Is AMD Still Relevant?

demingo said:
But they are selling at a far worse pace, even with the limited 680 availablity

If you look at the steam hardware survey, 0.5% of users have a 7970, 0.56% have a 680 gtx.

While that is a small difference, factor in the fact that the 680 has been in the market for a far shorter period of time and supposedly had supply problems, it really paints a picture of who the market prefers for high end cards.
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Steam survey is not a real survey, hell they just fixed some bug that had skewed all kinds of stats.

But even if real, you'd think GTX 680 outsold 7970 10-1 going by forums. What you're showing is that today they're not too far apart from having sold the same amount. That isn't bad. Then add in AMD has been selling the 7870 and 7850 and 7770 and 7750 for months with no competition, I bet AMD has upwards of 80% 28nm market share.

I like how people are proud of it though, like "yeah it's worse but we buy Nvidia anyway cus we're fanboys, isn't it awesome"

I bet at this point if AMD made a CPU faster and cheaper than Intel people would proudly flaunt how they still buy Intel, and make up some fake reason like the driver for why they buy Nvidia "I buy Intel cause their CPU drivers are so much better!"


Anyways it's Nvidia that is in trouble because they're losing overall graphics market share (hmm, you didn't mention that for some reason LOL) to AMD and Intel integrated. It's good for Nvidia they started getting into mobile because discreet GPU is becoming more and more marginalized, and Nvidia is in a bad position since they have no desktop CPU.

Anyways the problem with mobile though for Nvidia is margins are a lot lower than desktop GPU.
 
What a lame "article". That guy should be fired for having the shortest article.

Do they call 1 paragraph an article these days? At least give more discussion for your hypothesis.
 
demingo said:
Doubtful.

Intel still has to play by supply and demand. They can try to charge $500 for what is a $200 chip now, doesn't mean anyone will buy.
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It may be an exaggeration to say 500 but it wouldn't be hard to see a 50% increase of todays prices without any alternative.
 
drescherjm said:
The fixes in no way will make up for the 40% to 60% deficit versus Intel. Although to be honest they do not have to.
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Yeah, exactly. If AMD can gain 10% IPC and 10% clock or something with Piledriver, and that doesn't seem too out of the question, for an overall 20% bump, they'll be a lot more competitive. As of now they really have nothing. With a +20% they might be able to be not horrible at the low-mid end if they price low enough. Which will be a lot better than they are now.

They're using to being slower and having to sell chips for less.

another thing people dont talk about is that Ivy Bridge was basically a bust, which definitely gave AMD a lot more time to improve their engineering. People acted like Ivy Bridge was incredible for the last two years on forums and it basically ended up being nothing.
 
The C-Net article (no, not by Mary Jo whoever) is actually just a commentary on another blog post that is linked within. I recommend reading that. It is longer, and gives well-reasoned arguments for questioning AMD's prospects, largely based on the presentations at Computex.

This is the [H]--not the place to defend a company's relevance based on budget products. As has been seen recently, all Intel has to do to wipe the floor with any AMD budget market share is release budget products of their own.

The post is also not about whether AMD deserves to be relevant, or whether we want/need them to be relevant, but whether they are or will be relevant. And I think it's past due for industry people to start raising the question. Maybe it will wake up the leadership at AMD.
 
demingo said:
But they are selling at a far worse pace, even with the limited 680 availablity

If you look at the steam hardware survey, 0.5% of users have a 7970, 0.56% have a 680 gtx.

While that is a small difference, factor in the fact that the 680 has been in the market for a far shorter period of time and supposedly had supply problems, it really paints a picture of who the market prefers for high end cards.
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Sorry for multiple replies to the same post, but I keep thinking of new points I want to make and I seem to have lost the ability to edit.

Anyways I just wanted to also point out that AMD's pricing has been out of whack for long periods recently, which account for some of those lackluster 7970 sales. For like a solid 3 weeks IIRC 7970 was at $550 after 680 came out at $500 and I'm sure werent moving. Now they're down to more like $450 and I bet they're selling better.

Also it looks like AMD is coming out with a ghz edition 7970 clocked at 1075mhz and that'll help their price-perfomance ratio even more. If they sell that at the same price, all the sudden 7970 will look pretty attractive and I bet sales will reflect.

Plus Steam is an opt in survey, and I can just see all the Nvidia boys greedily opting in hoping to stick it to AMD in the sales figures, while most AMD fans dont even think about Nvidia and probably less opt in. So I'm not so sure about Steam #'s reflecting the truth.
 
what about having their graphics in both next gen playstation and xbox? that sounds pretty relevant to me. stupid sensationalist headlines!
 
People like to think that AMD is relevant because they sell their processors at a lower price. The problem is that AMD keeps loosing money, this means that AMD based systems really aren't that cheap. A company can't stay in business that way.
 
Shark974 said:
Plus Steam is an opt in survey, and I can just see all the Nvidia boys greedily opting in hoping to stick it to AMD in the sales figures, while most AMD fans dont even think about Nvidia and probably less opt in. So I'm not so sure about Steam #'s reflecting the truth.
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:rolleyes:

As if both sides don't have their fair share of fanboys.

Ever think that people opt in to help developers determine what users are actually using, to aid them in developing their titles?
 
I think the title of the article should be "Why doesn't AMD try harder to compete directly with Intel's high performing CPU design instead of trying to compete with Intel economically?"

AMD is doing fine. Now are they in the glory day's they once use to be? Hell no. Its been years since I've even thought about the old CPU wars of long ago when Intel would be king one year and AMD the next.

AMD CPU's are still quality stuff. You can find them generally for quite a bit less but they aren't going for raw performance , they are going for best bang for your buck performance. Does Intel have better technology? Yep. Does Intel compete economically with AMD? Nope , not at all. The game has changed and Intel is years a head of AMD in the CPU department. AMD has no hope of catching up now , Intel has spent billions researching the growing problem of heat , electrical leakage and shrinking die size. AMD on the other hand has gone in a different direction.

One thing AMD is pioneering is the APU. And that's something Intel wants in on BADLY , in this department AMD is leading. I think we'll end up seeing APU's in all kinds of stuff in the coming year. CNET should stop writing for "sensationalism" and offer up the true story. I'm beginning to feel like CNET is the new "Fox News" of the tech world.
 
Shark974 said:
Sorry for multiple replies to the same post, but I keep thinking of new points I want to make and I seem to have lost the ability to edit.

SNIP
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I'm going to reply to both posts in one here.

While Steam is not official data, it is the easiest accessable data of the "gaming" population we have. Also, if you look at the sales data on the 7970 and 680 and do some napkin math, since the release of the 680, it has outsold the 7970 at 5-1. Thats lifetime. In the first month of release according to the data, the 680 outsold the 7970 by 10-1 so the Hardforum wasnt wrong.

Anyways I just wanted to also point out that AMD's pricing has been out of whack for long periods recently, which account for some of those lackluster 7970 sales. For like a solid 3 weeks IIRC 7970 was at $550 after 680 came out at $500 and I'm sure werent moving. Now they're down to more like $450 and I bet they're selling better.
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Thats true, the most recent months data, since the price drop, the 680gtx has only outsold the 7970 by a 4-1 margin instead of the 5-1 of the lifetime rate.

Anyways it's Nvidia that is in trouble because they're losing overall graphics market share (hmm, you didn't mention that for some reason LOL) to AMD and Intel integrated. It's good for Nvidia they started getting into mobile because discreet GPU is becoming more and more marginalized, and Nvidia is in a bad position since they have no desktop CPU.
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Actually they are losing market share to Intel not AMD. AMD's market share of videocards has dropped along with Nvidia's, Intel is the only one who has grown. Nvidia still holds a larger share. If you look at the data more closely and look at DX11 cards which rules out a lot of intels intergrated cards, Nvidia is in the lead there too.

Finally, I doubt either videcard user goes out of their way to opt in. Steam will randomly prompt you to submit or not. If you wish to ignore steam thats fine, but it is the single best source of public information on which videocards "Gamers" are using.
 
AMD was always competitive with Intel until the Core2Duo. At the very least with reasonable performance at superior value.

The high-end desktop market is a shadow of what it once was, so maybe it's irrelevant that AMD is irrelevant.
 
demingo said:
Doubtful.

Intel still has to play by supply and demand. They can try to charge $500 for what is a $200 chip now, doesn't mean anyone will buy. Also, I see ARM as a bigger competior to Intel than AMD at this point. If Intel hiked prices and a $400 laptop became an $800 laptop, that $500 ARM tablet is looking mighty fine.....
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Intel has done it before. And people have bought. Only recently have they made their processors affordable, and most of use still buy the more expensive K-chips of the series. Without AMD, who knows how much these would run? If you haven't noticed, Intel still keeps a $1k desktop processor in their newly budget-oriented lineup.
 
AMD is about as irrelevant as electric cars. Yea they seem useless now, but not forever.

AMD screwed up their CPUs, that's a given. Their graphics department is only rivaled by Nvida, which is something Intel can't touch just yet. They could easily rise to the top if they can do something about their X86 CPUs.

As for Tablets and smart phones, I wouldn't worry. Intel doesn't even really have anything in that area either. Sure they have a new X86 chip that runs on a Android phone, but I'm not seeing a massive exodus from ARM cause of it. Even then Intel had to use the same graphics that everyone else uses.

The cell phone processor industry is dominated by Texas Instruments, Samsung, and Qualcomm. One company is known for calculators, one is known for TVs, and one nobody has ever heard of until people started buying smart phones like crazy. While I'd love to see AMD getting into this industry, I'm not really giving a load. Nvidia has been trying with their Tegra platform, and that's slowly sneaking in.

While Tablets and smartphones are a big thing right now, they're not going to replace laptops and desktops. When it comes to tablets unless you're Apple it isn't worth a damn. Apple even makes their own processors with the A5, A5X, and soon A6. Honestly at this point it wouldn't surprise me if Pepsi makes their own ARM chip.
 
Stone Cold said:
AMD was always competitive with Intel until the Core2Duo. At the very least with reasonable performance at superior value.

The high-end desktop market is a shadow of what it once was, so maybe it's irrelevant that AMD is irrelevant.
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The high-end desktop market to me is the best its been since the AMD 3200+ days. I mean, I bought a $200 cpu that clocked 1ghz over it's stock speed using stock voltage and will last me 2 years before I even think about upgrading. I am loving the desktop market right now.
 
AMD is completely irrelevant. I run a PC store. We are 100% Intel now. I sell only a handful of AMD CPUs per year.

Now, AMD/ATI GPUs are a different story. ATI is still doing quite well.

Biggest mistake ATI ever made was tying themselves to AMD. Everyone saw this coming.
 
niconx said:
People like to think that AMD is relevant because they sell their processors at a lower price. The problem is that AMD keeps loosing money, this means that AMD based systems really aren't that cheap. A company can't stay in business that way.
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AMD should stop paying off debt, then. They make money - they should make some money whenever Intel sells a 64-bit processor.
 
JohnnyH24 said:
Without AMD, who knows how much these would run? If you haven't noticed, Intel still keeps a $1k desktop processor in their newly budget-oriented lineup.
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Oh I know how much they can charge. Before the Athlon processor, Intel was charging nearly $1k for their chips. It didn't get much cheaper until AMD became a serious threat. Especially after their Athlon XP line of processors.
 
They are getting more and more pointless ever since they took over ATI and made tons of dumb choices its been going downhill.

AMD althlon was the last time I remember them doing anything cool.
 
Cube said:
They are getting more and more pointless ever since they took over ATI and made tons of dumb choices its been going downhill.

AMD althlon was the last time I remember them doing anything cool.
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If they wanted to keep up the CPU wars with Intel they should have spent the money they used to acquire ATI on developing the next generation CPU's.

It's understandable that they wanted to get in on GPU's and move towards APU's, but was it really worth it at the cost of their position in the CPU market?
 
Here I was under the impression that AMD is the only reason ATI survived during that time. They helped bolster the GPU division so that it can still compete to this day. Though I am not disagreeing with the sentiment of them(AMD) making multiple bad decisions since then.
 
I hope so, if anything, to keep Intel on their toes. If it weren't for AMD several years ago who introduced dual core computing, then Intel would've dragged their feet.
 
XamediX said:
Here I was under the impression that AMD is the only reason ATI survived during that time. They helped bolster the GPU division so that it can still compete to this day. Though I am not disagreeing with the sentiment of them(AMD) making multiple bad decisions since then.
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I dunno, the 9700/9800 Pro kicked some serious ass. :cool:
 
I still use AMD for budget PC. Their quad cpus and what not are so dirt chip as are motherboards for them, it just makes sense to me. For the PC I put them in, they work just fine and never give me problems.
 
OFaceSIG said:
Its sad to see. AMD just doesn't want to do the hard work to beat Intel in IPC. They've done it before, it's not impossible.
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People who say things like this often forget how AMD achieved their previous victories. They bought the technology, or elements of the technology from other companies. They also hired engineers from firms which were more competitive with Intel than themselves. Examples of this:
  • AMD bought NexGen Systems and thus designs for the NX686 which elements of would eventually be used in the design of the K6. There was already designs at NexGen for the NX786 processor which would follow their NX686, but it was preliminary work based on most accounts. Still this most likely gave AMD some direction.
  • AMD hired former Digital Equipment Company (DEC) engineers after Compaq bought DEC. Aspects of the DEC Alpha would be copied and reworked for AMD.
Without these two major moves, AMD wouldn't have been as competitive as they were in the past and might not be around today. It just seems odd that AMD's most competitive eras all immediately followed buy outs of other firms or large influxes of engineers hired from other semi-conductor companies.

And while I questioned the move at the time, the buyout of ATi seems to have been a good move strategically for AMD as GPGPU becomes more important.
 
They are fail. They know they are fail. They have another 3 years left on my 5 year prediction that they will go under. It's happening faster than I though. If Intel was smart, they would be propping up AMD for keeping the SEC and any threats of Monopoly status action against them at bay.
 
MavericK96 said:
I dunno, the 9700/9800 Pro kicked some serious ass. :cool:
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Yes it did. However, the technology used to create that and make ATi competitive came from a company called ArtX which ATi purchased. So like AMD, one of their best designs actually came from the result of a buy out or merger rather than their own efforts.

Bigbacon said:
but that was ATI not AMD
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True.
 
I find this thread amusing, with half the people not even reading the article (literally takes 2 min). He doesn't say they're dead, he just says they're not relevant when it comes to competing with Intel's processors.

I was an AMD fan boy all the way from the K7 up to my first Intel rig using a 2600k. Jumping from AMD to Intel for my latest processor was AMAZING. I could not believe the performance increase. This and a very good price point made the switch so easy.

I've worked for both companies and from what I've seen, AMD just doesn't stand a chance. ARM is the only competitor Intel is worried about. I know my next phone will be using an Intel processor.

You really won't see any competition from AMD in the next few years. The manufacturing process Intel's doing at 22nm is unbeatable (and a real challenge!). Competitors won't be able to manufacture this for years to come.
 
I kind of see AMD like VIA now. Kind of a smaller tier player.

They certainly don't run with the big dogs anymore.
 
EBoundEE said:
I find this thread amusing, with half the people not even reading the article (literally takes 2 min). He doesn't say they're dead, he just says they're not relevant when it comes to competing with Intel's processors.

I was an AMD fan boy all the way from the K7 up to my first Intel rig using a 2600k. Jumping from AMD to Intel for my latest processor was AMAZING. I could not believe the performance increase. This and a very good price point made the switch so easy.

I've worked for both companies and from what I've seen, AMD just doesn't stand a chance. ARM is the only competitor Intel is worried about. I know my next phone will be using an Intel processor.

You really won't see any competition from AMD in the next few years. The manufacturing process Intel's doing at 22nm is unbeatable (and a real challenge!). Competitors won't be able to manufacture this for years to come.
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Last part is inaccurate. AMD has said many times they want to be competitive in the laptop / smaller form factor market and focus on that. I see their graphics cards to continue to be competitive as well as their APU line and AMD has never been stupid about being strategic. They will focus on what makes them money to stay afloat.
 
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