AMD's PileDriver Possibly Cancelled!! (Rumor)

[sxegloxx]

I SRSLY hope that AMD comes out with something Astonishing. These CPU PRICES are REDICULOUS. Yes I said it. I remember the days when 1 Year later prices would come down 50% than A year earlier. We need competition in the market place. AMD's Recent offerings have done NOTHING for consumer prices.

All the fanboy comments in this thread are frankly pathetic and short cited. If AMD goes out of business or continues to deliver sub par products, Intel will have the market power to bleed the consumer for everysingle generation of architecture.

 

[RussianSensation]

We need a new company to give Intel competition, because aMd is really down and out. I can't remember the last time one of these companies was this much better for such a long time. Its been this way since Conroe. Its going on 7 years with NO sign of letting up. I actually think aMd is going to be done with desktop CPUs pretty soon as they make no sense to buy anymore. They will focus on lots of low power, low cost, low performance mobile garbage.

Like who? IBM tried, failed. There is no one left. ARM Holdings, maybe in 5 years.

You gotta remember mobile is the future of CPUs, not desktops. If AMD can design a much more power efficient CPU, and put that into laptops, smartphones or tablets, then who cares about desktop CPUs. The problem is they sold that design to Qualcomm years ago. Now they pretty much have to come up with an entirely new CPU design for smartphones/tablets and continue to improve desktops.

IF AMD stops designing CPUs in general, it's game over for the company. Then what you have is $500 Intel CPUs and $800-1000 NV GPUs. Also, you telling AMD they suck isn't helping matters. Not like their CEO reads AT posts.

Phenom I was terrible and Phenom II sold alright. AMD can make some improvements and get Bulldozer to at least decent level. It won't beat Haswell but a lot of people still use a CPU for things other than games. In multi-threaded tasks, an improved BD would be able to better compete with a 3570/3770k.

TrueCrypt 1 and 2.
7-zip compression and decompression
X264 video encoding
Cinebench multi-threaded
Pov-Ray rendering

Bulldozer is actually pretty good for multi-threaded tasks. It's because it's so much slower for games and uses so much power that it is unpopular for gamers. Otherwise, the design is not as bad as people make it sound. Regardless, this is the same case as NV vs. AMD. Even if AMD made a processor that's as fast, the average person would still buy Intel anyway. AMD would need to outperform Intel substantially (like Athlon 64/X2 days) or continue to compete on price. The Intel brand name is too strong. It won't be enough for AMD to just match Intel. Even during Athlon XP+/Athlon64 days, Pentium 4 Williamette/Northwood/Prescott still sold, despite all of those being inferior to Athlon XP+/Athlon 64 CPUs.

 

[iCyborg]

You gotta remember mobile is the future of CPUs, not desktops. If AMD can design a much more power efficient CPU, and put that into laptops, smartphones or tablets, then who cares about desktop CPUs. The problem is they sold that design to Qualcomm years ago. Now they pretty much have to come up with an entirely new CPU design for smartphones/tablets and continue to improve desktops.

What they sold was ATI's mobile graphics business though, they never really had smartphone/tablet type of CPU until Hondo which is not yet at the TDP level tablets want. They'll probably stick with X86, unfortunately for them, that's what Intel is doing too, and they have node advantage over everybody right now.

 

[Homeles]

I SRSLY hope that AMD comes out with something Astonishing. These CPU PRICES are REDICULOUS. Yes I said it. I remember the days when 1 Year later prices would come down 50% than A year earlier. We need competition in the market place. AMD's Recent offerings have done NOTHING for consumer prices.

All the fanboy comments in this thread are frankly pathetic and short cited. If AMD goes out of business or continues to deliver sub par products, Intel will have the market power to bleed the consumer for everysingle generation of architecture.

I don't think they're ridiculous at all. Could they come down a little? Yeah. But a performance CPU is much cheaper than a top of the line GPU.

Sure, more competition would be nice, but at this point it's not happening anytime soon. Vishera is pretty much going to be what Ivy Bridge was for Sandy Bridge... perhaps a slightly better. Perf/watt will probably increase considerably, but don't expect miracles with performance. See Trinity reviews if you're doubtful.

Also, your doomsday scenario is not possible. There are regulations spanning multiple countries that would prevent Intel from having a monopoly.

 

[frozentundra123456]

I cannot believe this is a serious post.

anyways as Russiansensation wrote, if AMD don't try then we're screwed as shown by the prices of CPUs when Intel were behind.

I am not being sarcastic, really. But would you or Russiansensation explain how what happened when Intel was behind is indicative of what will happen if they are too far ahead?

Basically what that proved to me was that AMD pushed prices to the limit when they were ahead, just like Intel may or may not do if AMD falls farther behind or goes out of business. I agree we need competition, but I am not sure how that is related to the time when AMD was ahead. There was competition then too. Actually at that time Intel was probably more competitive with AMD than AMD is with intel now, yet prices were sky high.

As others have stated in many posts, even if Intel were a complete monopoly (which the government would not allow) they cant raise prices too far without cutting into sales volume.

 

[guskline]

AMDs problems are so multifaceted you really wonder whether or not they will just leave the high end CPU market and let Intel control it.

 

[bryanW1995]

If thats true then they should be almost as fast as a phenom 2 by 2014.

You just earned 10 internet points!

Seriously, I think that I might have to buy a piledriver b/c it could very well be the last hurrah for AMD. Maybe I'll wait until they go on clearance, though...

 

[Idontcare]

AMDs problems are so multifaceted you really wonder whether or not they will just leave the high end CPU market and let Intel control it.

I thought AMD left the high end CPU market years ago, 6 yrs ago to be more precise. Intel has controlled the high-end in terms of both price and performance since conroe debuted in 2006.

 

[guskline]

I thought AMD left the high end CPU market years ago, 6 yrs ago to be more precise. Intel has controlled the high-end in terms of both price and performance since conroe debuted in 2006.

Good point. I stand corrected.

 

[RussianSensation]

As others have stated in many posts, even if Intel were a complete monopoly (which the government would not allow) they cant raise prices too far without cutting into sales volume.

There are other ways Intel is ripping you off, you just haven't been paying attention. Instead of raising prices, they are giving you less die space, (i.e., less performance than what should have been).

When Intel thought AMD was still competitive, Nehalem/Lynnfield had ~ 300mm^2 die sizes. That was 2008-2009 before they knew how terrible Bulldozer was. Since then AMD has been falling behind and Intel has been selling us less performance than it normally would have. When Pentium 4 added HT, and Athlon 64 slaughtered it, Intel was giving away HT for "free". There was no $100 premium for Pentium 4 HT chips during that era. Intel couldn't possibly be able to afford that. Now they charge $100 for basically just that and 100mhz more in the 3770K. :thumbsdown:

Also, we have had Q6600 quad-core for $300 or so around August 2007 (that's when I got mine for $300 CDN). Fast forward 6 years later and Intel will continue to sell Haswell for $300 as yet another quad-core. Now you may say that most programs don't benefit from quad-cores so why would Intel make Haswell a hexa-core for $300? Well they do sell 3930-3960 for $500-1000. There you go. If AMD was competitive, there is no way Intel would have been able to pull that off. They'd have to sell a hexa-core for $300. So we are already suffering believe it or not. Based on that graph above, Intel had no problem selling me a 300mm^2 Core i7 860 for $330. So where is my $330 Hexa-core 300mm^2 Haswell? I bet it'll be again $500+.....

You just earned 10 internet points!
Seriously, I think that I might have to buy a piledriver b/c it could very well be the last hurrah for AMD. Maybe I'll wait until they go on clearance, though...

Not trying to be a salesmen, but there is a legitimate way to help AMD stay in business. Instead of wasting $ on their CPUs, buy their GPUs instead. Unlike throwing $ at their slow CPUs you don't really give up GPU performance, make $ bitcoin mining on the side, and boy AMD GPUs in double precision distributed computing projects make NV cards look like prehistoric dinosaurs. I looked at your DC production the other day (164,919 BOINC points per week), it's weak! A single HD6950 would make more than that in MilkyWay@Home in 1 day! For you it could be almost a no brainer unless you must stay attached to your specific DC projects (Folding@H, Seti@H). Otherwise, you'd get a card that pays for itself and when mining fails, you still have a card that crushes NV cards in DC points. You could then still use the CPU for some of those DC project that don't benefit much from GPU speed in the first place.

 

[Rvenger]

Without AMD we will lack innovation. It takes 2 companies to tango. lol

 

[Idontcare]

Without AMD we will lack innovation. It takes 2 companies to tango. lol

Intel strangled their competition with restrictive x86 licensing structures. You can no more blame AMD than Via or Transmeta.

What we lack is ISA diversity. ARM is bringing that to the game, as are HSA, GPGPU, Oracle (SPARC) and IBM (Power).

Anyone attempting to play Intel's game finds out they must do so with Intel's rules, and the house always sets the rules so that the house always wins. Every CPU company that has attempted to make a buck in x86 has found out the hard way that Intel knew exactly what it was doing.

Innovation as far as the consumer is concerned will come when Intel's x86-enabled dominance has competition, not when Intel has competition within x86.

 

[Bill Brasky]

These CPU PRICES are RIDICULOUS. Yes I said it. I remember the days when 1 Year later prices would come down 50% than A year earlier.

How much do you demand CPU's cost? Your argument doesn't hold water because there are plenty of affordable offerings from both AMD and Intel that can perform the vast majority of task the average consumer needs. Just because you don't have any interest in those SKU's doesn't mean they aren't a great solution for %95 of the population. It appears that you are mad simply because the CPU's *you want* are still 'expensive.'

Dual core Pentium = $49
http://www.microcenter.com/product/388574/Pentium_G630_27GHz_LGA_1155_Processor#

Dual core i3 = $99
http://www.microcenter.com/product/396286/Core_i3_2120_LGA1155_330_GHz_Boxed_Processor

Quad core i5 3450 = $149
http://www.microcenter.com/product/388579/Core_i5_3450_31GHz_LGA_1155_Processor

Quad core AMD 965 BE = $89
http://www.microcenter.com/product/325874/Phenom_II_X4_965_Black_Edition_34GHz_Boxed_Processor

 

[bononos]

Intel strangled their competition with restrictive x86 licensing structures. You can no more blame AMD than Via or Transmeta.
.......

What are some of the restrictive licensing roadblocks you mentioned? By not allowing competitors to copy SSE4/5?

 

[Lonyo]

What are some of the restrictive licensing roadblocks you mentioned? By not allowing competitors to copy SSE4/5?

Well, there was a lot of legal wrangling even over AMD spinning off GF into its own company, since it meant AMD would no longer have their own manufacturing, which Intel argued would break the licensing agreement.

Intel haven't exactly played nicely.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Innovation as far as the consumer is concerned will come when Intel's x86-enabled dominance has competition, not when Intel has competition within x86.

Bingo, people so wrongly think we need x86 competitors.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Well, there was a lot of legal wrangling even over AMD spinning off GF into its own company, since it meant AMD would no longer have their own manufacturing, which Intel argued would break the licensing agreement.

Intel haven't exactly played nicely.

Neither did AMD for example when it directly made a ripoff copying Intels CPUs.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

Neither did AMD for example when it directly made a ripoff copying Intels CPUs.

Umm....you might want to read through that one again, it's not even clear what you were trying to say. If you're talking about the 286,386 and 486 "clones" they were actually licensed designs, much like (but definitely not identical to) how ARM currently runs. The biggest difference was that intel was producing these chips as well at the time, but knew they demand would outstrip capacity. It was actually mutually beneficial as it allowed x86 to become the dominate ISA while Amd,Cyrix, TI and IBM (and maybe others, I'm just going off the top of my head and I'm only 28 so it isn't like this all was going on in my teen years or something) got to make some easy money. Of course we know this changed with the release of the Pentium.

 

[NTMBK]

Bingo, people so wrongly think we need x86 competitors.

Really? You think that having multiple competing ISAs in the desktop space is going to be good for the customer in the short term?

 

[Homeles]

Really? You think that having multiple competing ISAs in the desktop space is going to be good for the customer in the short term?

Where'd he say short term?

 

[Idontcare]

Really? You think that having multiple competing ISAs in the desktop space is going to be good for the customer in the short term?

Competing ISAs are only a problem for the consumer if the existence of the underlying heterogeneous nature of the hardware itself is not rendered transparent to the consumer.

That job is left up to the OS programmers and the app programmers (compiling tools).

This is where the consumers have also suffered because of Microsoft's monopoly. Wintel.

Go back 10-15 yrs and at least you had some choice in the consumer space owing to Apple's use of the PowerPC ISA and IBM's willingness to field OS/2 Warp.

As soon as Wintel really got their act together in the mid-90s the need for the OS to be metal-agnostic dissipated, completed by introducing the looming threat of Itanium which was enough to destroy confidence and mindshare of the future of existing competing ISA's such as MIPS, PA-RISC, and Alpha.

And so you are absolutely correct. If the consumer is forced to deal with the heterogeneous nature of competing ISAs, with lack of portable apps and so forth, then simply having alternative ISAs is a dead-end.

Basically Wintel will have a stranglehold on the consumer marketspace so long as they are allowed to continue to operate as they have for the past 20yrs.

At this time the only credible competition on the horizon is ARM and Google. Both Intel's and Microsoft's reaction to the threat of the mobile device segment is telling, they both know what to be paranoid of.

 

[NTMBK]

However, as Microsoft's decision to re-emphasise native code of late demonstrates, apps portable across ISAs just don't have the same speed as native code. (By this I mean multi-platform binaries, like Java, not portable code which needs to be recompiled.) By ignoring the actual metal the code is running on, you sacrifice performance.

 

[Idontcare]

By ignoring the actual metal the code is running on, you sacrifice performance.

Neither Intel nor Microsoft ascended to their market dominance by fielding high performing products with respect to those offered by the incumbent players.

In fact both were poorly regarded by the incumbents in their respective markets, much like Detroit's take on those cheap Toyota's and Honda's coming out of Japan in the early 70's.

The threat to Intel and Microsoft is not high-performing competition. The threat is inexpensive low-margin competition as neither company knows how to economically compete in such an environment. Neither did the big-3 in Detroit, nor did American steel before them.

The biggest threat to Wintel is that someone will beat them at their own game, albeit by taking a page out of their book from 25 yrs ago, no different than how they beat IBM and DEC back then as well.

 

[happysmiles]

Maybe there is more to this ARM/AMD deal with HSA.

 

[Jadow]

If AMD goes out of business or continues to deliver sub par products, Intel will have the market power to bleed the consumer for everysingle generation of architecture.

100% agree, no matter which side you're on, having Intel and AMD battling it out, and a strong AMD is good for EVERYONE!