RIP AMD PC's

**SourceSkills** · 10-18-12, 06:19 PM

Sad day for anyone who is an AMD fanboy.

Do or Die: AMD Moves Away From PCs Amid Steep Losses

**DJ Ms. White** · 10-18-12, 06:26 PM

The much bigger problem stemming from this is one of competition. Namely, who will compete with Intel to keep prices low?

**Adretheon** · 10-18-12, 06:28 PM

Indeed, or else I'll have to keep my stuff the same for a long while. Pc stuff gets expensive already :/

**SpecOpsScott** · 10-18-12, 06:36 PM

You guys do know that AMD is in the process of building a $4.2 Billion dollar chip fab facility in upstate NY? The largest construction project in north America in the last few years. They are positioning themselves quite well to enter other markets as well as supply specialty PCs. I don't think we've seen the last of AMD PCs.

**Kanati** · 10-19-12, 11:38 AM

AMD hasn't been truly competitive in the PC cpu field since intel's core2duo came out. And it's fallen further and further behind ever since.

Their latest and greatest is compared to intel's bottom-of-the-barrel i3 cpu just to get some numbers that even come close. And even then in the single thread category AMD's chip gets smoked. And then they claim lowest power consumption. Well... Yes and no. When IDLE it's the lowest power consuming chip. When it's actually under load it draws at least TWICE as much power as the competing intel chip. They really have no product for the desktop at all any more that's even remotely competitive.

I loved my X2 and FX chips way back when, but today, they've positioned themselves into a niche market of their own creation that nobody even cares about. The APU market was created BY amd FOR amd to claim dominance in a field that didn't exist and for the most part still doesn't.

They are marketing to a price point now instead of a performance level. And that... truly is the end of AMD as a real competitor to Intel.

I seem to remember another company that did that... and fell short on performance... who was that again... oh yeah. Cyrix.

**SovietDooM** · 10-19-12, 11:50 AM

They will live on in my tower, and my fathers for atleast the next 4 years.

**Alundil** · 10-19-12, 12:05 PM

Spot on Kanati. Sad to see the only viable (at one time) competitor to Intel fall by the wayside due to their own poor planning/choices.

With that said, I've still got 3 AMD chips in use at the house (939 Athlon64 3500+ still rocking on, AM2+ Phenom 9950, AM3 Phenom II 995)

Though the replacements of those once funds are available will, invariably, be Intel chips.

**Gumby** · 10-19-12, 01:13 PM

They didn't fall to poor planning. They fell to Intel's anti-competitive policies. When the Athlon was dominating the Pentium, Intel threatened major PC manufacturers with price raises if they sold PCs with AMD CPUs. They unfairly used their market position to prevent sales for the competition and that starved the much smaller AMD for R&D money. Now we will have no competition and higher prices for less performance gains.

Sent from the land of bier and bretzels on my Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk

**HeavyG** · 10-19-12, 01:35 PM

Gumby is right about the R&D. But let's be realistic about the gains. The higher prices give plenty of gains right now, especially when comparing AMD to Intel. Comparing AMD's $300 offering to Intel's isn't even close in power/performance. Sure, Intel has some $600-1000 offerings that are not THAT much of a gain, especially to gamers, but they have their uses.

While competition did help keep the prices lower for Intel, they kept their pricing points for the really high end stuff way out of reach for most consumers and left that to the extreme/enthusiast type user.

Now if the $300 parts suddenly fly up to $500, then we are in trouble. Until I see that happen, I will remain optimistic about the future of processor technology.

**Alundil** · 10-19-12, 01:41 PM

Originally Posted by Gumby

When the Athlon was dominating the Pentium, Intel threatened major PC manufacturers with price raises if they sold PCs with AMD CPUs. They unfairly used their market position to prevent sales for the competition and that starved the much smaller AMD for R&D money.

I do understand that, and I agree that it occurred. However, the planning I was referring to was "What's next after K8?" Because as far as I can tell, they had money that could've been used for R&D on competing in the desktop performance war after K8 but chose to spend it on things like ATI new wholly-owned fabs, etc.

Several billion dollars later and what to show for that? ATI is still good hardware and their drivers are still shitty compared to nVidia's. Are they saving oodles (don't often get to use that word) of money fabricating through "Global Foundries" as opposed to TSMC (SP)? I don't think it made a huge positive impact in comparison to the charges against their finances.

K10 was underwhelming performance wise. Was that due to Intel's ill-legal practices? I find it hard, even being a fan of AMD processors, to blame Intel for that alone.
Fusion/Bulldozer/APU is underwhelming. It's an intriguing concept/design to be sure. But it's performance is, also, nothing to write home about.

As I said poor planning. Not chalking it up solely to that as they most certainly had "help" from Intel. But poor planning was a key driver as well and can't be dismissed.