AMD Q2 Result.

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Abwx

Lifer
Apr 2, 2011
11,543
4,327
136
You're still not answering the question I asked of you.

The answer is clear, it s just that it doesnt suit your straws..

AMD know that it s illegal and they could sue Intel but to do so would get Asus, Dell, Lenovo sued as well, what would happen if they decide to retaliate by not buying AMD products..?..

There s no law that would prevent them to do so, and AMD doesnt have the cash to wait for eventual compensations if such a scenario would occur, as such they estimated that they would have more to lose than to gain if they intent such an action.

Whoever is not capable to make this reasonement better not engage in discussions about management.
 

JDG1980

Golden Member
Jul 18, 2013
1,663
570
136
I don't think the main issue with AMD processors is just raw performance. Think about it, if raw performance were an issue there wouldn't be Celeron/Pentium sales because these processors have raw performance lower than some AMD processors.

The main AMD error IMO was to bet the farm in a fireball design by the time both the mobile and server market were going for more efficiency, this lack of efficiency killed AMD on mobile, because nobody would equip AMD power hogs in premium SKUs and they became toxic in datacenters as soon as Bulldozer arrived.

Yes, Bulldozer was clearly the biggest mistake AMD ever made. If the company does end up failing, this will be remembered as the point where everything really started to go wrong.

AMD would have been better off just biting the bullet and eating the R&D costs in 2011 when it became clear that Bulldozer wasn't going to be competitive. They should have fired the leadership most responsible for this fiasco, and reassigned their best engineers to incremental improvements on K10 (IPC increases, adding AVX, die-shrinks, etc.) Sure, this is easier to say with the benefit of hindsight, but even at the time it was clear from the benchmarks that Bulldozer was going to be flat-out inferior to Thuban in many regards (despite the fact that Bulldozer had the benefit of a node shrink!) Releasing a product like that is a classic example of the sunk cost fallacy. It should have been written off; that would have done far less damage to AMD.

The second main error was the APU. The extra GPU CU just became extra cost because of the bigger die size. In retrospect they would be better with a smaller GPU and leaner cost structure.

The idea of the APU was sound enough. After all, in all product segments except servers, the vast majority of CPUs today from all companies have GPUs on the same die.

There were several execution problems that kept APUs from being a sales success. The bandwidth limitations of DDR3 meant that standard PC APUs could never really compete effectively with even a $99 discrete GPU. As a result, the die size turned out to be much larger than it needed to be; AMD probably shouldn't have put more than 256 GCN shaders (four computing units) in any DDR3 APU, but they packed double that figure in Kaveri, and it was mostly a waste. And the desirability of APUs was further worsened by the fact that they were bogged down with the terrible Bulldozer-derived CPU architecture.

That said, the PS4 demonstrates that an APU can work just fine for consoles, when it can take advantage of soldered GDDR5. In the long run, HBM2 will work even better for this. But AMD tried to integrate too much too soon, and ended up with a mediocre product that few people wanted.
 

jpiniero

Lifer
Oct 1, 2010
15,176
5,717
136
AMD's biggest problem was and is that consumers aren't buying PCs, be it AMD or Intel. They focused all their efforts on a segment that is collapsing. They ignored mobile until it was too late, and now they've completely lost the mobile GPU market too.
 

RampantAndroid

Diamond Member
Jun 27, 2004
6,591
3
81
AMD know that it s illegal and they could sue Intel but to do so would get Asus, Dell, Lenovo sued as well, what would happen if they decide to retaliate by not buying AMD products..?..

I don't see that. If Intel is wrong to do contra-revenue, Intel will be sued. Not the people who benefited (unless they're shown to have illegally forced Intel to do it.)
 

Phynaz

Lifer
Mar 13, 2006
10,140
819
126
The answer is clear, it s just that it doesnt suit your straws..

AMD know that it s illegal and they could sue Intel but to do so would get Asus, Dell, Lenovo sued as well, what would happen if they decide to retaliate by not buying AMD products..?..

There s no law that would prevent them to do so, and AMD doesnt have the cash to wait for eventual compensations if such a scenario would occur, as such they estimated that they would have more to lose than to gain if they intent such an action.

Whoever is not capable to make this reasonement better not engage in discussions about management.

No different than the other times AMD sued Intel. Also, the worlds regulatory agencies wouldn't care about AMDs customers if Intel was using predatory pricing.

Basically your argument doesn't hold water. But you're consistent, it's never been AMDs actions that have put it in the place it is in.
 
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Phynaz

Lifer
Mar 13, 2006
10,140
819
126
Yes, Bulldozer was clearly the biggest mistake AMD ever made. If the company does end up failing, this will be remembered as the point where everything really started to go wrong.

AMD would have been better off just biting the bullet and eating the R&D costs in 2011 when it became clear that Bulldozer wasn't going to be competitive. They should have fired the leadership most responsible for this fiasco, and reassigned their best engineers to incremental improvements on K10 (IPC increases, adding AVX, die-shrinks, etc.) Sure, this is easier to say with the benefit of hindsight, but even at the time it was clear from the benchmarks that Bulldozer was going to be flat-out inferior to Thuban in many regards (despite the fact that Bulldozer had the benefit of a node shrink!) Releasing a product like that is a classic example of the sunk cost fallacy. It should have been written off; that would have done far less damage to AMD.



The idea of the APU was sound enough. After all, in all product segments except servers, the vast majority of CPUs today from all companies have GPUs on the same die.

There were several execution problems that kept APUs from being a sales success. The bandwidth limitations of DDR3 meant that standard PC APUs could never really compete effectively with even a $99 discrete GPU. As a result, the die size turned out to be much larger than it needed to be; AMD probably shouldn't have put more than 256 GCN shaders (four computing units) in any DDR3 APU, but they packed double that figure in Kaveri, and it was mostly a waste. And the desirability of APUs was further worsened by the fact that they were bogged down with the terrible Bulldozer-derived CPU architecture.

That said, the PS4 demonstrates that an APU can work just fine for consoles, when it can take advantage of soldered GDDR5. In the long run, HBM2 will work even better for this. But AMD tried to integrate too much too soon, and ended up with a mediocre product that few people wanted.

They couldn't cancel BD though, it was years late due to its predecessor getting cancelled. It would have left AMD without a product to sell, instead they just had a crappy product to sell.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
Contra revenues benefit to firms that are also AMD customers, the biggest one seems to be Asus for instance, that s not a case that they can manage with a clear cut as getting Intel in trial would also get thoses firms in trial and eventual reprisal would be dreadfull for AMD given their financial situation..

That said not that thoses contra revenues really helped, quite the contrary, HP who didnt seem to jump on this band waggon got an average 2014 year while Asus, a big proponent in this matter, just sold 10 millions related items without any money made..

As to battle the ARM camp, well, the outcome is quite surprising, and AMD are 100% right to not go suicidal a la Intel in razzor margin markets :


http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20150721PD216.html
What can be made within the 80$ price..?.

5$..?..10$..??.

That is rather funny given AMDs willingness to go suicidal on margins for the consoles.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,003
3,361
136
That is rather funny given AMDs willingness to go suicidal on margins for the consoles.


The difference is that AMDs Consoles low margins has generated Income when Intels Tablet Contra-Revenue has generated Billions of loss.
Next year Intel Tablets will continue to generate loss when AMDs semi-custom will increase its Income.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,003
3,361
136
AMD's biggest problem was and is that consumers aren't buying PCs, be it AMD or Intel. They focused all their efforts on a segment that is collapsing. They ignored mobile until it was too late, and now they've completely lost the mobile GPU market too.

AMD didnt ignored Mobile, i will have to remind you they were the first with x86 Tablets. But they were unfortunate because even when they had the better product(Mullins) Intels Contra-Revenue killed the market for them.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
106
AMD didnt ignored Mobile, i will have to remind you they were the first with x86 Tablets. But they were unfortunate because even when they had the better product(Mullins) Intels Contra-Revenue killed the market for them.

No. Thats just another excuse story.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
106
The difference is that AMDs Consoles low margins has generated Income when Intels Tablet Contra-Revenue has generated Billions of loss.
Next year Intel Tablets will continue to generate loss when AMDs semi-custom will increase its Income.

The income from the semicustom have been dropping and it was down to a megre 27M$ in Q2.
 

AtenRa

Lifer
Feb 2, 2009
14,003
3,361
136
The income from the semicustom have been dropping and it was down to a megre 27M$ in Q2.

It still generates Income, unlike Intel's Billions of Losses.

We will have to admit, Enterprise - Embedded and Semi-Custom is what keeping afloat the company as of today. No surprise they want to keep pushing in that direction.
 

CHADBOGA

Platinum Member
Mar 31, 2009
2,135
832
136
It still generates Income, unlike Intel's Billions of Losses.

We will have to admit, Enterprise - Embedded and Semi-Custom is what keeping afloat the company as of today. No surprise they want to keep pushing in that direction.

I have no doubt that Enterprise - Embedded and Semi-Custom will make up an ever increasing share of AMD's revenue between now and the end.
 

mrmt

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2012
3,974
0
76
Good job they have another couple of semicustom wins lined up.

And as a result they get 150-180MM in operating profits spread in three years, or 12.5-15MM per quarter. That will make a hell of a difference for AMD.
 

mrmt

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2012
3,974
0
76
They couldn't cancel BD though, it was years late due to its predecessor getting cancelled. It would have left AMD without a product to sell, instead they just had a crappy product to sell.

They couldn't cancel Bulldozer in 2011, but they could have cancelled in 2009 when the 45nm Bulldozer flopped and they had to go back to the drawing board. That was the fateful decision.If AMD had cancelled Bulldozer in 2009 they could have a brand new design by 2013 and still could have kept a healthy cat core line.

The only reason I can think of for this is that a lot of guys in the food chain made their careers on Bulldozer, a lot of nerd pride at stake on it.
 

ShintaiDK

Lifer
Apr 22, 2012
20,378
145
106
Monthly console sales fluctuate by a factor of more than 5 over the year. Have you seen the charts? Except for Q4 the quarterly sales can be lower than 25% of Q4 levels.

You can try take the semicustom for AMD in all its quarters and see the result yourself.

Example:
Q2 2014: 613M$ revenue, 97M$ profit.
Q1 2015: 498M$ revenue, 45M$ profit.
Q2 2015: 563M$ revenue, 27M$ profit.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
The difference is that AMDs Consoles low margins has generated Income when Intels Tablet Contra-Revenue has generated Billions of loss.
Next year Intel Tablets will continue to generate loss when AMDs semi-custom will increase its Income.

It may generate income in the sense the part being in a profit disregarding the back end costs of running a business. However mid teen level margins is an overall loss for the company. If you look at Intel they also have a positive margin on their mobile parts. But the cost of business is not calculated in each sale. At the end of the day low margins generate a loss for the business. Intel can afford these losses, AMD cant.

The biggest clue console sales are a net negative for the company. As more and more of their business revolves around these sales, their margins drop, and their business losses increase. Honestly mid teen level margins are insane.
 

MiddleOfTheRoad

Golden Member
Aug 6, 2014
1,123
5
0
But none near the size that they got with MS and Sony.

How can you predict that the NX won't be successful? The Xbox One is selling strong, but the NX could clearly outsell it if its a compelling console. Considering that Nintendo won the sales crown for the last generation with the Wii, it's a pretty silly thing to say.
 

Sweepr

Diamond Member
May 12, 2006
5,148
1,143
131
No. Thats just another excuse story.

Exactly. AMD was so ashamed that they did not allow power consumption measurements for Mullins, obviously because they knew their shinny reference platform inside a thick 11.6'' chassis draws a lot more power than Bay Trail-T inside a thin 7-8'' tablet (more heat too). Now fanboys use contra revenue as the excuse even though there was always space for better performing products at higher prices, just look at Core M or high-end Android tablets and iPads today. Bay Trail didnt kill any of them.
 
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mrmt

Diamond Member
Aug 18, 2012
3,974
0
76
It may generate income in the sense the part being in a profit disregarding the back end costs of running a business. However mid teen level margins is an overall loss for the company. If you look at Intel they also have a positive margin on their mobile parts. But the cost of business is not calculated in each sale. At the end of the day low margins generate a loss for the business. Intel can afford these losses, AMD cant.

It's unfortunate that the distinction between buying market share for a few years, e.g. incurring in heavy losses, in order to have a structurally healthy, high margin business in the future and a structurally low margin business like console chips isn't evident for a few people.

There is no chance in hell that AMD console business will some day spot high margins or even be highly profitable for the company, but there is a lot of money to be made on mobile and IoT for the companies executing it correctly. The console business only appears a good business to AMD because of the state of their other business, not because of the business per se.

In hindsight Nvidia was quite correct in avoid that business, they are better after having invested their engineering resources in Maxwell and getting Intel-like margins with dGPUs, while AMD has to muddle through with their ancient GCN and sell low margin HBM cards.
 
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