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AMD: 2007 was a lesson
With large lay-offs, limited funds and delayed processors, many people predict a hellish future for AMD. But is it really all doom and gloom at AMD? We put the question to AMD
‘Intel is a very good manufacturing company,’ admits Amato, ‘but they have never been committed to driving innovation.’ Interestingly, this is a view also shared by Nvidia’s chief scientist David Kirk, who recently said: ‘What Intel does well is not just building good CPUs, it’s the fact that they’re a vertically integrated manufacturing company – Intel’s in the business of turning sand into money… Architecturally though, they’ve been behind AMD for some time – the Athlon architecture is a better architecture because the integrated bus controller is a better approach.’
‘If you look at the history, Intel never had to worry about bringing a lot of new things to the market,’ says Amato. ‘They were the standard, until AMD made the K6.’ As Amato says, ‘Intel is now copying what we did in 2003 with Nehalem, so stay tuned and you will see in 2009 that we’ll do new things that will make Intel think, and they will have to catch up.’
What’s so good about native quad-core anyway?
This level of innovation comes at a price, though, mainly in the time it takes time to develop. Arguably, AMD could have solved some of its problems today by putting the whole native quad-core CPU idea on the shelf until it was developed, and producing a dual dual-core chip like Intel’s in the meantime.
‘We could have done that,’ says Amato, ‘and we could have done it very easily, but we thought that a quad-core CPU can only be called a quad-core CPU if architecturally the four cores are on the same silicon substrate.’
He explains that ‘when you have all four cores on the same silicon substrate, you have all the cores and the cache coherency working at the same speed of the internal bus. If we were doing a multi-chip [two dual-core chips together, like an Intel Core 2 Quad] method, then we’d have the dies communicating together via HyperTransport 1, so the situation would be different with HyperTransport 3.’
However, he does say that ‘in the future we can see different types of implementation,’ possibly meaning that AMD could make a CPU from two silicon substrates in the future. However, he insists that waiting for a native quad-core architecture was the right way to go. If this hadn’t happened, then ‘we would not have delivered the solution to our customers that they were looking for from AMD,’ he says.
Should AMD have bought ATI?
Of course, the other main contributor to AMD’s financial situation was its purchase of GPU maker ATI for a whopping $5.4 billion. We ask Amato, whether this was the right decision in retrospect.‘Everybody can say we could have spent less money afterwards, or this could have been done better,’ he says, adding that ‘I cannot comment on the goodwill.’ Money aside, however, he insists that the purchase of ATI was the right decision for a number of reasons.
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****With all the banter from the "Experts" I believe my decision to build an AMD powered PC is the smart thing to do**** No its really not. Well.... it is if you like wasting money. I try not to spend the same amount (or god forbid more) on an inferior product. It just doesnt make any sense.
Comment by pveater at 7:58am 9th May 2008
Do you think Intel will keep those cpu prices low? do you think Nvidia will bother to make those faster gpus when no one is around to compete with them? I dont care how fast or even cheap intel or nvidia will be as long as their competitor AMD still exists then im going to buy AMD not for brand loyalty but to keep competition alive. I guess your all forgetting that way back if it werent for the k6 series ordianry peopl in thrid world countries like mine would never have afforded desktop pcs. Intel was never going to lower their overpriced almost like a 2ndhand car pentium 2 pcs. When AMDcame out with the k6 series thsi caused a blossoming of the pc industry in my country with internet shops, printing, graphics etc which used to be the enclave of the very rich. And if AMD bails or fails then we the consumers will go back to this very undesirable situtation where a monopoly rules over the market completely. So im sticking with AMD for the principle of it.
Comment by bongbong at 2:01pm 5th May 2008
Do you think Intel will keep those cpu prices low? do you think Nvidia will bother to make those faster gpus when no one is around to compete with them? I dont care how fast or even cheap intel or nvidia will be as long as their competitor AMD still exists then im going to buy AMD not for brand loyalty but to keep competition alive. I guess your all forgetting that way back if it werent for the k6 series ordianry peopl in thrid world countries like mine would never have afforded desktop pcs. Intel was never going to lower their overpriced almost like a 2ndhand car pentium 2 pcs. When AMDcame out with the k6 series thsi caused a blossoming of the pc industry in my country with internet shops, printing, graphics etc which used to be the enclave of the very rich. And if MAD bails or fails then we the consumers will go back to this very undesirable situtation where a monopoly rules over the market completely. So im sticking with AMD for the principle of it.
Comment by bongbong at 2:01pm 5th May 2008
With all the banter from the "Experts" I believe my decision to build an AMD powered PC is the smart thing to do, Fire alarms and Doomsday warnings remind me of "Mob" mentality. I have had no problems with their previous products, so reliability speaks volumes to me. I'll stick with loyalty over "Trick of the Week"
Comment by KLMallender at 2:22pm 2nd May 2008
A good long winded topic on people for and against AMD and Intel. To be honest i think they need to learn the lesson quick and do something before nvidia, and intel push out the Ati nose, and then begin the forefront of Intel domination followed by its underdog VIA.
Comment by Lightning_Pete at 12:24pm 2nd May 2008
I have been saying to all my friends in 2007, that 2008 will be the year for AMD, live, death, rise, fall????? ... we'll see.
Comment by tigerlewis85 at 11:26am 2nd May 2008
If only the 6600 was not as good as the best phenon for less money dam. If only the 3750x2 was not 1 year late to take on the 8800gtx and ultra There are alot of if onlys in AMD's hat but not realy anything else the 3 Core phenom is good idear on paper but realy what can you get a intel quad for these days the market gap between a fast duel core and the 6600 is just realy minute so the 3 core just wont be a mass seller me thinks. Salvation could come in the form of the 47-- series GPU's but again seeing the dismal gains nvidia made over the original 8800 series ATI will have to have done something radical remember the 29-- series (was late and crap) and then the 37-- was just late so mabey there is foward movement. (First company to come out with some decent scaling drivers for multi gpu deserves major cudose i hope for your sake its you ATI)
Comment by Cool_CR at 10:34am 2nd May 2008
My new PC bits will arrive today. My Last Intel purchase was the 486 DX2 66. Intel has won me over. It's very sad that the peoples champion (AMD) can't win me over any longer. I will be unhappy to see them go, if they do disappear, but what can they really do? On the other hand let's stomp on Labour and rid the country of the lieing, deceitful ****'s. Early indications are that the country is waking up to a new England, governed by new promises.
Comment by CSQuake at 9:15am 2nd May 2008
i need to build a proxy/file server... its gonna be an AMD. my game rig is an intel atm which was purchased last year. my laptop is an intel purchased yesterday. however, if i built these systems 3 years ago, funnily enough, it would be the EXACT opposite.
Comment by thegreat0mi at 1:13am 2nd May 2008
Are out of buisness!, Without a shadow of a doubt!
Comment by NikoBellic at 11:25pm 1st May 2008
I'm currently building my first Intel system since 2000! Since then, every time it's come to upgrade, AMD have been at the top of the heap. "Hardcore" consumers like us will always hold brands dear, but not as dear as low prices, innovative kit or through-the-roof speeds and performance. Intel has had a fantastic couple of years, just as AMD did between 2001-2006. There's nothing to stop them moving ahead once again, if they can come up with the goods in terms of price and speed. Or maybe move to a different marketplace; PVR and other home entertainment systems perhaps, or mobile data and communication packages.
Comment by F_A_F at 10:15pm 1st May 2008
Me, I hope they do bring out something new, Amd are a bit slow, but the tech is wright and you need this to move computer power on, eg Windows 95, 98, XP, Vista, we still use 32bit as a mainstream I believe we should be at a 64bit by now and maybe moving on to the next phase......so AMD, good luck and I do hope you survive.
Comment by moose19721 at 6:08pm 1st May 2008
LOL, what a pointless interview. Everything is gunna be Rosy according to this ***person*** - he is hardly going to say the company is in deep doo doo. What a waste of time, they may aswell had got Stepping A Phenom and interviewed that - atleast it would have provided more factual information. ***MODERATED FOR COARSE LANGUAGE - please keep it clean***
Comment by C7ouD at 5:59pm 1st May 2008
AMD really are in financial trouble and the company should really not be putting out a pretty picture from their own spin department. It doesn't matter how good you think your own product is or how competitive it is in the market place if the competition is kicking your ass on all fronts. CPU, Motherboard and GPU are all below par in price and performance. We know that once ATI announce a new card, Nvidia just announce a better product. AMD announce a CPU and Intel half their own price to out sell alternative from AMD. They really don't have the ability to compete on all those fronts. They should either offload something or sell up completely. Either that or only focus on the low end of the market and price accordingly. This is something he was trying to say they are doing but they are still getting hammered by everyone. I'm sorry but money talks and the competition appear to taking it all with better and cheaper products.
Comment by crazyceo at 5:56pm 1st May 2008
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