AMD Ready To Fight in 2012, Says CEO
AMD CEO Rory Read mentioned "thin and light" in his 2012 attack speech to analysts.
AMD CEO Rory Read is putting on the boxing gloves and preparing for a fight in 2012. It won't be done in the boxing ring, but in the consumer arena spanning desktops, laptops and tablets. His secret weapon seemingly won't be a right hook either, but a "thin and light" assault that will surely hit Intel beneath the belt.
Read used AMD's first analyst day since 2010 to present his challenge to contenders, revealing a focus on the fast-growing mobile computing segment. But you won't see AMD taking a dip in the smartphone pool. Oh no sir, that's too crowded as it is with Intel making its Medfield-based entry and ARM seemingly ruling the mobile market on the SoC level.
"We're going to double down on client and mobility," he said. "I'm not suggesting we dive into smartphones, a heavily crowded space with low margins. I'm going to focus on client mobility, thin and light."
Thin and light probably refers to the rumored "ultrathin" form factor we've heard about for several months. The move to push a new form factor seemingly indicates that AMD is still out to compete with Intel on some level, but a spokesman for AMD said back in November 2011 that the company is shifting away from competing with the long-time processor rival Intel. Instead, AMD will dump its competitive energies into its mobile assault, cloud computing, and entry-level offerings in developing countries.
"We're at an inflection point," said AMD spokesman Mike Silverman. "We will all need to let go of the old 'AMD versus Intel' mind-set, because it won't be about that anymore."
At the same time in a separate report, Read announced that he was slashing 10-percent of AMD's workforce to save about $20 million in annual operating costs. Presently AMD sits at around 19-percent of the overall processor market share, down from a 23-percent share in 2006. However the company doesn't plan to push the envelope with new technology in 2012. Instead AMD rather focus on improving its overall execution.
"We don't want to be on the bleeding edge of technology where we're leading in with our chin and we don't execute cleanly and that breaks down trust," he told analysts.
Reuters reports that Read gestured with his hands and delivered a presentation with the energy of a motivational speaker. He clearly seemed excited about the possibilities that 2012 will bring to the struggling chip manufacturer.
No, I still recommend AMD for lower end to mid-low computing needs. For example, I'd rather have a Phenom II X4 over an i3, or an APU over Intel Atom for HTPC. However, once you get to the upper range, then yes I agree an i5 and i7 are worthy of our money.
And I admit, I am biased for having amd after amd chip failing on me after all these years, wich could be just bad luck. (and I have never overclocked)
No, I still recommend AMD for lower end to mid-low computing needs. For example, I'd rather have a Phenom II X4 over an i3, or an APU over Intel Atom for HTPC. However, once you get to the upper range, then yes I agree an i5 and i7 are worthy of our money.
I guess this means Piledriver is much ado about nothing as well.?
Really? Even though the i3-2100 still dominates the p2 x4 at pretty much everything?
You do know he is talking about mobile, don't you? 2500k and 2600k are desktop processors that AMD admited won't try to overtake with technology alone. And in mobile space, I only recommend Intel if I can't find an AMD alternative, as many times the extra cores will help, and when it won't nobody will miss an i3/i5. AND if anything 3D at all appears on screen, the Intel platform is doomed to crawl.
I firmly believe AMD is on the right track for efficient mobile notebook platforms, especially after the OpenCL article from Toms. Yes, Bulldozer seems to be a failure, but just because the ecosystem it tried to enter is not ready for it (mid-heavy threaded software). But I have faith in them, and exciting times are still to come (from both manufacturers).
and don't blame BD's lackluster on windows 7. that is just a pathetic excuse
I suspect they may be working on a Tegra3 clone given that they, like Nvidia, have a good grasp on how to do Graphics and Processors.
Uhhh.... i3-2100 vs 970BE.... 3DS Max 2010, Photoshop CS5, After Effects CS5, Blender, Cinebench, ABBYY Fine Reader, 7 Zip, Main Concept, Handbrake, etc. all show the 970BE beat the i3-2100 by a considerable margin. Yes there are a few areas that the i3 bested the 970BE, but overall having 4 real cores vs 2 is measureable. So you're claim of "at pretty much everything" is baseless and ignorant.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-15.html
Yes, but that is all video/photo editing. That is a small portion of the market when compared to the office and gaming markets. Even a Pentium G630 is on par with a Phenom x4 955 for gaming uses and will be ahead for most office uses because of the significantly better single threaded performance.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-10.html
This means that pretty much the only place where AMD beats Intel is in a cheap computer that will be used primarily for rendering. There aren't as many people who are looking for something like that.
If it's not about Intel VS AMD anymore, then I guess I don't have to feel bad about my next processor.
That's why my original post is that I recommend the Phenom II X4 over the i3 line because its a more balanced chip. In gaming, it's a toss up between the two, but overall content creativity and general uses, the Phenom II is a much better buy. There's only a $10 price difference between the i3-2100 and Phenom II X4 970.