AMD back into the red, post 20M$ loss.

[rtsurfer]

Hmm, link doesn't work for me. I wonder if AMD is ready to open up about Hierofalcon (AMD ARM Opteron)

Try Internet Explorer with no Adblock & NoScript, etc add-ons.

 

[blackened23]

AMD still never got into laptops when they had the more efficient designs usually due to drivers etc.

Yeah, their current design emphasis is confusing; AMD is doing well with desktop graphics (and very competitive) but the side effect of their design decisions is basically....being shut out of the mobile / ultrabook dGPU market by nvidia since their designs for mobile dGPU are more efficient by a significant margin (especially with Maxwell). It isn't even close in ultrabooks / laptops (in favor of NV by literally a 9 out of 10 design win margin), although AMD is doing pretty good on desktop graphics right now.

I gotta wonder why their design decisions were what they were. Or maybe it was unintentional. I dunno. Hopefully AMD can keep plugging away to improve things in that respect, despite me greatly preferring NV for graphics I do really feel competition is a great thing to have. Would like to see AMD do a bit better there, cuz those high end mobile GTX GPUs are pretty costly. 880M is insanely costly, granted, it does perform insanely well.

 

[NostaSeronx]

https://ad.moontoast.com/7e9f5f0e-c...mpid=social_20140423_22545664&optimize=direct

It's a die shot of;
Steppe Eagle
Beema
Mullins
Amur

Just felt like posting all the code names that I know for it.

 

[Ajay]

Try Internet Explorer with no Adblock & NoScript, etc add-ons.

Thanks!

It's a die shot of;
Steppe Eagle
Beema
Mullins
Amur

Just felt like posting all the code names that I know for it.

Oh, I see now. Hopefully we get a better die shot in 3 days, 9 hours....and more info!

 

[Rezist]

Yeah, their current design emphasis is confusing; AMD is doing well with desktop graphics (and very competitive) but the side effect of their design decisions is basically....being shut out of the mobile / ultrabook dGPU market by nvidia since their designs for mobile dGPU are more efficient by a significant margin (especially with Maxwell). It isn't even close in ultrabooks / laptops (in favor of NV by literally a 9 out of 10 design win margin), although AMD is doing pretty good on desktop graphics right now.

I gotta wonder why their design decisions were what they were. Or maybe it was unintentional. I dunno. Hopefully AMD can keep plugging away to improve things in that respect, despite me greatly preferring NV for graphics I do really feel competition is a great thing to have. Would like to see AMD do a bit better there, cuz those high end mobile GTX GPUs are pretty costly. 880M is insanely costly, granted, it does perform insanely well.

Well they had better designs during the 5000/6000 series and to an extent the 4000 series but never got market penetration in laptops, I think focusing on desktops was smarter. Hell the gap between the nvidia 400 series to the 5000 series was greater then the 7000 to 600 and they still couldn't win.

So 7000 series efficiency plays little to no roll in them not being in laptops.

 

[jpiniero]

BTW, on the debt front, it looks like AMD is clear until the end of 2017, when they have two $500M chunks due, and then a $600M chunk due in 2019. Of course part of this was due to issuing new bonds (6.75%!) to pay down the 2015 obligation, but hey.

 

[Gideon]

It's a die shot of;
Steppe Eagle
Beema
Mullins
Amur

Just felt like posting all the code names that I know for it.

Hardly. This is most definitely Kavieri.For some reason GPU and memory controller are highlighted. Highlighting the memory controller is odd. As GDDR5m was cancelled, my bet is on mobile Kavieri with embedded GDDR5 (instead of a dGPU) for budget gamers. Would be awesome if true

 

[blackened23]

Hardly. This is most definitely Kavieri.For some reason GPU and memory controller are highlighted. Highlighting the memory controller is odd. As GDDR5m was cancelled, my bet is on mobile Kavieri with embedded GDDR5 (instead of a dGPU) for budget gamers. Would be awesome if true

Uh, GDDR5 is not something for anyone who is budget minded, GDDR5 is very expensive. It is also not modular (requires soldering) and is not available on the market unless you are an OEM. Kaveri is supposed to be a budget minded product, GDDR5 makes it not a budget product. But, again, the bigger problem is that a consumer just can't buy GDDR5 alone.

 

[AtenRa]

Dont think it has anything to do with Kaveri, most probably it is about Beema/Mulin

 

[NTMBK]

Hardly. This is most definitely Kavieri.For some reason GPU and memory controller are highlighted. Highlighting the memory controller is odd. As GDDR5m was cancelled, my bet is on mobile Kavieri with embedded GDDR5 (instead of a dGPU) for budget gamers. Would be awesome if true

That looks nothing like Kaveri looks closest to Kabini, so my guess is Beema/Mullins.

EDIT: Kabini die shot for reference:

Turn it through 90 degrees, and it looks an awful lot like the one in that countdown.

 

[Gideon]

Uh, GDDR5 is not something for anyone who is budget minded, GDDR5 is very expensive. It is also not modular (requires soldering) and is not available on the market unless you are an OEM. Kaveri is supposed to be a budget minded product, GDDR5 makes it not a budget product. But, again, the bigger problem is that a consumer just can't buy GDDR5 alone.

Ok true it doesn't look like this is Kavieri. But you didn't catch my point. I was talking of mobile products that often have soldered ram and CPUs anyway, and that ALSO have mobile discreet GPUs WITH GDDR5. I considered this as a semi-cheap alternative to a CPU + a GDDR5 GPU. The other idea is to have 4 channels of DDR3 (which also has lots of problems).

... But yeah, it seems it is indeed Beema. Bummer Looking at the die it's essentially the very same chip they had in last year (Jaguar) That's just fixed, and they market it like the best thing since the invention of the Transistor

 

[blackened23]

GDDR5, again, is NOT cheap. Applying simple common sense to the situation will tell you that a cheap tablet SOC is not going to have GDDR5. This is going to be a small step up from the Temash? I think? Which was a very low performance SOC. The graphics performance was nowhere near the ballpark where any OEM would consider GDDR5, so it won't be paired with GDDR5. Even high end SOCs do not use GDDR5 due to power consumption - As mentioned it is also cost prohibitive and does not make sense to pair with a relatively low performance SOC from either a cost standpoint or common sense standpoint. It also is not low enough in power usage to be viable for small tablet form factors. Ask yourself if you've ever seen a 7 inch tablet with GDDR5. No? GDDR5 uses way more power than is necessary to be viable.

 

[Gideon]

GDDR5, again, is NOT cheap. Applying simple common sense to the situation will tell you that a cheap tablet SOC is not going to have GDDR5. This is going to be a small step up from the Temash? I think? Which was a very low performance SOC. The graphics performance was nowhere near the ballpark where any OEM would consider GDDR5, so it won't be paired with GDDR5. Even high end SOCs do not use GDDR5 due to power consumption - As mentioned it is also cost prohibitive and does not make sense to pair with a relatively low performance SOC from either a cost standpoint or common sense standpoint. It also is not low enough in power usage to be viable for small tablet form factors. Ask yourself if you've ever seen a 7 inch tablet with GDDR5. No? GDDR5 uses way more power than is necessary to be viable.

How did we come to this subject ? I never mentioned anything of GDDR5 in < 35w TDP context (beema), let alone fanless tablets. I was only discussing about Kavieri level SoC to be an alternative to current larger laptops which already have a CPU +DDR3 AND a discreet GPU + GDDR5. Often the CPU and RAM is also soldered down in those laptops.

Regardless I agree that GDDR5 probably has no place anywhere, particularily because of the power consumption and the huge amounts that would be required would it also be system memory. It only even crossed my mind , because we know from some documents, that AMD WAS working on GDDR5m for Kavieri, so they obviously thought there were SOME usecases for it.

 

[NTMBK]

GDDR5, again, is NOT cheap. Applying simple common sense to the situation will tell you that a cheap tablet SOC is not going to have GDDR5. This is going to be a small step up from the Temash? I think? Which was a very low performance SOC. The graphics performance was nowhere near the ballpark where any OEM would consider GDDR5, so it won't be paired with GDDR5. Even high end SOCs do not use GDDR5 due to power consumption - As mentioned it is also cost prohibitive and does not make sense to pair with a relatively low performance SOC from either a cost standpoint or common sense standpoint. It also is not low enough in power usage to be viable for small tablet form factors. Ask yourself if you've ever seen a 7 inch tablet with GDDR5. No? GDDR5 uses way more power than is necessary to be viable.

He thought that the pictured chip was a Kaveri variant, not a Kabini variant, hence the discussion of GDDR5.

I do still wonder whether a soldered down laptop Kaveri paired with GDDR5 might be an interesting option for gaming laptops, but that's another topic.

 

[NTMBK]

... But yeah, it seems it is indeed Beema. Bummer Looking at the die it's essentially the very same chip they had in last year (Jaguar) That's just fixed, and they market it like the best thing since the invention of the Transistor

Yeah, I'm mostly expecting Beema to be a fixed Kabini. But a properly working turbo should at least give a nice perf/W boost, and let it make the most of its thermal envelope. Temash having no Turbo in a tablet chip was just insane.

 

[rainy]

Uh, GDDR5 is not something for anyone who is budget minded, GDDR5 is very expensive.

I agree that could be a problem in the case of cheaper devices, however calling GGDR5 very expensive is quite a big exaggeration IMHO.

If you look at prices of RAM for laptops, 8GB (2x4) of DDR3 1600 MHz cost about 70 dollars (lowest price at Newegg).

As far as I know 8 GB of GDDR5 (5500 MHz) for PS4 cost Sony about 88 dollars - most probably they have got a decent discount on that.
On the other hand a difference in memory bandwith between DDR3 and GDDR5 is simply huge.

With regard to power consumption of GDDR5, you have a low energy variation of it and also GDDR5m.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...PC3%2012800%29
http://www.samsung.com/us/business/oem-solutions/pdfs/Green-GDDR5.pdf
http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/TFE2011_006HYN.pdf

Btw, Gideon, the name of the newest AMD APU from big core family is Kaveri not Kavieri.

 

[monstercameron]

Yeah, I'm mostly expecting Beema to be a fixed Kabini. But a properly working turbo should at least give a nice perf/W boost, and let it make the most of its thermal envelope. Temash having no Turbo in a tablet chip was just insane.

temash -atleast the a6-1450- had turbo, just to be clear.

 

[blackened23]

I agree that could be a problem in the case of cheaper devices, however calling GGDR5 very expensive is quite a big exaggeration IMHO.

If you look at prices of RAM for laptops, 8GB (2x4) of DDR3 1600 MHz cost about 70 dollars (lowest price at Newegg).

As far as I know 8 GB of GDDR5 (5500 MHz) for PS4 cost Sony about 88 dollars - most probably they have got a decent discount on that.
On the other hand a difference in memory bandwith between DDR3 and GDDR5 is simply huge.

With regard to power consumption of GDDR5, you have a low energy variation of it and also GDDR5m.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...PC3%2012800%29
http://www.samsung.com/us/business/oem-solutions/pdfs/Green-GDDR5.pdf
http://sites.amd.com/us/Documents/TFE2011_006HYN.pdf

Btw, Gideon, the name of the newest AMD APU from big core family is Kaveri not Kavieri.

Oh, I was under the impression that the Beema SOC was intended for tablets and subnotebooks at sub 10-25W TDP The comparisons to a set top box such as a PS4 are amusing. Are we headed to one of those stupid fringe debates again? Let's see. Is the PS4 a sub 10W 7 inch tablet? I guess so. Completely valid comparison here.

But, if you think this chip will ever have GDDR5 as a sub notebook and tablet SKU, keep on dreaming that. You can argue semantics about power use all day long but the fact of the matter is, this product will not be paired with GDDR5. Ever. The performance of this SOC, being that it is (presumably) a slightly improved temash/kabini, would make the notion of GDDR5 pairing laughable. I think you know this. But, whatever.

 

[NTMBK]

Oh, I was under the impression that the Beema SOC was intended for tablets and subnotebooks at sub 10-25W TDP The comparisons to a set top box such as a PS4 are amusing. Are we headed to one of those stupid fringe debates again? Let's see. Is the PS4 a sub 10W 7 inch tablet? I guess so. Completely valid comparison here.

But, if you think this chip will ever have GDDR5 as a sub notebook and tablet SKU, keep on dreaming that. You can argue semantics about power use all day long but the fact of the matter is, this product will not be paired with GDDR5. Ever. The performance of this SOC, being that it is (presumably) a slightly improved temash/kabini, would make the notion of GDDR5 pairing laughable. I think you know this. But, whatever.

He thought it was Kaveri, not Beema, meaning he wasn't thinking about sub-notebooks and tablets. Give the kid a break I think everybody knows that GDDR5 and Kabini/Beema would be a weird combination.

 

[rainy]

Oh, I was under the impression that the Beema SOC was intended for tablets and subnotebooks at sub 10-25W TDP

For tablets AMD have Mullin and Beema primary target are cheap laptops.

But, if you think this chip will ever have GDDR5 as a sub notebook and tablet SKU, keep on dreaming that. You can argue semantics about power use all day long but the fact of the matter is, this product will not be paired with GDDR5. Ever. The performance of this SOC, being that it is (presumably) a slightly improved temash, would make the notion of GDDR5 pairing laughable. I think you know this. But, whatever.

We will not see GDDR5 in devices with Beema (not to mention Mullin) mainly because its GPU is simply too weak to benefit from that.
Definitely it makes more sense to use GDDR5 in mobile Kaveri.

Btw, one more thing: Mullin should deliver significant gain over Temash (improved core, higher base clock, better turbo).