DrMrLordX
Lifer
- Apr 27, 2000
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How quickly is Intel iterating on their architectures, how about ARM Neoverse?
Very slowly. That's the exact opposite of what AMD needs to do, and it offers them an amazing opportunity. Milan/Vermeer will be a major step up for AMD while Intel has nothing outside of 4c mobile chips. IceLake-SP still isn't here. After massive delays. Why isn't anyone gunning for Bob Swan's head at this point?
Rushing with releases is a huge risk that they shouldn’t take.
I'm not suggesting "rushing". AMD did quite well for itself between 2017-2018 on a 13-14 month release cycle; granted, Pinnacle Ridge was a relatively minor release, but they did manage to execute very well with it, on a relatively short timeline. To whit, they managed to release Pinnacle Ridge 13 months after Summit Ridge while they managed to release Picasso maybe 11 months after Raven Ridge? I forget when Raven came out exactly, but Picasso was January 2019.
Imagine this timeline:
I can stop you right there and remind you that the semicon industry moves much faster than anything else. What seems unachievable elsewhere is achievable in semicon. So moving from Zen1 to Zen4 can't be thought of as moving from an R7 rocket to a space elevator. Completely different scales of phenomena.
It's well within AMD's capabilities to have Zen4 ready in 2021. Due to the way market windows work (that is to say, they want to give Zen3 products enough time to sell through to recoup development and show a profit), there's no way AMD can feasibly move to Zen4 that quickly now. They would essentially be oprhaning their own product. Moving beyond Zen4 . . . we don't know. That hasn't shown up on any roadmaps yet (that I've seen) and there may be very good reasons for that. I don't even know if the working group for Zen5 is yet convened. The working group for Zen4 has been operating for some time now, and it's reasonable to expect that they'll show results soon. They may even be ready to start sampling chips by the end of this year, or whenever they can get some 5nm test wafers from TSMC.
Not really. K8 Opteron was an absolutely massive success from AMD and basically pushed them from 0% to 25% of server and datacenter market share in a little over 2 years. The problem was they had no real follow up to K8 after 3 years.
That's exactly what I'm saying. Despite the massive success, AMD still wound up on the rocks. They had no follow-up. They kept milking the same underlying uarch for far too long, thanks in no small part to Hector Ruiz (also, anyone remember the old K9 and K10 project(s) that never saw the light of day?).
The good thing is for AMD now is that Zen3 is here and Zen4 is on the (admittedly distant) horizon. The underlying designs are there or will be there. The process tech is already in place; TSMC is in full production on 5nm as we speak. The only thing that has to happen is for AMD to get stuck on one particular uarch again for too long. Then bad things may happen. Or if they don't, AMD gets to rehash endlessly at our expense. They get to become the monster we always hoped they'd slay.
Zen on the other hand is already on its 3rd major revision/overhaul in just over 3 years. AMD is iterating fast, and is not sitting on their laurels.
The XT launch = resting on their laurels. If Warhol is real, then in a way that also amounts to resting on their laurels.
The only way AMD is "becoming like Intel" right now, that they're working on delivering more polished platforms and processors.
They're also driving up prices. Don't pretend that they aren't.
You see and hear about ARM startups like Nuvia and others who are apparently developing their chips at a fever pace.
Honestly I don't know whether I believe any of that hype. Lots of talk, but not a lot of action.
I wasn't referring to you. I was referring to Sir Richard of the Four Realms.
Ah yes, him . . .
What? You were suggesting AMD release a processor every 12 months and not way upwards of 18 months.
If it's a substantial launch, then yes. And they certainly seem capable of doing so. The fab tech is there, the working groups are hitting their milestones. Only thing that seems lacking is firmware support.
And that they should include refreshes. All for the same ASP. How is that not like Intel?
You've got me all wrong. I don't like the product refreshes, not one bit. Not XT, not hypothetical Warhol. I 'd rather they didn't exist.
Intel may not be running on all cylinders compared to a decade ago but they certainly are not standing completely still, and AMD still need to fight to get market share in areas currently dominated by them - Renoir is just the first real opening salvo towards biting into NUC and assorted laptop segments, they are not even close to a significant piece of the pie there as yet.
Preaching to the choir. Sadly, I do not think AMD will get that market share by slowing down to an 18 month cadence from 15-month or 13-month. I don't see that the industry saying, "you need more spit-polish on your enterprise designs and platforms", I see them saying, "your Rome product is compelling, but due to problems with our hypervisor software and/or Intel bribing us through trusted vendors that our COO insists on working with, we won't buy your hardware anyway. We'll look at you again when the TCO gap is so enormous that we can't justify using Intel hardware even if they give it to us for free".
Until AMD have a dramatic cut of market share in all segments they compete with Intel for I don't expect to see them purposefully holding back on new products for any reason other than maximizing ROI from their current product R&D, which is extremely important for a company like AMD that doesn't have a humongous war chest to fall back on.
There are limits to how long any one design should be left on the market in semicon. The constant drive forward to new designs and new levels of performance is why we're all here. Matisse has been on shelves for 16 months now, and Vermeer may go beyond 18 months if it gets rehashed as Warhol (gag). Even if you would think that AMD wouldn't purposefully hold back on products, there's the possibility that they're doing it already. Those shareholders will want to see revenue. Especially the ones who bought near the top.
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