Former AMD Executive: "I would never buy AMD"

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Lol, do you think AMD uses Intel processors in their computers?

 

Yes. They don't?

 

AMD fell behind in performance. If your hardware can't compete, no amount of marketing will save you.

 

When a company dumps a boatload of money into an ad campaign, you'd be surprised what they can do. But I agree, the bulldozer platform better at least compete or it's done folks. Which is sad, because technically if AMD were to fail, what would really happen to the "silicon market"? VIA is is NO position to compete, and Windows isn't compatable with the CBE from Sony/Tosh/IBM. I've always wondered what that situation would be like since AMD first started having money problems. BTW.. isn't this the wrong forum sub-section for this?

 

Remember the ERA before Core Architecture?
The AMD Processor were winning YET Intel continues to make MORE MONEY.
Doesn't matter how good your engineering dept is.

 

Intel was making more money because they had a huge head start. They were the dominant company, and AMD was the challenger.

That said, AMD was doing great at that time. They were gaining marketshare and public acceptance, and their stock was rising.

 

Intel would get split up and more x86 licences would get issued, no monopoly commission could allow the entire world pc market and most low-mid servers to be long to one manufacturer.

In all likelyhood intel would keep writing AMD cheques to keep it going as it did recently.

 

Not because of headstart or anything it was because they were making sure OEM carry their products only.
How many AMD System do you see from Dell, HP lineups?
It was widely accepted mainly by DIY builders.
Not to mentioned they released the x64 extended architecture if I had bought an AMD CPU at that time, I would be able to use Windows x86_x64.

 

Yes, anti-competitive practices probably accounted for some of the discrepancy in market share, but to deny that Intel had a head start in marketshare? Intel was the defacto company for microprocessors, and AMD is the challenger. It has always been this way.

Yeah, good luck with that. The absolute lack of drivers for x64, even up until around the middle of Vista's lifespan made going with 64-bit Windows a daunting task for even the most adept user.

 

I doubt AMD is going down, their ATI cards are currently better than nvidia which still doesn't offer directx11 cards. And I guess you al forgot that AMD is totaly owning the netbook market which is rapidly growing?
They may not compete on the notebook and desktop market, but as long as they are still the running lead in the netbook and graphic card market, they got plenty of capacity left to catch up.

 

I have been buying more AMD then Intels in last 5 years. Due to more budget options and luck, since when i want to buy i always find an AMD with good price/quality.

 

Did you mean to say something else? The netbook market is dominated by Intel's Atom processors; AMD has only recently made inroads there.

 

Omg i'm such a tard lol...yes I totaly mixed up.
Someone shoot me
Ok amd is going down rofl.

 

However you fail to note that Intel "created" their market share not by performance but unfair pricing.
CPU market share are mainly driven by adoption by OEM Companies.
The more OEM Companies sell your Processor the higher the profit margin you get as they purchase in bulk compared to DIY builders.

For the 64bit you fail to understand to create the drivers the instruction set has to be created first.
You don't decorate the house without building it first.
If we had waited until Intel finalized their crappy IA-64 architecture, we would have
1)Zero backward compatibility.
2)Received 64bit CPU much much later

 

You and I must have a different version of history. Intel created the first widely used microprocessor, and later cemented their position in the industry with Pentium - the best performing processors available until AMD's Athlon hit the market.

IA-64 was a complete overhaul of processor design, using neither RISC or CISC. Implementation turned out harder than expected and thus Itanium processors have been reserved for servers and other high-end computers. If you're going to call IA-64 "crappy", you're going to need a better reason than lack of backwards compatibility. A big reason why IA-64 was not as successful as hoped is because writing the compilers for a multi-instruction per cycle architecture is much harder than normal RISC or CISC architecture compliers. That combined with the success of x86-64 means that, as an industry, we are sticking with CISC processors.

And yes, you do run into a chicken or the egg problem when you switch to a new architecture like x64, but it seems you've failed to understand that the reason people are switching to x64 today is because of the memory limit of 32-bit systems. A limit that would not have been on the radar back before Core architecture.

 

My point is not whether they cement their position or who created the x86, it was they maintained their position by anti-competitive methods.
The world don't care if you created the first processor, if you can't keep up you should be out.
Market shareshould be determined by capabilities not some shady bulk discount when your customer don't stock your rival products.

The point that IA-64 is crappy is because there was no need to reinvent the wheel.
They wasted a lot of money by creating something unnecessary.
There are way to enhance performance without creating something totally new and non backward compatible.
IA-64 fails when you question the logic behind "was it necessary at all"
Backward compatibility is essential.
Processors run programs which do work for you.
In this statement which is the order of importance if you are doing work with computers?
Ultimately you just want the existing programs to run.
Acceptance of x86_64 architecture over IA-64 proves it.
And x86_64 isn't just a purely CISC design it has RISC elements in it.
x86_64 was actually deemed a natural transition just like the 16bit to 32bit transition.
since programming used the flat memory model addressing it is expected the 4GB address will run out.

 

While I agree that Intel's anti-competitive methods are wrong, but I made my point in my first post. AMD has not offered a competitive processor after Intel introduced their Core architecture. Anti-competitive practices or not, AMD would still be losing even with everyone playing by the rules. The number one most important thing in this market is the product itself. Your claim that "it doesn't matter how good your engineering department is" is just not true. If AMD releases a good product, its marketshare will increase.

As far as backwards compatibility, it's a double edged sword. Yes, it makes it easier on the consumer, but it also can kill innovation. But that's not the point of this thread.

 

AMD will not go down to be fair, with ATI holding there heads rediculously high, amd has the time to work on new things .

 

But despite ATI's lead, will it be enough to hold AMD above water and prevent it from drowning?

AMD is seriously lacking when compared to Intel.
Unless they come out with something that is actually very close to current Intel offers in both power consumption and performance, I can't really see them staying in the game for much longer.

Almost every time over the past 2 years, when AMD announced something new, the results were less than stellar.

They need to create a close equal or a superior product.
Yes, there is certainly a possibility they can acomplish that, but the question remains is ... will they?

 

Performance aside you really got to hand it to AMD.
The K8 design lasted for 7 years and was able to keep up for quite a while even with the lower end Core Architecture.

 

It 'lasted' as much as it did because the opposing party hasn't made anything better, and because AMD haven't felt it necessary to make anything better.

I really don't like such technological stagnation and minor refinements/refreshes.

AMD is virtually in the same spot like Nvidia at this point.
They haven't made anything innovative recently, and just make renames and minor refreshes of existing products that don't have the ability to compete.

 

Skip K10 and look forward to K11(Bulldozer)
You can also view it another way, it was able to last because design was good.

 

AMD owns the x86_64 IP, without which the world ends, basically. They're not going anywhere.

Besides that, once they got the leg up with Athlon and Athlon 64, they made a good move in buying ATI, which allowed them to provide a platform rather than just a processor. Since then, AMD's platform has been shown to consume less electricty on the desktop than Intel (which is why Intel touts their PROCESSOR'S power usage, not the entire platform).

Admittedly AMD should have been working harder on this for notebooks: they were behind for a long time there, largely due to lacking a total platform, whereas Intel did have a total platform to work with, and for a notebook and shrinking power use and heat dissipation, "owning" the entire platform is pretty critical (heck, AMD still doesn't have their own WiFi chip, that has to come soon). Luckily, they ARE catching up, and becoming competitive with Intel as far as performance and battery life in certain segments, though Intel still owns the crown for pure performance.

And it's very true that Intel doesn't want AMD to go down. If Intel becomes a de-facto monopoly, they're going to get buried under so much regulation we'll be using Arrandale for the next decade.

On a side note, anyone know exactly how this guy left AMD? He sounds a lot like the classic "disgruntled former employee"...

 

Are AMDS, quad core phenom II desktop processors THAT bad?

 

Nehalem > Phenom II > Core
This is your guy
Sales and Marketing Exec, sound like a guy who deserve the boot seeing AMD Poor Sales.

 

Sounds like he did get booted from that article.

 

Chances that comment is being used out of context: 99.9%

Sure Mr. Richard probably made the comment but when between 2002 and 2007 and in what situation? For example was it said before 2006 as a push to complete the acquisition of ATI?

 

He might have been saying that in a meeting with his sales team, as an example of what a potential customer might think, and then proceeded with how to combat that view. I've seen sales VPs do that a lot (saw ours do it just yesterday in fact).

 

I actually like AMD on the desktop, they are cheap, fast, and are quite. the Phenom II isn't a bad chip at all it, will match or beat the core2Quad 45nm clock for clock depends who you ask. (I've seen enough benchmarks to believe it's actually a little faster than the Core 2Quad 9xxx)

 

For a desktop I'm AMD over Intel any day of the week. Notebooks are another story.

Check out this benchmark chart (desktop CPUs): http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

...while its true that Intel has the most powerful processors, AMD comes pretty close, and totally destroys Intel in performance per dollar.

PS: Those top Intel CPUs (6000 passmark +) sell for $1000 minimum,

AMD PHENOM II X4 965 and Intel Xeon x3360 (Identical Passmark scores), $200 and $330, respectively.

What would you buy?

 

The AMD Phenom II X4 965 is just as good if not better than an i7 920, it beat out the 920 in some gaming tests. So yeah AMD is great for desktops.

 

The problem was that when AMD was on top for performance they let the ball drop on developing mobile chips and desktop chips. The pentium 4 days were a time of AMD praise, but it felt like AMD gave up after intel saw the error in thier ways and came out with the Core duo platform. From the time Yonah hit the market AMD was doomed due to not having anything remotely close to compete and ever since they have seemed to fall on their face with every platform they introduce in the mobile market. Granted I have heard good things about the desktop phenom, but it still cannot compete with the core 2/core series.

Even if AMD were to come out with a top mobile or desktop chip platform they will still be up against a company that has alot more money to throw around, already existing top level platforms and a continual development cycle. If AMD is to compete again they need a new monster in both mobile and desktop markets and have a followup act for when the life cycle of the current architecture nears its end. Until then AMD will suffer.

 

Much more than trying to impress enthusiasts, AMD needs to put together a chipset which gets tier-1s to use it in a large range of low to midrange systems, both on the desktop, and increasingly, mobile. Mom & Pop pretty much just want cheap, and buy primarily from the box stores. Until AMD can reach some level of market saturation here, salespeople will bad-mouth the under-represented AMD.

I have a fairly large assortment of both desktop and mobile computers, with about equal representation from both Intel and AMD, and do not really favor one manufacture over the other -- with the exception of the current mobile market where AMD is a sad, sick joke.

As many can relate to, I'm also the "computer guy" for my extended family (thanks, CS degree...), so I'm often asked to bless new purchase selections. I can't tell you how many times I get nervous phone calls from relatives standing in the big box trying to buy a system I've suggested, arguing with sales staff who insist the AMD processor inside will be unable to surf the web, write email or something equally silly. This is what AMD is up against.

 

The amd mobile market will pick up though, they've got some nice new stuff out now for the smaller machines, these look quite promising.

 

Who changed my thread title?

 

It changed?

Nevermind, it did. Hmmm...

I bet it was a current AMD employee using an AMD system powered by an Intel i7 though.

 

I hope for our sake that AMD manages to stay competitive. Their new triple-core offerings may do something for that, no?

They force Intel to innovate and keep prices down.
Oh, and Intel processors rock (see sig), but their integrated graphics...

 

pixelot, I agree we all need AMD whether we buy/use them or not.

But integrated graphics has never been a 'performance' option for a few decades now, no?

 

AMD fell behind the day they decided to purchase ATI. Sure, ATI is doing well, but AMD is still cutting the losses of that purchase. Combine it with the coming out of Intel's Core Duo lineup and AMD was set back.

AMD has, is and will be the smaller company and the challenger to Intel who has dominated the market, even when AMD was on top power-wise.

As for buying or not, it's all about the moment and who's buying. I bought an Intel when the Intel was better value and I subsequently bought an AMD when they were the better purchase.

 

I just mean that Intel graphics have never seemed very well put together. The quirky screen-flipping keystrokes are fun, but driver troubles and annoying integration and interface just made it seem like a half-***ed effort.

That said, I like integrated graphics for low power-usage and such purposes, but I'd prefer something from nVidia, even in a low-end system. Although I've heard the X3100 is substantially improved. I just have lots of bad memories of Intel GMA 945s and similarly numbered pieces of garbage that caused all sorts of errors and headaches for me while troubleshooting old computers.

 

They basically lost out the day that Core was released into the market.

 

pixelot,

I agree; a discreet GPU is a must for 'real' performance.

But, I've never had a problem with the integrated graphics from Intel. At least, not anything that wasn't related to performance, anyways.

Half a##'d, I agree, but totally stable on the systems I've worked on.

 

Hmmm, glad to hear it.

I've just had some problems with the old 900 and 950 series chipsets. And by nVidia for low-end systems, I meant one of their integrated chips.

 

"AMD Notebook Market Share to Reach 15%"

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20100113PD220.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=450781

 

If there is blame to be laid when it comes to the woes of AMD, it can be summed up by two factors:

1) Lack of proper management and executive leadership
2) Acquisition of ATI

These two points are the primary reasons why AMD has been slogging through the desktop landscape seemingly with no direction.

 

I agree 100%. AMD needs to stick around to keep healthy competition going. I only wish they got their act together so we could have 2 choices for powerful chips in the mobile sector. I miss the original turion days when my singe core averatec 2155 could compete with a pentium m.

 

I beg to differ IMO acquisition of ATI is a long term smart move.
They know platforms will merge sooner or later with Intel developing their own graphics so they had to have their own graphics technology at some point.
Buying ATI is probably cheaping then researching graphics technology from scratch. Not to mention ATi could have technology that can benefit their CPU line as well.

 

Why has nobody noticed the 2011 design for AMD that, unlike Nehalem, it is hardware to run dual threads on a core. If you ask me, I would get that over a 22nm chip.

Indeed most of Intel's selling point is consumption rather than performance. AMD on the other hand offers a great performance/money ratio, having their solutions beat Intel by a large margin and giving comparable performance.

Now, back to why AMD cant hold up, well most people are missing two points here.
1) It is us who give AMD and Intel the reputation, trolling around saying "AMD is a joke" is not helping either. Acknowledging that Intel has a better offer, but that AMD is as good as C2D (the latest refresh at least) and performs more than OK for most of the market is different. Now, tell me, how many have said before "dont go AMD because they are not good compared to Intel" (or similar)? In reality, AMD is more than enough performance-wise, not to mention price-wise it is the better option for regular tasks. Stepping up to raw performance, Intel is indeed the better choice ATM.

2) The fact that Intel sells more, means more money for them, more R&D investment and cash flow to invest in marketing. AMD on the other hand, as we all know, has to cut down prices to sell, leading to smaller margins and profits, and with the heavy-weight debt from the ATI buyout, they just dont have enough to invest in massive amounts of R&D, marketing and bribing OEMs.

Keep this in mind. AMD has not done bad at all. The fact that Intel had a much better performer and a better reputation, and AMD managed to keep up, get ATI to be the best solution ATM, and have the Fusion slated for 2011 now is quite an ordeal looking at the conditions on which they are, carrying a debt, bad reputation, small margins, etc. Give them some credit at least...

 

Isn't that Intel Hyperthreading?