AMD Sees Little Future in Ultrabooks
AMD doesn't see much hope in the ultrabook's success in a market dominated by Apple's MacBook series.
In speaking with X-bit labs, John Taylor, the director of client product marketing and software at AMD, indicated that Intel's ultrabook initiative won't be an imminent success. Despite its high expectations, the rival company will likely have a hard time competing in a mobile market dominated by Apple's super-slim and super-powerful MacBook series.
"We have to wait and see when the actual thing comes to market and when Windows 8 comes to market and how does the final product [ultrabook hardware and Windows 8 software] look like as a $1000/€1000 type device," he said. "And how will it compete against already successful Apple MacBook Air. [...] The $1000+/€1000+ PC market is completely dominated by Apple."
He also pointed out that many of the promised features in the upcoming ultrabook form factor are based on Windows 8. Eventually those seemingly exclusive features will migrate beyond ultrabooks and into mainstream systems.
"Windows 8 brings a number of capabilities that Intel would seem to be collecting under the banner of ultrabook," he added. "As well, there are a few things that they are doing with higher-end components that they are looking at that enable faster wake and sleep and this type of capabilities [in Windows 8]."
Obviously AMD isn't taking an ultrabook-like route to address the highly-responsive and highly-portable sub-$1000 laptop market. Instead, it's taking the silicon route.
"We have been on the market with our ultra-thin strategy for some time," he said. "We have always believed there was a sweet spot in the market: the extreme sort of portability with beautiful aesthetic and very thin designs. […] We have Llano silicon solution today that delivers as good or better battery life than Intel and better all around visual experience. […] The Brazos platform [for low-cost systems] has been a runaway success for AMD."
He wouldn't go into any specifics about the upcoming "Trinity" APU, only stating that it's a "step up" in x86 performance, graphics performance and in some areas around video.
"I don't want to get too specific about our 2012 roadmaps, but we have two different types of APUs that we can bring to that ultra-thin market as we move forward to their introduction next year," he said.
SHOW ME THE BULLDOZER.
Sounds like AMD do want to add performance to a thin form factor, they want to price it in a large audience however.
Though my opinion on this is, if you want a highly portable laptop, the best you're gonna want is internet/word processing.
If you want to do graphic design/gaming, you're going to have to forgoe the slimline and battery life approach, and will most likely need to be plugged in (ugly adapter!)
Currently, without using a discreet gfx card (obviously chews up space), AMD have the lead graphically with Llano chips.
One last thing, gaming and apple, lul.
Sounds like AMD do want to add performance to a thin form factor, they want to price it in a large audience however.
Though my opinion on this is, if you want a highly portable laptop, the best you're gonna want is internet/word processing.
If you want to do graphic design/gaming, you're going to have to forgoe the slimline and battery life approach, and will most likely need to be plugged in (ugly adapter!)
Currently, without using a discreet gfx card (obviously chews up space), AMD have the lead graphically with Llano chips.
One last thing, gaming and apple, lul.
SHOW ME THE BULLDOZER.
The ultrabook should hopefully prove whether or not tablets and paper thin computers are exclusively Apple phenomena. If these sorts of things are going to stick around, then kudos to Intel for giving Apple competition. The last thing we need is for Apple to be the sole provider for any market segment.
I believe AMD's future APU's are supposed to compete in the mainstream market against Intel's i-5's and i-7's at a lower price. They're also developing products for the mobile space too.
Sadly AMD looses. Their only advantage is their integrated GPUs on low power systems, something that Intel is quickly catching up on (look at the drastic increases in performance between the GMAs and HD, and the new HD2 coming out next year). Unless AMD starts kicking things in high gear they will loose the mobile markets as well.
Also:
Indeed!
If Intel would help the PC manufacturers reduce the price on these to $699 then you'd have a runaway success but if the margins are so low that even Acer has to charge almost $1,000 bucks then yea... the ultrabook on the PC side just won't make it.
Yep what AMD meant was that they can't produce a processor that will do that in such a small laptop..... SAD.
And I must disagree with the fellow who thinks that corporate sales don't care about power. Just about meeting I've been to lately is full of people with MACBOOK AIRs and the occasional PRO model. I'm one of the few people using an AMD laptop and I feel the glares... like what is this guy doing here... he is so out of date.
i hope there is an unify standard form laptop that we can change the chassis, screen, mobo, cpu, gpu and all the parts anytime like we did on the desktop......
AMD already shipped the Bulldozer out to the manufacture, but is the server chip, not yet for the desktop......
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
as far as showing you it, thats easy! something i ran across today has the benchmark for the AMD FX-8150 Eight-Core as performing better than the 2500k now the next part is hearsay but i heard somewhere that the same 8 core chip will be $250. sounds a bit good to be true to me but hey... its something to give you.