either. If it did then they wouldn't bother making the Nano in the first place. And if needing a beefier power supply is an issue Fury X consumes more power than any other card.

I actually agree with you on the way they SHOULD be testing these cards though. If it's meant for a small case then they should be testing in a small case against other small cards. That would actually favor AMD even more in terms of pure performance too (against the 970mini), although it wouldn't look good in price/performance.

 

[supermodelthriller]

Be honest, who is a bigger asshole, Kyle or some PR douche at AMD named Roy?

 

[chenw]

I consider the 980Ti to be over priced as well regardless of the fact that people are willing to buy it. Strangely enough though, I consider the Titan X to be where it is at if you plan on keeping a card for a long time to come. (Yes, $999 is expensive unless you break it down over 4 years which is what I would do.)

I personally consider 980 to be overpriced first before I'd consider 980ti overpriced. 20% more price for 20% more performance, thus making the VRAM free (when VRAM alone could easily make it cost that much more).

Also strange that you would consider Titan X to be well priced where it is at now.

That's me and my thought process though.

 

[madgun]

Be honest, who is a bigger asshole, Kyle or some PR douche at AMD named Roy?

Judging by your specific threats / ill references to [H] in most of your posts, I can hardly take you seriously. Hopefully you get banned. Seems to me that AMD has unleashed paid nut-jobs at a much faster rate than I thought.

 

[nilepez]

I personally consider 980 to be overpriced first before I'd consider 980ti overpriced. 20% more price for 20% more performance, thus making the VRAM free (when VRAM alone could easily make it cost that much more).

Also strange that you would consider Titan X to be well priced where it is at now.

That's me and my thought process though.

I'd be shocked if any of these are products that are big sellers. My guess is the sweet spot is under $300 (maybe under $200). If AMD products are competitive in those price ranges, then they may do OK.

 

[chenw]

I'd be shocked if any of these are products that are big sellers. My guess is the sweet spot is under $300 (maybe under $200). If AMD products are competitive in those price ranges, then they may do OK.

They generally are. Apart from the 970, there is pretty gap between that and 960/950.

If I were considering anything in that price range, if it is not a 970, it would almost certainly be an AMD (not a great fan of 960's 2GB vram, and 950 is barely above what I would classify as a gaming GPU).

I think it has more to do with the perception of whose faster, rather than which is faster. nVidia currently holds king for the top 2 consumer grade gaming GPUs (Titan X and 980ti), so there will be a certain bias for people to buy nVidia GPU, even though for the same price (especially in that range) you can avail of a better AMD.

Again, this would depend on the person in question. Maxwell undeniably uses comparatively less power so people with not so powerful PSUs may prefer that over similarly priced AMD.

 

[Ranulfo]

Let's do some simple math:

Let's say you're faced with a choice of an Intel-based system on 45w and an AMD-based system on 65w. Your job is to deploy around 200 PCs with such configurations.

How much energy are you saving by going Intel? 20w x 200 = 4Kw. Per hour. With the average being 12c/kwh, that's 48c/hour. Let's say you're gonna run them for 10 hours a day, that's nearly $5 a day saved on power. Over the lifetime of the machines (typically 5-10 years in office settings I'd imagine, sometimes much longer), that's around $9K to $18K saved over the course of the machines' lifetime by shaving 20w.

We're also discounting the fact that we'll have to cool 4Kwh of heat less. Air conditioning isn't free, it's pretty expensive. Especially in hot countries.

Uh, I have no dispute with your numbers for say 200 machines. I put a caveat in there based on numbers. For small business and individuals it is often not going to save you money. That all said, are these machines all running at max speed the full ten hours per day? Price difference between chips (or total system cost) is how much? It is not all about 20w power difference.

This reminds me of the i3 T processors vs regular model, aka 34w vs 54w. Which I see from pcppartpicker is back to being $10+ more for a 4130T 2.9ghz vs 4130 3.4ghz like it was in early 2014 (now its $118 vs $104). It will take you just over a year to get your $14 money back at 12c/kwh rates. Thats assuming you're running the cpu's at max speed for ten hours.

 

[gamerk2]

needless to say, im Honestly not surprised given AMD didnt even launch a new GPU aside the fury.. and the fact still AMD has NOTHING in their line up to answer the 980 Ti besides the Fury X.

390X Launch was a laughing stock of a company not wanting to make any gains.

last AMD I purchased was an AMD Atholon XP 2400+ and it will stay that way. Intel maybe more "expensive" but they actually make changes that matter. AMD has been using the same socket with horrible heat and efficiency for like 6 years running. and no one bats an eye because its "Cheaper than Intel".

Same philosophy has been the same for their GPU market. AMD is the titanic... it's not unsinkable. They're doing a bang up job leading it into the icerburg going full steam ahead.

It comes down to money, and fact is, AMD has been cutting R&D to simply survive until Zen (now pushed to Q4 2016). AMD is simply running out of money at this point, with only about $800 Million cash on hand. One or two bad financial quarters, and AMD runs out of money (they lost $400 Million last quarter). $1 Billion in debt turns over in 5 years. And so on. AMD is sinking fast, and the only thing in the pipeline is Zen. Honestly, even if it's as good as some hope, I don't think they can sell enough to make a difference at this point. The ship is sinking.

 

[Midlife]

I've been away from the [H] forums for a long time. Hell I even had to get a new user name. Kyle may remember the Hooters panties I set him many years back. Anyway....

As an investor in tech I have learned one thing. AMD is a dead horse. It may twitch from time to time, but it is dead. The MSFT buyout rumor is just that a total rumor. There is no way in God's green earth MSFT would want anything to do with hardware that in all honesty is mobile unfriendly. MSFT knows that mobility is where the $$$ are at in the CPU and GPU market. AMD cannot compete in the high end anymore as the finances are not going to allow it as the R&D expenditures need to come back in line or the losses are going to expand even more. Reduction in R&D will result in few "advances" in their GPU/CPU market. AMD will have to settle in becoming a low-end supplier and they are quickly moving in the direction. Evidence is their move to split AMDs CPU and GPU business. It's going to allow investors to see which division is profitable and which is not. I don't think either is as AMD missed on both top and bottom line numbers. This means they aren't selling enough of their crap and it costs them toooooo much to make their crap. Roy would be one of those expenses. Their move to basically make a vertically integrated Radeon Tech Group to pursue "virtual reality and augmented reality" is a day late and dollar short move. AMD is prepping to sell this division to either a Qualcomm or another SoC manufacturer. Back before AMD bought ATI I know for a fact Broadcom was very interested in ATI and using their GPUs in setup boxes to bring gaming to the set top box. Kyle we are looking at another 3dfx meltdown. AMD is going to run out of cash and close up shop, sell it's patents and leave investors in AMD holding the bag while executives walk away with their "Golden Parachutes". History repeats itself, and another competitor of Nvidia bites the dust. I know I sound like an Nvidia fanboy, but as an organization and an investment....Nvidia wins...other companies take it in the ass. ATI did nothing but acquire the losers throughout their history and misery loves company I guess.

 

[FrgMstr]

Judging by your specific threats / ill references to [H] in most of your posts, I can hardly take you seriously. Hopefully you get banned. Seems to me that AMD has unleashed paid nut-jobs at a much faster rate than I thought.

He is banned, but I wanted to point out supermodelthriller was not banned for his comments about me in this thread. He was banned for sending harassing PMs to other members. In threads like this I err way to the side of letting personal attacks on me or [H] slide. It is fair to let both sides be heard. That said, I think it is obvious that supermodelthriller was doing his fair share of trolling as well. Anyway, nothing to see here, so let's move on.

 

[lopoetve]

Uh, I have no dispute with your numbers for say 200 machines. I put a caveat in there based on numbers. For small business and individuals it is often not going to save you money. That all said, are these machines all running at max speed the full ten hours per day? Price difference between chips (or total system cost) is how much? It is not all about 20w power difference.

This reminds me of the i3 T processors vs regular model, aka 34w vs 54w. Which I see from pcppartpicker is back to being $10+ more for a 4130T 2.9ghz vs 4130 3.4ghz like it was in early 2014 (now its $118 vs $104). It will take you just over a year to get your $14 money back at 12c/kwh rates. Thats assuming you're running the cpu's at max speed for ten hours.

One other equation to consider - most places buying PCs at that rate pull operating costs for buildings/power/etc out of a different budget than they do capital expenditures and acquisitions.

In other words, the guys buying those systems don't care that they use more, as someone else is paying for that power. They simply pick a model and run with it.

 

[HardUp4HardWare]

I've been away from the [H] forums for a long time. Hell I even had to get a new user name. Kyle may remember the Hooters panties I set him many years back. Anyway....

As an investor in tech I have learned one thing. AMD is a dead horse. It may twitch from time to time, but it is dead. The MSFT buyout rumor is just that a total rumor. There is no way in God's green earth MSFT would want anything to do with hardware that in all honesty is mobile unfriendly. MSFT knows that mobility is where the $$$ are at in the CPU and GPU market. AMD cannot compete in the high end anymore as the finances are not going to allow it as the R&D expenditures need to come back in line or the losses are going to expand even more. Reduction in R&D will result in few "advances" in their GPU/CPU market. AMD will have to settle in becoming a low-end supplier and they are quickly moving in the direction. Evidence is their move to split AMDs CPU and GPU business. It's going to allow investors to see which division is profitable and which is not. I don't think either is as AMD missed on both top and bottom line numbers. This means they aren't selling enough of their crap and it costs them toooooo much to make their crap. Roy would be one of those expenses. Their move to basically make a vertically integrated Radeon Tech Group to pursue "virtual reality and augmented reality" is a day late and dollar short move. AMD is prepping to sell this division to either a Qualcomm or another SoC manufacturer. Back before AMD bought ATI I know for a fact Broadcom was very interested in ATI and using their GPUs in setup boxes to bring gaming to the set top box. Kyle we are looking at another 3dfx meltdown. AMD is going to run out of cash and close up shop, sell it's patents and leave investors in AMD holding the bag while executives walk away with their "Golden Parachutes". History repeats itself, and another competitor of Nvidia bites the dust. I know I sound like an Nvidia fanboy, but as an organization and an investment....Nvidia wins...other companies take it in the ass. ATI did nothing but acquire the losers throughout their history and misery loves company I guess.

They may want to sell but who in their right mind would buy?

Qualcomm doesn't need them, I suppose they may have some patents that could be attractive but really that isn't enough I think.

 

[lopoetve]

They may want to sell but who in their right mind would buy?

Qualcomm doesn't need them, I suppose they may have some patents that could be attractive but really that isn't enough I think.

TON of IP in there still, including ones that generate revenue to this day. We always look at things from the "what do ~I~ buy as a consumer", when you have to realize that there are a lot of things in there that others license from them to produce those products (eg: I don't know the status of the patents / licensing around AMD64, but they exist in some form - that's worth money). ATi branch has much the same. AMD has been around a long time, and not always just licensing others tech (x86) to sell product.