A Farewell Letter to AMD

Charles ought to consider a career in romance novels...

Seriously, though, I think that the sentiments expressed are representative of many enthusiasts and AMD is rapidly losing (our) market share to C2D as a result.

The real danger I foresee, however, in regards to AMDs continued financial health is in the server market. The relative unavailability of socket F processors and motherboards coupled with the introduction of Woodcrest Xeons can't be all that great for their position.

One can only hope that the lower cost of AMD desktop processors will allow them some inroads into the OEM market to hold things up while they (hopefully) reconsider their options.

I can see why Charles may switch to Intel right now but the way he described his relationship with his former AMD cpu's,I would at least think he would say "until next time" instead of good bye altogether.I kind of laughed while reading that article.

Well, I guess Charles is a fair weather friend. I have used AMD since 2001 and while many times it has been faster and cheaper, I use them because I will not support an Intel monopoly. If everyone does as Charles has done, in a few years Intel will stagnate and improvements will be very slow in coming. Not to mention that Intel has artificially set lower prices to try and drive AMD into the ground. What kind of prices do you think you will pay if they don't have to compete with AMD? Yes, you know I'm talking about. The competition from AMD is vital to the well being of the industry. Kill it an you will be sorry, Charlie. (My apologies to the Starkist Tuna )

So rseven should we care to speculate on how much C2D chips would cost without AMD's competition?
I've seen this posted before and I'm pretty good with prices.

No, Greenmaji, I don't want to speculate as all it would be is a total guess, but I think it's a sure thing they would be considerably more expensive.

I do agree with you that the prices apear to be artificialy low, so it does seem Intel has some intent there. To be honest, without competion they probibly wouldn't have released them yet

Well I'm loving the hell out of the artificial pricing

I do hope that AMD can help ATI on the level of drivers and power management. I would love to see some low wattage... low temperature ATI video cards. And ATI could help ATI out of being a chump.

I think when AMD took the lead they did they same thing Intel did when THEY had the lead... they rested on their laurels. The fact that they didn't have an immediate response ready for the Core 2 Duo is proof of that. I remember when these two were neck and neck and matching each other processor for processor going back to the 166mhz days. Now AMD is standing there going: "Well... uh... I guess the C2D is KINDA cool... But... uh... Fight the corporations! Down with the man! Who's with me? Anybody...? Hello? Aww..."

hafa said:

Charles ought to consider a career in romance novels...

Seriously, though, I think that the sentiments expressed are representative of many enthusiasts and AMD is rapidly losing (our) market share to C2D as a result.

The real danger I foresee, however, in regards to AMDs continued financial health is in the server market. The relative unavailability of socket F processors and motherboards coupled with the introduction of Woodcrest Xeons can't be all that great for their position.

One can only hope that the lower cost of AMD desktop processors will allow them some inroads into the OEM market to hold things up while they (hopefully) reconsider their options.

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Well, next year the farewell letter will aimed at Intel and the year after that a photocopy can be made back to AMD. It's been this way for the last 15 years and will be the same for the next 15.

Only those who need to be on the absolute cutting edge need these "farewell" letters. I've used both companies for a long time and don't have a complaint against either. Both are first class.

RollingThunder said:

Only those who need to be on the absolute cutting edge need these "farewell" letters. I've used both companies for a long time and don't have a complaint against either. Both are first class.

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Agreed.I would be almost eaqually happy with my AMD 4200 or my last rig with a P4 3.2HT.

Even though I am considering a conroe, I have all faith that amd will still be a power house in the future. They have never really let me down. So what they don't have a response yet to the conroe....The conroe basically hit two grand slams in one at bat. How do you respond quickly to it?

Exar Jun said:

Even though I am considering a conroe, I have all faith that amd will still be a power house in the future. They have never really let me down. So what they don't have a response yet to the conroe....The conroe basically hit two grand slams in one at bat. How do you respond quickly to it?

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Well from what i remember reading, AMD's Fab 36 has been converted for 65nm for almost a year i think? I rememebr the Govt of the country its in demanding a complete conversion by a certain time or they would either shut it down or they would fine AMD for not haveing it converted by a certain time? I dont remember all the details, but i think it went something like that?

Anyways, When you promise something on a certain day, and you dont release something(Dec 5th) and you turn around and only release a release on paper, Something is majorly wrong with this. Ive been holding out for a long time now waiting on the 65nm AMD's But those 6300 C2D's that will overclock about 100% are looking pretty sweet. Might just have to buy a chip and put it on the shelf and wait on AMD and then decide to put the thing together.

Harry

harryinny3 said:

Well from what i remember reading, AMD's Fab 36 has been converted for 65nm for almost a year i think? I rememebr the Govt of the country its in demanding a complete conversion by a certain time or they would either shut it down or they would fine AMD for not haveing it converted by a certain time? I dont remember all the details, but i think it went something like that?

Anyways, When you promise something on a certain day, and you dont release something(Dec 5th) and you turn around and only release a release on paper, Something is majorly wrong with this. Ive been holding out for a long time now waiting on the 65nm AMD's But those 6300 C2D's that will overclock about 100% are looking pretty sweet. Might just have to buy a chip and put it on the shelf and wait on AMD and then decide to put the thing together.

Harry

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The AMD factory is in Dresden, Germany. Nobody is going to shut it down. They employ more than 2500 people there. One of the top 3 international investors in Germany. Shut it down? They all promise what they can't deliver on time. Microsoft has done it for years and so has Intel and AMD. It's all part of big business.

Consumers need to be patient and stop wringing their hands because a chip they want isn't ready. The sun will still rise tomorrow whether the AMD 65 chip is ready or not. Then the pendulum will swing against Intel, and then against AMD .............and it goes on forever. The ones that benefit are the consumer if you're patient.

Your 6300 Conroe will be obsolete in 6-9 months anyhow and you can buy it for less than half the price like I did on my Opteron. Think of what your Conroe would cost if there was no AMD.............

RT
"Your 6300 Conroe will be obsolete in 6-9 months anyhow and you can buy it for less than half the price like I did on my Opteron. Think of what your Conroe would cost if there was no AMD............."

And if there was no AMD, there most likely would not have been any Conroe for you to buy. The evolution of the chips is driven by competition, with no competition, we would probably all be on 1 ghz pentium 2s or something right now.

RollingThunder said:

The AMD factory is in Dresden, Germany. Nobody is going to shut it down. They employ more than 2500 people there. One of the top 3 international investors in Germany. Shut it down? They all promise what they can't deliver on time. Microsoft has done it for years and so has Intel and AMD. It's all part of big business.

Consumers need to be patient and stop wringing their hands because a chip they want isn't ready. The sun will still rise tomorrow whether the AMD 65 chip is ready or not. Then the pendulum will swing against Intel, and then against AMD .............and it goes on forever. The ones that benefit are the consumer if you're patient.

Your 6300 Conroe will be obsolete in 6-9 months anyhow and you can buy it for less than half the price like I did on my Opteron. Think of what your Conroe would cost if there was no AMD.............

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Ok Ill go out on a limb and say fanboys, But who knows. My point was, and this is a fact, the Govt Of germany Gave AMD a certain Time frame to CONVERT the whole fab Over to 65nm It was some sort of deal, contract or whatever it was, AMD almost Missed this deadline, and The Govt of Germany WAS going to make them shut down. This was either posted here awhile back, or at one of the big Tech sites. Why the heck would i make something like that up? Sheesh. Im Buying the 6300 so i have incentive(and a tool to use against the wife) so i can upgrade sooner or later with her blessing. The constant upgrades i do, Shes not buying it anymore.

If one steps back a bit and looks at the bigger picture, then I think there a few predictions that can be safely made.

First AMD goes out on a long limb to buy ATI. Then they start having issues with paper releases. To top it all off, they are falling behind Intel with raw speeds again.

Now logically speaking(I know, I know, logic and AMD don't always mix), if I were in the spot that AMD is, I would be looking to stop trying to compete with Intel on raw speed and start competing on feature sets. Think about it. the big money isn't with us(high dollar, but low volume). No, indeed it's with the big OEM's like Dell(lower dollars, higher volume). If they are going to survive, they are going to want to pimp themselves out to Mikey and crew with a set of features that can make for a lower price of production for them. After all, while Dell sells machines meant for gaming, they sell far more that are meant for web surfing and e-mailing. If they can get the cost of production down then they will jump at the chance.

So where is it financially better for AMD to be? Trying to impress the few with raw power? Or trying to impress the OEM's with raw features and lower prices?

I'll let you do the math.

Everything costs money. Everything. R&D and acquistions. In my opinion AMD put its next line of processors on the chopping block in order to aquire ATI. This is about the future. Not the here and now. In a few years when AMD processors have clawed their way back up after Intel becomes complacent again (maybe unless they actually learn from their mistakes). From my perspective Intel seemed to always pair more often with ATI and AMD with NVidia. So now that AMD has bought ATI they are kind of roping in the gamer market. Think of the things they will be able to do with a pretty good graphics company working in tandem with making processors and motherboards. AMD architecture might find ways to work better with ATI graphics in the future and Intel will be relying on integrated Intel graphics. Ok this won't really happen as outlined but the line has been drawn in my opinion and now that AMD has the funds to R&D more I think the next couple years will be EXTREMELY interesting. Who knows what AM3 and AM3+ (I believe that is correct) will bring?

rainless said:

I think when AMD took the lead they did they same thing Intel did when THEY had the lead... they rested on their laurels.

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How do you know that? Maybe they were working their asses off and nothing panned out? Just think of how many crap ideas it takes to find one good one.

Deadbot1_1973 said:

If one steps back a bit and looks at the bigger picture, then I think there a few predictions that can be safely made.

First AMD goes out on a long limb to buy ATI. Then they start having issues with paper releases. To top it all off, they are falling behind Intel with raw speeds again.

Now logically speaking(I know, I know, logic and AMD don't always mix), if I were in the spot that AMD is, I would be looking to stop trying to compete with Intel on raw speed and start competing on feature sets. Think about it. the big money isn't with us(high dollar, but low volume). No, indeed it's with the big OEM's like Dell(lower dollars, higher volume). If they are going to survive, they are going to want to pimp themselves out to Mikey and crew with a set of features that can make for a lower price of production for them. After all, while Dell sells machines meant for gaming, they sell far more that are meant for web surfing and e-mailing. If they can get the cost of production down then they will jump at the chance.

So where is it financially better for AMD to be? Trying to impress the few with raw power? Or trying to impress the OEM's with raw features and lower prices?

I'll let you do the math.

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Well put. Every major corporation knows more volume is where the money is. And as a side affect, the more customers you have the more that will develop brand loyalty.

Deadbot1_1973 said:

If they are going to survive, they are going to want to pimp themselves out to Mikey and crew with a set of features that can make for a lower price of production for them.

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Dell already sells AMD based computers and servers and have been for a while.

I'm actually more interested in AMD's financial health from the perspective of an Intel user. I've always used intel, even when I was a kid playing Reader Rabbit on a Pentium 1 90Mhz. I probably always will until something bigger and better comes around.

However, competition drives prices down and increases features, it's generally a good thing to have.

7

RollingThunder said:

Dell already sells AMD based computers and servers and have been for a while.

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Yes, but AMD would like them to sell MORE. And the best way for them to accomplish that would be to develop an integrated CGPU that can reduce costs for the manufacturers. Imagine it like this(purely hypothetical numbers coming up). At the moment, it costs Dell $200 to build a low end system based on AMD or Intel. AMD creates a wonderful little chip that helps to reduce that to around $180. Dell still charges $300 for that new system and makes an extra $20 a system. Dell dances for joy. AMD joins in the dancing, because Dell is now selling more of it's chips for them. At the end of the day it boils down to the difference between making $100 a chip and selling 1000 or making $30 a chip and selling 20,000. The latter makes them more money.

When you look at it this way, 65nm becomes less of a priority than getting this wonderful new CGPU online.

I think we are seeing the beginning of a split in the way that the two camps are going. I think Intel is going to take the performance high road, as they seem to have it figured out for the moment again. I think AMD is going to keep working on a speedster, but in the background, while they keep working on a way to gain more marketshare. Remember, we are a small segment of the market. There are WAY more sixpacks and Grannies than us. That's where AMD needs to focus to steal marketshare away from the Men In Blue.