How Will AMD stay alive?

[Upendra09]

Well Phenom II does compete with the i7 but ppl still get the i7, the normal public generally get intel, AMD is only with the budget builders who are smart and get more bang for the buck.

So AMD is getting creamed by i7 and it has nothing to compete with and there isn't anything coming soon from AMD except for DX11 cards (ATI) so will we have competition in the future or will Intel be a dictator and drain the money out of us.


no i am not an AMD fanboy i just feel bad for AMD

 

[h0devil]

i hope not if intel wins the battle we will see all proc form intel 1000 $ or more

 

[one-shot]

Yes, AMD is going to declare bankruptcy tomorrow morning at 8AM Pacific Standard time. Intel will be only x86 CPU manufacturer and it will ignore AMD's request to be spared. All its employees will be tossed into a large pit so no company will ever dare rise up to the Evil Empire of Intel. Eventually it will take over the world and force us to solder circuit boards for crimes we commit. Those $1000 CPUs will be the least of your worries when we're all under "its" control. It'll be a sad day. Hopefully tomorrow never comes so we'll all be spared!

 

[archibael]

Who told you that?!?

We have very specific rules against this sort of thing, and very specific punishments for those who reveal Secret Plans to Outsiders, and I need to inform the Council whose family must "disappear"...

 

[Raidur]

What I'm scared of is the i5 release. Depending on the prices of those... AMD is going to have a tough time matching up the price/performance.

 

[buzznut]

Yes, I keep hoping something amazing will come along from amd. However since the ati acquisition, they have really turned around the chipset and graphics divisions. I wouldn't count them out just yet-but they need to build on this momentum.

I can pretty much guarantee there will be price drops when i5 is released. which is good for everyone of course.

 

[cjl]

i hope not if intel wins the battle we will see all proc form intel 1000 $ or more

Not true. In a monopolistic scenario, prices go up, yes, but they don't simply go up to unaffordable levels. There is a certain level that maximizes profit for a monopoly, since as prices go up, fewer people buy. If the prices are too high, not enough people will buy CPUs to sustain the company, so they would settle out at a region somewhat above today's pricing, but definitely still in the range of affordability for most people.

(wow - I thought I ignored/slept through most of the stuff in my econ class, but apparently I actually did pay some attention at points)

 

[one-shot]

Not true. In a monopolistic scenario, prices go up, yes, but they don't simply go up to unaffordable levels. There is a certain level that maximizes profit for a monopoly, since as prices go up, fewer people buy. If the prices are too high, not enough people will buy CPUs to sustain the company, so they would settle out at a region somewhat above today's pricing, but definitely still in the range of affordability for most people.

(wow - I thought I ignored/slept through most of the stuff in my econ class, but apparently I actually did pay some attention at points)

Well said. I kind of spilled the beans with Intel's future plans. It may have been easier to state some simple Econ 101. It is too often that people assume that because one company is the only maker of a product, that it can charge any amount. That is not true because there are many instances of companies being the single source of a certain good, and that company is not charging an arm and/or leg(except Apple). Realistically, no one is going to pay $1000 for a CPU,

 

[jitpublisher]

I was not aware that AMD is trying to compete with Intels i7 platform.
If they were competing with i7, and they had a processor that perfomed exactly on par with Intels flagship, then the price of processors would be at least 50% higher than they are right now. The price would be less than if Intel was the only company on the planet left making processors, but if AMD was competing toe to toe with Intel, prices would be substantially higher than they are now, you can bet your ass on that.

 

[Cryslayer80]

What I'm scared of is the i5 release. Depending on the prices of those... AMD is going to have a tough time matching up the price/performance.

Well look at it this way. PII bests everything but the most expensive I7's. I7 has architectural superiority due to triple channel memory. How is an I5 supposed to compete with PII which outdoes any Core2 and the entry level I7? Core I5 will lose any architectural benefits of the Core I7 that made it a faster chip, and will be overpriced as I've seen. AMD doesn't need to worry about I5, it needs to worry about getting the performance crown again. And who would get the fastest I5 that will be the similar price of the I7 920 when 920 is a hideously faster chip?

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

AMD is only with the budget builders who are smart and get more bang for the buck.

........

non i am not an AMD fanboy i just feel bad for AMD

Yes, you are an AMD fanboy by indicating that only smart people build rigs with AMD. That implies that people who build with Intel are not smart.

Is AMD DOOOOOOOMED? Not yet. But things are looking very bad for them. Their products need to be more competitive so they can charge more for them. Optionally they can reduce costs, but I don't see that happening.

 

[theholylancer]

smart people research and get what they want...

i would bring up the multi-gpu thing, but the verdict is still out for i7 with them ORB results and nvm the i5 stuff.

lets face it, Intel has the best stuff atm, AMD did with its K8 vs netburst, now it's Intel's domain, unless they can pull a rabbit out of the hat and give us the mythical true K10 they were on the horn about since end of P4 and C2 days then it'd be grand.

That said, if they want to compete in the value market, they need to get brand recognition up with everyone, like say sponsor some major university to give cheap improved amd laptops out (maybe a BIG name tech like MIT or something) and then aggressively market that in TVs, and not tech magazines.

Even better, if they somehow managed to make OEMs to churn out quality AMD based parts by leveraging a whole platform without bumpgate issues and other build quality issues then they would maybe win over OEMs for tight design.

But then, that is heading into the waters of a"PC-Console" where every part is the same...

 

[Upendra09]

@ tech coodrdinator
Yes i know i sort of went back on my word but still i am not a fanboy, it is just that i feel people with normal needs should go AMD, it is the gamers and people with moe money to spend that should go intel, but the normal citizen probably feels that intel is better because they are more popular and have their name on a lot more things than AMD.

Will bulldozer, if it ever manages to come out, have any effect on the reign of intel?

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

@ tech coodrdinator
Yes i know i sort of went back on my word but still i am not a fanboy, it is just that i feel people with normal needs should go AMD, it is the gamers and people with moe money to spend that should go intel, but the normal citizen probably feels that intel is better because they are more popular and have their name on a lot more things than AMD.

Will bulldozer, if it ever manages to come out, have any effect on the reign of intel?

Actually, some benchies suggest gamers might want to go with a Phenom II, the performace on the fastest Phenom IIs in games is good and the price is decent as well. The "normal citizen" probably doesn't even understand what a processor is and would probably tell you that they prefer Dell CPUs.

 

[cjl]

Well look at it this way. PII bests everything but the most expensive I7's. I7 has architectural superiority due to triple channel memory. How is an I5 supposed to compete with PII which outdoes any Core2 and the entry level I7? Core I5 will lose any architectural benefits of the Core I7 that made it a faster chip, and will be overpriced as I've seen. AMD doesn't need to worry about I5, it needs to worry about getting the performance crown again. And who would get the fastest I5 that will be the similar price of the I7 920 when 920 is a hideously faster chip?

In what way does the PhII beat an i7 920?

Synthetics?

Nope.

Media work?

looking promising here...

But then fails to come anywhere close on the second pass

Well, this shows more promise, but it basically ends up tying the 920 in 2, and getting flattened by the 920 in the other two...

Rendering?

Not even close

Gaming?

Not bad at all here - it is pretty close to the i7s, and could even be argued to perform slightly better than the 920.


Overclocking?
Anand got the 965 to hit 4GHz
Toms got it to 3.8

That's an overclock of around 500MHz or so

Compare that to the i7 920:
Anand got a D0 to 4.3 GHz (1.6 GHz overclock!)
Toms got a C0 to 3.8GHz on reasonable voltage
Anand got a C0 to 3.8GHz

(I couldn't find more than the one for D0, so I'll just use C0 numbers for now)

For the most part, the i7 920 beats the 955 at stock clocks, but it is admittedly quite close in places. However, if you care about overclocking at all, the Phenom appears to only average around a 15% overclock, while the 920 can pull off over 40%. That gives the i7 a clear advantage in overclocking (and don't pull out the liquid helium - we're talking about normal users here). In every case, the i7 should have a larger lead when overclocked than when stock, since it overclocks so much better than the 965.

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

Epic win. CJL, don't bother reasoning using "facts" and "benchmarks". The real question is "Is it fast enough to run minesweeper?"

 

[radnor]

Very Close cjl, but no cigar.

You forgot price. An i7 920 isn't the cheapest CPU around. It is just the cheapest of I7s that is MORE expensive than the MOST EXPENSIVE of Phenom II.

Buck / Eurobuck wise, AMD is pretty good. Ill play it again, i just 170€ for a x4 955. Even at stock settings show me what Intel CPU competes with it.

 

[Cryslayer80]

Haha, so much ignorance. I7 920 is a hugely downclocked chip. I don't think anyone runs it at stock speed. It was only downclocked to make it's price affordable. 2.6? Come on, that is the frequency of the past. So you shouldn't compare percentage of overclocking, as if you overclock 920 and 975 will be the same performing chips. Anyway, I7 heats as much as PII, but needs less voltage to achieve 4.0GHz. On PII you need about 1.45 for that, while with the I7 you need 1.3 or a little more. That is it's advantage. And those benchmarks only prove my theory. For the largest part 965 was close or better than the I7 920, which by itself is a proof that I5 won't be able to touch neither of these chips (except in gaming, where higher frequency wins).

 

[Cryslayer80]

"but it basically ends up tying the 920 in 2, and getting flattened by the 920 in the other two... "

What the hell are you talking about? When PII had a 3 fps advantage you call that tying, while when I7 has 4 seconds advantage you say PII is "flattened" by I7. Get your facts straight.

 

[cjl]

"but it basically ends up tying the 920 in 2, and getting flattened by the 920 in the other two... "

What the hell are you talking about? When PII had a 3 fps advantage you call that tying, while when I7 has 4 seconds advantage you say PII is "flattened" by I7. Get your facts straight.

You know what the difference is in those two cases?

The i7's 4 second advantage is over 20% in that benchmark. In the second pass encoding, it has over a 30% lead. I'd consider that a fairly thorough flattening.

As for the 3fps? The PhII actually had a 6fps lead in Left4Dead (I'm surprised you didn't pick up on that), but despite the fact that 6fps sounds significant, it's only 5% or so. Far less significant than a 20-30% lead.

Don't let the facts stand in the way of your fanboyism though...

 

[cjl]

Very Close cjl, but no cigar.

You forgot price. An i7 920 isn't the cheapest CPU around. It is just the cheapest of I7s that is MORE expensive than the MOST EXPENSIVE of Phenom II.

Buck / Eurobuck wise, AMD is pretty good. Ill play it again, i just 170€ for a x4 955. Even at stock settings show me what Intel CPU competes with it.

Absolutely agreed. AMD definitely has a strong position in price per dollar. I was specifically responding to a post claiming that the 965 beat the lower end i7s.

 

[cjl]

And those benchmarks only prove my theory. For the largest part 965 was close or better than the I7 920, which by itself is a proof that I5 won't be able to touch neither of these chips (except in gaming, where higher frequency wins).

OK, let's look at them again, shall we?

Synthetic:
Sysmark: 4.4% lead in favor of the i7
(I don't think I need to add a total for this category)

Media:
Photoshop: 21.3% lead in favor of the i7
x264, first pass: 1.04% lead in favor of the Phenom
x264, second pass: 31.5% lead in favor of the i7
Windows Media Encoder: 3.6% lead in favor of the Phenom
Overall: 12.04% in favor of the i7

Rendering:
SPECapc 3dsmax: 28.6% lead in favor of the i7
Pov-Ray 3.7: 30.4% lead in favor of the i7
Overall: 29.5% in favor of the i7

Gaming:
Left 4 Dead: 5.3% lead in favor of the Phenom
Crysis Warhead: 0.37% lead in favor of the i7
Overall: 2.46% in favor of the Phenom

Overall for all benchmarks: 11.85% in favor of the i7. That means that averaged over every benchmark here, the i7 still wins by over 10%. Therefore, your claim that "for the largest part, 965 was clos or better than i7-920" is complete garbage.

Nice try though.

 

[dattimr]

What's the point of one more "doom thread", honestly? I mean, it would be "meh" in the same way if it were "Intel BK Q1/2010". This one adds nothing to the forum than the other ones currently don't.

 

[Cryslayer80]

You know what the difference is in those two cases?

The i7's 4 second advantage is over 20% in that benchmark. In the second pass encoding, it has over a 30% lead. I'd consider that a fairly thorough flattening.

As for the 3fps? The PhII actually had a 6fps lead in Left4Dead (I'm surprised you didn't pick up on that), but despite the fact that 6fps sounds significant, it's only 5% or so. Far less significant than a 20-30% lead.

Don't let the facts stand in the way of your fanboyism though...

What??? Fanboysm??? Is that what you call every person that doesn't lick Intel's blue a** you fanboy? Out of the clear sky you tell me I am a fanboy for posting my opinion that is non Intel pro. You have really given yourself out now. You are a true, hardcore, mega Intel fanboy, by accusing me, and I am totally unbiased towards either company. And my point wasn't that I7 looses to PII, my point was that if it can tie or be better than it now, I5 is pointless. I5 is just a rebranded Core2.

 

[archibael]

Has the definition of "rebranding" changed from "taking an existing product and just changing the name" to "taking a new product with roughly equivalent performance to an older product and giving the new product a new name"?

Because I don't think I got the memo.