Hell has frozen over, Fudzilla Both Microsoft and Intel trying to acquire AMD

[mrmt]

It seems readily apparent that AMD faces nothing but negative cash flow in their current situation. A cash infusion COULD change things, which is supposed to be what the Silver Lake deal was all about, assuming there's any truth to it.

I was talking about negative cash flows in the context of a generic valuation. In AMD's case the market cap is so low because the IP they can monetize must be deducted from the negative cash flows.

But I disagree that a cash infusion can change things. This BoD along with some of the executive members, Lisa Su included, have been burning cash like crazy in the last few years and they can't seem to turn the company around, give more money to them and expect a different result seems akin to the definition of insanity to me. AMD needs new management, top to bottom. Bring in guys that know how to manage a company and give these guys money and AMD will turn around.

*shrugs* Depends on who the investor blames for the board's failures. If they blame people like Dirk Meyer and Rory Read then maybe they'll give Su the nod and invest. If they blame the hangers-on that are still there . . . no, they won't throw them any money.

Those two guys were the public face of two AMD debacles (Bulldozer, Ambidextrous) but by no means they were alone conceiving it let alone executing it, and no strategy as big as these two could be executed without express authorization of the BoD. No one with billions on the account would be dumb enough to buy these sacrificial lambs while preserving the rest of the BoD.

 

[mrmt]

There are more options than discussed here: make smaller dies and combine if necessary with some $25 interposer. Aren't ARMs GPUs performance scaled by using multiple fragment processor instances?

If this interposer option was really that good why isn't Nvidia trying it now? Or even AMD? Given the critically low volumes of AMD today, that could be an option for them.

 

[frozentundra123456]

And here comes DX-12 games and all those iGPUs (HD3000, HD4000, HD4600, HD6000) are becoming obsolete. And people with those CPUs (Sandy/Ivy/Haswell etc) will need a new DX-12 dGPU upgrade from 2016 and onward.

dGPUs will never die.

Or they will just keep playing non demanding games like LOL, CS, DOTA, etc. Like they are now on those igps.

But I agree that dgpus will be around a long time for demanding games.

 

[Erenhardt]

Wrong. Performance/watt is just one of these examples where AMD is horrible behind. Having to use 600mm2 dies to compete with 398mm2 shows exactly whats wrong.

Perf/clock is actually pretty good.
TitanX is 600mm2 so I don't know where 398mm2 comes from.

 

[mrmt]

Perf/clock is actually pretty good.
TitanX is 600mm2 so I don't know where 398mm2 comes from.

GTX970/980 are 398mm^2.

 

[AtenRa]

GTX970/980 are 398mm^2.

And R9 390/390X is 430mm2

so ??

 

[AtenRa]

Or they will just keep playing non demanding games like LOL, CS, DOTA, etc. Like they are now on those igps.

But I agree that dgpus will be around a long time for demanding games.

Those games will evolve (DOTA 2 on Vulcan and DX-12) or new DX-12 games will be released making a DX-12 dGPU upgrade the only option.

Others will like to play new different gender games and again a DX-12 dGPU upgrade will be the best option.

 

[ShintaiDK]

And R9 390/390X is 430mm2

so ??

390/390X cant compete in performance/watt.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Those games will evolve (DOTA 2 on Vulcan and DX-12) or new DX-12 games will be released making a DX-12 dGPU upgrade the only option.

Others will like to play new different gender games and again a DX-12 dGPU upgrade will be the best option.

Lets see when all these DX12 games without DX11 options will come.

And Dota 2 today is DX9.

 

[Sweepr]

390/390X cant compete in performance/watt.

It's basically a furnace next to the OCing friendly and power efficient Geforce GTX980.

The HBM gimmick didn't help much either, GTX980 Ti is a better card next to Fury X.

And that's coming from someone using ATI/AMD dGPUs for >10 years.

 

[AtenRa]

390/390X cant compete in performance/watt.

It sure can in DX-12.

 

[ShintaiDK]

It sure can in DX-12.

And you base that entirely on an alpha benchmark of the AMD sponsored AOTS.

Good luck with that.

 

[AtenRa]

Lets see when all these DX12 games without DX11 options will come.

And Dota 2 today is DX9.

First of all, HD3000 and HD4000 cannot play DOTA 2 at high IQ settings in 1080p even in DX-9. HD4600 may get more than 30fps on average (no AA) but it will not be pleasant experience.

So all of those are DX-12 dGPU upgrade customers

 

[ShintaiDK]

First of all HD3000 and HD4000 cannot play DOTA 2 at high IQ settings in 1080p even in DX-9. HD4600 may get more than 30fps on average (no AA) but it will not be pleasant experience.

So all of those are DX-12 dGPU upgrade customers

Oh no, not at high IQ at 1080p. What a disaster!

If it cant run 4K 144hz with extreme settings its just useless and you should upgrade.

You dont seem to have a problem with lower IQ settings when it favours an APU.

 

[AtenRa]

And you base that entirely on an alpha benchmark of the AMD sponsored AOTS.

Good luck with that.

I base that for every DX-12 game that will support Async Compute.

 

[Enigmoid]

And here comes DX-12 games and all those iGPUs (HD3000, HD4000, HD4600, HD6000) are becoming obsolete. And people with those CPUs (Sandy/Ivy/Haswell etc) will need a new DX-12 dGPU upgrade from 2016 and onward.

dGPUs will never die.

Lol, HD 3000 is not DX11 compatible.

Sorry, but these igps have so little horsepower they they will be limited by their puny shader arrays long before they hit API limitations.

 

[AtenRa]

Oh no, not at high IQ at 1080p. What a disaster!

If it cant run 4K 144hz with extreme settings its just useless and you should upgrade.

You dont seem to have a problem with lower IQ settings when it favours an APU.

Number one, most AMD APUs even older ones like 2011 Llano A8-3870K can play DOTA 2 at high IQ 1080p.

Number two, it is different to talk about DOTA 2 IQ settings at 1080p and another thing to talk about playing AAA games at low IQ settings 1080p.

The fact remains, all those people with Intel iGPUs are DX-12 dGPU upgrade customers. Not all of them will need or want to upgrade, but their numbers are huge and even a small percentage of them are counting millions of dGPU upgrades.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Number one, most AMD APUs even older ones like 2011 Llano A8-3870K can play DOTA 2 at high IQ 1080p.

Number two, it is different to talk about DOTA 2 IQ settings at 1080p and another thing to talk about playing AAA games at low IQ settings 1080p.

The fact remains, all those people with Intel iGPUs are DX-12 dGPU upgrade customers. Not all of them will need or want to upgrade, but their numbers are huge and even a small percentage of them are counting millions of dGPU upgrades.

You should take a look:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Now tell me how many play at 1080p or above. And note what sections grows.

The upgrade path for the vast majority of these is a new IGP based laptop or desktop.

IGP usage went up around 4% base YoY on Steam.

And just to show that you need to stop thinking traditionally.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/

Dualcores up, quadcores down.

This is reality.

 

[AtenRa]

You should take a look:
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Now tell me how many play at 1080p or above. And note what sections grows.

The upgrade path for the vast majority of these is a new IGP based laptop or desktop.

So you are going to recommend to someone with a IvyBridge HD4000 to upgrade to a Skylake iGPU (Motherboard + Memory + CPU) to play games ??

Or

You will recommend a $80-100 or even higher dGPU upgrade ???

 

[ShintaiDK]

So you are going to recommend to someone with a IvyBridge HD4000 to upgrade to a Skylake iGPU (Motherboard + Memory + CPU) to play games ??

Or

You will recommend a $80-100 or even higher dGPU upgrade ???

1. You assume they dont use a laptop.
2. You assume they are willing to upgrade their monitor as well. ~60% are sub 1080p
3. You assume they are able to fit/install a dGPU in whatever 4-5 year old OEM desktop.

Even quadcores on steam is on retreat.

 

[AtenRa]

And just to show that you need to stop thinking traditionally.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/cpus/

Dualcores up, quadcores down.

This is reality.

This is only the Steam monthly survey, steam doesnt include the entire Global Gaming hardware.

So dont take Steam as source for hardware used in the entire Gaming market.

 

[ShintaiDK]

This is only the Steam monthly survey, steam doesnt include the entire Global Gaming hardware.

So dont take Steam as source for hardware used in the entire Gaming market.

Are you saying Steams 125million+ users isnt statistically accurate for the broad base of gamers?

Whats next, dGPU sales isnt in free fall?

 

[pablo87]

Fundamentally,

Demand for GPU processing will continue to grow. Silicon dedicated to GPU processing will continue to grow, dedicated or integrated with the processor.

Memory has been a bottleneck for many, many years. This is finally being addressed with HBM which is an inflection point for the GPU industry.

HBM is expensive now but as volume goes up, costs will come down. As costs come down, volume will go up. PC/semiconductor positive reinforcement loop 101.

I was at Gamecom in August (great show by the way). Still a lot of popular games that run on putrid integrated graphics. Its a category of its own. Huge opportunity.

ATI was a great GPU company. They did some good things within AMD initially (GCN) but eventually succumbed to the AMD wannabe virus. A spin off would do wonders for the GPU division. Its not like there is that much competition either. Their oyster will be all of graphics processing. I'm confident this will happen.

If AMD does spinoff GPU, they should restructure x86, cut 80% of overhead and just become a dev company until they catch up. Stop selling APUs for $40. I'm not confident this will transpire. More likely, they'll continue kicking the can down the road. its their modus operandi.

Scary thought: Bulldozer, Llano, Brazos were sampling 5 years ago (Brazos actually started shipping September 2010 I believe) I believe.

 

[AtenRa]

1. You assume they dont use a laptop.
2. You assume they are willing to upgrade their monitor as well. ~60% are sub 1080p
3. You assume they are able to fit/install a dGPU in whatever 4-5 year old OEM desktop.

Even quadcores on steam is on retreat.

1: we are talking about desktop where you can upgrade your dGPU
2: see my post above, DONT take Steam Survey as the entire Gaming Market.
3: plenty of those Desktops (even SFF) can support a small dGPU. The numbers are huge, even a small percentage of those to upgrade and we are talking of millions of dGPUs.

 

[AtenRa]

Are you saying Steams 125million+ users isnt statistically accurate for the broad base of gamers?

Whats next, dGPU sales isnt in free fall?

I have 2-3 desktops and perhaps 1 or more Laptops.

One month the Steam survey get me when im using my Laptop, then the next moth Steam Survey got my using the SFF desktop on my TV, then the other month the Steam Survay gets me using my Gaming PC.

no need to say more.