JF-AMD responded on Anand forum.

A

armandh01

Weaksauce
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Never saw it posted here in any of the other threads, thought I would get it. I know some have been hard up for a response or an apology (you don't deserve one).

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2198385&page=5


"So here's the story on IPC from my perspective.

The original design goal was higher IPC. Back before we had taped out the first processors the discussion came up. I am not allowed to say anything in public that hasn't been vetted past engineering. I specifically asked the engineering team about IPC and they replied that they expected higher IPC and I was cleared on that statement.

In my estimation, I made the IPC stament on XS and I don't recall making it other places (but I am sure that my comments were reposted.)

This is not a case of me lying, this is a case of me being wrong. And that happens to all of us. There is no way that I would intentionally say something that I did not believe to be true because a.) the interenet is a permanent record and b.) eventually you'll have to answer to those comments.

In these different forums that I would frequent, I have made thousands of posts about the product, always trying to help people understand the technology. Everything was done with the intention of being informative. I never made client performance predictions and was very clear on correcting people who took server benchmarks and tried to correlate client performance, because it just doesn't work like that.

Since the launch I haven't really been in any forums because I was in Seattle all week with MSFT. Once the product launched, I started receiving lots of hate mail. If I had a dollar for every message that used the word f*** I would have enough money to buy myself a bulldozer server.

Early on there were a lot of people that said I was crazy for trying to talk to the enthusiast community, but I persisted, the occasional idiot is something that everyone has to put up with from time to time. But the volume of hate messages that I received has unfortunately convinced me that I was wrong.

I was doing this on my own time, it was not part of my job. And because of that, I don't really feel compelled to take any more abuse.

All of the statements that I have made at the time were statements that I believed to be true. I am no more a liar than Paul Otellini when he said IB would ship in Q4. He is not a liar, he is giving the best information he has at the time and things change. If you are going to extend courtesy to others when their statements don't pan out, you should do that with everyone.

Thanks to exarkun and some of the others that have had a reasonable response in all of this. Too many people were waiting to attack, it's almost like they don't really care, maybe they just like to fight."




Someone mentioned he stopped coming here (probably fear of having psychos demand an apology). Too bad, I liked reading his posts.
 
armandh01 said:
...... I am no more a liar than Paul Otellini when he said IB would ship in Q4. He is not a liar, he is giving the best information he has at the time and things change. If you are going to extend courtesy to others when their statements don't pan out, you should do that with everyone.

.....
Click to expand...

Paul Otellini (a.k.a Intel) must of already known what Bulldozer was bringing (or not) to the table, that's why the IB road-map changed... Nothing more to it... With AMD not shaking any "performance" trees, Intel's got no reason to rush anything out... They're gonna take their time and make sure IB release is 100% success, not only for OEM but the enthusiast community as well. That's my take on that..
 
People are dicks. I am as disappointed in AMD and Bulldozer as much as the next guy, but I don't think any of this is JFs fault. If anything AMD needs more people like him.

Also taking stuff like this personal and sending personal emails of hate to someone is psychotic.
 
Last edited:
That's too bad I enjoyed reading his posts. Most of the time the guy was pretty polite with his posts considering. I have to admit though, once BD released it sure looked like he was stringing everyone along, but it appears he is just as disappointed as the rest of us. Other than his somewhat snotty "Pre Release FAQ" I will miss his posts.

I imagine he is bummed enough with the sub-par release w/o all the nasty emails.
 
Can't say I blame him really. Ive posted on several types of forums over the years from car audio, weightlifting, cars and now PC and there are far more internet tough guys and keyboard commandos on PC forums. Not really sure why that is. Maybe there are more PC enthusiasts that got wedgies and stuffed in their lockers in high school than other groups so this is their way to get some dignity back or something.

I don't feel too sorry for the guy cause you go on a bunch of enthusiasts forums saying you're here to talk about Bulldozer then never actually talk about Bulldozer other than to tell us enthusiasts don't matter. You gotta expect a lot of rage from people. Doesn't make it right tho so like I said, don't blame him.
 
MacLeod said:
Can't say I blame him really. Ive posted on several types of forums over the years from car audio, weightlifting, cars and now PC and there are far more internet tough guys and keyboard commandos on PC forums. Not really sure why that is. Maybe there are more PC enthusiasts that got wedgies and stuffed in their lockers in high school than other groups so this is their way to get some dignity back or something.

I don't feel too sorry for the guy cause you go on a bunch of enthusiasts forums saying you're here to talk about Bulldozer then never actually talk about Bulldozer other than to tell us enthusiasts don't matter. You gotta expect a lot of rage from people. Doesn't make it right tho so like I said, don't blame him.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter to him, because he is on the server side, lol..
 
He took a beating on most forums and its a shame.....I truly believe he was genuine in his intent and was only passing on information that he was allowed to pass on....some of that info turned out to be false,but I don't blame him for that.... not once did I feel as if he were intentionally misleading us.


That's my .02 anyway
 
sirmo said:
People are dicks. I am as disappointed in AMD and Bulldozer as much as the next guy, but I don't think any of this is JFs fault. If anything AMD needs more people like him.

Also taking stuff like this personal and sending personal emails of hate to someone is psychotic.
Click to expand...

Fully agreed.
 
I hopes he comes back when cooler heads prevail and Piledriver is closer to fruition. There's been many uphill battles for Bulldozer, both the 32nm process yielding poorly and management at AMD is in upheaval. If AMD can get rid of the excess transistors in the design I'm reading about at the same time the 32nm process matures, AMD will be back in the game. If AMD gives Intel time to catch up to them in graphics core design while holding CPU core advantages and 2 generations superior fabbing process, then AMD will be reduced to its ATI division. Good luck, and fund your dev teams! They are your future.
 
To be honest I don't have any issues with JF whatsoever. Don't shoot the messenger right? You can say whatever you want about the marketing area, but its the engineers who messed up massively on this one in the end. Management is highly accountable as well of course.
 
I hope JF comes back here as well. I can definitely relate to being given the wrong information, and telling a client, only to find out the information was wrong.
 
armandh01 said:
Never saw it posted here in any of the other threads, thought I would get it. I know some have been hard up for a response or an apology (you don't deserve one).

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2198385&page=5


"So here's the story on IPC from my perspective.

The original design goal was higher IPC. Back before we had taped out the first processors the discussion came up. I am not allowed to say anything in public that hasn't been vetted past engineering. I specifically asked the engineering team about IPC and they replied that they expected higher IPC and I was cleared on that statement.

In my estimation, I made the IPC stament on XS and I don't recall making it other places (but I am sure that my comments were reposted.)

This is not a case of me lying, this is a case of me being wrong. And that happens to all of us. There is no way that I would intentionally say something that I did not believe to be true because a.) the interenet is a permanent record and b.) eventually you'll have to answer to those comments.

In these different forums that I would frequent, I have made thousands of posts about the product, always trying to help people understand the technology. Everything was done with the intention of being informative. I never made client performance predictions and was very clear on correcting people who took server benchmarks and tried to correlate client performance, because it just doesn't work like that.

Since the launch I haven't really been in any forums because I was in Seattle all week with MSFT. Once the product launched, I started receiving lots of hate mail. If I had a dollar for every message that used the word f*** I would have enough money to buy myself a bulldozer server.

Early on there were a lot of people that said I was crazy for trying to talk to the enthusiast community, but I persisted, the occasional idiot is something that everyone has to put up with from time to time. But the volume of hate messages that I received has unfortunately convinced me that I was wrong.

I was doing this on my own time, it was not part of my job. And because of that, I don't really feel compelled to take any more abuse.

All of the statements that I have made at the time were statements that I believed to be true. I am no more a liar than Paul Otellini when he said IB would ship in Q4. He is not a liar, he is giving the best information he has at the time and things change. If you are going to extend courtesy to others when their statements don't pan out, you should do that with everyone.

Thanks to exarkun and some of the others that have had a reasonable response in all of this. Too many people were waiting to attack, it's almost like they don't really care, maybe they just like to fight."




Someone mentioned he stopped coming here (probably fear of having psychos demand an apology). Too bad, I liked reading his posts.
Click to expand...

That sucks, you have to be a real tool to send the guy hate mail. It's not like false information was released, AMD kept an incredibly tight lid on bulldozer, benchmarks really were available to everyone the instant the CPU was available. I have an AM3+ board and I'm not put out by bulldozer not performing. I liked JF-AMD's posts I hope he still comes back here.
 
Its the usual thing, folks that wouldn't have the guts to say boo to a goose in real life suddenly feel like the Terminator when hidden in their bedroom behind a keyboard and username.
 
His posts have always seemed 100% business professional to me. I will certainly miss his insider information. JF was a channel for us to express our concerns, comments and questions to AMD and now thats gone.

Im not surprized about his comment "if i had a dollar for every F bomb in my e-mail". the 4 or 5 forums i frequently have people wanting to grab their torches and pitchforks to lynch someone over this and its really short sighted. At first glance bulldozer disappointed us, in my eyes its starting to look better. I never expected it to beat sandy bridge single threaded performance. I was surprized in some cases it falls behind thuban, but in the end i dont care. its very competitive in heavily multithreaded programs and it holds me back from NOTHING. There is no application out there that makes me think, gee i wish i had a faster processor -- especially since they overclock 4.5-5ghz pretty easy.
 
heflys20 said:
Feel sorry for JF-AMD.
Click to expand...

+1
Marketing is not the folks that made the processors, and he always stated his doing it personally and not speaking for AMD, of course we all know he works there so unofficial or not we hit him with the questions.

It's a good thing to have folks here that we can voice concern to, which JF got plenty of and I'm sure there's plenty more we would like to voice in the future.

For being a small company, when compared to Intel, AMD is doing a great job.
 
armandh01 said:
Never saw it posted here in any of the other threads, thought I would get it. I know some have been hard up for a response or an apology (you don't deserve one).

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2198385&page=5


"So here's the story on IPC from my perspective.

The original design goal was higher IPC. Back before we had taped out the first processors the discussion came up. I am not allowed to say anything in public that hasn't been vetted past engineering. I specifically asked the engineering team about IPC and they replied that they expected higher IPC and I was cleared on that statement.

In my estimation, I made the IPC stament on XS and I don't recall making it other places (but I am sure that my comments were reposted.)

This is not a case of me lying, this is a case of me being wrong. And that happens to all of us. There is no way that I would intentionally say something that I did not believe to be true because a.) the interenet is a permanent record and b.) eventually you'll have to answer to those comments.

In these different forums that I would frequent, I have made thousands of posts about the product, always trying to help people understand the technology. Everything was done with the intention of being informative. I never made client performance predictions and was very clear on correcting people who took server benchmarks and tried to correlate client performance, because it just doesn't work like that.

Since the launch I haven't really been in any forums because I was in Seattle all week with MSFT. Once the product launched, I started receiving lots of hate mail. If I had a dollar for every message that used the word f*** I would have enough money to buy myself a bulldozer server.

Early on there were a lot of people that said I was crazy for trying to talk to the enthusiast community, but I persisted, the occasional idiot is something that everyone has to put up with from time to time. But the volume of hate messages that I received has unfortunately convinced me that I was wrong.

I was doing this on my own time, it was not part of my job. And because of that, I don't really feel compelled to take any more abuse.

All of the statements that I have made at the time were statements that I believed to be true. I am no more a liar than Paul Otellini when he said IB would ship in Q4. He is not a liar, he is giving the best information he has at the time and things change. If you are going to extend courtesy to others when their statements don't pan out, you should do that with everyone.

Thanks to exarkun and some of the others that have had a reasonable response in all of this. Too many people were waiting to attack, it's almost like they don't really care, maybe they just like to fight."




Someone mentioned he stopped coming here (probably fear of having psychos demand an apology). Too bad, I liked reading his posts.
Click to expand...

I feel sorry for the people that do not have lives outside of processors or AMD. People on those Anandtech saying they want an apology????? Get a life. sorry you had to deal with all that garbage JF.
 
An Intel engineer weighs in on the whole JF bashing.

Quote Originally Posted by Drwho? View Post
Noticed that I am quiet too ;-)

I think everybody needs to cool down a little. JF-AMD is like me, passionate about what he does, if you don't believe into it, you can't put so much energy into making those Processors.
Green or Blue, we are all Geeks excited and just never forget, those Processors are the most complex machines build by human kind, at the smallest scale.

Not one man can claim to make any of this by himself, those are massive undertaking, the size of those transistors are mind blowing.

so, yes, there is competition, and yes, this architecture is not the happiest , but at least show some respect to the men who dedicated their life to build such complex machines.
It is ok to make a little fun of it, but please respect the men behind it, and get some perceptive, see how large is the achievement of putting something like Bulldozer together.

So, I am respectfully asking all of you to stay gentlemen ... No personal attack is ever acceptable.

Thanks all , stay on the high road!

Francois Piednoel
Click to expand...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...nally-tested&p=4971235&viewfull=1#post4971235
 
Just going from memory, JF-AMD was definitely full of BS regarding bulldozer. I do remember him insisting it was absurd that the IPC could go down. Maybe he was full of bad info because the engineers were lying to him. If so, then his being here offers no benefit whatsoever. What good does it do having someone to "voice your concerns to" who doesn't have and can't get any accurate information regarding his companies products?

The other option, that he was deliberately spreading misinformation, would make matter worse. But the effect is the same, so either way he's really un useful.

I'm not going to defend people for personally assaulting the guy via fbomb laden email, but I'll be fine in the future without his misinformation pumping up a technology that isn't worth its weight in crap. A little bit of, "I don't really know what I'm talking about, I'm just in marketing" humility from the guy would have gone a long way. Really he could have just put that in his sig.
 
sirmo said:
An Intel engineer weighs in on the whole JF bashing.
Quote Originally Posted by Drwho? View Post
Noticed that I am quiet too ;-)

I think everybody needs to cool down a little. JF-AMD is like me, passionate about what he does, if you don't believe into it, you can't put so much energy into making those Processors.
Green or Blue, we are all Geeks excited and just never forget, those Processors are the most complex machines build by human kind, at the smallest scale.

Not one man can claim to make any of this by himself, those are massive undertaking, the size of those transistors are mind blowing.

so, yes, there is competition, and yes, this architecture is not the happiest , but at least show some respect to the men who dedicated their life to build such complex machines.
It is ok to make a little fun of it, but please respect the men behind it, and get some perceptive, see how large is the achievement of putting something like Bulldozer together.

So, I am respectfully asking all of you to stay gentlemen ... No personal attack is ever acceptable.

Thanks all , stay on the high road!

Francois Piednoel
Click to expand...
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...nally-tested&p=4971235&viewfull=1#post4971235
Click to expand...

As much as he is telling everyone to lay off the hate, at the same time doesn't it feel a bit like he's complimenting AMD the same way a teacher says 'Good job!' to the token retarded kid in the class?
 
Holy Roman Empire said:
Just going from memory, JF-AMD was definitely full of BS regarding bulldozer. I do remember him insisting it was absurd that the IPC could go down. Maybe he was full of bad info because the engineers were lying to him. If so, then his being here offers no benefit whatsoever. What good does it do having someone to "voice your concerns to" who doesn't have and can't get any accurate information regarding his companies products?

The other option, that he was deliberately spreading misinformation, would make matter worse. But the effect is the same, so either way he's really un useful.

I'm not going to defend people for personally assaulting the guy via fbomb laden email, but I'll be fine in the future without his misinformation pumping up a technology that isn't worth its weight in crap. A little bit of, "I don't really know what I'm talking about, I'm just in marketing" humility from the guy would have gone a long way. Really he could have just put that in his sig.
Click to expand...

He mentioned IPC one time on the XS forum, like a year ago. Who knows at the time maybe that's what he knew about the CPU, because that's what he was told by the engineers. You know I watched closely all these forums and every time IPC discussion was happening he would avoid the question, I had a feeling something was up. But it was hard to tell either way.

I don't feel mislead by JF at all. I understand that he couldn't say too much about the product either way. It's really the people who took everything he said to heart.

I am pretty sure AMD had their best intentions, they wanted the best product they could deliver, the truth of the matter is, they can't do it. Creating a CPU is really hard.

String of bad leadership decisions is what led to this point. Purchase of ATI was definitely a mistake. AMD would have been owned by nVidia today. If AMD hadn't bought ATI AMD and nVidia would have had their own Fabs still, they wouldn't have wasted 6 Billion, and they wouldn't have lost all those brilliant engineers, like the guys from NexGen who were behind Hammer.

nVidia + AMD would be kicking ass right now.
 
Maybe IBM will purchase AMD and start producing x86 desktop processors?
 
KazeoHin said:
Maybe IBM will purchase AMD and start producing x86 desktop processors?
Click to expand...

Actually IBM has an x86 license. In fact IBM has a special license, they can fab anyone's x86 design. For instance if nVidia wanted they could design an x86 CPU and fab it using IBM.
 
A little bit of, "I don't really know what I'm talking about, I'm just in marketing" humility from the guy would have gone a long way. Really he could have just put that in his sig.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand, he claims it was the engineers who provided him with info. How is that worthless, or him spreading BS?
 
Too many people were waiting to attack, it's almost like they don't really care, maybe they just like to fight.
Click to expand...

welcometotheinternet.jpg

In all seriousness, it's stupid that people send the guy hate messages, but I don't think anybody should be surprised.
 
KazeoHin said:
Maybe IBM will purchase AMD and start producing x86 desktop processors?
Click to expand...

As much sense as that makes, it wouldn't happen... IBM needs a sucker, I mean a partner to help them test, I mean advance their process technology before they use it. If IBM bought AMD, who else would use SOI?.

The ONLY processor IBM is interested in is their baby, POWER.
 
But that is the thing. AMD and IBM already work so closely, on both PowerPC and console parts. It just makes sense. If AMD don't start hitting above their weight soon, then I can see IBM pulling out its wallet.
 
all illusions from the illuminati to keep us going
what if intel = amd , hahahaha

sorry, just kidding guys!
 
Hate mail against John Fruehe is unforgivable. Shame on whoever sent it.

However, BD is unforgivable as well. Shame on AMD.
 
mzs_biteme said:
Paul Otellini (a.k.a Intel) must of already known what Bulldozer was bringing (or not) to the table, that's why the IB road-map changed... Nothing more to it... With AMD not shaking any "performance" trees, Intel's got no reason to rush anything out... They're gonna take their time and make sure IB release is 100% success, not only for OEM but the enthusiast community as well. That's my take on that..
Click to expand...

^ lulz
 
20111016230654_4e9bc5fef3f88.jpg


/thread
 
Holy Roman Empire said:
Just going from memory, JF-AMD was definitely full of BS regarding bulldozer. I do remember him insisting it was absurd that the IPC could go down. Maybe he was full of bad info because the engineers were lying to him. If so, then his being here offers no benefit whatsoever. What good does it do having someone to "voice your concerns to" who doesn't have and can't get any accurate information regarding his companies products?

The other option, that he was deliberately spreading misinformation, would make matter worse. But the effect is the same, so either way he's really un useful.

I'm not going to defend people for personally assaulting the guy via fbomb laden email, but I'll be fine in the future without his misinformation pumping up a technology that isn't worth its weight in crap. A little bit of, "I don't really know what I'm talking about, I'm just in marketing" humility from the guy would have gone a long way. Really he could have just put that in his sig.
Click to expand...

And now you are making it sound again like he is to blame? If there is any concerns about the chip that stuff would never make it to any public place (beside a rumor site or 2).

What you are showing here is the reason why JF-AMD "could" never lie , things blowback in your face for that reason.

For the reason you feel betrayed and are vocal about it is the same thing for everyone, but learn to take things from "every" "public figure" with a grain of salt , then when things come out judge them.

Hating people will never solve anything .....
 
Hmm I think we need to put it into perspective - JF-AMD made a whole campaign trying to reduce arguments of people who voiced importance of IPC to absurd suggesting high clockspeeds can more than make up for smaller IPC.

So I belive he already knew for few months knew how much of a turd this CPU would be. Especially as a server guy - new datacenters are planned years in advance so all companies who deal with that market must inform their salesman and marketing departments well in advance ( or at least mine does so we can put our products in specification phase of project).

Hate mail is wrong. But IF I've bought expensive 990FX mobo few months in advance following JF posts to not worry about leaked benchmarks I'd probably be a really pissed off when NDA lifted.

Also there's one question which doesn't give me a rest. How is it possible that I- simple guy who never designed an electronic device bigger than a dozen or so logic gates, using only leaked info could predict BD performance quite well while a high level corporate worker didn't realise any of it ;)
 
sirmo said:
He mentioned IPC one time on the XS forum, like a year ago.
Click to expand...
No he repeated it several other places too (ie. aceshardware too IIRC) and allowed that info to spread elsewhere and it had creditability coming from him since he actually works for AMD.

sirmo said:
I don't feel mislead by JF at all.
Click to expand...
You weren't reading what he was saying properly then and have been suckered. The guy was like any other marketing stooge I've ever talked to about a product they were selling: sounds good if you don't know much at all about what he is selling but you can pick out the weasel words and phrases if you do.

sirmo said:
I am pretty sure AMD had their best intentions, they wanted the best product they could deliver, the truth of the matter is, they can't do it. Creating a CPU is really hard.
Click to expand...
You need to read this post:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1037482638&postcount=88

pxc ate an incredible amount of shit from AMD fanboys but he was right in the end and info he dug up from ex AMD guys about BD certainly seems to have panned out. If what these people are saying is true then Meyers was a douche bag and drove off tons of experienced guys to push a heavily automated design that could be put out by a larger but cheaper and inexperienced team.

sirmo said:
Purchase of ATI was definitely a mistake.
Click to expand...
What? No. AMD may very well get its ass saved by the ATI accquisition in the long run. AMD's problem is they over paid for ATI and then screwed up on Phenom, then K9, then had process delays, then screwed up K10 as well. They've had too many failures back to back and they can't afford it. One more slip up and they're likely to go under, or at least the CPU side will.
 
KazeoHin said:
But that is the thing. AMD and IBM already work so closely, on both PowerPC and console parts. It just makes sense. If AMD don't start hitting above their weight soon, then I can see IBM pulling out its wallet.
Click to expand...

IIRC IBM has already said they want nothing to do with x86. They're making tons of cash on their big iron stuff already. If anything they're trying to get as far away from the consumer market as possible, which is why they sold their PC consumer side to Lenovo years back.

No one wants to compete in x86 really because that means competing against Intel which is almost impossible to do since they have so much cash to throw at R&D. Fabs keep costing more and more in the mean time too so the barrier of entry into the market is super high as well.
 
mesyn191 said:
You need to read this post:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1037482638&postcount=88

pxc ate an incredible amount of shit from AMD fanboys but he was right in the end and info he dug up from ex AMD guys about BD certainly seems to have panned out. If what these people are saying is true then Meyers was a douche bag and drove off tons of experienced guys to push a heavily automated design that could be put out by a larger but cheaper and inexperienced team.
Click to expand...
Wow, that post from pxc really pisses me off. AMD was amazing in the AMD64 era - are you (or rather, is he) telling me that AMD could have continued to trade blows at a meaningful level with Intel if it wasn't for idiot managers?
 
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