Is AMD a sinking ship?

[Kuroimaho]

either that or hector starts working for the amount of money he is earning.

No way, it's really hard to begin to work after sitting and do nothing for so long.

amd just has some bugs to work out which when done will be in another stepping.

We heard that already a few times, BA will rock but nothing, B2 will rock well at least from that sample it OCs relatively well if can do 3G so early but performance didn't jump.

AMD couldn't hold a single deadline this year not even with decreasing the clockspeed, I do not have high expectations from them but not in need for a faster proc anyway. Neha deneb K10 and penryn will put up a nice ocd P/P and I decide.

 

[knightwolf6543]

what would be the codename for the first update of k10?

 

[inkfx]

If you mean the names of the processors I believe the tri-core is named Toliman.

 

[Kuroimaho]

Agena, for the Phenom 4X.

Barcelona Benchmarks Are Non-Compliant - SPEC

So it was a paper launch after all.

 

[FlahsMemory]

There can also be another reason why AMD decided to push only 2.2ghz -2.4ghz. For example, AMD may want to give an illusion that its chips can overclock well because they know that this few months intel is going to be promoting the overclocking of the penryn to get sales as there really isnt much of a performance advantage over 65nm. So AMD may just offer lower clocks just to entice the audience with a seemingly larger margin in overclocking. Maybe they can actually clock over 3ghz on a regular bases which I doubt but it could be possible. Then AMD fans can be partially happy and it will also lead to more product support like well if I want to overclock I need an 790 chipset or AM2+ board. Or hell if I get the board might as pick up two ATI graphics cards and it will be great. So it can be a gimmick to provide an illusion to their audience that they can reach a higher level even though they cant clock pass a certain mark just yet. Possibly later steppings will provide even 3.6ghz which will put them a lot closer to intel and sli nvidia chipset which is the only one offering SLI Im guessing but unfortunately they cannot clock as high as an intel chipset.

 

[knightwolf6543]

i wouldn't doubt it! amd's marketing team did a good job of getting us all hipped for the 5000's release, even though we thought it was something else, they did a good job none the less. seeing as someone just broke the 4Ghz barrier with a 65 nm chip mabey they got those leaks fixed after all.

 

[rainless]

good read and explains alot: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/588/1/

In answer to the writer of that review:

We haven't forgotten about the past...

...the past is just OVER.

 

[Velocity]

All of AMDs resources are in fusion. I don't expect nothing beating out what Intel has until 2009 which I think AMD is ready for. They are concentrating on the ATI side for now.

 

[Shell]

I'm seeing a lot of "AMD is going to sink because they can not deliver".
They are rolling out units as fast as they can produce them but they simply can't keep up, last I checked AMD has to fill several large orders that eat up around 100'000 units in total this year, and they are obviously going to give priority to the biggest buyers.

It's hard having a soild launch without stockpiling A LOT of units. AMD can't really afford to do that, I'm seeing si fresh off the lines, only a few weeks old.

 

[aaronjb]

Come on. This is a bunch of bologna. People were saying this crap when it was the Athlon XP vs the P4.

Once again, I'll cut-and-paste my previous post on this issue.

I've been parroting this a lot lately, but AMD is in serious financial trouble. Instead of typing up what I've typed before, I'll cut-and-paste a previous post:

I can tell you that AMD has very serious cash flow issues. Serious enough to miss payments to contract employees. Serious enough to lose top engineers because of a lack of job security. Serious enough to be shopping their fabs around for a buyer. Serious enough to need to be bailed out to the tune of multiple billions of dollars. When those loans come due, AMD will have no choice but to perform radical restructuring.

AMD isn't just a ship without someone at the helm. It's a ship without a captain that has no fuel in the tanks. Look at the financials, and listen to what the goold ol' Street it saying. As a public company, shareholders won't put up with this for long. AMD won't just disappear, but it's unlikely that the company will exist in its current form by 2009. You'll likely see units split up and sold off, making for several more streamlined companies with less debt overhead. The ATI purchase put the entire company at risk of insolvency.

This isn't just another flip/flop in the performance market. AMD has very tangible issues now, and the likely recourse is a partitioning of their operations. Sapphire is a likely buyer for their ATI engineering unit, but who knows what will happen with all of those lovely fabs.

In short, everything went wrong for AMD at the same time. Even if Fusion is a huge OEM success, a restructuring will be in order.

 

[rainless]

Once again, I'll cut-and-paste my previous post on this issue.

But what about half a decade ago back when they were doing so well? Can't they just use the very last of their finances to rent a time machine so that they can borrow money from 2003 AMD?

 

[knightwolf6543]

Once again, I'll cut-and-paste my previous post on this issue.

simply put, wow dude if thats the way you feel , more power to you. there in trouble because they haven't been able to produce enough to fill the demand, they cant raise the price then they will lose the business, AMD does need a overhaul but not to be sold off, it needs a CEO who will actually get off there *** and do something to fix it, the ceo has Driven AMD way to far into a hole but thats not going to end them. you sound like a Intel fan to me and with that i laugh at you when u go to pay several thousand dollars for a low end cpu. if AMD falls i am leaving computers, i will keep what i have or upgrade one last time before prices sky rocket, with out competition there is no price standard, intel and nvidia will price the parts as high as they want to, and it doesn't matter people will still pay for it cause people needs computers. i will simply find other places to spend my money.
AMD is not gonna go anywhere. IBM is there working with them, if it comes down to it were AMD is going to fall IBM will probable buy them.
if you think AMD is going to fall, i want to be there when you hit that buy it now button or when your at the checkout writing a $2000 check to pay for you new low budget cpu.

 

[funnyperson1]

aaronjb is being a bit more realistic than you are imho. Saying AMD will be alright because they can't provide for the couple hundred thousand Barcelonas people want is like saying that a Hot Dog stand is doing great because they sold out of the 5 hot dogs that they were able to make that week, after they paid $1,000 for the selling permit.

The financial facts are hard set, AMD is in a ridiculous amount of debt and they aren't selling nearly enough processors for nearly enough money to make a profit. Barcelona sales and dirt cheap K8 sales will keep AMD on life support, but they aren't really helping them recouperate.

I think you're misunderstanding aaronjb, he doesn't want AMD to fail, I don't think anyone does. But a realist can look at AMD's situation and realize they are in dire straits. Nobody wants a CPU monopoly, but unless AMD is able to get out competitive products and control CPU pricing, there will be one sooner or later.

 

[knightwolf6543]

well then i have started a new life goal, to punch hector ruiz in the face. he needs to resign or be forced they need someone who will be able to take on the task of bringing back amd.

also isn't monopolizing illegal in the US?

 

[funnyperson1]

Its not illegal to be a monopoly if your competition died due to their own incompetence.

 

[knightwolf6543]

while that is true hector is being a retard. intel ain't helping the fact as they see the opportunity to destroy AMD i believe they see this but aren't going to do it as they see a bigger issue, as in if amd falls they have a big chance to make alot of money, but there not cause it wouldn't make it interesting, no fun when there no competition. like sitting on a basketball court by yourself. creativity goes no were and R&D would be shrunk. no need to come out with anything new if there nothing that competes against you. sure programs would eventually need more power, not gunna happen if intel dosent have to work for it. everything would hault people would continue to buy the same stuff will tiny updates to it, no need for nothing faster, the x86 industry would eventually crumble.

 

[funnyperson1]

I disagree, Intel is slowly choking the life out of AMD with the current price war. They know that without competitive products AMD would have to underprice them, and so they price their products lower than they usually would forcing AMD to go even lower.

They can't do anything obvious like take a loss on their own processors, because then they would open themselves up to antitrust litigation. They already have some antitrust litigation brought against them by AMD, but any results might be slow coming and aren't guaranteed.

Ed had a great article on this here:
http://overclockers.com/tips01236/

 

[knightwolf6543]

either way without competition there will be no need for any major advances in any x86 cpu.
x86 will then eventually die as some other company finds another way to run the same operations on a different cpu and intel has no way to match them. x86 will have a short life span unless amd or someone else helps amd pull them out of the water.

 

[rainless]

simply put, wow dude if thats the way you feel , more power to you. there in trouble because they haven't been able to produce enough to fill the demand, they cant raise the price then they will lose the business, AMD does need a overhaul but not to be sold off, it needs a CEO who will actually get off there *** and do something to fix it, the ceo has Driven AMD way to far into a hole but thats not going to end them. you sound like a Intel fan to me and with that i laugh at you when u go to pay several thousand dollars for a low end cpu. if AMD falls i am leaving computers, i will keep what i have or upgrade one last time before prices sky rocket, with out competition there is no price standard, intel and nvidia will price the parts as high as they want to, and it doesn't matter people will still pay for it cause people needs computers. i will simply find other places to spend my money.
AMD is not gonna go anywhere. IBM is there working with them, if it comes down to it were AMD is going to fall IBM will probable buy them.
if you think AMD is going to fall, i want to be there when you hit that buy it now button or when your at the checkout writing a $2000 check to pay for you new low budget cpu.

How can you call someone else a fanboy when you have an avatar for a chip that hasn't even been released yet?

I really don't think companies "go out of business" in the traditional sense of the term, nor do I think that's what aaron was implying. More than likely they would be bought out by someone with a little money and clout (IBM, Texas Instruments, whoever...) and they'd keep the AMD brand name.

So the apocalypse you're on about with Intel being the only chip manufacturer will never happen. There's always been somebody else making chips. I had an IBM processor for a while. I think S3 was making processors for a while. AMD just happened to get damned lucky. And any big time chip manufacturer will be able to buy them for a song if it came down to that, and then they'd have the new management you're talking about.

And it's a bit immature to cry "fanboy" whenever anybody disagrees with you. "The 2900XT is loud." FANBOY! "AMD is in trouble." FANBOY! Let's stick to the facts and the issues and avoid petty name-calling shall we?

 

[Enablingwolf]

The last large CPU maker to go belly up was Cyrix. Once that happened. It still lived and was used in many ways actually. The VIA C-series is based off of Cyrix. Heck even AMD got a peice of it.

Very few companies that have any value in terms of product and patents die. They will just move to something else.

There is many more chip makers other then Intel and AMD. Broadcom makes processors too. There is others, but most consumers can care less about them.