Vega Rumors

[funkydmunky]

"How it's been for how many generations now"... meaning not Fury X? It was their previous flagship from the most recent generation. Vega shares a lot of similarities with Fiji architecturally, and HBM. If you're looking for a gen to compare Vega with, Fiji is the best choice and that's not good news.

Otherwise you should be more specific about which generation you expect Vega to take after. AKA cherry pick.

Fury was a small run card. You know this.
Compare AMD to every Nvidia generation (full product stack) post Fermi. That is a long term pattern.

 

[razor1]

Didn't the HD7980 come out prior to Kepler? R290 was fine too although power was a problem for them.

It was because of Maxwell that really pushed AMD hard. It wasn't till Maxwell AMD really lost a ton of marketshare, yeah the r2xx line saw some of the drop but only like 5%.

 

[funkydmunky]

How do you expect better price points when NV has smaller dies, cheaper memory, a year headstart on production optimization, and cards that have already made them a shit ton of money beyond recouping their investment? NV can easily beat AMD on price this gen if they need to.

If they need to. Nvidia for the most part, like Intel, has not needed to. Mind-share is a powerful thing

 

[NKD]

Well with Etherium prices coming way down hopefully the video card market will return to normal and people will be able to pick up the card they want. So hopefully for those that want Vega it will be available for them rather then being snapped up by miners depending on the price it comes out at.

Well the goal is to collect coins at this moment. It's not about the price. Eth has great potential and down the road it might be equivalent to BTC. But I don't hope for that high. But it will certainly creep back up to its previous high. Lots of people cashed out their initial earnings now lots of people will be buying eth or mining and hold coins. It's a cycle. Eth is still doing better than Btc in its early days and look where it's at now. Hold what you can and sell the rest.

 

[razor1]

Well the goal is to collect coins at this moment. It's not about the price. Eth has great potential and down the road it might be equivalent to BTC. But I don't hope for that high. But it will certainly creep back up to its previous high. Lots of people cashed out their initial earnings now lots of people will be buying eth or mining and hold coins. It's a cycle. Eth is still doing better than Btc in its early days and look where it's at now. Hold what you can and sell the rest.

Yeah the crash was due to Kraken which suffered a DDOS attack after a major sell off, when Eth was 380, it really shook investor confidence. 200 to 300 bucks for the time being is where eth should be at the moment at its current difficulty for pure mining, the rest of it is just speculation.

The sell off really has nothing to do with the mining itself.

If anyone wants to make money based off of speculation, its worse than the stock market, its extremely volatile and if you don't read the momentum correctly, its not good at all.

Eth has the potential to get up to BTC, but to look for that much is really hedging your bets as you stated NKD.

That is exactly what I'm doing, I'm making sure my initial investment is paid off and the rest for the most part keeping as coins.

 

[Gideon]

If they need to. Nvidia for the most part, like Intel, has not needed to. Mind-share is a powerful thing

I never really buy the mindshare argument except in the server environment. If AMD launched Vega and it had double the performance of a 1080ti for the same price at 250 watts of power, people would drop their Nvidia card and buy a AMD one in a hot second. A few review sites and a bit of good word of mouth and they would gain massive amounts of market share. People said Opteron could not enter the server market and yet it sold well. People thought 3dfx was untouchable and look where that ended. People are not nearly as brand loyal as forums would have you believe. If it's a good deal and faster then what they have they wont give a shit what it's called.

 

[razor1]

I never really buy the mindshare argument except in the server environment. If AMD launched Vega and it had double the performance of a 1080ti for the same price at 250 watts of power, people would drop their Nvidia card and buy a AMD one in a hot second. A few review sites and a bit of good word of mouth and they would gain massive amounts of market share. People said Opteron could not enter the server market and yet it sold well. People thought 3dfx was untouchable and look where that ended. People are not nearly as brand loyal as forums would have you believe. If it's a good deal and faster then what they have they wont give a shit what it's called.

Well graphics market mind share really doesn't play much of a role. We have seen this from the ATi days, as long as the products are good they get their marketshare.

Operton had very little to do with mindshare too, Server companies and others that use opterons were just locked down with contracts with Intel, but after the contracts ended, opterons started to gain marketshare, if I remember correctly 3 years after Opteron was released, AMD got up to 15% marketshare, but most of that was after the 2nd year. When business that relay on server companies or OEM that supply the products, what are they to do, they can't go outside of them without incurring more costs.

 

[Gideon]

Well the goal is to collect coins at this moment. It's not about the price. Eth has great potential and down the road it might be equivalent to BTC. But I don't hope for that high. But it will certainly creep back up to its previous high. Lots of people cashed out their initial earnings now lots of people will be buying eth or mining and hold coins. It's a cycle. Eth is still doing better than Btc in its early days and look where it's at now. Hold what you can and sell the rest.

I dont disagree but if the value stays low then people wont be rushing out to build more mining rigs. I have little doubts it will fluctuate.

 

[razor1]

I dont disagree but if the value stays low then people wont be rushing out to build more mining rigs. I have little doubts it will fluctuate.

Value is very high, 6 months ago ETH was @ 9 bucks a coin, and it was still profitable to mine back then.

 

[bezant]

Well secondary thing too, AMD in Jan of 2019 or 60 days prior something like that, I think it was has to have 600 million in cash in a specified account to cover the first portion of the bonds it took out.

They can't increase R&D until they get vastly into the black, just not possible. I think what we are seeing is a combination of bad choices on the ram side and pretty much desperation on the business side for RTG. (also why we haven't see much increase in R&D even after Ryzen seems to be a success) Its not that AMD doesn't give a crap about RTG, its just they don't have a choice but to sacrifice RTG in the short term till either they get to above 2 billion gross profit per year. If they get to 2 billion in the black per yer (500 mil per quarter) they can sustain current cash balances while ensuring current operating expenses. In 2020 the 2nd batch of bonds come to maturity which is 500 million, and in 2021 the final batch of bonds must be repaid. So they aren't out the shit hole yet. So far the reason AMD has lasted this long they have sold parts of the themselves but really not much more left to AMD to sell off unless its core tech which is never a good idea.

So pretty much as these bonds mature, they need to have that cash in hand and have the money to keep current assets, and operating expenses sustained. Until that is done, R&D will not go up very much for RTG.

I just googled their filing. They have already repurchased 400 million of the 2019 debt. There are no other obligations maturing in the next 4 years. Get the facts right, then speculate. Might change your conclusions.

 

[bezant]

All images taken from CFO Commentary from on AMD's Quarterly Earnings page. Choose the PPT, or Powerpoint file for the pretty slides.

Spoiler

Album: http://imgur.com/a/X5or3

Includes the Debt Maturity Profile slide for all quarters of 2016 and Q1 2017, along with the Q3 slide describing AMD's stock market moves to restructure/pay their debt.

Edit: I'm sorry, I just realized that what I posted didn't really say much. I've changed the images above to something easier to understand. The stock maneuvers they performed in Q3 2016 allowed AMD to basically reduce their 2019 debt repayment to $196 million, and push back and reduce their long-term debt amounts by a good bit. They obviously need to be making cash, but 2019 won't be the cliff edge.

Plus, they could easily raise more debt if they need cash. Here is how: issue a new convert and induce the holders of the existing to convert. Seems like they are never afraid to dilute the shareholders.

 

[Dayaks]

Well with Etherium prices coming way down hopefully the video card market will return to normal and people will be able to pick up the card they want. So hopefully for those that want Vega it will be available for them rather then being snapped up by miners depending on the price it comes out at.

Yeah in the last two weeks difficulty went up 20% and price down 33% and trending down hard. Not really unexpected... if you watched bitcoin at all. I am just curious if an influx of used cards will hurt Vega at all. Probably not since they are different performance tiers.

If they launched Vega a month or two ago it could have been good for their margins.

 

[bezant]

Pretty ashamed to admit it, I was wondering how much the stock dilution helped their financials, scoured news on the quarterly reports, couldn't find it, finally started through the reports themselves, damn lines were staring at me the entire time.



AMD sold the $690 million of Common Stock at a stock price of $6 and sold their Convertible Notes at $8. Needless to say, if their stock had not rose, I'm sure we would be hearing the impending cries of "bankruptcy" for AMD again. Your entirely correct with your previous comment, AMD managing the hype into these gains was a smart move.

Yeah they pay themselves pretty well while diluting shareholders like nobody else. I just did the same thing you did, but went back a few years and decades. Others buy back stock, AMD keeps issuing. Can't believe people buy it. That's all thanks to the Fed.

 

[bezant]

Yeah in the last two weeks difficulty went up 20% and price down 33% and trending down hard. Not really unexpected... if you watched bitcoin at all. I am just curious if an influx of used cards will hurt Vega at all. Probably not since they are different performance tiers.

If they launched Vega a month or two ago it could have been good for their margins.

Don't think so. Think of the price points. 1st, there will be the new 580s/570s, so mining cards will have to sell miles from Vegas price point.

 

[bezant]

Don't really care too much about power when gaming, mining yes, gaming no. Cost and performance will be what drives my decision most of the time when it comes to gaming. I can see why some people would care, as they are running in mAtx, or silent builds, or their PSU is not beefy enough to handle it and they don't want to upgrade(cost again!)

You are absolutely right. Power doesn't matter when gaming. However given the current competitive scene, the price has to make sense.

 

[Dayaks]

Don't think so. Think of the price points. 1st, there will be the new 580s/570s, so mining cards will have to sell miles from Vegas price point.

Yeah but don't forget to also factor in mobo, cpu, ram, hdd, ect. It's not purely just card price. Hell, used Fury X's were going for $400.

 

[razor1]

I just googled their filing. They have already repurchased 400 million of the 2019 debt. There are no other obligations maturing in the next 4 years. Get the facts right, then speculate. Might change your conclusions.

They have 126 million obligation in 2019, but that should be easy to cover. I couldn't find the presentation before, SighTurtle already pointed me in the right direction.

Also no diluting shares is hard to do, they need to convince investors, and current share holders its a good thing to do. That is what they did when they presented Ryzen. To do that again, they have to show they are in the black solidly. Specially since the stock price is currently over valued well above the asset amounts.

 

[Bankie]

I never really buy the mindshare argument except in the server environment. If AMD launched Vega and it had double the performance of a 1080ti for the same price at 250 watts of power, people would drop their Nvidia card and buy a AMD one in a hot second. A few review sites and a bit of good word of mouth and they would gain massive amounts of market share. People said Opteron could not enter the server market and yet it sold well. People thought 3dfx was untouchable and look where that ended. People are not nearly as brand loyal as forums would have you believe. If it's a good deal and faster then what they have they wont give a shit what it's called.

I agree. My friends and I normally buy a card that will give us the best performance per dollar at the time that we need it. I've had old school STB/Diamond/3dfx/Matrox/ATI/Nvidia cards. My current card is a RX470, last one was a 4GB GeForce 670, before that a Radeon 6950 (with 6970 bios IIRC), GeForce GTX260, GeForce 7800GT, Radeon 8500LE, and so on all the way back to the Riva128/Nitro 3D/Voodoo 1 cards.

The interesting thing (to me anyway) is that the RX470/GTX670 are already enough for 1080/144 in the games that I actually play the most. 95% of the time we're playing LoL and Smite and other free games that don't take much in the way of GPU power even at 4k resolution.

 

[razor1]

Yeah in the last two weeks difficulty went up 20% and price down 33% and trending down hard. Not really unexpected... if you watched bitcoin at all. I am just curious if an influx of used cards will hurt Vega at all. Probably not since they are different performance tiers.

If they launched Vega a month or two ago it could have been good for their margins.

The way I look at it is return on investment, up front costs are more important than the coins ya make after the cost is recovered. That is what hurts Vega in the mining area. Cuase power is part of that. And also the initial cost, we will be paying more than 2x the cost of a r580 (if you can get them) added to that x2 the cost in power.

Its just a done deal at that point, the intermediate card is the 1070, which is also pretty much sold out. But a hell of a lot easier to get if you know where to look and it uses a lot less power as well.

edit:
interesting that I found out people are buying straight from the distributes and by passing everyone else :/ I think its possible to get these cards straight from the AIB if quantity is high enough lol.

 

[JustReason]

The way I look at it is return on investment, up front costs are more important than the coins ya make after the cost is recovered. That is what hurts Vega in the mining area. Cuase power is part of that. And also the initial cost, we will be paying more than 2x the cost of a r580 (if you can get them) added to that x2 the cost in power.

Its just a done deal at that point, the intermediate card is the 1070, which is also pretty much sold out. But a hell of a lot easier to get if you know where to look and it uses a lot less power as well.

Hell that's the only real positive at this point... bad for mining, from a cost perspective. I really would like to get my wife a new card to go with her new Ryzen and ultrawide monitor, but there is nothing to be had... and paying more than MSRP is not something I am willing to do.

 

[Meeho]

Specially since the stock price is currently over valued well above the asset amounts.

So, like most IT companies

 

[SighTurtle]

I just googled their filing. They have already repurchased 400 million of the 2019 debt. There are no other obligations maturing in the next 4 years. Get the facts right, then speculate. Might change your conclusions.

Could you share the link of the filing? I can't find it myself sadly.

 

[razor1]

Hell that's the only real positive at this point... bad for mining, from a cost perspective. I really would like to get my wife a new card to go with her new Ryzen and ultrawide monitor, but there is nothing to be had... and paying more than MSRP is not something I am willing to do.

dude I was hoping for something else lol.

 

[funkydmunky]

Hell that's the only real positive at this point... bad for mining, from a cost perspective. I really would like to get my wife a new card to go with her new Ryzen and ultrawide monitor, but there is nothing to be had... and paying more than MSRP is not something I am willing to do.

If I was AMD I would cripple my high-performance GPU atm, driver wise and let it feast on an open and starved market place. How many new Ryzen rigs have no real GPU? What are they putting in new builds? Intel the same.
Nvidia has no new launch and like AMD's current cards, can't keep with demand.
Maybe the hold-off has some strategy in there. Hmmmm?

 

[_mockingbird]

 

[bezant]

Could you share the link of the filing? I can't find it myself sadly.

That is their 10k. Page 42 contractual obligations. http://ir.amd.com/mobile.view?c=740...9MCZTUURFU0M9U0VDVElPTl9FTlRJUkUmc3Vic2lkPTU3

 

[bezant]

They have 126 million obligation in 2019, but that should be easy to cover. I couldn't find the presentation before, SighTurtle already pointed me in the right direction.

Also no diluting shares is hard to do, they need to convince investors, and current share holders its a good thing to do. That is what they did when they presented Ryzen. To do that again, they have to show they are in the black solidly. Specially since the stock price is currently over valued well above the asset amounts.

Actually, I think that if their products are good financing is never a problem /constraint. If the stock, as you say, is overvalued, they should issue more and invest in their business. The best way to do that would be to issue a convertible bond, because it would be convertible to stock on 40% premium or 40% higher than where the stock is today. And, if they want to keep leverage low, they can induce the existing convert holders to convert. In other words, if the product is great financing is never the problem.

 

[razor1]

Actually, I think that if their products are good financing is never a problem /constraint. If the stock, as you say, is overvalued, they should issue more and invest in their business. The best way to do that would be to issue a convertible bond, because it would be convertible to stock on 40% premium or 40% higher than where the stock is today. And, if they want to keep leverage low, they can induce the existing convert holders to convert. In other words, if the product is great financing is never the problem.

No doesn't matter about their products anymore, they already showed their products, they can't keep showing the same horse and increasing their bets. Doesn't work that way.

Have you ever been an angel investor or 1st tier stock investor? Pretty much money in at any time but first money out? What you are looking for is much more different then your typical investor. This is how banks think when looking at AMD right now. Thats why AMD's credit score got slashed oh a year and half ago to B-, yeah they aren't getting money from anyone else until they get back into the black.

The banks that put up those bonds from AMD, didn't matter if AMD went under or they were able to pay back, either way they would have gotten money. That was the double edge sword AMD was playing. And they still aren't out of the hole yet, nor will they be for another year or two.

 

[bezant]

No doesn't matter about their products anymore, they already showed their products, they can't keep showing the same horse and increasing their bets. Doesn't work that way.

Have you ever been an angel investor or 1st tier stock investor? Pretty much money in at any time but first money out? What you are looking for is much more different then your typical investor. This is how banks think when looking at AMD right now. Thats why AMD's credit score got slashed oh a year and half ago to B-, yeah they aren't getting money from anyone else until they get back into the black.

The banks that put up those bonds from AMD, didn't matter if AMD went under or they were able to pay back, either way they would have gotten money. That was the double edge sword AMD was playing. And they still aren't out of the hole yet, nor will they be for another year or two.

Products drive the business.

Financing is easy.

Given AMD's current situation, they can issue stock, debt, etc any time they want. It is the way it is. If you disagree, you don't understand how markets work. It's ok not to know, but claiming to know when you don't is not ok.

 

[razor1]

Products drive the business.

Financing is easy.

Given AMD's current situation, they can issue stock, debt, etc any time they want. It is the way it is. If you disagree, you don't understand how markets work. It's ok not to know, but claiming to know when you don't is not ok.

I do know how the market works, and when a company is over leveraged, it doesn't work the way you assume lol. There is a reason why AMD's credit score got cut and B- is like a 500 rating in regular credit. That is horrible.

AMD at this point has to have secured loans, which they really can't do cause they are overleveraged.

This is why the diluted their stock to gain money this time around. There is no other way to move for them until they get cash by actually selling products.

Just the current Interest on their loans right now are hurting AMD, what it is something like 55 million a quarter? Even if that wasn't there AMD is still in the red lol. They have 1 billion in cash, They are bleeding money still by mid next year if they don't get back in the black they will have no cash in hand. So something has to give, and they don't have collateral to get more loans. So you tell me where they are going to get money from if not from Zen?

Current amount of debt they have is pretty much the value of their company.

 

[SighTurtle]

Bezant is talking from the position that AMD has good products. I don't think the market has moved on from the question of whether AMD is offering good products in the first place. In order for a product to be considered "good", in this situation we should probably measure by revenue. (Unless your a social media platform racing for users based on future growth and profit, but that's not the x86 CPU marketplace is it?) and obviously, it's little early to start setting the parades.

To measure the success of Ryzen, we need to see how Q2, Q3, Q4 2017 and honestly, if including Epyc, we need at least until End of 2018 before saying anything. Until we see how much AMD is making off of Ryzen, we can't declare it "good". Not when Intel is also making "good" products and has the benefits of being the best and largely only player for a long time.

Until the market sees signs of Ryzen making money, I don't think it'll jump for joy when AMD comes around for more cash without anything to show since the last time around.

 

[razor1]

Bezant is talking from the position that AMD has good products. I don't think the market has moved on from the question of whether AMD is offering good products in the first place. In order for a product to be considered "good", in this situation we should probably measure by revenue. (Unless your a social media platform racing for users based on future growth and profit, but that's not the x86 CPU marketplace is it?) and obviously, it's little early to start setting the parades.

To measure the success of Ryzen, we need to see how Q2, Q3, Q4 2017 and honestly, if including Epyc, we need at least until End of 2018 before saying anything. Until we see how much AMD is making off of Ryzen, we can't declare it "good". Not when Intel is also making "good" products and has the benefits of being the best and largely only player for a long time.

Until the market sees signs of Ryzen making money, I don't think it'll jump for joy when AMD comes around for more cash without anything to show since the last time around.

I agree

AMD created a good product but that product has to deliver which has to show up in the bottom line. It should but banks, investors, share holders, need to see it happening.

 

[bezant]

I do know how the market works, and when a company is over leveraged, it doesn't work the way you assume lol. There is a reason why AMD's credit score got cut and B- is like a 500 rating in regular credit. That is horrible.

AMD at this point has to have secured loans, which they really can't do cause they are overleveraged.

This is why the diluted their stock to gain money this time around. There is no other way to move for them until they get cash by actually selling products.

Just the current Interest on their loans right now are hurting AMD, what it is something like 55 million a quarter? Even if that wasn't there AMD is still in the red lol. They have 1 billion in cash, They are bleeding money still by mid next year if they don't get back in the black they will have no cash in hand. So something has to give, and they don't have collateral to get more loans. So you tell me where they are going to get money from if not from Zen?

Current amount of debt they have is pretty much the value of their company.

Absolutely not true. The market would love another convertible bond. They can issue a zero coupon bond any time of the day and people will be scrambling to get some. Believe me, I know.

 

[bezant]

Bezant is talking from the position that AMD has good products. I don't think the market has moved on from the question of whether AMD is offering good products in the first place. In order for a product to be considered "good", in this situation we should probably measure by revenue. (Unless your a social media platform racing for users based on future growth and profit, but that's not the x86 CPU marketplace is it?) and obviously, it's little early to start setting the parades.

To measure the success of Ryzen, we need to see how Q2, Q3, Q4 2017 and honestly, if including Epyc, we need at least until End of 2018 before saying anything. Until we see how much AMD is making off of Ryzen, we can't declare it "good". Not when Intel is also making "good" products and has the benefits of being the best and largely only player for a long time.

Until the market sees signs of Ryzen making money, I don't think it'll jump for joy when AMD comes around for more cash without anything to show since the last time around.

They know better than anyone how good their products are. If the product is good and they need cash, financing it is not a problem. That is the point. I agree that we do not know yet how good the product is, but they do. The convertible bond market is driven by the volatility of the stock, and that has been very high

 

[Anarchist4000]

AMD created a good product but that product has to deliver which has to show up in the bottom line. It should but banks, investors, share holders, need to see it happening.

So Goldman took a 600m stake because they thought the company was going under?

AMD has already been on the edge of profitability while ramping production of Zen. Any investor just now looking at AMD is behind the curve. Just look at all the cash Abu Dhabi made on their deal. I got in at $2 and I'm happy with that investment.

 

[razor1]

They know better than anyone how good their products are. If the product is good and they need cash, financing it is not a problem. That is the point. I agree that we do not know yet how good the product is, but they do. The convertible bond market is driven by the volatility of the stock, and that has been very high

They don't know anything about the internals of AMD's products, never have never will, if they did, its called insider trading!

 

[razor1]

So Goldman took a 600m stake because they thought the company was going under?

AMD has already been on the edge of profitability while ramping production of Zen. Any investor just now looking at AMD is behind the curve. Just look at all the cash Abu Dhabi made on their deal. I got in at $2 and I'm happy with that investment.

Speculation based on information AMD has provided doesn't mean investments. Goldman Sachs bought A level stocks do you know what that is?

First Money out, Goldman Sachs is not gambling like you and I. Quite different than common stock you and I buy. I would love to get preferred stock, but ya not going to happen.

On March 3, 2017, the Reporting Persons sold an aggregate of 45,000,000 shares of Common Stock (the “Block Trade Shares”) to Goldman Sachs & Co. (“Buyer”) at a price of $13.63 per share, for a total purchase price of $613,350,000, in a block trade transaction pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933.

In connection with such sale, Holder and Buyer entered into a Lock Up Agreement, dated March 2, 2017 (the “Lock Up Agreement”), pursuant to which Holder agreed that it will not, subject to certain exceptions, for a period of sixty (60) days after the date of the Lock Up Agreement, without the prior written consent of Buyer, offer, sell, contract to sell, pledge, grant any option to purchase, make any short sale or otherwise dispose of, contract to dispose of, or enter into any transaction having the economic consequences of a disposition, (i) Common Stock of the Issuer or (ii) any securities convertible into or exercisable or exchangeable for such Common Stock, or publicly announce an intention to effect any such transaction. The foregoing description of the Lock Up Agreement is not complete and is qualified in its entirety by the Lock Up Agreement, a copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit 99.9 and incorporated herein by reference.

We don't get that kinda of contract when we buy do we?

I made quite a bit on AMD this year about 150% so I'm happy, but when a company's stock is overvalued, its just better to limit what you have by setting up what you are comfortable with as losses and gains. now everyone's limits are different, cause they see speculation differently. Things look good for AMD didn't say they didn't, but that doesn't mean JAKE about how fast they can increase R&D does it? That is what their next step is to do after they get into the black, cause they can't do it without that. NO ONE WILL give them money as loan.

 

[bezant]

They don't know anything about the internals of AMD's products, never have never will, if they did, its called insider trading!

They = AMD

 

[razor1]

They = AMD

They = Banks is the way I took it, so yeah if you are saying AMD, of course.

AMD will be issuing them but only if they get approval from share holders.

 

[bezant]

So Goldman took a 600m stake because they thought the company was going under?

AMD has already been on the edge of profitability while ramping production of Zen. Any investor just now looking at AMD is behind the curve. Just look at all the cash Abu Dhabi made on their deal. I got in at $2 and I'm happy with that investment.

You are a great investor bud. Can I come and work with you?