AMD Q3 Results

[mrmt]

Considering how poorly GloFo has performed financially since AMD's spin off, I don't know how anyone here can even make a point that it would have been better to keep the fabs for AMD. The fab business is very difficult on its own as GloFo has struggled against TSMC.

Sorry Russian, this is a red herring here. Nobody but the dumbest fanboy says that keep the fabs was the best option. If AMD were to keep its fabs it would have to become a full fledged IDM like Intel, and not the cheapskate IDM they were before the spin off. AMD didn't develop its own node, it was always limited to licensing and implementing someone else's node, and on top of that there is the question of volumes, as they simply wouldn't be able to fill by themselves a 20nm fab, let alone a 14nm fab.

But that is no excuse for the kind of decisions AMD took in the last 10 years, like acquiring ATI by cashing out its former shareholders, proceeding with Bulldozer or tying itself to a subpar foundry partner for almost 20 years. Those decisions are simply inexcusable. It's not AMD hate, as you are trying to imply, to point out how asinine those decisions were.

Going into tablets and smartphones is also a failing strategy considering Intel flushed $4.2 billion in 2014 into the toilet trying to establish the Atom brand name while NV more or less brushed aside the smartphone and tablet market, instead focusing on the faster growing in-car tech business opportunities. Small companies like AMD can't afford to use their other profitable product lines to blow $4 billion as a possible gateway into new segments.

The very real reason Dirk Meyer was fired was because Bulldozer was to be an outright disaster that would implode the CPU division as it did, and in order to not destroy the market prospects, AMD threw that mobile smokescreen in the press. AMD lost the mobile bandwagon circa 2008.

 

[IlllI]

I wonder if GloFo got bought out or went bankrupt if that would allow amd to get out of that awful contract they signed with them. i remember a couple years back it was so bad that amd was paying them a few hundred million not to produce as many cpus as was agreed upon

 

[Abwx]

I wonder if GloFo got bought out or went bankrupt if that would allow amd to get out of that awful contract they signed with them. i remember a couple years back it was so bad that amd was paying them a few hundred million not to produce as many cpus as was agreed upon

Word is that AMD did get a relatively low price at GF given that they are the main (and only?) customer for 28nm, certainly much cheaper than TSMC s 28nm wich is obviously exageratly overpriced if we are to look at this firm financials.

 

[AtenRa]

Word is that AMD did get a relatively low price at GF given that they are the main (and only?) customer for 28nm, certainly much cheaper than TSMC s 28nm wich is obviously exageratly overpriced if we are to look at this firm financials.

AMD is the only customer at 32nm SOI, AMD paid not to have exclusivity of GloFos 28nm. More companies like Rockchip are using GloFos 28nm.

 

[CHADBOGA]

When do AMD report their 4th Qtr earnings for 2014?

 

[AtenRa]

20th of January.

 

[Ramses]

As I said only the blind f*n***s, Intel/NV employees/sharehoders, AMD stock put/shorter owners, ex-AMD buttburt employees would want for AMD to fail leaving us with Intel and NV only. I sincerely hope AMD recovers and we get a lot more needed competition in the CPU and GPU space.

amen to that.

 

[mrmt]

amen to that.

That ship has sailed. If anything AMD BoD will move the company further away from the PC market. AMD's future lies in semi-custom and graphics IP.

 

[Ramses]

I'll take what I can get competition wise. Further I put my money where my mouth is by buying AMD whenever it'll still do the job. Hope they can make it work.

 

[CHADBOGA]

20th of January.

Thanks.

 

[Shehriazad]

What AMD really needs is the funds to catch up again...but I'm not sure that they can still do that.

Looks rather horrible lately. Imo AMD will only "recover" if a big company like Samsung straight up buys AMD and just continues from there.

CPU market is totally done for for AMD. GPU side also feels like a failure already...there was talk of 20nm + 3D HBM GPUs...instead it looks like that it's not only delayed...but 28nm + GDDR5 GPUs.


I wonder if AMD will actually ever manage to have a year with black ink at the end of the year if they continue to try it alone. Red is only acceptable for so long.

 

[mrmt]

I'll take what I can get competition wise. Further I put my money where my mouth is by buying AMD whenever it'll still do the job. Hope they can make it work.

At that point you are not really propping up competition you are rewarding failure. AMD is divesting from its PC business, it is actively trying to get new businesses outside the PC area. You will not be helping AMD to keep up competition, but helping AMD to survive until they transition from the PC market to something else.

 

[krumme]

What AMD really needs is the funds to catch up again...but I'm not sure that they can still do that.

Looks rather horrible lately. Imo AMD will only "recover" if a big company like Samsung straight up buys AMD and just continues from there.

CPU market is totally done for for AMD. GPU side also feels like a failure already...there was talk of 20nm + 3D HBM GPUs...instead it looks like that it's not only delayed...but 28nm + GDDR5 GPUs.


I wonder if AMD will actually ever manage to have a year with black ink at the end of the year if they continue to try it alone. Red is only acceptable for so long.

Well they seem to be doing the red for nearly each year since 1969 and they are still here.
In the 80 they were "heavily lobbying the U.S. government until sanctions and restrictions were put into place to prevent predatory Japanese pricing" wiki.
Seems a little more difficult with the 4B. But i guess nationality play a role here.

 

[Ramses]

I'm OK with that too. AMD has provided me good performing and economical CPU's all the way back to the am5x86 upgrade chip for my first 486 to my FX that I still can't find a good reason to upgrade. Though I have had as many Intel parts in between then and now. If they want to go elsewhere, or go away completely, it is their business. I did my part as a supporter and consumer. Hell the DOD gave them 32 million toward developing exascale computing the other year, there is more to life than the PC desktop maybe? I did my part at any rate over the years and was well rewarded for it, but I'll miss them if they are gone when I'm stuck with nothing to buy but Intel.

 

[Arachnotronic]

What AMD really needs is the funds to catch up again...but I'm not sure that they can still do that.

Looks rather horrible lately. Imo AMD will only "recover" if a big company like Samsung straight up buys AMD and just continues from there.

CPU market is totally done for for AMD. GPU side also feels like a failure already...there was talk of 20nm + 3D HBM GPUs...instead it looks like that it's not only delayed...but 28nm + GDDR5 GPUs.


I wonder if AMD will actually ever manage to have a year with black ink at the end of the year if they continue to try it alone. Red is only acceptable for so long.

AMD's GPUs are pretty good, but the R290x got a pretty bad rap for the stock cooler being so loud. I'm sure the R290X cards with aftermarket coolers are great (and if you don't mind the power draw, they're a great perf/$ proposition), but that's the problem...AMD's stuff is always the "bang for the buck" leader but it doesn't have the cost structure on such parts to be able to make good money being the cheaper option.

If I recall correctly, AMD had an amazing product stack with the R7xxx series...7970 was the fastest card available at the time, 7870/7850 were the mid-range "sweet spot," and the 7770/7750 were solid low-end offerings. I don't recall NVIDIA catching up to this "complete" offering until well after (although my memory is a bit hazy).

 

[RussianSensation]

At that point you are not really propping up competition you are rewarding failure. AMD is divesting from its PC business, it is actively trying to get new businesses outside the PC area. You will not be helping AMD to keep up competition, but helping AMD to survive until they transition from the PC market to something else.

AMD is not transitioning away from the PC market. They are diversifying to reduce risk by moving into other markets, with less focus on the PC. That is not the same as abandoning / transitioning entirely away from the PC market. It's not as if AMD aims to stop making desktop and mobile dGPU.

There are other factors in play you haven't mentioned:

1) AMD's GPUs tend to have superior price/performance. If you want to reward the idea of price/performance and well get a faster card for less $, it's no brainer to buy AMD's graphics.

2) NV milks the market with $650 280, $650 780, $1000 Titan, $3000 Titan Z, has what to many are even worse business practices such as vendor lock in, working with developers to remove DX10.1 to hurt AMD, locks out what are vendor agnostic features like PCSS+ from AMD users in certain games. So in fact, supporting AMD is the lesser evil in some cases, instead of rewarding failure. I would say supporting open vs. Closed standards is also making a statement.

Therefore, I do not at all agree with your point that supporting AMD graphics is akin to rewarding failure. Also, for budget builders an FX8310 or similar for $90 or so is good value.

Considering AMD cards also made money with mining, to me it was absolutely ludicrous to buy NV when 680 SLI would have cost me $1000 vs. $0 for 7970s. Again, why would I want to support the idea of mid-range next gen performance at high end prices, which is exactly what NV is promoting with the 980! Or why would I want to support a firm that purposely refuses to adopt an industry open VESA VSync standard instead of trying to push GSync premium monitors down my throat?!

You haven't really looked at what it actually means to support NV. Sure you reward a more successful firm but in many ways the things they do and how they compete are even more appalling than AMD's horrible marketing.

 

[ShintaiDK]

AMD is not transitioning away from the PC market. They are diversifying to reduce risk by moving into other markets, with less focus on the PC.

Its funny that everything they do points the opposite way. Carrizo is the latest on the track record.

Semicustom is there future, PC was their past.

We have to see Q4 graphics share, because if it continues from Q3. Then thats a lost segment as well.

 

[mrmt]

AMD is not transitioning away from the PC market. They are diversifying to reduce risk by moving into other markets, with less focus on the PC. That is not the same as abandoning / transitioning entirely away from the PC market. It's not as if AMD aims to stop making desktop and mobile dGPU.

AMD's current situation is that:

- There is a smaller pool of engineers working on designs today than 5 years ago.

- This smaller pool of engineers also has to split its attention between AMD's legacy and AMD semi-custom business.

- By AMD's own admission this pool of engineers will have to devote more attention to semi-custom than it does today.

Say what you will, but if you don't call this a divesting I don't know what would you call. It's nothing short of a pipe dream believe that AMD will be able to compete on the consumer market in terms of raw performance will less resources than before, and with those resources being all spread thinner than before. The only sane business case I an think of is if AMD is planning to use this new IP in other markets outside the traditional PC market. A shoe that should drop further along 2016.

1) AMD's GPUs tend to have superior price/performance. If you want to reward the idea of price/performance and well get a faster card for less $, it's no brainer to buy AMD's graphics.

2) NV milks the market with $650 280, $650 780, $1000 Titan, $3000 Titan Z, has what to many are even worse business practices such as vendor lock in, working with developers to remove DX10.1 to hurt AMD, locks out what are vendor agnostic features like PCSS+ from AMD users in certain games. So in fact, supporting AMD is the lesser evil in some cases, instead of rewarding failure. I would say supporting open vs. Closed standards is also making a statement.

Therefore, I do not at all agree with your point that supporting AMD graphics is akin to rewarding failure.

I didn't mention GPUs because the context of the post you quoted wasn't GPUs, but CPUs only. That's also why I said in a previous post that AMD's future lies in semi-custom and graphics IP.

The GPU market is has a completely different dynamic and surely buying AMD there isn't akin to rewarding failure. In fact, I think the only reason Nvidia is able to get all the profits despite not having a decisive advantage over AMD in terms of performance is only possible because of AMD's incompetence in terms of managing other business aspects of the product, like OEM relationship and marketing.

Also, for budget builders an FX8310 or similar for $90 or so is good value.

Fx 8310 only costs $90 for consumers because it was such a failure, not because AMD designed and engineered it to be sold for $90 and still generate a healthy profit for the company. It only sells for $90 because consumers refused to reward failure and stopped buying these chips for more than $150 like AMD wanted to sell them in the first place.

 

[Abwx]

At that point you are not really propping up competition you are rewarding failure.

You mean like buying subsided bay trails.?.

Its funny that everything they do points the opposite way. Carrizo is the latest on the track record.

Semicustom is there future, PC was their past.

We have to see Q4 graphics share, because if it continues from Q3. Then thats a lost segment as well.

Carrizo is AMD answer to contra revenues, they ll release a product that will compete in segments where Intel will make the bread and butter they re dumping in contra revenues, that is in the Broadwell i3 and eventualy i5 segments.

 

[Ramses]

So who's working with the 32 million gift for exascale supercomputing? Nobody ever mentions that, I assume because nobody knows. Further I wonder what else we don't know. Things like that make me leary of armchair predictions either way. I'll miss amd if it goes, but I did my part. I miss Cyrix too. And Abit. Few others.

 

[mrmt]

So who's working with the 32 million gift for exascale supercomputing? Nobody ever mentions that, I assume because nobody knows. Further I wonder what else we don't know. Things like that make me leary of armchair predictions either way. I'll miss amd if it goes, but I did my part. I miss Cyrix too. And Abit. Few others.

Nobody ever mentions that because it is just a small research project. Intel, IBM and Nvidia also have grants or in case of Intel even product projects aiming at exascale computing, something that AMD is not even close to get.

 

[Gikaseixas]

AMD should just focus on Graphics and other smaller tech. Intel is a giant in the cpu arena and they will struggle to get something out of that part of business.

I still have a little faith in Zen, if they fail that's it for me.

 

[Unoid]

Q1 2015 will be further down because of the console cycle.

Very insightful, that business knowledge of yours.

However, contracts for their consoles are done quarters in advance based on forecasts. It also depends on whether sony/microsoft care about cycles for production this early into the next gen console game (little over a year). For all we know MS/Sony are warehousing 3 months worth of inventory.

Point is. no one can really know what the impact of Q1 2015 will be based on sales cycles unless they're leaking private information from amd/sony/ms.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Will AMD stock ever go up again this year (and by "up" I mean to $4 levels)? What do you guys think? Does it even matter if AMD posts good results?

 

[mrmt]

Will AMD stock ever go up again this year (and by "up" I mean to $4 levels)? What do you guys think? Does it even matter if AMD posts good results?

Nope. AMD can't find its new corporate identity soon enough. As of now whenever you think Qualcomm, Intel, Mediatek or Nvidia you also think of the market fortresses of those companies. AMD has none. All they have is a shrinking CPU and dGPU business and a semi-custom business that isn't gaining traction fast enough. AMD is reaching a point where losing MSFT or Sony console business might be life threatening for the entire company, not a very envyable position by any means.