Is AMD Still Relevant?

Personally I believe they are still relevant when it comes to graphics and mobile products. But, when it comes to desktop processors they cannot compete with Intel currently. It really sucks for all of us enthusiasts out there because we would have lower prices for the best chips out if they actually had some competition. I personally would love to see AMD catch back up with Intel and give them some competition as far as desktop chips go, I'd love to see lower prices on those. Currently though, with the flop of their last chip, it doesn't look like they will be catching up anytime soon, if ever. They've fallen quite a ways behind Intel for the time being at least.
 
Domingo said:
Not really much of an article there, but at least he does mention that the GPU business is a totally different story.
It seems like only yesterday when the Athlon was kicking ass and taking names, but that was 13 years ago :p
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Agree, "What article?"
It must have taken that guy all of 5 minutes to throw bash out that 99% useless blurb. C-Net at it's finest!
 
Perhaps this wonderfully witty and snarky comment has already been posted, but in case it hasn't.

Is CNET it still relevant?
 
Dan_D said:
At the end of the day, what the GPU's code name was, and what it was originally intended for is irrelevant. It more than competes with AMD's highest end offering and it's name as the GTX 680 denotes what it is now.
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Well another way of explaining it is that the 680 was able to beat the 7970 using something like 800 million less transistors.

AMD is struggling at the high end of both the CPU and GPU front. Like I said they will probably end up like VIA and occupy a more niche and or low end market.
 
Intel is about to not be relevant with Samsung making 300 ghz graphene chips. Sooooooooooooooooooo funny all the people on this forum that were telling me I was dumb
 
When it comes to Windows 8 tablets, hybrids and convertibles, AMD looks to be toast. Everything at Computex running Windows 8 from an actual OEM had either a Cedar Trail or Ivy Bridge CPU. There was like one concept Trinity device that looked like crap, literally it looked like someone had run over it with a truck.
 
So AMD isn't beating out Intel's flagship enthusiast chip right now. Big deal. Intel will get lazy and sloppy, like they did before when they thought they had "won" the chip war before, and AMD will come up with a surprise that will donkey-punch them in the blowhole and the race will be on again. I would be more inclined to ask if C|Net is still relevant at this point.
 
Phoenix333 said:
So AMD isn't beating out Intel's flagship enthusiast chip right now. Big deal. Intel will get lazy and sloppy, like they did before when they thought they had "won" the chip war before, and AMD will come up with a surprise that will donkey-punch them in the blowhole and the race will be on again. I would be more inclined to ask if C|Net is still relevant at this point.
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AMD's problem isn't in the enthusiast space, it's in the x86 mobile space. Not one OEM Windows 8 device was shown at Computex, not one. And don't count on Intel getting lazy anytime soon. Their main concern these days isn't AMD, its ARM.
 
PRIME1 said:
Well another way of explaining it is that the 680 was able to beat the 7970 using something like 800 million less transistors.

AMD is struggling at the high end of both the CPU and GPU front. Like I said they will probably end up like VIA and occupy a more niche and or low end market.
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Haha I lol'd, really? Do you know even what VIA is? VIA CPUs are exclusively made for embedded itx computers, their chipsets and CPUs are complete unstable and unreliable garbage. The fact Intel sells faster CPUs doesn't put AMD(which is hi tech and competitive company in many fields) to level of VIA, I happily used AMD products for 10 years without any problem. I switched to Intel in 2012 out of pure curiosity, still owning AMD card which is very reliable and working well.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038810440 said:
Disagree.

The only reason they were competitive in the K7 to K8 era was because Intel screwed up big time with Pentium 4.

They were only able to compete because Intel allowed them to, by failing so miserably themselves.
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Err, lolwut?

That's gotta be the dumbest thing I've read in a long time. The only reason any company is better than any other company is because one company releases something and then another company releases something better than the other company's product. AMD was once the company who released the better product, plain and simple. Intel is now the company releasing the better product. That can change at any time.
 
About 10 years ago VIA actually made very good chipsets for AMD CPUs. I had a VIA AMD motherboard up until this year, an Athlon 3800+, not a bad motherboard actually, 8 years is pretty good service.
 
stop!theradio said:
Err, lolwut?

That's gotta be the dumbest thing I've read in a long time. The only reason any company is better than any other company is because one company releases something and then another company releases something better than the other company's product. AMD was once the company who released the better product, plain and simple. Intel is now the company releasing the better product. That can change at any time.
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Ya but some screw ups are alot bigger than others. If intel had simply gone on with the P3 and tweaked it AMD never would have pulled far ahead. And the point is that A, intel learned a lesson, and B what are the odds AMD can pull off another big upset. And from the best educated guesses anyone has the odds are really slim. AMD needs a mega cash infusion so they can boot up some big new products or things are going to keep getting worse.
 
stop!theradio said:
Err, lolwut?

That's gotta be the dumbest thing I've read in a long time. The only reason any company is better than any other company is because one company releases something and then another company releases something better than the other company's product. AMD was once the company who released the better product, plain and simple. Intel is now the company releasing the better product. That can change at any time.
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Intel made some mistakes with the Netburst architecture and that did aid AMD. Just because you have a better product doesn't mean your competitor didn't screw up. I had a number of AMD CPUs in my gaming rigs and was happy. But AMD really is dropping the ball in the CPU space. Their integrated graphics solutions are very good, probably courtesy of ATI. But it's been six years since AMD had done anything really of note in the CPU space, since the launch of Intel's Core architecture. And again, they had almost nothing at Computex in the Windows 8 space, and flop or not, the vast bulk of x86 machines that are going to be sold this fall with be running Windows 8. That's just not a good sign.

At the very least AMD probably needs about 20 to 30 touch capable Windows 8 designs in the market to anything of interest to sell this fall. Intel is claiming they have around 100 such designs in the pipeline from various OEMS.

At this point it's not even a matter of the quality of AMDs hardware, they simply don't have enough product even in the market place it looks going forward. And the game is being upped this year. Good looking, solid quality hardware seems to be the name of the game. Prices are always important but cheap crap isn't going to sell that well nor make much profit.

But it does look like AMD has the edge in IGP performance by a good bit. Some Windows 8 devices targeted at gaming, graphics oriented stuff, at the right price and quality points, those might do pretty well.
 
AMD needs a halo product that is competitive. Sure it doesn't drive the sales but its all marketing. Make something where people talk about your company in a positive manner.
 
I could be wrong but AMD is reported to be creating the next gen graphics chips for ALL the next gen consoles (Nintendo for sure). As another posted stated, the sheer fact that they are preventing Intel and Nvidia from monopolies in their respective markets is reason enough for them to be considered relevant.

Oh yeah, I was under the impression that Cnet was just FUD anyways so who cares what they think.
 
AMD video chips are in all 3 of the upcoming new consoles. Thats millions of chips that need to be made ;)
 
Conker said:
AMD video chips are in all 3 of the upcoming new consoles. Thats millions of chips that need to be made ;)
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But AMD are likely to just sell the designs to each respective console maker. They did this with the 360. So it might just be a one-time payment of a few hundred million $$$, but what after that? No additional revenue.

From what I hear, none of these "new" GPU's will be cutting edge like the 360 GPU (in some ways). They are likely to be low-to-mid end, last generation designs, slightly tweaked for each console.

Don't expect 8x - 16x performance jumps over the previous generation consoles, its likely to be closer to x2 or x3. Not enough to bring the "next gen" consoles in line with current PC hardware. However I'm sure that each makers respective marketing departments will claim crazy performance gains over the previous gen.
 
Gotta be on the side of the underdog on this one.

I'm rooting for an AMD comback on mobile and hopefully if Intel is distracted enough, a winning stint on the desktop as well.

Advanced Micro Devices, Gentlemen.
 
Conker said:
AMD video chips are in all 3 of the upcoming new consoles. Thats millions of chips that need to be made ;)
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Really? All 3? I didn't know that but that's damn good news for AMD. That'll be a shit load of cash for them and hopefully that should translate into better performing gear. I think that's the main thing holding AMD back, cash. I don't think Intel is smarter than AMD necessarily, I just think they have 10+ times the revenue and that buys a lot of R&D.
 
It might have been said/asked earlier in the thread but I actually think that the real question is whether or not Intel's x86 is still relevant? Just look at all the mobile devices, using ARM-based components doing more or less everything normal users need them to. And let's not forget the fact that Wintel is dead, Windows 8 supports ARM.

AMD is still relevant however. The fact that they actually can't compete in all segments is understandable considering that both Intel and Nvidia is two large company's. AMD get to compete with both of these and they are to small for that.
 
anders190 said:
It might have been said/asked earlier in the thread but I actually think that the real question is whether or not Intel's x86 is still relevant? Just look at all the mobile devices, using ARM-based components doing more or less everything normal users need them to. And let's not forget the fact that Wintel is dead, Windows 8 supports ARM.

AMD is still relevant however. The fact that they actually can't compete in all segments is understandable considering that both Intel and Nvidia is two large company's. AMD get to compete with both of these and they are to small for that.
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2011 may have been the first year where more smartphones were sold worldwide than PC's, (at least as measured in number of units) but the PC isn't going anywhere, and with ~80% of the PC CPU market, a market that grew by 15% last year, Intel has nothing to fear from an irrelevance perspective.
 
anders190 said:
Just look at all the mobile devices, using ARM-based components doing more or less everything normal users need them to
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More or less is the key phrase there. Sure smartphone sales are skyrocketing. I own 2 (personal/work) however I have yet to meet anyone who has replaced their computers with a phone/tablet. Everyone I know still has at least 1 x86 based system. They may use it less, but its there. While ARM devices are amazing, they still can't do half of what a cheap laptop can.
 
Another thing to consider...

With AMD making all 3 gaming console gpus, the upcoming console ports should potentially work much better with their gpus.
 
demingo said:
More or less is the key phrase there. Sure smartphone sales are skyrocketing. I own 2 (personal/work) however I have yet to meet anyone who has replaced their computers with a phone/tablet. Everyone I know still has at least 1 x86 based system. They may use it less, but its there. While ARM devices are amazing, they still can't do half of what a cheap laptop can.
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Agreed.

While I wouldn't want to, I could go without my smartphone.

I could - however - not go without a PC. I need the functions it is capable of, that a phone isn't.
 
Yakk said:
Another thing to consider...

With AMD making all 3 gaming console gpus, the upcoming console ports should potentially work much better with their gpus.
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Maybe...

But the Xbox 360's ATi Xenos chip while based on Radeons of the time, was different enough that this wasn't the case, as was the "Reality Synthesizer" in the PS3, which was loosely based on Nvidia's 7800 series GPU's.
 
anders190 said:
And let's not forget the fact that Wintel is dead, Windows 8 supports ARM.
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Wintel is far from dead, with Windows 8 I see Wintel perhaps as being as big as ever. Windows 8 doesn't run on ARM, Windows RT, which is a proper subset of Windows 8 does. There's no open desktop or desktop x86 on Windows RT devices. That does limit the power and appeal of Windows RT devices though they should be cheaper and have better battery life than Windows 8 devices.

Intel is work VERY hard on increasing x86's power efficiency and now x86 can even run on phones pretty well. If Intel can keep pressing and get cost, power efficiency and performance up to snuff, ARM could face some serious challenge from Intel x86. And AMD is also working pretty hard on the same thing.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038814161 said:
2011 may have been the first year where more smartphones were sold worldwide than PC's, (at least as measured in number of units) but the PC isn't going anywhere, and with ~80% of the PC CPU market, a market that grew by 15% last year, Intel has nothing to fear from an irrelevance perspective.
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demingo said:
More or less is the key phrase there. Sure smartphone sales are skyrocketing. I own 2 (personal/work) however I have yet to meet anyone who has replaced their computers with a phone/tablet. Everyone I know still has at least 1 x86 based system. They may use it less, but its there. While ARM devices are amazing, they still can't do half of what a cheap laptop can.
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I do agree with both of you. I was thinking about the release of Windows 8 and the years ahead. The way I see it there is just a matter of time before ARM is being pushed into both desktop PC's and, more importantly, notebooks. Better performing chips and a lower price than what Intel and, of course, AMD can deliver should make these interesting for normal consumers.

x86 is relevant today but in five years? I'm not so sure about that.
 
heatlesssun said:
Wintel is far from dead, with Windows 8 I see Wintel perhaps as being as big as ever.
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Exactly.

Wintel has never been bigger. There was a monentary sales slump during the recession, but the Wintel market grew last year and just continues to grow.

There are other devices that are used in addition to the Wintel market, but Wintel isn't going anywhere for a long time.

In fact, if this market prediction is accurate, there will be 50% more PC's in use in the world in 2015 than there were in 2010, and 75% more in 2020.

People talking about PC or Wintel going away are just silly, and have no idea what they are talking about. Eventually it may happen, but we are a LONG LONG LONG way away from that.

Other markets are growing, yes, and as they do, mobile parts will become a bigger and bigger share of the likes of Intel and AMD's sales, but PCs will continue to grow for a long time.
 
anders190 said:
I do agree with both of you. I was thinking about the release of Windows 8 and the years ahead. The way I see it there is just a matter of time before ARM is being pushed into both desktop PC's and, more importantly, notebooks. Better performing chips and a lower price than what Intel and, of course, AMD can deliver should make these interesting for normal consumers.

x86 is relevant today but in five years? I'm not so sure about that.
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ARM may move up to Notebook and Desktop (or at least nettop) use, but at the same time Intel is moving x86 down into the mobile segment with - among others - the Medfield x86 architecture showing up in phones this summer and Atom getting more and more power efficient, and AMD is driving in that direction too, with their E series.

I don't think x86 will be going anywhere for a LONG time.
 
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