AMD stops shipping chips as bloated channel begs 'Please, no more' Beleaguered chip underdog AMD is not shipping any new gear to channels this quarter as it bites the bullet to clear existing stock swilling around the industry, estimated to have been in excess of $100m. A combination of bad forecasting, sliding PC demand and weak supply chain controls led to the inventory nightmare, and …
Having problems with your inventory channel being too full (short of some major unexpected shock) is such a 1980s problem too have. Can't help but get the feeling AMD had their one shot and shit the bed buying ATI instead. Now they will just carry on being a bumbling wannabe until time passes them by.
AMD has good product, but they are paralyzed by trying to save power all the time. Some of us don't mind paying a few bucks a month for leccy to run decent performing CPU's. They could easily have 16 or 32 core chips but want to satisfy the server farms and keep the cost per watt down.
The other end is the software which needs to be optimized to run on multi-CPU's which a lot of folks don't do. If it did Intel wouldn't look as good.
I like AMD because of their price and performance. Yes, Intel chips run faster, but I can get 80% of Intel's performance for 20% of the price. All of the games I bought this year are maxed out on my FX-8350 and run just fine.
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I'd second the above. I remember seeing loads of comparisons in the past while I was looking for a CPU to buy and it always wound up being a comparison of the top performing intel i7 vs the top performing AMD, which is fine in a way. Except the top performing AMD is the same price as the mid-low intel, and performs around the mid intel.
Either way I don't think the CPU is as much a bottleneck as it used to be. I can play games on my q6600 just as well as my friend who has an i7. Actually that's a lie, mine performs better because of the better graphics card. I think that's part of the reason why the cpu market is beginning to stagnate (lets face it, it is) there's no longer a massive requirement to upgrade to the latest cpu for gaming etc, because the latest CPU isn't needed for the average gamer.
I will admit there are still games out there which are CPU intensive, and those probably will do better with the latest and greatest, but it's not like ye olde days where you had to upgrade your CPU twice a year to keep up with the recommended settings for the latest games.
It's one reason I'm still hedging my bets on AMD, if they can get their fusion APU's working well enough, and get mantle working well enough in the mainstream they can probably claw back some of the difference, but it all depends how well they utilize those technologies.
I'm happy with my 8 core cpu. When it comes to proper multi-core fun and games it left my work i7 for dead. I was also reading a preview of one of the next big releases and the comments were all bitching about the recommended specs, as for an intel cpu it was an i7, but for AMD you could get away with the quad core phenom. None of them read the article where it stated that the new consoles now have 5 cores available for them and they've re-written the code to make the most of the extra cores and the gap between the top intel chips and amd chips has never been that much when benchmarking all cores properly.
They do need to release something new though, I only upgraded last time because it had been a while and I fancied a new toy. As others have stated, give me a beast of a cpu and to hell with the power consumption.
Hate to break your rosy AMD world, but AMD cpu's are much slower per core compared to what Intel has. top end i7 would stomp top end AMD any only use half its processing power to do it. Intel quad core i7 beats AMD fake 8 core cpu, even the one AMD clocked to 5ghz is still slower.
I think this has to do with the huge crash in value of cryptocurrencies. It was very profitable to by multi-gpu rigs and stock levels with their launches of 280x,290's etc. were moving faster than could be delivered.
In the meantime asics for scrypt have made GPU mining unprofitable when combined with the crash of value (BTC in particular as this is the benchmark cryptocoin).
Now there is a glut of cheap AMD cards on ebay and elsewhere. Also the boys in green have launched superior GPU's.
And as for the APU/CPU side they simply can't compete with Intel.
Amd has reorganized their entire operations and is using their IP to provide better products to consumers be it in consoles, ARM processors, GPU cards with stacked RAM, etc. There Carrizo APUs are due to be released shortly and they have new high performance CPUs coming for both desktop and server applications so things are looking up for Amd and consumers. As noted you can get ~80% of the performance of Intel's best CPU for ~30% of the cost. For most people Intel's exploitation does not add up logically or financially. Amd's APUs are several years ahead of Intel's in real world performance. If all you do is run benches then maybe an Intel product will make you happy. For everybody else there is Amd value and performance.
Your channel "partners" prefer to sell integratedelectronics' kit instead due to higher price and margin. Availability to customer is affected as a result in high growth markets MEA,SEA.
Sell directly to customer, they want the product but can't get it due to your channel "partners".
I mention to customers "well you could get a AMD based machine..."
"What's that? Never heard of...AMC did you say?"
Yet they all know of Intel due to every Currys ad etc. having the Intel tag on jingle.
They complain about Intel taking all the cake but when hardly anyone know who you are...
I love AMD gear but they are their own worst enemy. While we are at it, c'mon AMD how about some new chipsets that are at least 2014 spec rather than the current 2010 spec ones.
Edit - Just checked and the average price for a FX 6300 CPU is currently £9 more now than what I paid a year ago.
APU's are all well and good, but where are the 22nm CPU only wafers? I've been waiting for 3 years for a new CPU only product from AMD.
I've built a number of AMD A8-7600 PC's for friends and relatives with R9 270's purely because they were the cheapest quad core CPU's offered on FM2+ and coupled with dedicated gfx cards, actually make decent budget gaming PCs. The Athlon 860K is the new contender in that arena, but they seem to have forgotten about the enthusiast crowd. I'd happily pay a decent price for a 22nm AMD CPU - 8 core product. But I don't want to replace my 32nm Phenom with another 32nm FX8, seems a bit pointless...
Lets face it Intel is to all intents and purposes a monopoly when it comes to chips, if you want to beat them, then you have to beat them on price and innovation. In the full knowledge that they have the research muscle to close any gap you open up within months and the financial muscle to undercut and out market you. IBM Power looks secure, but you have to wonder how long for, and how long for the Sparc CPU ranges as economic products, before they join the Itanium, transputer, microVAX and others, if I were a betting man, I'd say SPARC will go first. Mind you, the Zilog Z80 is still out there in the embedded market.
I doubt AMD will ever be able to fund their market share in the way Intel can. The light for AMD is that, should they fail, Intel would have a big problem with the competition authorities, not just in x86 but the whole market. So I'd expect Intel to "Invest" in AMD if things get really bad, just as Microsoft did with Sun and Apple.
We should not forget though that we build Intel and Microsoft in the 80s & 90s, sacrificing the others on the alter of low cost and standardisation, which was then a belief rather than a reality. If we want other companies products to do better, then we need to buy them, but with some, it's just so hard to justify the cost, Larry.
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