Bulldozer Possibly Pushed back till October

I don't know I have been attending Intel roadshows for the good part of ten years now (give or take). Intel has very much changed there business strategy towards the enthusiast crowd. It was not that long ago that Intel would not even think of letting anyone overclock there processors without voiding there warranty unless they bought into the "extreme" series of processors at 1k dollars plus. Now you can purchase for less that $300 an unlocked processor. There marketing has changed dramatically as well. They place a much larger emphasis on the enthusiast crowd than you think. Last I heard them report that there home user/enthusiast small market was 30-40% of there revenue.
 
Wow you actually believe that 30-40% make up of their total sales on people buying cpu for overclockig ?

This is not only unlikely also impossible :)

It would also mean that their high end parts are produced by a factor of 3 compared to low end parts (which in all cases make up bulk of the profit for almost each processor company). Or it would mean that people buying Intel high end products would pay such premium prices that the profit margin are so inflated they could make up for the mass producing of chips.

Do the math , so many people that have a clue about computers , don't think so ....
 
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Well still you should be concerned with enthusiasts because there's what i call "local computer expert" factor. Usually people will ask them to build their computers or to advise a model or brand of laptop to buy because they trust lot more into neighbour skill than shop salesman.

I think i've build 5-6 machines over last few years for family/friends and grand total 1 of them had amd cpu inside (x3 4xx) because it was cheapest one to buy together with mobo. All the rest had i5 750/2500K/2600K because they were gamers machines.
 
also if AMD really doesnt give a s**t about us enthusiasts (which is what some of JF-AMD's comments really lead me to believe) why do any of us use their products? if bulldozer isnt available in the next two months, i am going to go intel

JF is a server guy. Server customers care about performance, power, form factor/density stability and price.

Certain aspects of AMD are very enthusiast centric, just look at their enthusiast video cards.
 
Wow you actually believe that 30-40% make up of their total sales on people buying cpu for overclockig ?

This is not only unlikely also impossible :)

It would also mean that their high end parts are produced by a factor of 3 compared to low end parts (which in all cases make up bulk of the profit for almost each processor company). Or it would mean that people buying Intel high end products would pay such premium prices that the profit margin are so inflated they could make up for the mass producing of chips.

Do the math , so many people that have a clue about computers , don't think so ....

Pretty sure that the last time I saw a number on a marketing report, "enthusiasts" were about 6% of the client PC sales. Overclockers would be some small subsegment of that. But I am no expert on those markets, so I could be wrong.

JF is a server guy. Server customers care about performance, power, form factor/density stability and price.

Certain aspects of AMD are very enthusiast centric, just look at their enthusiast video cards.

Actually, enthusiasts want the same things, just in a different order. But I would still contend that they don't value performance over price. If they did a hell of a lot of 990X systems would get sold. But if you look at the systems in peoples' sigs, you see that there are actually few. This tells me that they want performance, but that price is the true governor in that decision.
 
Actually, enthusiasts want the same things, just in a different order. But I would still contend that they don't value performance over price. If they did a hell of a lot of 990X systems would get sold. But if you look at the systems in peoples' sigs, you see that there are actually few. This tells me that they want performance, but that price is the true governor in that decision.

I think personally it's more about the ratio than the absolute price or absolute performance.

Using a made up performance index, if:
CPU A does 5 and costs $100
CPU B does 10 and costs $200
CPU C does 12 and costs $300

I'm going to choose CPU B every time. If CPU B did 20 and cost $400, I'd probably still choose B because the performance would justify the price.

Price isn't the governor, it's value. I don't own a 990X because at the time was 3x the cost of a i920, and not 3x the performance.
 
try to unload inventory for something....hmmmm?

I believe they are again trying to be the price / performance leader instead of having Intel with its i3 2100 and above holding that title making AMD only a value for the sub $100 CPUs. Remember that the i3 2100 is faster than most Phenom X4 chips at stock. However it does not overclock.
 
Well the Bulldozer is something they have been working on for 5+ years. And all the sales talk doesn't do it any justice.
 
I hope he doesn't think he's doing AMD any favors with that post. People have gotten canned from their organizations for being less of an asshole on facebook and other public forums. If I made posts about my organization with similar mentality and then stated that I work there, I'd be out the door.

Evidently you have no idea just who this guy actually is.....

try googling his name:-John Fruehe
 

This is going to come off as a troll post, and I really dont mean it as such. I'll say it anyway. Going by that FAQ - even if I didnt care one way or another about BD, I would interperet it like this:

- It's really annoying that you want to be excited for our product.

- IPC sucks, so we're adding a ton of cores

- Single threaded performance sucks. But dont worry, BD has lots of them!




I really, really dont mean to rock the boat here, and I'm not trying to insinuate that JF meant to convey that. If I hadnt seen his other posts, however, that's how I would interpret it. I know from seeing him around the forums that he's a cool guy and doesnt really mean it like that.
 
Not really a FAQ. More of a "stop ask any questions cause we're not telling you shit and youre getting on our nerves!" :(
 
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Not really a FAQ. More of a "stop ask any questions cause we're not telling you shit and youre getting on our nerves!" :(

Pretty much this. It was about as childish as the posts he seems to be getting so frustrated with.

The whole, "Well then go buy a single core if you're so worried about single threaded performance" was just way out of line. Most client applications ARE poorly threaded. Of course people are worried about how it performs in poorly threaded situations. Using up even 4 cores is a stretch for most applications at this point.
 
It was about as childish as the posts he seems to be getting so frustrated with.

Childish? Not IMHO; particularly if what he says about receiving vicious emails is true. I'd imagine most folks would probably be sick and tired too.
 
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My posts are my own opinions, I don't work for AMD, no one has the first clue about who I am, and my posts will not be read by 1,957,837,842 people. Yet I still feel it's necessary to but a bit more reserved when conversing with you folks. A high profile post from a known director of marketing addressing the consumers of his own products should only display such reserve. Though informative as it was, his demeanor did nothing but detract from the values that AMD claims to promote.
 
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Yet I still feel it's necessary to but a bit more reserved when conversing with you folks.

Of course. You don't have to deal with fans.

I only show respect to people who reciprocate. I've seen countless times where people employed by particular companies have had to endured offensive demands/criticism from so called "fans."

Being respectful to the customer doesn't mean I'm going to let them piss in my face.

Personally, I don't see what was so insulting about his post. He sounded fed up, but considering he does this voluntarily, I don't see why he's receiving hostile emails/reactions. Does anyone seriously expect him to leak information?
 
Totally agree that he has a license to be pissed off if douchebags are calling him out or trashing him in emails and such. Uncalled for and I totally get that. Absolutely no reason for personal attacks at all.

That being said, if he's doing this voluntarily and he's so fed up with us asking questions about a product we've been waiting 3 years for, then just stop posting in forums.

What I dont get is the guy posts in multiple forums whose primary focus is desktop CPU's, then basically says "I work for AMD but I dont know shit about desktop CPU's and Im not telling you shit about Bulldozer but Ill make a bunch of posts that basically tell you nothing". Then gets pissed when people start asking questions.

Dude, if you dont want the hassle of a million different questions and arent going to tell anyone anything about Bulldozer, change your screen name to something other than AMD and stop posting in Bulldozer discussions.

And yeah, I qualify as an AMD fan. The last Intel proc I bought was a 1.6 GHz Pentium 4 back in 2001. But I dont think Im being unreasonable wanting some substantive info on Bulldozer. Not saying I have a right to it or AMD doesnt have a right to keep quiet, just saying that Im not an asshole just because I want some info.
 
^ This is not fandom. It's a group of consumers who are excited about a new product they intend to buy. Even if the excitement gets a bit overbearing, it's hardly pissing in ones face. In extreme cases, you can always gently put people in their place using an element of grace.

I say extreme, but really now. Just how extreme can these typed inquiries be? There is such thing as a delete button, ya know. Personal attacks over a computer processor don't deserve a response or even a reaction from such an individual.

The guy apparently knows quite a bit about processors and is likely as excited about BD as you are; hence his desire to involve himself in discussions. But he's not about to make a statement that he simply cannot make, even if he has more info than he lets on. You don't grill him for that.
 
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Childish? Not IMHO; particularly if what he says about receiving vicious emails is true. I'd imagine most folks would probably be sick and tired too.

Just my opinion. We all deal with stupid people on the Internet every day. We ignore them and continue on conversing with the reasonable people. We don't write sarcastic "FAQ" to deal with them (which will not be effective anyhow). That's why I found it childish.

I like JF and I'm sure it's just a post written out of frustration, but it's just not something you should be writing when you're more or less acting on AMDs behalf. His opinions may be his, but he's still representing AMD. If he didn't want that to be the case, I'd assume he wouldn't have "Hardware Rep" attached to his account.
 
Just my opinion. We all deal with stupid people on the Internet every day. We ignore them and continue on conversing with the reasonable people. We don't write sarcastic "FAQ" to deal with them (which will not be effective anyhow). That's why I found it childish.

I like JF and I'm sure it's just a post written out of frustration, but it's just not something you should be writing when you're more or less acting on AMDs behalf. His opinions may be his, but he's still representing AMD. If he didn't want that to be the case, I'd assume he wouldn't have "Hardware Rep" attached to his account.

Is it a valid excuse ?

After all its really AMD's fault we are all anxious and getting roudy . They continue to delay the part , give no information the part and what do they expect ? For us to continue drinking the cool aid ?

The constant delays and miss handling of the situation clearly shows that AMD doesn't care about this fauct of their fan base. They have continued to show that the APU market is more important than this market over the last 90 days.
 
Well if there weren't any problems of any sort we would have had something with the bulldozer architecture a good while back for whatever reason can not blame AMD for wanting to ship a product that is worthy.

Well maybe a few years down the road there will be someone from AMD willing to share what was going on.

The lack of information is something which is planned, also found it funny that you need to set compiler flags which makes me wonder which version of the compilers do have those settings. Will GCC also require those ?

It was a mildly entertaining piece to be honest, showing that even John wants the damn thing to launch sooner rather then later :) .
 
Is it a valid excuse ?
The constant delays and miss handling of the situation clearly shows that AMD doesn't care about this fact of their fan base. They have continued to show that the APU market is more important than this market over the last 90 days.

Well - I get the reasons now why they dont give us info ... err I should say 'very' little info. For marketing and as a business standpoint reasons. (Cant let the competitor nor their sales suffer).

But there is one thing I did not understand ... he mentions the reason they dont give dates out for their product was because of the loss in sales that would occur (meaning if we all knew BD would be out say the 19th of sept) - then we all would put off our purchases until said date to get BD (potentially).
But then in a previous note it was stated that the enthusiast market only makes up 5-10% of total sales (and those that would wait I would assume are from the enthusiast market) ...

well; either way - glad for a little more info. I do agree thou with some people here the post did sound a bit 'tired and frustrated' ...
 
I also work for AMD. The delays are not exactly the company's fault as GloFo's 32nm yield were not that good. A few more weeks of waiting for the enthusiasts market but the server guys right now have the higher priority.
 
This is going to come off as a troll post, and I really dont mean it as such. I'll say it anyway. Going by that FAQ - even if I didnt care one way or another about BD, I would interperet it like this:

- It's really annoying that you want to be excited for our product.

- IPC sucks, so we're adding a ton of cores

- Single threaded performance sucks. But dont worry, BD has lots of them!




I really, really dont mean to rock the boat here, and I'm not trying to insinuate that JF meant to convey that. If I hadnt seen his other posts, however, that's how I would interpret it. I know from seeing him around the forums that he's a cool guy and doesnt really mean it like that.


Spot on, Its hard to read any other way, seems like early damage control
 
From the FAQ, read that a few times until you get it:

"Giving the date out will stall demand."

That's the most truthful statement I've read in any thread on any forum about BD.
 
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What I dont get is the guy posts in multiple forums whose primary focus is desktop CPU's, then basically says "I work for AMD but I dont know shit about desktop CPU's and Im not telling you shit about Bulldozer but Ill make a bunch of posts that basically tell you nothing". Then gets pissed when people start asking questions.

Dude, if you dont want the hassle of a million different questions and arent going to tell anyone anything about Bulldozer, change your screen name to something other than AMD and stop posting in Bulldozer discussions.

This. I mean...really? After how many months of wearing a tagline "I know Bulldozer" - you're surprised at how many people want to know a bunch of stuff you can't tell them? Is this for real? :rolleyes:

On this forum particularly, did you expect to be met with jaws agape willing to absorb any marketing scrap that is fit for release, and not actually ask the pertinent questions? I just don't get it. I do empathize with the frustration, but it's self inflicted.

Has this little experiment really proved fruitful? It seems all that you have succeeded in doing is getting frustrated at a bunch of knowledgeable people that want your product.

I get it - you can't say anything worth saying. You have people picking apart every word you've said for an inkling of information. So why even do this in the first place? For someone in such a high profile position, this seems dumb to expect anything less.
 
Sorry, man. Didn't mean to call you out. You did give off the "sick and tired" vibe with that post though.

Well, you guys see what shows up in the threads. Let me give you a snapshot of what shows up in my inbox at work:

what is the launch schedule of bulldozer u fukn piece of shit? you said it is on q2 but we dont even see on q3. you dick sucking liars only know how to cheat.

Perhaps some aren't overly happy with me, and that is fine, I do not expect everyone to like me. But, there is a certain line that gets crossed on a daily basis on the internet.

I put that post up because, if you go back and look, every one of those questions has been answered multiple times, yet they still keep coming in. Often from the same people.

I don't do this for work, I do it on my own. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it. I've given a lot of data and explained why there are some things that I cannot say. I could simply cry "confidential" and not answer a lot of questions, but I am trying to help people understand why things like performance, launch dates and prices might be things that we can't talk about. Just saying "because it is confidential" doesn't help people ;understand the why behind it.
 
Well, you guys see what shows up in the threads. Let me give you a snapshot of what shows up in my inbox at work:



Perhaps some aren't overly happy with me, and that is fine, I do not expect everyone to like me. But, there is a certain line that gets crossed on a daily basis on the internet.

I put that post up because, if you go back and look, every one of those questions has been answered multiple times, yet they still keep coming in. Often from the same people.

I don't do this for work, I do it on my own. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it. I've given a lot of data and explained why there are some things that I cannot say. I could simply cry "confidential" and not answer a lot of questions, but I am trying to help people understand why things like performance, launch dates and prices might be things that we can't talk about. Just saying "because it is confidential" doesn't help people ;understand the why behind it.

That's a horrible wat to be treated daily.
So, when's the launch date?
LOL j/k I dont care. Cool story though.
 
Wow you actually believe that 30-40% make up of their total sales on people buying cpu for overclockig ?

This is not only unlikely also impossible :)

It would also mean that their high end parts are produced by a factor of 3 compared to low end parts (which in all cases make up bulk of the profit for almost each processor company). Or it would mean that people buying Intel high end products would pay such premium prices that the profit margin are so inflated they could make up for the mass producing of chips.

Do the math , so many people that have a clue about computers , don't think so ....

So let me ask you this. How is the math done to come to your conclusion? You throw out there, "do the math". What math is involved?

I am going completely by what was passed to the channel community directly by Intel. If you have any evidence to debunk what Intel's employees were passing, please provide the evidence. Otherwise your opinion and rant is pointless.
 
FYI - To date, AMD has officially confirmed each delay of the BD CPU. Following their confirmation of a September launch a while back, there has not one word of a delay. In fact, the only statements from AMD I've seen spell out that they are on target. Any indication of a further delay has surfaced from parties who do not work for or represent AMD and cannot confirm it. AMD said we'll have a September launch so you can expect a September launch until AMD says otherwise.
 
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Pretty sure that the last time I saw a number on a marketing report, "enthusiasts" were about 6% of the client PC sales. Overclockers would be some small subsegment of that. But I am no expert on those markets, so I could be wrong.



Actually, enthusiasts want the same things, just in a different order. But I would still contend that they don't value performance over price. If they did a hell of a lot of 990X systems would get sold. But if you look at the systems in peoples' sigs, you see that there are actually few. This tells me that they want performance, but that price is the true governor in that decision.

JF - as you said the last you saw "were about 6% of the client PC sales". Enthusiasts do not buy "whole PC clients" en-mass. Most are building there own. That I am sure you are aware of. I would be inclined to believe that report though because it sounds very plausible from places like Dell etc.. That have a line of enthusiast level PC's.

Also you mention the fact about what the systems you see listed in peoples signatures. I certainly would not use that as any type of gauge as to what the market is doing as a whole. My guess would be that a large portion of the people who post on these forums don't have the income to sustain being an enthusiast.
 
JF - as you said the last you saw "were about 6% of the client PC sales". Enthusiasts do not buy "whole PC clients" en-mass. Most are building there own. That I am sure you are aware of. I would be inclined to believe that report though because it sounds very plausible from places like Dell etc.. That have a line of enthusiast level PC's.

When JF said 'client PC sales' he did not mean whole PCs. There are (at least) 3 markets: Server/Enterprise, Client PC, and Embedded.

Client PC encompasses every microprocessor that is sold to go into end-users' systems; i.e.: OEM and DIY builds.

Also you mention the fact about what the systems you see listed in peoples signatures. I certainly would not use that as any type of gauge as to what the market is doing as a whole. My guess would be that a large portion of the people who post on these forums don't have the income to sustain being an enthusiast.

He said that in the context of 'performance for the price' vs 'performance regardless of price'. That there are more people on this forum with Sandy Bridge (price/performance) vs Gulftown (performance regardless of price) chips. Did you read any of his posts?
 
FYI - To date, AMD has officially confirmed each delay of the BD CPU. Following their confirmation of a September launch a while back, there has not one word of a delay. In fact, the only statements from AMD I've seen spell out that they are on target. Any indication of a further delay has surfaced from parties who do not work for or represent AMD and cannot confirm it. AMD said we'll have a September launch so you can expect a September launch until AMD says otherwise.

That's cool and all but for gods sake if they can't confirm release date something like 2 or 4 weeks before it is supposed to happen there's something seriously wrong.

We had SB official release note with specs and prices around 26th of Nov - 5-6 weeks before launch date.
 
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