Question AMD 2Q23 Earnings

[Abwx]

From top of my head:

• R300 got no hype due R200 issues. But yea, it is a legend.
• RV770 was thought to have 640 shaders, again no hype. Additionally, it failed to beat nV, reportedly was really bad for AMD...
• Cypress was somehow good and lived up the hype, you are right at this one.
• Cayman was a let down after Cypress. It failed the hype.
• Tahiti was beaten by a 256b cheapo GK104. No fine-wine, pls.
• Hawaii was nice but a power hog which got no replacement vs less hoggy nV.
• Navi 21 failed to be the nV crusher due the RT hype. But it was a nice chip for sure.

I wont abund more in this debate, but you should know that all thoses issues are trivial and without the slightest importance compared to millions of faulty Nvidia GPUs that busted in laptops, never in GPU history were the consumers so badly scamed, and never did Nvidia pay a cts to compensate for these billions worth laptops that ended in the trashbin, among others one of my laptop as well as my two sisters s ones, one got it exchanged after she threatened to sue the OEM who was of course aware of the issue...

Seems that they get a pass even from people who were scamed, not counting those who have a quite ultra selective memory, isnt it...

"but AMD drivers yo!". that has been garbage since Rage 128. 9700 Pro at best. Rage 128 was a bit of a pain, but once working it ran Half Life like a gem.

It had very good decoding capability, better than the TNT2 since i owned both, consequently i used either brands depending of the time, but since my laptop had a faulty 9800M GS that busted i promised myself that i would never buy again anything from a brand that dont hesitate to sell faulty chips, they were aware of the issue but they kept selling the chips since they had a big inventory of this crap.

 

[adroc_thurston]

From top of my head:

• R300 got no hype due R200 issues. But yea, it is a legend.
• RV770 was thought to have 640 shaders, again no hype. Additionally, it failed to beat nV, reportedly was really bad for AMD...
• Cypress was somehow good and lived up the hype, you are right at this one.
• Cayman was a let down after Cypress. It failed the hype.
• Tahiti was beaten by a 256b cheapo GK104. No fine-wine, pls.
• Hawaii was nice but a power hog which got no replacement vs less hoggy nV.
• Navi 21 failed to be the nV crusher due the RT hype. But it was a nice chip for sure.

Backpedaling now?
Too bad!

It's both. One of the biggest problems they've had is that usually the cut model is a far better deal than the full.. undermining the full model. They tried reversing this with the 7900 XT but it failed since the XT didn't sell at all until the price fell. In a chiplet world, the 7900 XT doesn't need to exist since they would use the partially busted tiles on some other product.

You misunderstand how tiled GPUs even function.
Tiles aren't shared outside of one product, it's a win-more approach.

 

[yuri69]

I wont abund more in this debate, but you should know that all thoses issues are trivial and without the slightest importance compared to millions of faulty Nvidia GPUs that busted in laptops, never in GPU history were the consumers so badly scamed, and never did Nvidia pay a cts to compensate for these billions worth laptops that ended in the trashbin, among others one of my laptop as well as my two sisters s ones, one got it exchanged after she threatened to sue the OEM who was of course aware of the issue...

Seems that they get a pass even from people who were scamed, not counting those who have a quite ultra selective memory, isnt it...

So you bad experience were nV laptops. My bad experience is ATi/AMD software and its quirky driver. Great.

Backpedaling now?
Too bad!

All those launches of chips I listed were *hyped* to the moon by people like you. Random people insisting on stories how ATi/AMD builds the meanest flagship product ever kicking nVidia to oblivion. Yet, in all those cases the product did not live up to the hype. People were fooled by the hyping squad. Fool me twice...

 

[Abwx]

So you bad experience were nV laptops. My bad experience is ATi/AMD software and its quirky driver. Great.

Compare what is comparable, if only it was just drivers issues, you dont understand that these were faulty chips that exploded after a given time in my laptop as well as in millions other ones, but if for you a driver issue and a faulty GPU that explode are the same experience there s nothing i can do for you...

Back to topic AMD should keep the same pricing policy, the past has proven that low prices do not help, worse, people think that what is of lower price is inherently of bad parformance and quality, if there s some who are willing to pay the Nvidia tax let them do so, and then come whining that AMD doesnt price low enough, because they would benefit from Nvidia reducing prices as well, what a pitifull mentality...

 

[Thunder 57]

From top of my head:

• R300 got no hype due R200 issues. But yea, it is a legend.

R300 got massive hype, especially because of Doom 3 and HL2. Nvidia offered garbage DX9 at the time.

• RV770 was thought to have 640 shaders, again no hype. Additionally, it failed to beat nV, reportedly was really bad for AMD...

Who cares about specs? It's about performance. https://www.anandtech.com/show/2556

• Cypress was somehow good and lived up the hype, you are right at this one.

Certainly.

• Cayman was a let down after Cypress. It failed the hype.

Overhyped but not bad.

• Tahiti was beaten by a 256b cheapo GK104. No fine-wine, pls.
• Hawaii was nice but a power hog which got no replacement vs less hoggy nV.
• Navi 21 failed to be the nV crusher due the RT hype. But it was a nice chip for sure.

Never commented on these at all.

How about the RX 480/580 that aged better than Nvidia with their RAM requirements?

The RX 5700/XT that caused Nvidia to release "Super" cards?

6600 XT's being ignored over 3050's because "itz da nveedia".

RDNA3 isn't great, but to crap on ATi/AMD is stupid.

Nvidia fan noted.

 

[Thunder 57]

So you bad experience were nV laptops. My bad experience is ATi/AMD software and its quirky driver. Great.

All those launches of chips I listed were *hyped* to the moon by people like you. Random people insisting on stories how ATi/AMD builds the meanest flagship product ever kicking nVidia to oblivion. Yet, in all those cases the product did not live up to the hype. People were fooled by the hyping squad. Fool me twice...

As if you were the only one to have a bad experience with a certain product

 

[adroc_thurston]

All those launches of chips I listed were *hyped* to the moon by people like you.

Ugh, no (only RDNA3, really).
Maybe by the voices in your head but that happens.
You should just go back to B3D forums since they're full of people like you.
Like, the rarts there were running with memey N21 == GA104 tier predictions until like the launch day.
Don't make me laugh.

Random people insisting on stories how ATi/AMD builds the meanest flagship product ever kicking nVidia to oblivion

That is inevitable, yes.
Look at MI300 until further notice.

 

[Tup3x]

I had sooo bad experience with Rage IIc that it took a long time to try ATI again. Next time was X1800 XT 256MB. It was a first card that required me to upgrade my PSU since computer froze in Obvilion. It was a furnace and quite loud too. It self-destructed shortly after one year warranty ended. Third time was R9 290. It had issues like random black screen and high idle power consumption. Had it a couple of months and sold it, switched to ASUS GTX 780 and had zero issues with it. Before 290 I had Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz Edition but oh boy was that a garbage like most Gigabyte cards. Insane coil whine and loud fans...

My Renoir work laptops lags in normal Windows usage which is quite weird. Transitions are not smooth. Also I had to disable MPO or cursor would randomly turn white in Chrome/Edge. Some video decoding annoyances as well where video appears extremely pixelated briefly.

I don't think their software (and firmware) quality is quite there yet.

 

[itsmydamnation]

I had sooo bad experience with Rage IIc that it took a long time to try ATI again. Next time was X1800 XT 256MB. It was a first card that required me to upgrade my PSU since computer froze in Obvilion. It was a furnace and quite loud too. It self-destructed shortly after one year warranty ended. Third time was R9 290. It had issues like random black screen and high idle power consumption. Had it a couple of months and sold it, switched to ASUS GTX 780 and had zero issues with it. Before 290 I had Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz Edition but oh boy was that a garbage like most Gigabyte cards. Insane coil whine and loud fans...

My Renoir work laptops lags in normal Windows usage which is quite weird. Transitions are not smooth. Also I had to disable MPO or cursor would randomly turn white in Chrome/Edge. Some video decoding annoyances as well where video appears extremely pixelated briefly.

I don't think their software (and firmware) quality is quite there yet.

If your using any form of "work" SOE or MDM i wouldn't assume the laptop. I have had 3 lenovo Zen2 and 3 based latops over the last 4 years and have never had a single IGP issue. I am currently typing this on a i7-1265U which compared to my 4700u or 5800u is so bad its not funny. steady state high load running is just so bad.

 

[Thunder 57]

I had sooo bad experience with Rage IIc that it took a long time to try ATI again. Next time was X1800 XT 256MB. It was a first card that required me to upgrade my PSU since computer froze in Obvilion. It was a furnace and quite loud too. It self-destructed shortly after one year warranty ended. Third time was R9 290. It had issues like random black screen and high idle power consumption. Had it a couple of months and sold it, switched to ASUS GTX 780 and had zero issues with it. Before 290 I had Gigabyte GTX 780 GHz Edition but oh boy was that a garbage like most Gigabyte cards. Insane coil whine and loud fans...

My Renoir work laptops lags in normal Windows usage which is quite weird. Transitions are not smooth. Also I had to disable MPO or cursor would randomly turn white in Chrome/Edge. Some video decoding annoyances as well where video appears extremely pixelated briefly.

I don't think their software (and firmware) quality is quite there yet.

I had a 3500u for work and my sister has one for personel use. No problems. Not sure why you had such issues.

 

[Thibsie]

I had a 3500u for work and my sister has one for personel use. No problems. Not sure why you had such issues.

It's an AMD, so it's flawed. Don't you get it ?
xD

 

[Timorous]

All those launches of chips I listed were *hyped* to the moon by people like you. Random people insisting on stories how ATi/AMD builds the meanest flagship product ever kicking nVidia to oblivion. Yet, in all those cases the product did not live up to the hype. People were fooled by the hyping squad. Fool me twice...

RDNA 1 was not hyped. RDNA 2 was not that hyped, there was hype around clocks, especially with the PS5 announcement. A lot of people thought RDNA2 would only catch 2080Ti tier performance because anything more was too far for AMD to jump even though the perf/w uplift target * power increase indicated around 2x the 5700XT in performance (which is where a 6900XT lands roughly especially at 4K where there are very few CPU bottlenecks to bring the delta down).

RDNA 3 was hyped in some places but AMD missed their perf/W target by quite some margin. The fact the shaders were actually dual issue rather than a genuine a 2.4x increase in shaders is just one of those things. AMD have form for huge shader count increases when they went from 320 to 800 from RV670 to RV770 and then 800 to 1,600 in Cypress XT and even 2,560 in RDNA to 5,120 in RDNA 2 so the idea they could do it again from RDNA 2 to RDNA 3 was not something they have not achieved before. There were also quite a few assumptions with RDNA 3, I know for my estimates I was assuming something more like 400W and was using 6900XT as a baseline so was working in and around a 1.5x perf/w increase which AMD had announced and a 1.33x power increase which would lead to a ~2x increase in performance and such a part would be faster than the 4090 and with 350W it would be around 95% of a 4090.

I also don't really get the concept of hype. It is just speculation based on unreliable information (either due to it being lies, part of a bigger picture that has not been unveiled or out of date information) and the logical application of said info in the form of well if x is true then it means y should happen. The most disappointing thing about RDNA 3 were AMDs presentation numbers being such BS. I don't get at all why AMD would build up trust in their press numbers over the last 6 or so years only to flush it all down the toilet with that dross.

 

[KompuKare]

I wont abund more in this debate, but you should know that all thoses issues are trivial and without the slightest importance compared to millions of faulty Nvidia GPUs that busted in laptops, never in GPU history were the consumers so badly scamed, and never did Nvidia pay a cts to compensate for these billions worth laptops that ended in the trashbin, among others one of my laptop as well as my two sisters s ones, one got it exchanged after she threatened to sue the OEM who was of course aware of the issue...

Seems that they get a pass even from people who were scamed, not counting those who have a quite ultra selective memory, isnt it...


It had very good decoding capability, better than the TNT2 since i owned both, consequently i used either brands depending of the time, but since my laptop had a faulty 9800M GS that busted i promised myself that i would never buy again anything from a brand that dont hesitate to sell faulty chips, they were aware of the issue but they kept selling the chips since they had a big inventory of this crap.

To this day how Nvidia handled the millions of solder defect parts is a tale of getting away with anything!

What was telling as how little media coverage it got, and also that the one ranter (Charlie Demerjian) who exposed it was afterwards persona non grata.

 

[Ajay]

Some things just inherently take a lot of time and they have a schedule to adhere to.

Well, that’s really too bad. The dev team must have been way off for management to cancel TO. Probably a smart move to save time and resources, some AMD only AIBs are going to suffer though.

 

[adroc_thurston]

ell, that’s really too bad. The dev team must have been way off for management to cancel TO

Doing something no one before ever did is kinda hard.

 

[Ajay]

Doing something no one before ever did is kinda hard.

Curious what Nvidia is doing with this problem. Their habit of just throwing more xtors at the problem is going to go in the trash can for HP N2. High NA EUV is going to smash reticle limits.

 

[A///]

Curious what Nvidia is doing with this problem. Their habit of just throwing more xtors at the problem is going to go in the trash can for HP N2. High NA EUV is going to smash reticle limits.

My shiny jensen says what ball says "Charge more for clients because of limitations in fab, thank you good bye"

 

[Ajay]

My shiny jensen says what ball says "Charge more for clients because of limitations in fab, thank you good bye"

Well, he cried wolf too soon, shocking. Now it's getting real.

 

[Saylick]

My shiny jensen says what ball says "Charge more for clients because of limitations in fab, thank you good bye"

JHH: "Sorry guys, wafer prices are getting out of hand. I cannot lower the price. It is what it is."

Buyers: "But, your company just posted record profits. Why do you have to keep raising profit margins?"

JHH: ".... Look. The more you buy, the more you save. Next question?"

 

[A///]

Well, he cried wolf too soon, shocking. Now it's getting real.

JHH: "Sorry guys, wafer prices are getting out of hand. I cannot lower the price. It is what it is."

Buyers: "But, your company just posted record profits. Why do you have to keep raising profit margins?"

JHH: ".... Look. The more you buy, the more you save. Next question?"

cried wolf but they'll sell every last one. their fumble has been in consumer gpu space. too expensive all around.

 

[Thibsie]

To this day how Nvidia handled the millions of solder defect parts is a tale of getting away with anything!

What was telling as how little media coverage it got, and also that the one ranter (Charlie Demerjian) who exposed it was afterwards persona non grata.

They still lost Apple for good that time.
But yeah...

 

[A///]

They still lost Apple for good that time.
But yeah...

i like to think that had that not happened amd would have had less funding available regardless of how little it would be to design ryzen.

 

[KompuKare]

They still lost Apple for good that time.
But yeah...

Yes, I criticise Apple all the time for their closed wall and anti--consumer stuff they pull (mainly soldering everything down etc.), but they were the only OEM who stood by their products on this. That was impressive support!

Of course, that some users got a motherboard replacement multiple times must have been a nightmare for them but since almost Nvidia's whole 65nm line was bad what could they do?

Most tragic and ironic failure I saw at the time was an AiO which had a 8400GS or similar in an MXM board but whose Intel CPU had a perfectly capable iGPU onboard but due to the way MXM is designed (by Nvidia) taking the board did not allow the onboard to take over. At least it wasn't total landfil as we were able to re-use the CPU, RAM, HDD. Case, LCD, motherboard were all junk. I did get it working for a bit with baking it.

As for the topic?

I wonder yet again if AMD's margin obsession isn't leaving a huge amount of profit on the table. Sure that profit would be at a far a lower margin and would have required some forward planning (more 7nm / 6nm CPUs and GPUs), but fixed costs are now so huge that - especially - AMD's GPU marketshare of 10% is unviable.

 

[coercitiv]

Yes, I criticise Apple all the time for their closed wall and anti--consumer stuff they pull (mainly soldering everything down etc.), but they were the only OEM who stood by their products on this. That was impressive support!

I had a DELL XPS 13 laptop at the time, failed like clockwork every 6-12 months depending on thermal stress. IIRC it went through 4 motherboard replacements, with the local Dell reps being surprisingly efficient given it was a motherboard swap. The last repair was actually different, in the sense that the unit stopped dying afterwards. At the time I assumed the last batch of chips were fixed.

Meanwhile Apple pulled a similar stunt with their keyboards a couple of years ago. Granted it was on a different scale, but their attitude towards the consumer was surprisingly similar. (first pretend that nothing's wrong, then offer to "repair" the issue using keyboards with the same design flaw). I still rememeber a newspaper article purposely written with missing keystrokes to illustrate the frustration some members of the press felt when their Apple laptops were defeated by mere particles of dust.

 

[Thibsie]

I had a DELL XPS 13 laptop at the time, failed like clockwork every 6-12 months depending on thermal stress. IIRC it went through 4 motherboard replacements, with the local Dell reps being surprisingly efficient given it was a motherboard swap. The last repair was actually different, in the sense that the unit stopped dying afterwards. At the time I assumed the last batch of chips were fixed.

Meanwhile Apple pulled a similar stunt with their keyboards a couple of years ago. Granted it was on a different scale, but their attitude towards the consumer was surprisingly similar. (first pretend that nothing's wrong, then offer to "repair" the issue using keyboards with the same design flaw). I still rememeber a newspaper article purposely written with missing keystrokes to illustrate the frustration some members of the press felt when their Apple laptops were defeated by mere particles of dust.

My Late 2008 MacBook got both problems: the Nvidia chipset losing gigabit (yeah, that was the same problem as the GPU cards) but Apple being Apple, they wouldn't respect the 2 years warranty in the EU. Thanks Apple (not!).

Later, it also got keyboard keys malfunctioning.
What a luck, huh.