Why have AMD APUs failed on the market?

[Sweepr]

Apparently they dont care for CPU perfs assuming it s an Intel Baytrail, the lower performing part of the market...

Bay Trail quads are a lot faster CPU-wise than old dual-core Atoms and C/E-Series Bobcat APUs that many people still use as their main PCs, not to mention craptops like this. You can also find them everywhere, from pen drive-sized PCs on a stick to fanless desktops at very low prices, hence why they are attractive.

... suddenly the level at wich CPU perf is deemed acceptable is much reduced to fit your double standard, well below AMD CPUs but thoses ones have no right to be good enough, isnt it...

Bay Trail-D performs almost the same as Beema in CPU-only benchmarks: www.anandtech.com/show/8067/amd-am1-kabini-part-2-athlon-53505150-and-sempron-38502650-tested/3

If BT is crap CPU-wise, then Beema is not much better, does that fit your double standards? I'd rather take a dual-core Haswell Pentium than BT/Beema as a cheap desktop CPU anyday but they are still faster than many PCs out there.

Ps: If you have a problem with me or my posts (or simply inferiority complex) send a PM instead of thread crapping every single Intel/AMD thread, please, that makes you look completely sick.

 

[MisterLilBig]

I wouldn't say bad products.

But really, why hasn't there been AMD tablets?

Again, I have not seen anything around. I would have loved the HP Stream 14 SoC on a tablet form factor, its a tablet SoC!


AMD has everything but end to end products.


Entertainment devices need and use GPU performance. Someone made the comment about gaming consoles; what are smartphones, tablets, htpc's and laptops used for?

Web browsing, video gaming, movie watching/streaming, music and homework.
All of them use the GPU, mostly, in every way, with the least being 'homework'. All of them would have been better on an AMD APU and cheaper.


I can't buy a product I can't even find.

 

[tential]

Its quite clear that AMD havent learned a single thing since their K8 success. And its shining through all their segments.

The complete lack of focus on performance/watt is a huge problem for APUs, CPUs, GPUs and SoCs.

At the same time they waste precious resources on useless features like HSA and such that only looks good on paper. They was late to the integrated IGP as well: Completely wasting their ATI purchase in that regard instead of capitalising on it.

The uarch failure for the big core is again based on their feverish wishes of coming back into the server space. And the current cores in development shows they still havent learned anything and will just be even more painful in the future.

And all them suffers from the too much IGP focus for something that isnt there to begin with. Its too slow to be useful. And its too fast for the basic tasks its supposed to handle.

It just seems its a company completely out of touch with the consumers/OEMs.

Throw all this together with horrendous salesmanship and that's why APUs failed.

There are so FEW places I'd recommend an APU as an ideal product to someone it's mind boggling as to why AMD ever pursued the tech in the first place.

 

[Blitzvogel]

Throw all this together with horrendous salesmanship and that's why APUs failed.

There are so FEW places I'd recommend an APU as an ideal product to someone it's mind boggling as to why AMD ever pursued the tech in the first place.

AMD was bargaining on the idea that the GPU could handle all tasks that CPU SIMD and FPUs do with the same ease and simplicity of an x86 CPU core but at a much faster rate. That was and still is the dream. So, instead it became just about SoC type integration and added value for consumers. In the process, AMD lost position due to protracted development and over engineering something that would not be used in the way it was marketed to be used as (heavy GPU/GPGPU SIMD use).

The APUs are good for laptops and small desktops if you're in the market for a cheap gaming setup. The problem is that no self respecting person who wants to game would settle for such things. So essentially, they are too good GPU wise for the lower end market that might buy them but doesn't game, but too weak CPU wise to compete with Intel in the upper space.

 

[jpiniero]

Nvidia is breaking revenue record after revenue record, partially because of growth in the gamer market.

Hardcore gaming is still tiny in the scheme of things.

I wouldn't say bad products.
But really, why hasn't there been AMD tablets?

With Intel's contra-revenue, there is literally no reason for OEMs to bother.

 

[Avalon]

Because there were no price mistakes listed in the hot deals forum.

 

[scannall]

One of my laptops has the A8-4500m. And I've been quite happy with it. Decent little CPU. It zips through the tasks I use it for just fine, and for the money it was a bargain. A little light to medium gaming on the side, and it handles that fine as well.

 

[Zstream]

I frankly don't think it has anything to do with IPC or wattage use. I just think it's terrible marketing and the fact that we're at the race to the bottom.

 

[III-V]

I don't think AMD was flawed in their decision to promote APUs as The Next Big Thing.™ It was the logical thing to do, really. In fact, I think they'd be much worse off if they hadn't done so. Would OEMs even pick AMD at all if they were only available as a discrete GPU+CPU? I highly doubt they would have.

Really, AMD would have gone out of business much earlier if they'd not gone this route. They'd be even less competitive from a cost standpoint -- a CPU +iGPU is cheaper than a CPU + dGPU, as well as being worse on power/thermals.

To say APUs were "a bad idea" for AMD, IMO, would mean it was a bad idea for Intel as well. I don't think it was a bad decision for either company.

I think AMD's primary issue was that they just weren't competitive, and that was due to other factors. They had a process disadvantage, they were stuck with the most underperforming and incompetent fab out of the "big four" (so really, a doubly bad process disadvantage), they couldn't compete on price due to the above. Because of Bulldozer, they couldn't compete on performance either, nor could they compete on perf/watt nor power.

The foundation for which a competitive product could be built upon just was not there. I also think AMD was too liberal in its use of GPU area... and they even bragged about the fact that they'd wasted literally millions on something that was massive overkill to their likely buyers/victims.

But really, other than bloating their die with the GPU, and using Bulldozer-family cores, I don't take issue with anything AMD did with their APUs.

 

[bigboxes]

Like others have said, it's about the race to the bottom. Most today are buying smartphones, phablets and tablets. It's good enough for their usage. As a pc tech I hate it. But it is what it is.

I bought an A4-3300 APU (2.5Ghz Trinity) to rebuild my file server. I didn't need a powerful processor for my home and just bought the slowest dual-core APU I could find. The lower platform cost was just what I needed as video was unimportant and I didn't have to get a separate video card. I got a great deal on the processor and mobo on Newegg. I just reused my P180, sata II pci cards and Seasonic psu.

My wife's dual-core X2 finally gave up the ghost after 8 years. Found a great deal on a A10-7850k. Cheaper platform than the Intel equivalent. The gpu is all she'll ever need. She doesn't game and occasionally outputs to the bedroom HDTV. Thing is rock solid reliable and with a cheap SSD boots to Windows 7 in 8 seconds.

Other than casual users, gamers are not going to want an AMD APU. They are going to get a dGPU anyways and they will be able to get a better CPU for the same cost by going Intel.

 

[Abwx]

AMD products are good and adapted for the bulk of consumers usages, better overall than Intel, the problem is that it seems that they dont realize that they are facing the two firms that rely the most on viral marketing out of all tech firms, i named Nvidia and Intel, just look at this forum, or this thread for instance...

 

[cbn]

To say APUs were "a bad idea" for AMD, IMO, would mean it was a bad idea for Intel as well. I don't think it was a bad decision for either company.

For desktop, I think large iGPUs are pretty much a bad idea for both AMD and Intel at this time. Its just that Intel has an easier time getting away with it due to process advantage and the K CPUs not being as price sensitive as AMD's cpus.

But if a day ever came where Intel had a strong competitor on desktop (maybe ARM), I think those large iGPUs on desktop will be the first thing that needs to go. (ie, it might not be x86 decoder penalty that tips the battle to ARM in that segment, but rather other types of "die penalties").

For mobile, larger iGPUs are a different story...but I still question how large those need to go even for the low voltage consumer chips (where increasing iGPU die area up to a point increases performance per watt).

 

[Abwx]

For desktop, I think large iGPUs are pretty much a bad idea for both AMD and Intel at this time. Its just that Intel has an easier time getting away with it due to process advantage and the K CPUs not being as price sensitive as AMD's cpus.

Any PC can process the usuals tasks of most consumers and big majority of DT using IGPs and gaming is certainly much more practiced by the average joe than encoding or other renderings, isnt it.

Most played games :

http://www.statista.com/statistics/251222/most-played-pc-games/

Behaviour in the most popular game of an A8 7600 and an i3 4150 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Akdz8fJI0

If i was to buy new low cost PCs for my children certainly that i wouldnt buy a CPU that is not capable of providing them gaming usages decently.

 

[CHADBOGA]

AMD products are good and adapted for the bulk of consumers usages, better overall than Intel, the problem is that it seems that they dont realize that they are facing the two firms that rely the most on viral marketing out of all tech firms, i named Nvidia and Intel, just look at this forum, or this thread for instance...

LOL. Always the conspiracy of "viral marketing"

I guess it was just viral marketing that has made me stay away from AMD CPU's, yet happy to have AMD/ATI GPU's in my system?

AMD's CPU's don't remotely come close to offering me what I want, nor am I going to inflict them on any friend I build computers for.

No matter how you want to spin it, AMD CPU's right now, are almost always a terrible choice for regular desktop users, unless for some reason you could only choose out of AMD and VIA.

It is plain as day why AMD is struggling badly on the CPU front in the market and it has nothing to do with "viral marketing".

Hell, there is heaps of "viral marketing" from people like you, that might trick some poor newbie into buying an AMD CPU.

 

[Abwx]

LOL. Always the conspiracy of "viral marketing"

I guess it was just viral marketing that has made me stay away from AMD CPU's, yet happy to have AMD/ATI GPU's in my system?

AMD's CPU's don't remotely come close to offering me what I want, nor am I going to inflict them on any friend I build computers for.

No matter how you want to spin it, AMD CPU's right now, are almost always a terrible choice for regular desktop users, unless for some reason you could only choose out of AMD and VIA.

It is plain as day why AMD is struggling badly on the CPU front in the market and it has nothing to do with "viral marketing".

Hell, there is heaps of "viral marketing" from people like you, that might trick some poor newbie into buying an AMD CPU.

LOL.

I ll give you a hint, Intel even buy a few AMD CPU as a mean to do viral marketing in big online stores like they did in early January here in France.

When you buy a product you are allowed to post your opinion on said product, on early january a wave of strange buyers did post messages claiming that they bought several same APUs and as much as 5 MBs for this APU but that nothing did work, they continue by saying that the integrated IGP doesnt work at all and that nothing is displayed on the screen with no boot and bla bla bla, all possible lies that are contradicted by other buyers and of course all messages of thoses viral marketers end by "buy Intel" explicitely written.

 

[monstercameron]

LOL.

I ll give you a hint, Intel even buy a few AMD CPU as a mean to do viral marketing in big online stores like they did in early January here in France.

When you buy a product you are allowed to post your opinion on said product, on early january a wave of strange buyers did post messages claiming that they bought several same APUs and as much as 5 MBs for this APU but that nothing did work, they continue by saying that the integrated IGP doesnt work at all and that nothing is displayed on the screen with no boot and bla bla bla, all possible lies that are contradicted by other buyers and of course all messages of thoses viral marketers end by "buy Intel" explicitely written.

intel wouldn't do that, not worth it.

 

[Abwx]

intel wouldn't do that, not worth it.

It is one the biggest online store here, there was no such bizzaro claims previously to this viral campaign, what is incredible are the numbers of lies to spread FUD, i just cliked on such a message and here what it says exactly :

"Look elsewhere.

It seems that the AM1 socket is not working, already 5 motherboards and two APUs in different stores and same results.

Nothing is displayed on the screen so it s impossible to install anything like an OS, no post, no boot, no bios.
Look like the new gen IGP is not working at all, nothing displayed either on VGA, HDMI or DVI-D, i used several panel unsuccessfully since december 1.

Swindling on a world scale."

The products targeted are the best selling products.

 

[lopri]

I swear there is always at least one of these threads every time I come here and I initially think it's an old thread. But I am wrong every time and it's a new thread every time.

 

[cbn]

Any PC can process the usuals tasks of most consumers and big majority of DT using IGPs and gaming is certainly much more practiced by the average joe than encoding or other renderings, isnt it.

Most played games :

http://www.statista.com/statistics/251222/most-played-pc-games/

Behaviour in the most popular game of an A8 7600 and an i3 4150 :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Akdz8fJI0

If i was to buy new low cost PCs for my children certainly that i wouldnt buy a CPU that is not capable of providing them gaming usages decently.

For the lower end games I actually like a discounted Windows 7 SFF Core 2 box with a surplus Xeon quad core and dGPU. (I built one with x3323 and ASUS GT630 for around $100 using this as my foundation)

But if using new hardware I would rather see a Celeron G18xx with dGPU (rather than Core i3 and iGPU) compared to that A8-7600.

 

[Abwx]

But if using new hardware I would rather see a Celeron G18xx with dGPU (rather than Core i3 and iGPU) compared to that A8-7600.

But you ll have to compromise too much the CPU performance, a 7600 is quite better than an Haswell Celeron/Pentium, indeed Hardware.fr doesnt even list thoses latter in their charts as they deem them unworthy of being bought, the minimum being i3s for Intel and 4C APUs for AMD.

 

[cbn]

But you ll have to compromise too much the CPU performance, a 7600 is quite better than an Haswell Celeron/Pentium, indeed Hardware.fr doesnt even list thoses latter in their charts as they deem them unworthy of being bought, the minimum being i3s for Intel and 4C APUs for AMD.

I use a overclocked Pentium G3258 and those processors compare quite favorably to overclocked Athlon x4 860Ks in games.

Therefore if comparing to a stock clocked A8-7600 (which is clocked low), all that should be needed is the relatively low clocked Haswell Celeron (plus dGPU).

 

[frozentundra123456]

Time for the tinfoil hats. At least the thread did contain some civil discussion for a time.

 

[Idontcare]

With Intel's contra-revenue, there is literally no reason for OEMs to bother.

Without the contra-revenue the OEMs would not bother making Intel tablets either.

The program is about enabling OEMs to take a chance at making Intel tablets that price-compete with ARM-based tablets, not about keeping AMD out.

As for AMD's failure to fully capitalize on their APU tech, the fault clearly rests with Dirk Meyer and the misguided strategy of placing the server market as top priority and focus (bulldozer and the pipeline of SKUs after that) at the expense of making it a clear internal priority to go after the APU market.

Intel is no better. The atom-based SKUs clearly play second-fiddle to the primary focus that is big core SKUs.

Focus at AMD was set at the top, it was the priority for marketing, engineering, sales, etc. Yes APUs were also a product, but not the primary product or focus, and that set the tune for the bulk of AMD's employees.

Nowadays their internal focus is clearly APU, but with a 4yr development pipeline it will take time before this becomes clear to the end-user.

 

[erunion]

In recent history, at least, AMDs problem is they built their products based on what strengths they had versus Intel, instead of worrying about what products the market demanded.

Ironically, they would probably have done better by shadowing Intel. Intel has done a good job following marker demand/trends, while AMDs strategy to differentiate themselves from intel put them off track from the market.

Part of that strategy was the spec sheet marketing towards "more cores, more hertz". If AMD had simply followed intel towards efficiency instead they'd likely be better off today, no need for AMD to ever actually catch Intel.

 

[Abwx]

I use a overclocked Pentium G3258 and those processors compare quite favorably to overclocked Athlon x4 860Ks in games.

Therefore if comparing to a stock clocked A8-7600 (which is clocked low), all that should be needed is the relatively low clocked Haswell Celeron (plus dGPU).

The point is PCs with APUs, these are the vast majority of PC sold currently, if one ask me what mass produced such PC to buy between an Intel and an AMD i ll ask him what are his usage, you can be sure that it will be youtube, facebook or other tweeters, VLC, a few games and so on.

Both brands will perform correctly for generic usages but once games are introduced Intel s APUs become irrelevant for such PCs, they are relevant only if used for office applications but certainly not for general purpose familial PCs.

In recent history, at least, AMDs problem is they built their products based on what strengths they had versus Intel, instead of worrying about what products the market demanded.

The market demand what i pointed above, perhaps i need to quote it again :

youtube, facebook or other tweeters, VLC, a few games and so on.

AMD APUs are good for all thoses basics tasks but not Intel s APUs, now point me something generic that AMD APUs would be mediocre at processing if you can...