AMD Carrizo Pre-release thread

[Arachnotronic]

The fact there are basically no quality AMD notebooks in the US market. Also contra revenue tactics.

That's not really an explanation of Intel's "sleazy marketing tactics." Even if AMD's chips are as good as some people claim (believe it when I see it), you should know that Intel spends a lot of engineering resources working with the OEMs; I'd say to some extent those nice Ultrabooks that Intel's chips are in are co-engineering efforts between Intel and the OEMs.

Does AMD invest in similar efforts to build great systems with its partners? This is the kind of stuff where AMD's shrinking R&D budget hurts AMD.

Then consider marketing. Intel's brand is far better known and the Intel/Ultrabook logos that system vendors put on their systems does help "differentiate" products in the minds of consumers. Average Joe probably knows that a Core i7 is a great, super chip, but has absolutely no clue what an AMD A8/A10/FX APU is.

Others, who might know about AMD, view it as the "cheap" brand that you buy if you can't buy a full fledged Intel system.

This is the result of strong marketing campaigns (and, honestly, due to the fact that Intel chips have been better for quite some time). And you might call it "sleazy business tactics," but here in the real world, marketing plays a big role in actually selling products to end users. There's nothing sleazy about that, either.

 

[maarten12100]

That's not really an explanation of Intel's "sleazy marketing tactics." Even if AMD's chips are as good as some people claim (believe it when I see it), you should know that Intel spends a lot of engineering resources working with the OEMs; I'd say to some extent those nice Ultrabooks that Intel's chips are in are co-engineering efforts between Intel and the OEMs.

Does AMD invest in similar efforts to build great systems with its partners? This is the kind of stuff where AMD's shrinking R&D budget hurts AMD.

Then consider marketing. Intel's brand is far better known and the Intel/Ultrabook logos that system vendors put on their systems does help "differentiate" products in the minds of consumers. Average Joe probably knows that a Core i7 is a great, super chip, but has absolutely no clue what an AMD A8/A10/FX APU is.

Others, who might know about AMD, view it as the "cheap" brand that you buy if you can't buy a full fledged Intel system.

This is the result of strong marketing campaigns (and, honestly, due to the fact that Intel chips have been better for quite some time). And you might call it "sleazy business tactics," but here in the real world, marketing plays a big role in actually selling products to end users. There's nothing sleazy about that, either.

First of all "those nice Ultrabooks that Intel's chips are in" Ultrabook is a trademark from Intel therefore AMD can't put it on laptops.

Sure Intel funds the entire design another example of unfair competition. Basically throwing money at a company for them to choose your product.

As for marketing true true but if you have a great product it will sell. Even in a market of uninformed people. "marketing is what you do when your product is no good"

 

[frozentundra123456]

Well, if great products sell no matter what, then you dont have anything to worry about. All of intel's supposed dirty tricks wont matter.

 

[maarten12100]

Well, if great products sell no matter what, then you dont have anything to worry about. All of intel's supposed dirty tricks wont matter.

If OEMs would use decent parts and make something decent of it then yes. But again they won't because they are too corrupt. This is nothing new it's been voiced time after time.

 

[mrmt]

First of all "those nice Ultrabooks that Intel's chips are in" Ultrabook is a trademark from Intel therefore AMD can't put it on laptops.

Sure Intel funds the entire design another example of unfair competition. Basically throwing money at a company for them to choose your product.

As for marketing true true but if you have a great product it will sell. Even in a market of uninformed people. "marketing is what you do when your product is no good"

Intel *paid* for the design, why should OEM be able to share with AMD processors? How is this unfair?

 

[CHADBOGA]

If OEMs would use decent parts and make something decent of it then yes. But again they won't because they are too corrupt. This is nothing new it's been voiced time after time.

It is irrational nonsense, spouted by clueless people time after time.

OEM's are reluctant to use AMD in laptops because they have never sold well, nor are their current CPU's very power efficient.

 

[maarten12100]

It is irrational nonsense, spouted by clueless people time after time.

OEM's are reluctant to use AMD in laptops because they have never sold well, nor are their current CPU's very power efficient.

Intel has been sued for unfair business practices on 2 continents. Even when they had a superior product they didn't gain mobile market design wins. So I don't know how much proof you need what I do know is that we are of topic and that there is no point in arguing further with people that don't want to take the word of reviewers that have had the product.

We'll see maybe it was all a lie or maybe not...

 

[DrMrLordX]

Why are you being cynical? Or are you?
"We have actually seen first-hand what Carrizo can do, and feel like this will be a game changer for the mobile market. It lays the foundation for a future of very efficient, very powerful HSA enabled processors."
If Tom's said they feel like Carrizo is a game changer not for AMD but for the mobile market it must be really good. As we basically are already told it is more efficient than the i5 5200u in various scenarios the only thing keeping AMD back is Intel's sleezy practices.

For all you Americans too bad you're probably not getting one unless you settle for the world's word screen, case, trackpad etc etc...
Level playing field NOT...

I just hope the launch models here will be good and the claims turn out to be correct. :thumbsup:

I don't know if what I project here amounts to cynicism or just defeatism. It's clear to me the product is good, and I think Tom's is giving a fairly honest account of how it could change things on the market . . . if the market allows such change.

Let's face it, if the buying public wants more of the same and is happy without competition (or just without AMD), then AMD is going to be fighting uphill all the way. At least for now, those of us who do want to buy AMD products can buy Carrizo knowing that there's a good CPU in there (at least).

The fact there are basically no quality AMD notebooks in the US market. Also contra revenue tactics.

I'm not really sure if we can point the finger at Intel marketing/bribery/contra revenue/etc. Perhaps that is why AMD has more traction in the European market (they have penalized Intel for anti-competitive practices in the past; the US, not so much). Maybe AMD's marketing people think the American market is dead to them, so they are steering products accordingly. From where I am sitting, there is a dearth of verifiable facts.

Intel *paid* for the design, why should OEM be able to share with AMD processors? How is this unfair?

It's not just "ultrabook" designs though. OEMs know how to make some fairly nice notebooks without direct design cues from Intel (or AMD). Would it kill some OEM to release a notebook such as:

AMD 8800P
8 Gb DDR3
128-256Gb SSD
15"+ screen

in the US? People would probably like a notebook like that, assuming the battery was sized appropriately and they didn't deliberately use the cheapest, most failure-prone parts available.

How much money does AMD have to pay an OEM just to get their chips into a halfway-decent laptop?

 

[pablo87]

It's pointless to complain about Intel's tactics. In every industry, large OEM's are conservative, using suppliers that haven't proven their worth, or worse, have proven they're not very good, is a career limiting move for a buyer or product manager.

It's up to AMD to fix their "channel" issues. OEM's aren't supportive? Find smaller, regional ones or etailers - honestly, does anybody care about the PC brand other than Apple? They don't even make anything (or in most cases, design), essentially all they have is relationships with suppliers and customers - I know I'd be perfectly happy buying an Amazon or Ali B branded notebook.

OEM's aren't investing in innovative toolings that highlight the processors' strength? Do your own ID, open the tooling for it. It takes no time to ramp production from there. Not a big cost either, plus often they can carry over. Just find a customer for each ID and if sales can't do it, find another sales.

 

[mrmt]

It's up to AMD to fix their "channel" issues. OEM's aren't supportive? Find smaller, regional ones or etailers - honestly, does anybody care about the PC brand other than Apple? They don't even make anything (or in most cases, design), essentially all they have is relationships with suppliers and customers - I know I'd be perfectly happy buying an Amazon or Ali B branded notebook.

How can AMD convince OEMs to adopt their products when it costs more to manufacture the "high end" parts than those of Intel, and consequently the floor for AMD price is far higher than Intel's, and the low end parts are being undercut because Intel is being very aggressive on that segment? Sure, making Carrizo a SoC is a step in the right direction but by no means a solution.

One interesting bit is that in the last round of cuts R&D bore the brunt of the cuts, while marketing and sales were practically untouched. AMD should be on the bottom limit of what their sales and marketing operations should be. I'd say that part of the drop in revenue is caused because of lack of marketing and sales people.

 

[Abwx]

Some Geekbench results in the waiting of W8/10 benches..

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2798318


http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2800484

 

[slaven]

Koo to all!
Here are passmark results for a10-8700p:
http://www.passmark.com/baselines/V8/display.php?id=43664855802

 

[burninatortech4]

I'm still waiting on a carrizo laptop with an 8800p, 15 inch screen with decent resolution, 8gb of 2133mhz+ RAM, and an SSD.

I might be waiting a long while.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Intel has realized they don't need to be slimy to beat AMD, just good. Oh yeah, they did all kinds of unfair tactics back in the Athlon 64 days, but these days I don't think they bother. They don't want to get caught again, and they are beating AMD easily enough by just being good at what they do.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Koo to all!
Here are passmark results for a10-8700p:
http://www.passmark.com/baselines/V8/display.php?id=43664855802

Not bad, but that is at 35 watt TDP apparently, while a higher end 15 watt dual core broadwell in is the same ballpark.

 

[Dresdenboy]

Not bad, but that is at 35 watt TDP apparently, while a higher end 15 watt dual core broadwell in is the same ballpark.

How do we know that this is a 35W part? There might be more options (e.g. a 25W setting). Which device has this HDD?

 

[frozentundra123456]

How do we know that this is a 35W part? There might be more options (e.g. a 25W setting). Which device has this HDD?

If you look up that chip on the passmark site, it says the max tdp is 35 watts, and gives the value the above poster does. Now it does not say specifically the test was run at that tdp, but that would seem the most logical assumption.

 

[Dresdenboy]

Not bad, but that is at 35 watt TDP apparently, while a higher end 15 watt dual core broadwell in is the same ballpark.

How do we know that this is a 35W part? There might be more options (e.g. a 25W setting). Which device has this HDD?

 

[sm625]

What I'm wondering is will we ever even know how the AMD 35W carrizo compares to something like a 15W i5-5200U? The reviews of kaveri notebooks were so sparse it makes me wonder if we'll even see actual battery life comparisons for carrizo...

 

[dark zero]

What a dissaster, except that AMD still crushes Intel on GPU side and Intel still needs nVIDIA and the subsides in order to eliminate AMD who are already mediocre...

I miss the days when the M line were mainstream and the U line were the trash tier...

 

[pablo87]

How can AMD convince OEMs to adopt their products when it costs more to manufacture the "high end" parts than those of Intel, and consequently the floor for AMD price is far higher than Intel's, and the low end parts are being undercut because Intel is being very aggressive on that segment? Sure, making Carrizo a SoC is a step in the right direction but by no means a solution.

One interesting bit is that in the last round of cuts R&D bore the brunt of the cuts, while marketing and sales were practically untouched. AMD should be on the bottom limit of what their sales and marketing operations should be. I'd say that part of the drop in revenue is caused because of lack of marketing and sales people.

@mrmt, I apologize for not replying to your post. Somehow the forums don't notify me when someone replies and I don't check in often enough. Still no excuse.

My point for AMD was simply that yes, they've been riding Intel's coattails forever including tooling, they keep whining and b******* but they do nothing about it. Its like building this pipeline to the outskirts of a City, nice project but what's the point? They spend all this effort on Carrizo and don't finish the job, its just complete asininery.

My sense now is that Lisa is overwhelmed. Her mgmt team is weak, CFO is a complete lightweight. To quote Buffett, when good mgmt is tasked with turning around a failing enterprise, its usually the reputation of mgmt that suffers. He learned that at the Buffalo News?.

 

[pablo87]

By the way all, you all know about the big Amazon prime sale on July 15 to celebrate their 20th right?

I think if we can't get a good deal or any deal there on Carrizo, then...

 

[frozentundra123456]

I thought it was announced but was only scheduled to be available in August sometime.

 

[slaven]

How do we know that this is a 35W part? There might be more options (e.g. a 25W setting). Which device has this HDD?

That device has: https://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2857951
Pretty sure it is HP Pavilion 15Z: http://store.hp.com/us/en/Configure...=10051&langId=-1&catEntryId=891657&quantity=1

 

[mrmt]

My sense now is that Lisa is overwhelmed. Her mgmt team is weak, CFO is a complete lightweight. To quote Buffett, when good mgmt is tasked with turning around a failing enterprise, its usually the reputation of mgmt that suffers. He learned that at the Buffalo News?.

I think Lisa Su at least knows where AMD should go, which is an improvement over what they got with Rory Read, but the main issue is that AMD is in a much precarious position now.

Take for example the Q2 sales forecast. Basically AMD said that gross revenue would be 2% below their previously targeted forecast band, which wasn't something bad per se. The issue with the warning was that it wrecked the premises Su and Kumar released on the FAD in may. The FAD was basically a blueprint on how management expected to keep AMD stable while churning out the new products that would allow AMD to claw back market share on profitable segments.

On the FAD AMD said that the PC business would be stable and that Carrizo would allow them inroads on commercial notebooks from big OEMs, and that this process would be margin accretive, but thanks to this warning we know that Carrizo is not able to reverse the decline of AMD mobile business, so how the market is asking "how the hell are they supposed to survive with 2017 selling products that nobody wants?", and "do the clowns at marketing and financial department know their stuff enough to this company survive until Zen?"

This kind of misstep has its roots on the marketing department, it is what you can expect to happen in a SMB, but not in a multi-billion decades old company like AMD. Basically whoever is calling the shots at the company's marketing department doesn't know the market and cannot read a market trend even if it were written in plain English.

Lisa might supply these marketing deficiencies, but I'm really interested on how she is going to make AMD survive until the company starts to churn out the products conceived under her watch.