1-month report card on AMD's quad by the channel

[Kob]

See

http://www.crn.com/white-box/202402138

In short: Good product, difficult to get.

Considering other metrics and the published models ramp-up, it appears that AMD has very tangible fab issues.

 

[dragonsprayer]

well the r600 due in dec came out 6 months late and the drivers are just here now - so lets hope the cpu priority amd did with ati engineers keeps the supply flowing or all h3ll is going to break loose with the stock!

 

[BaronMatrix]

The report seems pretty positive to me. After just one month, they have gotten basically every SKU out there. Newegg has most.

From the article:

So far, so good, say channel partners.

"There are no hardware conflicts and the power draw is as promised. They delivered on their technicals. On these high-performance compute and memory-intensive applications, they're kicking Intel's butt," said Brian Corn, VP of marketing and business development at Waltham, Mass.-based Source Code.

But when it comes to delivering on actual product, Corn is not so enthusiastic about AMD's performance.

"We're extremely disappointed with AMD on a product delivery level. What's nice about the product is it runs great, it's rock solid, it really performs. The real problem seems to be is that AMD doesn't have any of these things," he said.


And:

But whereas Source Code's Corn felt AMD was still lagging on delivery too far past such a highly-promoted launch date, Gautam wasn't fussed with the rate of the ramp-up.

"Right now it's running at a week or so lead-time on orders, which is to be expected. We can place orders and get product when we need it. From that perspective, just a few weeks after the launch, it's been a pleasant surprise," he said.

Like his peers, Gautam was pleased with the product itself. And nearly every source ChannelWeb spoke with reported a great deal of interest in quad-core Opterons from customers.

"Customers have just been amping for this, holding their breath. So people weren't making purchases of existing products, because they were waiting for Barcelona, like people will wait for a big movie premiere," said Appro's Lee.


And most importantly:

The lowest grade was a C+ while the average was a B. It sounds like they delivered to me.

 

[dragonsprayer]

i agree i am pretty excited about barcie - its the dx10 bs that sucks

few dx10 games and poor dx10 results

amd will be fine and their base of hard core rebals is waiting to buy

 

[Kob]

I just hope AMD will not encounter the Osborne Effect.

For the younger readers:
Osborne Effect - "the final blow occurred in 1983 when Adam Osborne boasted about an upcoming product months before it could be released, killing demand for the company's existing products. Dealers rapidly started cancelling orders for the older Osborne 1.

Unsold inventory piled up and in spite of dramatic price cuts - the Osborne 1 was selling for $1295 in July 1983 and $995 by August - sales did not recover. Losses, already higher than expected, continued to mount, and the corporation declared bankruptcy on September 13, 1983. This marketing blunder came to be known as "Osborneing" and the phrase circulated in Silicon Valley for the next decade." (from Wikipedia)

 

[Reynod]

Wow.

Mind you Intel has had a great run clearing the old crap P4 dual core inventory once the halo effect of the Core2 line cut in.

Where a few months before they had inventory piled up the walls.

The net effect of that caused AMD's inventory to pile up ... only by massive cuts in price have they shifted this ... accounting for their recent losses.

Hopefully if they can get a halo effect from Phenom (i.e., it is competitive enough with penryn) then sales of their lower end parts will recover.

One can hope the field gets levelled again.

 

[chunkymonster]

That guy Corn was also quoted in another thread with his comments from an article at xBit. I'll leave the post here as I did in that thread.

Considering you can order a Barcelona from Newegg and have it delivered to your door tomorrow, maybe this guy Corn and his company SourceCode should find a new supplier!

 

[yomamafor1]

To me, it seems like Barcelona failed to deliver. According to George Ou, you still can't order any server with Barcelona, with unknown available date.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=816

Maybe AMD favored retail this time, shipping most of the chips to retailers than OEMs and channels. However, as OEMs and channels will pay them the most bucks, I'm not sure if AMD's doing it right this time...

 

[weskurtz81]

yomamafor1,

I wonder why that is though? Could it be availability of the boards they want to use to make the servers? I doubt it but who knows.

It's pretty funny though, if AMD plays to the OEM's, people complain about it being a paper launch and talk trash. If they try to satisfy the channel people complain saying they are screwing up and they should go with the OEM's for business sake.

 

[boduke]

Try to order a Barcelona based server from HP. Not even listed as an option on the site. Now go to Dell and try to order one. Can't, all the site says is "coming soon..."

Since Newegg isn't where AMD's going to make any money on these particular parts, this seems a little wacky to me...

 

[Slobogob]

well the r600 due in dec came out 6 months late and the drivers are just here now - so lets hope the cpu priority amd did with ati engineers keeps the supply flowing or all h3ll is going to break loose with the stock!

I guess we're all really lucky that the new Processors don't need drivers.

 

[yomamafor1]

yomamafor1,

I wonder why that is though? Could it be availability of the boards they want to use to make the servers? I doubt it but who knows.

It's pretty funny though, if AMD plays to the OEM's, people complain about it being a paper launch and talk trash. If they try to satisfy the channel people complain saying they are screwing up and they should go with the OEM's for business sake.

I doubt its the board. The Barcelona is compatible with existing AM2 boards, and there is no reason why HP and Dell didn't sell them with existing boards. On Dell's website, they do offer Barcelona with existing server, but no availability.

Well, from a business point of view, staying with OEMs does have its disadvantages, but the advantages will overcome that sooner than staying with channel. I think George Ou brought up a very valid point here: not a lot of companies will order their own server parts, and build them from scratch. Although its an easier options for some, majority of the companies still want to buy their servers from OEMs. Now, if you stay with channel, true, people will trash you for not satisfying the channel, but in the long run, you can sell more processors to OEMs, and therefore, increase AMD's market share. Isn't this what Hector wants, "market share at all cost"?

 

[BaronMatrix]

To me, it seems like Barcelona failed to deliver. According to George Ou, you still can't order any server with Barcelona, with unknown available date.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=816

Maybe AMD favored retail this time, shipping most of the chips to retailers than OEMs and channels. However, as OEMs and channels will pay them the most bucks, I'm not sure if AMD's doing it right this time...

According to HP, Dell and others, you can't get Tigerton until November either.

 

[yomamafor1]

According to HP, Dell and others, you can't get Tigerton until November either.

...and this is relevant to this discussion because?

Looks like Intel and AMD both did a soft launch this time. For Intel though, at least they have a set date for delivery, and you can order them now. For AMD, you can't order them, OEMs also have no idea when they'll become available. So in a sense, while both companies pulled a semi-paper launch, those companies that waited for Barcelona are pretty much screwed...

 

[boduke]

The difference is Baron you can ORDER the servers even tho they won't ship until November...you can't even order a Barcelona based box from HP or Dell...big difference.

 

[Jakc]

I doubt its the board. The Barcelona is compatible with existing AM2 boards,

You are confused with phenom, the desktop barcie.
Current barcies are not AM2.

 

[yomamafor1]

You are confused with phenom, the desktop barcie.
Current barcies are not AM2.

You're right, I stand corrected.

The Barcelona is socket compatible with existing Opteron in Socket F (1207)

 

[boduke]

You're right, I stand corrected.

The Barcelona is socket compatible with existing Opteron in Socket F (1207)

At my last check with HP it was not recommended, or supported, that I take any Barcelona processor from Newegg or any other 'net outlet and put it in my servers that run Opterons. In fact I was expressly told I would negate my warranty on the DL385's I have if I did...so in my opinion, they are NOT drop in replacements until my vendor will sell them to me...

Which they aren't even listing as an option...So as far as my enterprise goes, (and most other engineers I talk with locally), Barcelona is a no show and no one is waiting around when there are Intel quads available now that perform just as well or better than Barcelona.

 

[yomamafor1]

According to AMD themselves, Barcelona is drop-in compatible with the existing Opteron dual cores.

My guess to why HP wouldn't let you do that, is because you may damage the heatsink and / or socket pin (they usually think you're technology inapt) if you aren't careful.

 

[boduke]

According to AMD themselves, Barcelona is drop-in compatible with the existing Opteron dual cores.

My guess to why HP wouldn't let you do that, is because you may damage the heatsink and / or socket pin (they usually think you're technology inapt) if you aren't careful.

I'm not arguing the fact that Barcelona is drop in compatable, however, AMD doesn't supply my servers - HP does...when HP has CPU upgrades for my existing servers then that *may* be when they get upgraded. No enterprise IT staff worth a damn would jeopardize their warranty by buying parts off Newegg and dropping them in servers that are covered under very specific warranties. If any one of the engineers working for me did that they'd be looking for new jobs. (Not that any of them would....)

Since my projects can't and won't wait for a small possible increase in performance or for AMD to sort out their manufacturing processes, when I need a high performance box right now it's all Intel and will continue to be until AMD gets off their asses....