"Profitability timeline has been pushed out", more like total collapse of their CPU/APU/GPU business. They spent $526M to get $379M in revenue for a $147M loss, that's a -27% profit margin and we know Zen isn't coming until 2016 while Intel is launching Skylake next month. On the GPU side Fury will do okay but it's hardly a Maxwell-killer and currently only covering the 980/Ti segment until the Nano is here.
Sure they'll still have the console sales but they can't really influence them in any way as the specs are frozen, Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo control the volume by pricing and it will sell less as the console gets older. I guess they have some other semi-custom business too, but not enough to break even. And unlike last quarter, most of this is not any special charges they simply sell at a loss. Changing process node shouldn't really be separated out as a special cost at all, it's part of being in the chip business. They're just doing it to make their non-GAAP numbers look less terrible. Same with cash flow, they've cashed out all their marketable securities. Past the make-up it's pretty grim though.
I just love non-GAAP numbers from AMD. Rosanne says "There's always somthin' ". With AMD there is always somethin' even if it is normally just the cost of doing business. Ignore the non-GAAP this quarter as it is pretty much a fabricated number to lipstick over their bruised and bloody lips.
On the bright side during the call they said "we've actually just taped out the first couple of FinFET designs". Long way to go from tapeout to retail but it's a big milestone.
"They spent $526M to get $379M in revenue" - not really CPU / GPU itself are profitable, but they must spend lot of money for new designs Zen/R4xx, and this is booked to Computing and Graphics department financial balance. They may not spend these money, and make 526 * 25% = 131mln$ profits, but that mean EOL for them within a year.
The gross margin is 25% total, we don't have it per segment and it doesn't include the cost of running the business which is another $134 million or interest of $40 million. But in total the net loss was $181M, R&D was $235M so even if they ended all R&D today they'd only turn a $54M profit before the restructuring costs of laying them off. Assuming >$54M of that R&D is in semi-custom they're already losing money before investing in new designs.
Bottom line is AMD is dying faster and if AMD dies Intel might charge us even more or give us less. To keep AMD alive for longer we need more AMD customers and supporters to buy more AMD stuff, maybe even buy more than they actually need. So everyone please stop trying to convince random strangers on the Internet that Intel or Nvidia is better. You can convince your loved ones if you wish, but let the AMD customers and fans do what they must for the greater good.
"So everyone please stop trying to convince random strangers on the Internet that Intel or Nvidia is better. You can convince your loved ones if you wish, but let the AMD customers and fans do what they must for the greater good."
I won't be able to bring myself to lie, but if I see someone considering a Nvidia card, I will leap in to check that they have considered the AMD equivalent. (I don't think I could bring myself to do that for AMD CPUs, sorry - the gap is too wide! I'll just keep quiet! ;))
AMD CPU's are good for their price. Their killer price is the reason why intel bought skylake so early since haswell was not able to give enough competition in value oriented segment.
In field of Commercial CPU there are only two firms AMD and Intel and same goes with commerical GPU. Those business are worth billions or even trillions.
THere is no chance that a firm in such low competition business will die. Just look at fx 8 core series, it was not selling well and AMD dropped prices of the chip to peanuts.
they dont have the best products in the world. but they have products that still do for a very large amount of computer users. it might not be good at the moment. but its not hopeless. amd has quite (at least some times) contraproductive marketing. not being the best and doing so in a good marketed way would suit the brand better than generating indexes and technical productnames which aim to have naive pc users look away from the fact that they are not competitive at every level. so innovation might not only be technical. i think amd has a big marketing problem and if they somehow make it to get happily away from this "who is best" competition - they just might have developed that kind of innovation that they need.
thats true. amd has some lack of technology which makes the platforms not very interesting for business customers. so i think the remaining market are the homeusers. amd has some technologies that will "do" and can be had quite cheap .. i strongly believe that amd should be sold to the chinese. that would be the saviour. they have the market for "do" and they have proven to handle some businesses that the western world can no longer maintain profitable. they have interests in their own x86 technology, they can use it to make some taylormade solutions for the huge home market. i heard qualcomm is struggling with the snapddragons so eg. connecting the arm efforts of those two companies might be a fit. some might get political over this, but there is no reason for a very simple argument: the chinese have all the great technology avaible for research, they have access to all the competitive technologies - they wont be able to do any harmful with the amd x86 which they are already able to do. also i dont believe that the chinese will make rockets out of the amd x86 cores but they just have the potential and the market to heal this brand as a china owned company and a china led effort.
Nobody is blaming ONLY the drop in PC sales except for maybe AMD and some die hard Red campers.
But yes the PC market is softer, Intel didn't make what they intended to from the PC segment. But their Enterprise has been doing well and made a difference.
Also, it is common knowledge that Intel chips are more popular than AMD at the moment, so lets not act surprised that Intel is doing better in a softer market than AMD. lol.
As the weaker play and frankly one whose CPUs aren't even really competitive AMD is going to take more of a it as the PC market declines. If the PC market were still growing, AMD might be in a significantly better position. Any gains or losses here get magnified because Intel is the default choice, and offers such a better product.
Not really, it's weak compared to last year but not weakening further. In Intel's Client Computing Group revenue was up 2%, operating income up 14% in Q2 compared to Q1, while AMD's Computing and Graphics division lost 29% revenue and nearly doubled their losses. It's pretty much just AMD at this point.
You sound smart, care to educate how AMD with a R&D budget 1/10th of Intel be able to make superior products? In fact, given what AMD has been spending, its APUs are actually not bad.
They were able to do it during the Athlon era. Of course, that was the perfect storm---Intel going RAMBUS and then going with the Netburst disaster, coupled with the competent Athlon design from AMD.
"The PC market is fine. AMD is just not a part of it anymore."
That is true, unfortunately.
Although I must say that for AMD to try to put a favourable (albeit, ridiculous) spin on their financial conundrum was expected. What cracks me up is how a tech site like AT puts forth that spin with a straight face. AMD is a sinking ship AT, make sure your credibility doesn't end up going down with it.
AMD isn't completing in any sector at all. I hardly see the reason to buy them over competitors product.
Nvidia, still has the best Drivers out there. And Driver quality is all that count in GPU segment. To be honest AMD isn't bad here, but they need to be better, hopefully the changes with Fury will improve the situation.
On the CPU i hope they will find a niche within the server space.
Let me tell you what was going on the Planet earth while you were away:
AMD R9 290x beat nVidia's greatest Titan at a fraction of a price. AMD Fury (non X) handily beats 980 (non Ti) while consuming only slightly (15-20%) more power.
So, next time you look for the reasons to buy them over competition product, don't look up you arse, just check the numbers.
I hate AMD trolls and normally don't respond to them...but I'll just say this. During the civil war, people rooted for the south once...right? Keep holding that Alamo son!
FYI, the Alamo was a critical battle in the Texas Revolution to gain independence from Mexico. While it was technically occupied by the confederate army for a period of time during the Civil war they were actually kicked out by a short siege from Texas Militiamen affiliated with the secessionist movement and not union forces. So, your implied connection between the alamo and the civil war is pretty off base. On top of that, I hardly think of AMD as fighting for the economic gains to be gotten from slavery so the whole analogy is a bit harsh. They do have 800MM in cash still, but 4 more quarters like this will put them in a bad place. Still, you didn't respond to any of the data provided by the previous poster which actually makes you look more like an Nvidia troll than they look like an AMD troll. Personally, I like my christmas with green AND red...
Think properly. You should be encouraging more AMD fanboys to buy more AMD products to keep AMD alive for longer. Someone has to buy AMD products so that Intel won't screw us as much, if it's not going to be you or me guess who else?
You're an utter joke. Fury X has almost the performance of 980Ti, beating it in VERY FEW exceptions. It is also priced as if it was an nVidia card - it also requires water cooling, it is hotter and less overclockable, it is marketed towards 4K, yet it only has 4GB of VRAM (vs 6GB on the 980Ti) - ALL of these while consuming 20% more power. Did I mention pump noise? Pump issues? All this to do what? TRY to match an nVidia card with blower-based cooling? What a fracking joke! What a fracking joke! For Fruck's sake! Anyone seeing ANY reason at all to buy any Fury card is a blind man. The R9 300 series? Well, they're the same R9 200 series cards with a bit of overclock that can easily be achieved on the R200 series. The point in buying anything other than APUs from AMD? None. After the HUGE disappointment the Fury X is, let them go down if they can't get one damn thing right - this will mean higher prices on nVidia and Intel hardware, but hey...what can we do? Buy shit products when there are infinitely better alternatives?
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/84722-zotac... 980 ti beating a Fury X by 15 to 30% BEFORE overclocking. It really crushes it. Even faster than a 295 with a single GPU and NO WATER required. With overclocking it's ridiculous. Fury X is very limited there anyway.
Let me light some of obscure points that lead you to this limited and approximate view of the world: 1. 290X didn't really beat anything. Do you really think that Titan and 290X played in the same league? In fact after a couple of weeks the 780Ti, which has been kept in a drawer for months, appeared. And the vertical price drop of 290X cards explained which victory that was. Titan's price didn't move of a single dollar... guess why. 2. Fury beats 980? Really? That's a miracle, my dear! A real miracle! Let's see... it consumes more and costs more, but most of all Fiji is 150% the die size of GM204 and even HBM can't manage the card to come to Maxwell efficiency. That (Fiji, not GM204) is the kind of product that is killing AMD. It should have been the Titan X killer, sold at premium price, giving a new vision to the company, free advertising, all sites speaking of this new product more modern and faster than competition, well distant from being able to use the same technology, making nvidia drop its prices and roll up their sleeves, but in the end was the usual disappointment that has to be sold with no gain margin just to have any appeal. With nvidia retaking their quiet sleep after a few seconds of noise.
Come on, be realistic. AMD's products line is under par with competitions, be it Intel or nvidia. They struggle to present something new every once in a while. And even when using the most of their resources, they fail (see Fiji, but also console APUs that are sold at no margins at all, WHY??). Sorry, but this company is lead to fail in few months. All the markets it relies on are shrinking. High profitability ones they are no more. Lots of debts. And no valid products on horizon for still a few months. I really hope they can survive until Zen is released, hoping it is such a good architecture that may convince me to return to AMD CPUs. But my hopes are thin. Really. For GPUs, if they have not already created GCN v2 completely from scratch, they are already doomed.
Their GPUs are still basically competitive. Even if slightly slower/more power use in some cases. They are in the same ballpark. New drivers could very well post Fury X above the 980Ti (at stock). The difference is small enough that it could happen. Will it? It remains to be seen. The same cannot be said about CPUs, which just aren't competitive at all.
Please explain your 'Nvidia still has the best Drivers out there" statement. Because it's simply not true from any experience I've had with them in the last few years.
It *might* be slightly more true for day one nVidia sponsored titles and it might be even be partly true for SLI vs CFX, but nVidia drivers are no more stable or well designed than AMD's, they just have the benefit of being able to afford to work on the more quickly... and the benefit of being a mostly software-centric company that just happens to make video cards.
And claiming that driver quality is "all that count[s] in GPU segment" is ridiculous. So long as they are stable, you really don't care about the drivers.
"the benefit of being a mostly software-centric company that just happens to make video cards."
lol, wow, just wow. It must be quite embarrassing then for AMD to repeatedly lose in the market to a "mostly software-centric company" that just happens to make video cards.
Regarding the resources of Nvidia to work on their drivers-----It doesnt matter WHAT the reason is for the consumer, all we know is that for (generally) the same price, you can buy a piece of hardware with a formidable driver team supporting it.
Unless, of course, you have a thing about putting your money towards the underdog company.
People look to other people for advice. The information we generally hear about AMD and Nvidia is that Nvidia's dedicated videocard driver team dwarfs AMD's in size. Now, the *reason* for that discrepancy is open to discussion, but as an AMD and NVidia card user, I can comfortably say that Nvidia is much quicker in getting working SLI driver updates out for the newest games. This would be noticable to anybody with a multi-GPU setup.
Most of the time, you dont need a brand-new driver for a new game in a single-gpu system, and I think thats what tends to get overlooked in the Nvidia vs AMD driver debate. There are exception s to this; such as the work AMD needed to do for even single GPU performance for TW3, but most of the time, the driver available at launch from AMD works fine for a single card, IME.
NVIDIA having better drivers has nothing to do with anything you just posted. The simple fact is, AMD's DX11 drivers have far too much CPU overhead and this is killing them constantly.
NVIDIA have a clear win and that department and it can be seen just by looking at the 1080p numbers. Fury/Fury X get stomped at 1080p by the 980ti, and even the 980 beats the Fury almost all around at 1080p (and once you overclock... it gets even worse for Fury). This is partially because of the 980s small bus, but mostly because of driver overhead.
I don't know if this will change anytime soon either, though it has long been rumoured that AMD CPUs should be run with NVIDIA graphics (the performance delta is generally much lower). AMD did try to recruit for CPU performance engineer a few months ago, presumably to tackle this issue, though its lateness does smell of "we didn't know it was an issue as we had our heads stuck in the sand" like frame pacing did.
Even if Fury is destined to be used at higher resolutions, the products further down the stack could benefit from a removal of some of the CPU workload.
I find that for single GPU setups, AMD drivers are quite good. But, waiting for solid CFX profiles for new games would REALLY deter me from going for a multiple-Radeon GPU setup.
There are glitches at times, and some "pro" gamers hate the added latency AFR introduces, but for those of us who arent really bothered by the slight added latency (i'm not the greatest gamer in the world, LOL), SLI works pretty darn well, IMO. CFX too, when AMD gets around to getting the driver optimized and scaling well for new games. Took them 3 months for GTA5 (the 15.7 release last week!), and they didnt have an excuse of "oh well its a Nvidia-crippled TWIMTBP game" to fall back on in this case.
But I understand why some people dont want any added latency. Doesnt bother me, though.
Took them 6 months to get CFX working in Far Cry 4. Was one of the main reasons I sold my 295x2. Tried of waiting for new games to finally get good CFX profiles. Now with my single Titan X I can play games really well at 4K/60 (I turn of all blur effects in every game I play and this usually gives me a big FPS boost and makes ultra 60 fps doable even in games like GTA V) and never have to worry about this. Single card is always the way to go IMO.
Yeah, its an added hassle (SLI/CFX), but Nvidia is usually good at getting SLI scaling working well within the first week (if not launch day). I wish AMD could come close to that.
Again, I think its largely about multi-videocard systems. There's no debate that there is a very noticable lag from AMD in getting CFX support for the newest games.
Whilst I agree that NVIDIA shader counts != AMD shader counts, did you know that the GTX 750Ti also has 512 shaders? In addition, whilst Dual Graphics is a flawed implementation, at least with those "puny 512SP" you can at least add a compatible card to boost performance in a few titles, something that is sadly missing from the 750Ti.
Now, the question is - do you think the 750Ti is "puny"...?
The "puny 512SP" remark is obviously wrong. You have probably noticed that unlike the 750Ti, the new APUs don't have a quarter of the memory bandwidth. AMD APUs, unlike Intel's, don't give the GPU portion access to the LLC, so the "puny 512SP" are actually a bunch of very potent, but very memory-starved shaders. It's like having a huge engine, but limit the fuel available to 1/4 of the necessary - if after an off-pedal there's gas in the pipe, for the shortest moments you'll have full power, but then the pipe gets empty and there's no way to fill it back up fast enough.
You're right, apologies for the oversight. 2,816 Maxwell cores appear to have the measure of 4,096 slower clocked GCN cores, assuming there is no other additional factor, though there is the suspicion that Fury X is ROP-limited more than anything else.
Your excavator APU's for mobile are being sold with the worst specs as the OEM can possibily pick.
Near top of the line carrizo included with: 1366x768 1 single channel 8GB 5400rpm 100mbit ethernet
REALLY.
Dear AMD, start selling your product under your own brand, OEM's don't care about you or they receive enough $$$ from somone you know very well to not care.
There was certainly a time when Intel was paying or pressuring OEMs into dropping AMD, but that was back when AMD actually had competitive products. Nowadays (and after the disaster where their behaviour was revealed in court), Intel is happy to just let AMD sabotage themselves with mediocre products that are only competitive being sold heavily discounted to make up for their terrible power efficiency/performance.
This situation is not good for the market, as there is hardly any competitive pressure on Intel in the consumer market, and a healthy AMD is required for a healthy market.
I want to by an AMD notebook, but I can't find any with IPS screen. Let alone Carrizo. Dell US at least has some offerings, Dell Germany, nope, Intel only.
It's not the PC market. It's their decisions. The PC market may not have the triple digit growth it once had, but people (particularly enthusiasts) ARE buying. The shear number of players involved with every single component, from the power supply to entire PCs should tell you as much. You just have to sell a competitive product...I remember the days when AMD was great...sadly I suspect I will never see those days again unless someone can come along and reinvent the company.
Actually, the numbers don't lie. PC sales have been stagnant or on the decline for a number of years now. And as for enthusiasts, no a lot of us aren't buying. There's just no point. If you have a Sandy Bridge from 4 years ago you have a faster CPU than anything AMD has out, and if it's overclocked it may be on par with newer Intel processors (not worth spending $400 if your hope of more performance relies entirely on overclocking, and then getting only ~20% improvement).
Best comment I have seen so far. Another year or so and we could buy it for some loose change and a half-eaten sandwich.
I want AMD to succeed. Not because I am a fanboy, but because I want there to be competition. As such, I buy AMD GPUs when I buy but can't really bring myself to buy an AMD APU. They just don't make sense for the machines I build (and make sense for very few machines at all in my opinion).
I bought an 15.6 with an A8 in it a few years ago on Black Friday.
It was a great little guy for work, loved it, never gave me any issues. I've since recycled it into a very convenient and subtle HTPC.
I just mounted the laptop to the back of my TV, and set it up with a wireless Logitech keyboard/touchpad. It is a fantastic and very cheap solution to a media consumption HTPC that can still game LoL, WoT, and Minecraft when I I entertain younger ones.
AMD APU's are actually really nice for the price if you ask me. But I would be lying if every time I looked at my laptop I didn't think of the power being missed due to their terrible memory bottleneck.
"AMD is stating that they believe the impending launch of Windows 10 was a significant factor in their weak sales for the quarter, as consumers held back on buying new systems until the new OS is out"
I for one am not waiting for Windows 10, but rather Skylake. You know, a fresh CPU line with new chip sets. Why the hell would I buy AMD at this point when they're missing a lot of modern goodies and they aren't really any cheaper?
Pretty much what I'm waiting for as well. My OCed i7 920 served me well until now but it's starting to show it's age. And with Skylake out in a few months, I can wait.
I think the real question is why the hell would you read an AMD article given such hate for the company's products? Same for the rest here that revel in the struggling company. There is just something so wrong about your attitude.
They don't have anything that's interesting to us to wait for for at least the next 2 quarters, that doesn't mean we hate them, it's just they don't have anything left to introduce for the remainder of the year, whereas Intel has Skylake.. This situation will be reversed to their favors at the time they introduce Zen -given that Intel would stay idle and don't introduce any new fancy toy around the same time of course!-
Why bother? It's going to be the same story as the last few years, ~5-10% improvement in IPC and stagnant or even declining frequency. It's not going to light the world on fire.
They just try to survive until Zen. If Zen comes and it comes with much better IPC and efficiency compared to today AMD hardware, they might have a chance. Of course even if Zen is 200% faster than Intel Skylake(just exaggerating here), Intel will use it's marketing dollars to keep AMD out of many OEM laptops and desktops. Anyway if Zen comes and it is competitive with Intel on IPC, then AMD will have a better chance in the retail market. People will start looking again for AMD cpus and motherboards, integrated graphics will get a significant boost thanks to the better CPU in the APUS, everything in AMD's line will be much better and much more competitive. The fact that Intel is slowing down with fabrication process, is also good news for AMD. Skylake wouldn't offer that much more compared to Haswell.
@Anandtech. There much be Carrizo laptops by now, somewhere. I don't think Intel managed to stop every Carrizo laptop from reaching the retail market. Is there a chance we will see a review?
Intel (or Nvidia, for that matter) would want AMD around, to make them look much better, though. Because without AMD, intel would have to compete against its own products to make new sales, and that would be a much tougher competetion.
When you compare the size of the companies, and remove ATI from AMD's sales, since Intel doesn't make discreet GPUs, you can easily see that Intel has been competing against themselves for years. AMD isn't really a factor since Intel changed course and came out with Yonah. And that was a long time ago.
This is bad, really. And it is a reflection of what they do or shall I say, what they don't do. Really, this is the whole reason of why they don't get the attention they deserve. They have good products but they need to risk more, to cooperate with OEMs to get more design wins. They had that cool Discovery platform that really what a Bay Trail killer. Where are products like that released by OEMs? Why would you work on a project like Puma+ with products like Mullins and Beema if you stop at the most important part, selling the damn products. Ok, they don't have the best tech out there, but neither rockchip or allwinner or mediatek but they've suceeded. They released products which give them a lot of revenue to keep going. Damn, I really believe that there is no really visionary person in AMD, like Jerry Sanders or Hector Ruiz. And don't tell me about Lisa, because she ain't got it. So dear AMD. Release products, be creative. It doesn't matter if you have the slowest CPU in the market, it matters how you dress it. If you release quality products that can differentiate from the others at reasonable prices, you can sell big. Take cues from Apple, from Intel, from nVidia. Be smart and curageous.
Time for this company to die or someone that knows how to run a business takes over. AMD have proved year after year that they are incapable of keeping up with Intel and with graphic processors they are falling further behind Nvidia. I bet Nvidia will beat them to launch the Pascal cards months before AMD get 400 series out. With Maxwell they were 1.5 year ahead of AMD before they got out efficient cards that match Maxwell in efficiency. Even with that the Fury cards isnt even a new architecture so Nvidia is ahead here as well.
Efficient cards is different than efficient architecture. You can create the formers by using costly technology, as AMD did with Fury, but not having the latter makes your products costing more than the competition. That's why nvidia dominated the GPU market during these 3 years. Despite the absolute performances, which have also been inferior to those achieved by AMD (see 680 vs 7970GHz edition or the GTX960 against 380X) nvidia costs have always been inferior to AMD ones to achieve a certain performance. GK110 apart, soon swapped out with GM204, nvidia cards costs much more less than AMD ones. That's why nvidia can show different numbers at the end of the quarters.
Pascal release will probably limited by HBMv2 availability. Second half of the year. Maybe, but at this point with no competition at all I guess it won't happen, in first half of 2016 nvidia could present those GPUs not using HBM. But nvidia does not need then so soon, it needs the big Pascal in order to give competition in HPC market, where Intel with new Xeon Phi at 14nm are going to dominate.
^^ This. So much THIS ^^ What most fanboys fail to understand, is that profitability matters. AMD has been the nice under dog for too long. They do not know how to price their product correctly and they have had to get by on a shoe string budget for too long, so they go the brute force approach at each generation to compete on price, but that means that their solution is always less elegant and more expensive for them. Moreover, Nvidia is propped up by their professional lines, reusing the SAME dies at increased prices and their Mobile line using again the same dies at increased prices.
"Of particular note, AMD is stating that they believe the impending launch of Windows 10 was a significant factor in their weak sales for the quarter, as consumers held back on buying new systems until the new OS is out, and OEMs held back in releasing newer designs in order to align those releases with the new OS. This has particularly impacted Carrizo, AMD’s latest generation mobile APU, given that it was released only two months before the launch of Windows 10"
Then why the did they release it fully knowing the rest of the industry was waiting. They should have released earlier or later. I'm still very interested in Carrizo based builds, but of course they're basically vapourware.
It's just an excuse. When a company isn't doing well, they try to find as many external factors they can to blame the failures on. When your sales drop almost three times much as the market you're in, then blaming that market isn't going to fool most people. I was going to say anyone, but according to the posts, some people here were fooled by it.
2016 will be the make or break year for AMD. Zen is going to be all about semi-custom. The focus on this will make them a lot more nimble in the marketplace. I have a feeling that, as of the Zen introduction, AMD will be treating the PC market as just another branch of their semi-custom capability. And I also have a feeling that this might be a good thing.
Maybe nVidia could lent them some money!? or they could buy the rights to produce some old nVidia GTX 480-580 and rebrand them as AMD R9 480 Fury and for once make a decent product!! ...just saying
If this should continue for the rest of the year then I'll be concerned...but if anyone can turn it around it will be the new CEO--she knows her stuff. This quarter is always the softest tech quarter of the year. She's already given investors a timeline on the turnaround, and I'm going to stay with her assessment until it proves out, either way.
The last 6 video cards I have purchased have been ATI, before this last purchase. I had to go with nVidia for power/performance and temps. Thought long and hard before I purchased and read tons of reviews and benchmarks. First nVidia card I have owned in at least 14 years. Loving it so far, but I will say to me the colors on my monitors did not seem as vibrant initially with the nVidia card. Gotten used to it now, but I think I liked the color a bit better playing Steam on my big screen with the ATI card. Really wish they could still compete. I did actually buy one of their APU laptops last black friday as a replacement laptop for my daughter who does light gaming, and it is working well. With the correct settings it plays her games much better than her old i5 laptop.
"but I will say to me the colors on my monitors did not seem as vibrant initially with the nVidia card."
I too do not like the default color vibrance setting on the NV GPUs. Fortunately we can change that with the "Digital Vibrance" enhancement, as shown in the linked image. By default it is set at 50, which I personally keep at 60.
Oh my gosh! Thank you D. Lister for that tip. I changed back to defaults all my tinkering changes to original and applied this one setting for the vibrance and it looks almost exactly how my desktops used to appear with my ATI card. I settled for 57% and it looks amazing. Again thank you so much for this tip.
I'll miss having AMD in the industry. Like many people will, I reckon.
However... One thing I certainly will not miss about AMD, once the last of the sinking hull disappears under the waves, are AMDs fanboys.
They're a breed apart. Even more fanatical and conspiratorial than fanboys usually are. And also have a mean streak to them.*
They remind me of the loony, Jew-hating fringe of conspiracy theorists. The diehard kooks who always have a moment to spare, to explain to you how the nefarious meddling of world Jewry is behind everything from 'rape-culture' to the crisis in Greece.
AMD fanboys got the exact same mentality. Reviews not so good? Nvidia must have bribed the entire press! Sales not so good? Well of course not, with Intel bribing all the bloggers and manufacturers! Just look at these links!
*Notice how often they refer to others as "sheep lie". They seriously seem to believe that the fact that they're "team red" makes them a persecuted minority of geniuses of sorts.
"One thing I certainly will not miss about AMD, once the last of the sinking hull disappears under the waves, are AMDs fanboys."
Oh absolutely!
The formation and almost legendary fanaticism of the AMD cult is really the fault of the systematic brainwashing by AMD marketers, which promotes the AMD brand as some sort of a techno-demagogue (the "team red" nonsense is the classic "us vs them" tactic used by all cults, that allows the segregation of the duped recruits from the rest of the society). And just like any other dwindling cult, as time passes, and fewer and fewer followers remain, fanaticism naturally rises as numbers decline.
Some might think of the following as a burn, but I say so seriously that I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some poor bugger(s) offed themselves upon hearing about the demise of AMD. :(
The thing is, if AMD fail, which they are very likely to do, it is us -the consumers- who will get shafted. Already now, Intel didn't really have an antagonist in the market since P4 days. Imagine how much worse we'd have it if NVIDIA didn't have to compete even with someone as lame as AMD are.
AMD's state worries me so much, that I may even start buying AMD as my next GPU. However, like this guy above said, I would never buy an AMD APU, at least none of those currently on the market. That would be completely stupid for a gamer IMO due to abysmally bad Single Threaded performance.
I personally don't want anyone to fail, let alone a big company that employs a whole lot of people. My comment was directed, not even at the fans of AMD but rather, at the fanatics, with their relentless penchant for personal/ad hominem attacks, that if anything, make the brand look bad by association.
Well, not to defend irrational fanboys, but its not like Intel hasnt been caught 'bribing/nudging/whatever' the industry before, so its not tough to think that they could conceivably do it again.
The only irrational people I see are the overwhelming Intel fans posting in an AMD article and questioning why people are saying anything positive about AMD.
Here is a summary of most of the posts here "I buy Intel and Nvidia, they are the best. Hey an AMD article, I need to read that even though I don't buy there products. ARrrrrgh, effin #$#$* AMD and their stupid product, they suck, burn in hell, why are you still here, etc. Man, I sure am enjoying the performance of how quick Chrome launches and good the colors look because of my core i7 and GTX 970 as I type vitriol about products I will never buy. You people are a joke.
OMG, the arrogance of your post and where the eff do you expect AMD fans to comment? What the hell is it with Intel and Nvidia fans that they are unable to just enjoy their products? No, you have to come here, bash AMD and are completely surprised when someone defends the company when the article is about them. Do you foam at the mouth and pull your hair when someone mentions AMD in one of your Intel articles? JUST DON'T READ ANYTHING AMD. Is it really that hard, lol?
Screw U AMD. Tired of your fn lies. I lost a bundle on this stock and was misled by their management. Why the hell did they release their earnings warning earlier than their financial results.
AMD sucks, try playing a game in Linux with an AMD card. At least with NVIDIA you can play AAA titles in Linux, AMD cards are worthless for Linux users. I know as I tried for 5 years to get it working.
Google around about jewish overrepresentation in media, banking and government, it`s not exactly secret information. Then read what they say, look at what they do.
Then maybe, just maybe, words of those kooks will cease to be so unbelievable.
Who determines what is "overrepresentation"? Couldn't some people say that there is an overrepresentation of white people in media, banking and government? So according to your implication, that would be bad. But I think there is an overrepresentation of liberals in media, banking and government and THAT is the reason we are having problems now, and it has nothing to do with any particular race.
WAAAAY off-topic, but nonetheless... the over-representation is there because the powers that be, have allowed it to create support for the Zionist regime of Israel, which acts as a US stranglehold on the mideast. As soon as the Arab oil runs out, the US would be dropping Israel like yesterday's garbage, and the OVER-representation would return to normal levels. In the meantime, we all can hope for the best for humanity, and try NOT to form another Nazi party. :)
Remember when an "AMD build -CPU and GPU" was like the smarter, insider, more informed choice?
"Those were the days my friend We thought they'd never end We'd sing and dance forever and a day We'd live the life we choose We'd fight and never lose Those were the days, oh yes those were the days"
"runs hotter, slower, and sucks more power than Intel and Nvidia"
I don't even consider AMD any more for CPU and GPU. The couple bucks I could save isn't worth it when building a system that will be there for a couple years.
You are minimalizing the difference. One, you save more than just a couple of bucks, so that is inaccurate. And the facts are that the difference in speed is ONLY evident in benchmarks and are not perceptible in actual use. So the bottom line is that you mischaracterize AMD and misrepresent the facts just so you can make your invalid point look plausible. I sent my brother, who is not very technical, to a computer parts store to pick up some parts I had pre-ordered. He was there to pick up AMD parts. The clerk gave him an i5 instead of the AMD processor. The i5, not an i7, but an INFERIOR to the i7, an i5, processor, BY ITSELF, cost several times MORE than both the AMD processor and motherboard together by multiple times. That is proof your claim of "a couple of bucks" is not accurate or true.
What is really needed is a government that understands how our country's economy is supposed to work and therefore is more friendly to people keeping their own money and spending it the way they like to spend it and not Washington D.C. taking it and spending it the way Washington D.C. wants to spends it. The bottom line is that the PC market would be less likely to be soft if the economy was not soft.
Apparently my comment was removed. But it's asinine to think that soft PC sales have nothing to do with the economy and therefore soft PC sails have nothing to do with how the government is being run, which is what my comment was about. But apparently that is what people at Anandtech think, that neither the economy, NOR the government's policies have anything to do with soft PC sales.
While they have still time, they need to merge with someone else. I think they will be a great buy for companies like Foxconn. We need competition in x86 business.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
125 Comments
Back to Article
Kjella - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
"Profitability timeline has been pushed out", more like total collapse of their CPU/APU/GPU business. They spent $526M to get $379M in revenue for a $147M loss, that's a -27% profit margin and we know Zen isn't coming until 2016 while Intel is launching Skylake next month. On the GPU side Fury will do okay but it's hardly a Maxwell-killer and currently only covering the 980/Ti segment until the Nano is here.Sure they'll still have the console sales but they can't really influence them in any way as the specs are frozen, Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo control the volume by pricing and it will sell less as the console gets older. I guess they have some other semi-custom business too, but not enough to break even. And unlike last quarter, most of this is not any special charges they simply sell at a loss. Changing process node shouldn't really be separated out as a special cost at all, it's part of being in the chip business. They're just doing it to make their non-GAAP numbers look less terrible. Same with cash flow, they've cashed out all their marketable securities. Past the make-up it's pretty grim though.
johnpombrio - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
I just love non-GAAP numbers from AMD. Rosanne says "There's always somthin' ". With AMD there is always somethin' even if it is normally just the cost of doing business. Ignore the non-GAAP this quarter as it is pretty much a fabricated number to lipstick over their bruised and bloody lips.jjj - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
On the bright side during the call they said "we've actually just taped out the first couple of FinFET designs".Long way to go from tapeout to retail but it's a big milestone.
TristanSDX - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
They tape-out some test vehicles :)TristanSDX - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
"They spent $526M to get $379M in revenue" - not reallyCPU / GPU itself are profitable, but they must spend lot of money for new designs Zen/R4xx, and this is booked to Computing and Graphics department financial balance. They may not spend these money, and make 526 * 25% = 131mln$ profits, but that mean EOL for them within a year.
Kjella - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
The gross margin is 25% total, we don't have it per segment and it doesn't include the cost of running the business which is another $134 million or interest of $40 million. But in total the net loss was $181M, R&D was $235M so even if they ended all R&D today they'd only turn a $54M profit before the restructuring costs of laying them off. Assuming >$54M of that R&D is in semi-custom they're already losing money before investing in new designs.lyeoh - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
Bottom line is AMD is dying faster and if AMD dies Intel might charge us even more or give us less.To keep AMD alive for longer we need more AMD customers and supporters to buy more AMD stuff, maybe even buy more than they actually need.
So everyone please stop trying to convince random strangers on the Internet that Intel or Nvidia is better. You can convince your loved ones if you wish, but let the AMD customers and fans do what they must for the greater good.
PenguinJim - Tuesday, July 28, 2015 - link
"So everyone please stop trying to convince random strangers on the Internet that Intel or Nvidia is better. You can convince your loved ones if you wish, but let the AMD customers and fans do what they must for the greater good."I won't be able to bring myself to lie, but if I see someone considering a Nvidia card, I will leap in to check that they have considered the AMD equivalent. (I don't think I could bring myself to do that for AMD CPUs, sorry - the gap is too wide! I'll just keep quiet! ;))
John3000 - Saturday, November 28, 2015 - link
AMD CPU's are good for their price. Their killer price is the reason why intel bought skylake so early since haswell was not able to give enough competition in value oriented segment.John3000 - Saturday, November 28, 2015 - link
In field of Commercial CPU there are only two firms AMD and Intel and same goes with commerical GPU. Those business are worth billions or even trillions.THere is no chance that a firm in such low competition business will die. Just look at fx 8 core series, it was not selling well and AMD dropped prices of the chip to peanuts.
John3000 - Saturday, November 28, 2015 - link
FX sales plummeted after price drop.stefstef - Saturday, July 18, 2015 - link
they dont have the best products in the world. but they have products that still do for a very large amount of computer users. it might not be good at the moment. but its not hopeless. amd has quite (at least some times) contraproductive marketing. not being the best and doing so in a good marketed way would suit the brand better than generating indexes and technical productnames which aim to have naive pc users look away from the fact that they are not competitive at every level. so innovation might not only be technical. i think amd has a big marketing problem and if they somehow make it to get happily away from this "who is best" competition - they just might have developed that kind of innovation that they need.Morawka - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
it's very hard to market something that's not competitive.stefstef - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
thats true. amd has some lack of technology which makes the platforms not very interesting for business customers. so i think the remaining market are the homeusers. amd has some technologies that will "do" and can be had quite cheap .. i strongly believe that amd should be sold to the chinese. that would be the saviour. they have the market for "do" and they have proven to handle some businesses that the western world can no longer maintain profitable. they have interests in their own x86 technology, they can use it to make some taylormade solutions for the huge home market. i heard qualcomm is struggling with the snapddragons so eg. connecting the arm efforts of those two companies might be a fit. some might get political over this, but there is no reason for a very simple argument: the chinese have all the great technology avaible for research, they have access to all the competitive technologies - they wont be able to do any harmful with the amd x86 which they are already able to do. also i dont believe that the chinese will make rockets out of the amd x86 cores but they just have the potential and the market to heal this brand as a china owned company and a china led effort.Wreckage - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
AMD blames the PC market and yet Intel had a strong 2Q. The PC market is fine. AMD is just not a part of it anymore.Jtaylor1986 - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
You obviously didn't read Intel's earnings very carefully then. The PC market is decliningmelgross - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
The PC market drops 12% in the segment where they drop almost 29%, and you just want to blame the drop in the PC market?Refuge - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Nobody is blaming ONLY the drop in PC sales except for maybe AMD and some die hard Red campers.But yes the PC market is softer, Intel didn't make what they intended to from the PC segment. But their Enterprise has been doing well and made a difference.
Also, it is common knowledge that Intel chips are more popular than AMD at the moment, so lets not act surprised that Intel is doing better in a softer market than AMD. lol.
Nagorak - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
As the weaker play and frankly one whose CPUs aren't even really competitive AMD is going to take more of a it as the PC market declines. If the PC market were still growing, AMD might be in a significantly better position. Any gains or losses here get magnified because Intel is the default choice, and offers such a better product.Kjella - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Not really, it's weak compared to last year but not weakening further. In Intel's Client Computing Group revenue was up 2%, operating income up 14% in Q2 compared to Q1, while AMD's Computing and Graphics division lost 29% revenue and nearly doubled their losses. It's pretty much just AMD at this point.TristanSDX - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
hey blame PC market, but not blame itself for inferior products that result in low marketshareMobiusPizza - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
You sound smart, care to educate how AMD with a R&D budget 1/10th of Intel be able to make superior products? In fact, given what AMD has been spending, its APUs are actually not bad.blppt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
They were able to do it during the Athlon era. Of course, that was the perfect storm---Intel going RAMBUS and then going with the Netburst disaster, coupled with the competent Athlon design from AMD.V900 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
A lot, if not most of Intels research is aimed at their fabs and the next process nodes.AMD is free to concentrate their research on CPUs and GPUs and let Global, TSMC & co. figure out how to get to the next process node.
D. Lister - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
@Wreckage"The PC market is fine. AMD is just not a part of it anymore."
That is true, unfortunately.
Although I must say that for AMD to try to put a favourable (albeit, ridiculous) spin on their financial conundrum was expected. What cracks me up is how a tech site like AT puts forth that spin with a straight face. AMD is a sinking ship AT, make sure your credibility doesn't end up going down with it.
Refuge - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
why wouldn't they? That is just expected for any business that has been slowly bleeding out for years now. lol.Thats like being surprised at a 3 year old for lying about getting into the cookie jar before dinner lol!
iwod - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
AMD isn't completing in any sector at all. I hardly see the reason to buy them over competitors product.Nvidia, still has the best Drivers out there. And Driver quality is all that count in GPU segment.
To be honest AMD isn't bad here, but they need to be better, hopefully the changes with Fury will improve the situation.
On the CPU i hope they will find a niche within the server space.
And i fail to see why i should invest in AMD.
medi03 - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
Let me tell you what was going on the Planet earth while you were away:AMD R9 290x beat nVidia's greatest Titan at a fraction of a price.
AMD Fury (non X) handily beats 980 (non Ti) while consuming only slightly (15-20%) more power.
So, next time you look for the reasons to buy them over competition product, don't look up you arse, just check the numbers.
eek2121 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I hate AMD trolls and normally don't respond to them...but I'll just say this. During the civil war, people rooted for the south once...right? Keep holding that Alamo son!kelly.cone - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
FYI, the Alamo was a critical battle in the Texas Revolution to gain independence from Mexico. While it was technically occupied by the confederate army for a period of time during the Civil war they were actually kicked out by a short siege from Texas Militiamen affiliated with the secessionist movement and not union forces. So, your implied connection between the alamo and the civil war is pretty off base. On top of that, I hardly think of AMD as fighting for the economic gains to be gotten from slavery so the whole analogy is a bit harsh. They do have 800MM in cash still, but 4 more quarters like this will put them in a bad place. Still, you didn't respond to any of the data provided by the previous poster which actually makes you look more like an Nvidia troll than they look like an AMD troll. Personally, I like my christmas with green AND red...Michael Bay - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Looking at the current state of things, people were right to root for South.Owls - Saturday, July 18, 2015 - link
The current state of what? Are you that monumentally stupid to think slavery is something that should have stayed?Please go to stormfront and stay there
Michael Bay - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
Enjoy your gulags, coming soon.V900 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
They truly are the flat-earthers of the computing world...lyeoh - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
Think properly. You should be encouraging more AMD fanboys to buy more AMD products to keep AMD alive for longer. Someone has to buy AMD products so that Intel won't screw us as much, if it's not going to be you or me guess who else?3ogdy - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
You're an utter joke. Fury X has almost the performance of 980Ti, beating it in VERY FEW exceptions. It is also priced as if it was an nVidia card - it also requires water cooling, it is hotter and less overclockable, it is marketed towards 4K, yet it only has 4GB of VRAM (vs 6GB on the 980Ti) - ALL of these while consuming 20% more power. Did I mention pump noise? Pump issues? All this to do what? TRY to match an nVidia card with blower-based cooling? What a fracking joke! What a fracking joke! For Fruck's sake!Anyone seeing ANY reason at all to buy any Fury card is a blind man. The R9 300 series? Well, they're the same R9 200 series cards with a bit of overclock that can easily be achieved on the R200 series. The point in buying anything other than APUs from AMD?
None. After the HUGE disappointment the Fury X is, let them go down if they can't get one damn thing right - this will mean higher prices on nVidia and Intel hardware, but hey...what can we do? Buy shit products when there are infinitely better alternatives?
beck2050 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/84722-zotac...980 ti beating a Fury X by 15 to 30% BEFORE overclocking. It really crushes it. Even faster than a 295 with a single GPU and NO WATER required. With overclocking it's ridiculous. Fury X is very limited there anyway.
CiccioB - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Let me light some of obscure points that lead you to this limited and approximate view of the world:1. 290X didn't really beat anything. Do you really think that Titan and 290X played in the same league? In fact after a couple of weeks the 780Ti, which has been kept in a drawer for months, appeared. And the vertical price drop of 290X cards explained which victory that was. Titan's price didn't move of a single dollar... guess why.
2. Fury beats 980? Really? That's a miracle, my dear! A real miracle! Let's see... it consumes more and costs more, but most of all Fiji is 150% the die size of GM204 and even HBM can't manage the card to come to Maxwell efficiency. That (Fiji, not GM204) is the kind of product that is killing AMD. It should have been the Titan X killer, sold at premium price, giving a new vision to the company, free advertising, all sites speaking of this new product more modern and faster than competition, well distant from being able to use the same technology, making nvidia drop its prices and roll up their sleeves, but in the end was the usual disappointment that has to be sold with no gain margin just to have any appeal. With nvidia retaking their quiet sleep after a few seconds of noise.
Come on, be realistic. AMD's products line is under par with competitions, be it Intel or nvidia. They struggle to present something new every once in a while. And even when using the most of their resources, they fail (see Fiji, but also console APUs that are sold at no margins at all, WHY??).
Sorry, but this company is lead to fail in few months. All the markets it relies on are shrinking. High profitability ones they are no more. Lots of debts. And no valid products on horizon for still a few months.
I really hope they can survive until Zen is released, hoping it is such a good architecture that may convince me to return to AMD CPUs. But my hopes are thin. Really.
For GPUs, if they have not already created GCN v2 completely from scratch, they are already doomed.
Nagorak - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Their GPUs are still basically competitive. Even if slightly slower/more power use in some cases. They are in the same ballpark. New drivers could very well post Fury X above the 980Ti (at stock). The difference is small enough that it could happen. Will it? It remains to be seen. The same cannot be said about CPUs, which just aren't competitive at all.D. Lister - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
"So, next time you look for the reasons to buy them over competition product, don't look up you arse, just check the numbers."Easy there champ. No need to get so emotional over whose toy is better. lol
looncraz - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Please explain your 'Nvidia still has the best Drivers out there" statement. Because it's simply not true from any experience I've had with them in the last few years.It *might* be slightly more true for day one nVidia sponsored titles and it might be even be partly true for SLI vs CFX, but nVidia drivers are no more stable or well designed than AMD's, they just have the benefit of being able to afford to work on the more quickly... and the benefit of being a mostly software-centric company that just happens to make video cards.
And claiming that driver quality is "all that count[s] in GPU segment" is ridiculous. So long as they are stable, you really don't care about the drivers.
D. Lister - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
"the benefit of being a mostly software-centric company that just happens to make video cards."lol, wow, just wow. It must be quite embarrassing then for AMD to repeatedly lose in the market to a "mostly software-centric company" that just happens to make video cards.
Refuge - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
While I agree that the drivers for AMD have been perfectly fine for me for the last couple years now.I disagree with you about nVidia being a mostly software company. Thats just silly. lol
blppt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Regarding the resources of Nvidia to work on their drivers-----It doesnt matter WHAT the reason is for the consumer, all we know is that for (generally) the same price, you can buy a piece of hardware with a formidable driver team supporting it.Unless, of course, you have a thing about putting your money towards the underdog company.
Nagorak - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
People just buy what they're told. Nvidia's success here is probably more in marketing than anything to do with drivers.blppt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
People look to other people for advice. The information we generally hear about AMD and Nvidia is that Nvidia's dedicated videocard driver team dwarfs AMD's in size. Now, the *reason* for that discrepancy is open to discussion, but as an AMD and NVidia card user, I can comfortably say that Nvidia is much quicker in getting working SLI driver updates out for the newest games. This would be noticable to anybody with a multi-GPU setup.Most of the time, you dont need a brand-new driver for a new game in a single-gpu system, and I think thats what tends to get overlooked in the Nvidia vs AMD driver debate. There are exception s to this; such as the work AMD needed to do for even single GPU performance for TW3, but most of the time, the driver available at launch from AMD works fine for a single card, IME.
MapRef41N93W - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
NVIDIA having better drivers has nothing to do with anything you just posted. The simple fact is, AMD's DX11 drivers have far too much CPU overhead and this is killing them constantly.NVIDIA have a clear win and that department and it can be seen just by looking at the 1080p numbers. Fury/Fury X get stomped at 1080p by the 980ti, and even the 980 beats the Fury almost all around at 1080p (and once you overclock... it gets even worse for Fury). This is partially because of the 980s small bus, but mostly because of driver overhead.
silverblue - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
I don't know if this will change anytime soon either, though it has long been rumoured that AMD CPUs should be run with NVIDIA graphics (the performance delta is generally much lower). AMD did try to recruit for CPU performance engineer a few months ago, presumably to tackle this issue, though its lateness does smell of "we didn't know it was an issue as we had our heads stuck in the sand" like frame pacing did.Even if Fury is destined to be used at higher resolutions, the products further down the stack could benefit from a removal of some of the CPU workload.
silverblue - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
"a CPU performance engineer""the removal of some of the CPU workload"
Tired eyes...
blppt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I find that for single GPU setups, AMD drivers are quite good. But, waiting for solid CFX profiles for new games would REALLY deter me from going for a multiple-Radeon GPU setup.Refuge - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I don't really consider the SLI/CFX argument when I think about drivers.But that is because I don't think either company does them up to my par. SLI and CFX is of no interest to me still to this day.
blppt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
There are glitches at times, and some "pro" gamers hate the added latency AFR introduces, but for those of us who arent really bothered by the slight added latency (i'm not the greatest gamer in the world, LOL), SLI works pretty darn well, IMO. CFX too, when AMD gets around to getting the driver optimized and scaling well for new games. Took them 3 months for GTA5 (the 15.7 release last week!), and they didnt have an excuse of "oh well its a Nvidia-crippled TWIMTBP game" to fall back on in this case.But I understand why some people dont want any added latency. Doesnt bother me, though.
MapRef41N93W - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Took them 6 months to get CFX working in Far Cry 4. Was one of the main reasons I sold my 295x2. Tried of waiting for new games to finally get good CFX profiles. Now with my single Titan X I can play games really well at 4K/60 (I turn of all blur effects in every game I play and this usually gives me a big FPS boost and makes ultra 60 fps doable even in games like GTA V) and never have to worry about this. Single card is always the way to go IMO.blppt - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Yeah, its an added hassle (SLI/CFX), but Nvidia is usually good at getting SLI scaling working well within the first week (if not launch day). I wish AMD could come close to that.Nagorak - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
The driver quality difference is really a load of crap. I've been hearing that for over a decade and I have never observed anything to support it.blppt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Again, I think its largely about multi-videocard systems. There's no debate that there is a very noticable lag from AMD in getting CFX support for the newest games.Lolimaster - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
They have Excavator and they don't release it as a desktop APU, FAIL.They still want to release puny 512SP APU for 2016, FAIL.
silverblue - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Whilst I agree that NVIDIA shader counts != AMD shader counts, did you know that the GTX 750Ti also has 512 shaders? In addition, whilst Dual Graphics is a flawed implementation, at least with those "puny 512SP" you can at least add a compatible card to boost performance in a few titles, something that is sadly missing from the 750Ti.Now, the question is - do you think the 750Ti is "puny"...?
dragosmp - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
The "puny 512SP" remark is obviously wrong. You have probably noticed that unlike the 750Ti, the new APUs don't have a quarter of the memory bandwidth. AMD APUs, unlike Intel's, don't give the GPU portion access to the LLC, so the "puny 512SP" are actually a bunch of very potent, but very memory-starved shaders.It's like having a huge engine, but limit the fuel available to 1/4 of the necessary - if after an off-pedal there's gas in the pipe, for the shortest moments you'll have full power, but then the pipe gets empty and there's no way to fill it back up fast enough.
MapRef41N93W - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Maxwell cores are significantly faster than GCN. 512 maxwell cores is like 900 GCN cores. Oh and the 750ti has 640 cores, you are thinking of the 750.silverblue - Wednesday, July 22, 2015 - link
You're right, apologies for the oversight. 2,816 Maxwell cores appear to have the measure of 4,096 slower clocked GCN cores, assuming there is no other additional factor, though there is the suspicion that Fury X is ROP-limited more than anything else.Lolimaster - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
Most important of all:Your excavator APU's for mobile are being sold with the worst specs as the OEM can possibily pick.
Near top of the line carrizo included with:
1366x768
1 single channel 8GB
5400rpm
100mbit ethernet
REALLY.
Dear AMD, start selling your product under your own brand, OEM's don't care about you or they receive enough $$$ from somone you know very well to not care.
TiGr1982 - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
I remember, 10 years ago (in 2005) Alienware gaming laptops were based on AMD Turion CPUs.Times changed, indeed.
MrCommunistGen - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Heh, did you also find that laptop or did someone actually read my post on the "Tick Tock..." article earlier?Refuge - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Nobody read your comment, I didn't even read this one. :Pant6n - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
AMD brand laptops could be interesting.kelly.cone - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Amen.Guspaz - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
There was certainly a time when Intel was paying or pressuring OEMs into dropping AMD, but that was back when AMD actually had competitive products. Nowadays (and after the disaster where their behaviour was revealed in court), Intel is happy to just let AMD sabotage themselves with mediocre products that are only competitive being sold heavily discounted to make up for their terrible power efficiency/performance.This situation is not good for the market, as there is hardly any competitive pressure on Intel in the consumer market, and a healthy AMD is required for a healthy market.
medi03 - Thursday, July 16, 2015 - link
I want to by an AMD notebook, but I can't find any with IPS screen. Let alone Carrizo.Dell US at least has some offerings, Dell Germany, nope, Intel only.
Sigh.
eek2121 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
It's not the PC market. It's their decisions. The PC market may not have the triple digit growth it once had, but people (particularly enthusiasts) ARE buying. The shear number of players involved with every single component, from the power supply to entire PCs should tell you as much. You just have to sell a competitive product...I remember the days when AMD was great...sadly I suspect I will never see those days again unless someone can come along and reinvent the company.Nagorak - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Actually, the numbers don't lie. PC sales have been stagnant or on the decline for a number of years now. And as for enthusiasts, no a lot of us aren't buying. There's just no point. If you have a Sandy Bridge from 4 years ago you have a faster CPU than anything AMD has out, and if it's overclocked it may be on par with newer Intel processors (not worth spending $400 if your hope of more performance relies entirely on overclocking, and then getting only ~20% improvement).samlim01 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I wonder if the rumours of AMD being bought (by Microsoft/Samsung/ Illuminati) will become trueMichael Bay - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Maybe in a few qurters we here can pool money and buy it.ingwe - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Best comment I have seen so far. Another year or so and we could buy it for some loose change and a half-eaten sandwich.I want AMD to succeed. Not because I am a fanboy, but because I want there to be competition. As such, I buy AMD GPUs when I buy but can't really bring myself to buy an AMD APU. They just don't make sense for the machines I build (and make sense for very few machines at all in my opinion).
Refuge - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I bought an 15.6 with an A8 in it a few years ago on Black Friday.It was a great little guy for work, loved it, never gave me any issues. I've since recycled it into a very convenient and subtle HTPC.
I just mounted the laptop to the back of my TV, and set it up with a wireless Logitech keyboard/touchpad. It is a fantastic and very cheap solution to a media consumption HTPC that can still game LoL, WoT, and Minecraft when I I entertain younger ones.
AMD APU's are actually really nice for the price if you ask me. But I would be lying if every time I looked at my laptop I didn't think of the power being missed due to their terrible memory bottleneck.
Senjour - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
"AMD is stating that they believe the impending launch of Windows 10 was a significant factor in their weak sales for the quarter, as consumers held back on buying new systems until the new OS is out"I for one am not waiting for Windows 10, but rather Skylake. You know, a fresh CPU line with new chip sets. Why the hell would I buy AMD at this point when they're missing a lot of modern goodies and they aren't really any cheaper?
Shadow7037932 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Pretty much what I'm waiting for as well. My OCed i7 920 served me well until now but it's starting to show it's age. And with Skylake out in a few months, I can wait.Tewt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I think the real question is why the hell would you read an AMD article given such hate for the company's products? Same for the rest here that revel in the struggling company. There is just something so wrong about your attitude.@DoUL - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
They don't have anything that's interesting to us to wait for for at least the next 2 quarters, that doesn't mean we hate them, it's just they don't have anything left to introduce for the remainder of the year, whereas Intel has Skylake.. This situation will be reversed to their favors at the time they introduce Zen -given that Intel would stay idle and don't introduce any new fancy toy around the same time of course!-silverblue - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
What modern goodies would those be? Genuine question.Nagorak - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Why bother? It's going to be the same story as the last few years, ~5-10% improvement in IPC and stagnant or even declining frequency. It's not going to light the world on fire.yannigr2 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
They just try to survive until Zen. If Zen comes and it comes with much better IPC and efficiency compared to today AMD hardware, they might have a chance. Of course even if Zen is 200% faster than Intel Skylake(just exaggerating here), Intel will use it's marketing dollars to keep AMD out of many OEM laptops and desktops. Anyway if Zen comes and it is competitive with Intel on IPC, then AMD will have a better chance in the retail market. People will start looking again for AMD cpus and motherboards, integrated graphics will get a significant boost thanks to the better CPU in the APUS, everything in AMD's line will be much better and much more competitive. The fact that Intel is slowing down with fabrication process, is also good news for AMD. Skylake wouldn't offer that much more compared to Haswell.@Anandtech. There much be Carrizo laptops by now, somewhere. I don't think Intel managed to stop every Carrizo laptop from reaching the retail market. Is there a chance we will see a review?
Shadow7037932 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Do you really think Zen will be significantly better given that AMD doesn't exactly have the biggest R&D budget esp. with their financial troubles?D. Lister - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Intel (or Nvidia, for that matter) would want AMD around, to make them look much better, though. Because without AMD, intel would have to compete against its own products to make new sales, and that would be a much tougher competetion.melgross - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
When you compare the size of the companies, and remove ATI from AMD's sales, since Intel doesn't make discreet GPUs, you can easily see that Intel has been competing against themselves for years. AMD isn't really a factor since Intel changed course and came out with Yonah. And that was a long time ago.yeeeeman - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
This is bad, really. And it is a reflection of what they do or shall I say, what they don't do. Really, this is the whole reason of why they don't get the attention they deserve. They have good products but they need to risk more, to cooperate with OEMs to get more design wins. They had that cool Discovery platform that really what a Bay Trail killer. Where are products like that released by OEMs? Why would you work on a project like Puma+ with products like Mullins and Beema if you stop at the most important part, selling the damn products. Ok, they don't have the best tech out there, but neither rockchip or allwinner or mediatek but they've suceeded. They released products which give them a lot of revenue to keep going. Damn, I really believe that there is no really visionary person in AMD, like Jerry Sanders or Hector Ruiz. And don't tell me about Lisa, because she ain't got it.So dear AMD. Release products, be creative. It doesn't matter if you have the slowest CPU in the market, it matters how you dress it. If you release quality products that can differentiate from the others at reasonable prices, you can sell big. Take cues from Apple, from Intel, from nVidia. Be smart and curageous.
melgross - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
With chips, it's just performance that matters. Price is less of an issue for major markets.Finished products are very different AMD is competing in the former, not the latter. And their chips just haven't measured up.
Achaios - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
This is sad.AMD gets pushed off the market slowly but steadily. The way things are going, I don't see AMD having much of a future.
ASEdouardD - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
This would be a major problem. We can't have a monopoly in two key segments of the pc business: cpus (Intel) and graphics cards (Nvidia).huaxshin - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Time for this company to die or someone that knows how to run a business takes over.AMD have proved year after year that they are incapable of keeping up with Intel and with graphic processors they are falling further behind Nvidia. I bet Nvidia will beat them to launch the Pascal cards months before AMD get 400 series out.
With Maxwell they were 1.5 year ahead of AMD before they got out efficient cards that match Maxwell in efficiency. Even with that the Fury cards isnt even a new architecture so Nvidia is ahead here as well.
CiccioB - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Efficient cards is different than efficient architecture.You can create the formers by using costly technology, as AMD did with Fury, but not having the latter makes your products costing more than the competition.
That's why nvidia dominated the GPU market during these 3 years. Despite the absolute performances, which have also been inferior to those achieved by AMD (see 680 vs 7970GHz edition or the GTX960 against 380X) nvidia costs have always been inferior to AMD ones to achieve a certain performance. GK110 apart, soon swapped out with GM204, nvidia cards costs much more less than AMD ones. That's why nvidia can show different numbers at the end of the quarters.
Pascal release will probably limited by HBMv2 availability. Second half of the year. Maybe, but at this point with no competition at all I guess it won't happen, in first half of 2016 nvidia could present those GPUs not using HBM.
But nvidia does not need then so soon, it needs the big Pascal in order to give competition in HPC market, where Intel with new Xeon Phi at 14nm are going to dominate.
frenchy_2001 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
^^ This. So much THIS ^^What most fanboys fail to understand, is that profitability matters.
AMD has been the nice under dog for too long. They do not know how to price their product correctly and they have had to get by on a shoe string budget for too long, so they go the brute force approach at each generation to compete on price, but that means that their solution is always less elegant and more expensive for them. Moreover, Nvidia is propped up by their professional lines, reusing the SAME dies at increased prices and their Mobile line using again the same dies at increased prices.
Shadow7037932 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I wonder if Samsung would buy AMD... The x86 licence thing is complicated though.creed3020 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
"Of particular note, AMD is stating that they believe the impending launch of Windows 10 was a significant factor in their weak sales for the quarter, as consumers held back on buying new systems until the new OS is out, and OEMs held back in releasing newer designs in order to align those releases with the new OS. This has particularly impacted Carrizo, AMD’s latest generation mobile APU, given that it was released only two months before the launch of Windows 10"Then why the did they release it fully knowing the rest of the industry was waiting. They should have released earlier or later. I'm still very interested in Carrizo based builds, but of course they're basically vapourware.
melgross - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
It's just an excuse. When a company isn't doing well, they try to find as many external factors they can to blame the failures on. When your sales drop almost three times much as the market you're in, then blaming that market isn't going to fool most people. I was going to say anyone, but according to the posts, some people here were fooled by it.pogostick - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
2016 will be the make or break year for AMD. Zen is going to be all about semi-custom. The focus on this will make them a lot more nimble in the marketplace. I have a feeling that, as of the Zen introduction, AMD will be treating the PC market as just another branch of their semi-custom capability. And I also have a feeling that this might be a good thing.LarryBarry - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Maybe nVidia could lent them some money!? or they could buy the rights to produce some old nVidia GTX 480-580 and rebrand them as AMD R9 480 Fury and for once make a decent product!! ...just sayingWaltC - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
If this should continue for the rest of the year then I'll be concerned...but if anyone can turn it around it will be the new CEO--she knows her stuff. This quarter is always the softest tech quarter of the year. She's already given investors a timeline on the turnaround, and I'm going to stay with her assessment until it proves out, either way.TWolfe - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
The last 6 video cards I have purchased have been ATI, before this last purchase. I had to go with nVidia for power/performance and temps. Thought long and hard before I purchased and read tons of reviews and benchmarks. First nVidia card I have owned in at least 14 years. Loving it so far, but I will say to me the colors on my monitors did not seem as vibrant initially with the nVidia card. Gotten used to it now, but I think I liked the color a bit better playing Steam on my big screen with the ATI card. Really wish they could still compete. I did actually buy one of their APU laptops last black friday as a replacement laptop for my daughter who does light gaming, and it is working well. With the correct settings it plays her games much better than her old i5 laptop.D. Lister - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
@TWolfe"but I will say to me the colors on my monitors did not seem as vibrant initially with the nVidia card."
I too do not like the default color vibrance setting on the NV GPUs. Fortunately we can change that with the "Digital Vibrance" enhancement, as shown in the linked image. By default it is set at 50, which I personally keep at 60.
http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/877/Eee1201N-N...
D. Lister - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
PS: You have to select "Use Nvidia Setting", for the vibrance setting to be activated.TWolfe - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Oh my gosh! Thank you D. Lister for that tip. I changed back to defaults all my tinkering changes to original and applied this one setting for the vibrance and it looks almost exactly how my desktops used to appear with my ATI card. I settled for 57% and it looks amazing. Again thank you so much for this tip.D. Lister - Saturday, July 18, 2015 - link
Cheers. :)V900 - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I'll miss having AMD in the industry.Like many people will, I reckon.
However... One thing I certainly will not miss about AMD, once the last of the sinking hull disappears under the waves, are AMDs fanboys.
They're a breed apart. Even more fanatical and conspiratorial than fanboys usually are. And also have a mean streak to them.*
They remind me of the loony, Jew-hating fringe of conspiracy theorists. The diehard kooks who always have a moment to spare, to explain to you how the nefarious meddling of world Jewry is behind everything from 'rape-culture' to the crisis in Greece.
AMD fanboys got the exact same mentality. Reviews not so good? Nvidia must have bribed the entire press! Sales not so good? Well of course not, with Intel bribing all the bloggers and manufacturers! Just look at these links!
*Notice how often they refer to others as "sheep lie". They seriously seem to believe that the fact that they're "team red" makes them a persecuted minority of geniuses of sorts.
D. Lister - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
"One thing I certainly will not miss about AMD, once the last of the sinking hull disappears under the waves, are AMDs fanboys."Oh absolutely!
The formation and almost legendary fanaticism of the AMD cult is really the fault of the systematic brainwashing by AMD marketers, which promotes the AMD brand as some sort of a techno-demagogue (the "team red" nonsense is the classic "us vs them" tactic used by all cults, that allows the segregation of the duped recruits from the rest of the society). And just like any other dwindling cult, as time passes, and fewer and fewer followers remain, fanaticism naturally rises as numbers decline.
Some might think of the following as a burn, but I say so seriously that I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some poor bugger(s) offed themselves upon hearing about the demise of AMD. :(
Achaios - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
The thing is, if AMD fail, which they are very likely to do, it is us -the consumers- who will get shafted. Already now, Intel didn't really have an antagonist in the market since P4 days. Imagine how much worse we'd have it if NVIDIA didn't have to compete even with someone as lame as AMD are.AMD's state worries me so much, that I may even start buying AMD as my next GPU. However, like this guy above said, I would never buy an AMD APU, at least none of those currently on the market. That would be completely stupid for a gamer IMO due to abysmally bad Single Threaded performance.
D. Lister - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
I personally don't want anyone to fail, let alone a big company that employs a whole lot of people. My comment was directed, not even at the fans of AMD but rather, at the fanatics, with their relentless penchant for personal/ad hominem attacks, that if anything, make the brand look bad by association.blppt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Well, not to defend irrational fanboys, but its not like Intel hasnt been caught 'bribing/nudging/whatever' the industry before, so its not tough to think that they could conceivably do it again.Tewt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
The only irrational people I see are the overwhelming Intel fans posting in an AMD article and questioning why people are saying anything positive about AMD.Here is a summary of most of the posts here "I buy Intel and Nvidia, they are the best. Hey an AMD article, I need to read that even though I don't buy there products. ARrrrrgh, effin #$#$* AMD and their stupid product, they suck, burn in hell, why are you still here, etc. Man, I sure am enjoying the performance of how quick Chrome launches and good the colors look because of my core i7 and GTX 970 as I type vitriol about products I will never buy.
You people are a joke.
Tewt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Should have proof read more.*their
*and missed the ending quote after buy.
Tewt - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
OMG, the arrogance of your post and where the eff do you expect AMD fans to comment? What the hell is it with Intel and Nvidia fans that they are unable to just enjoy their products? No, you have to come here, bash AMD and are completely surprised when someone defends the company when the article is about them. Do you foam at the mouth and pull your hair when someone mentions AMD in one of your Intel articles?JUST DON'T READ ANYTHING AMD. Is it really that hard, lol?
webdoctors - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Screw U AMD. Tired of your fn lies. I lost a bundle on this stock and was misled by their management. Why the hell did they release their earnings warning earlier than their financial results.AMD sucks, try playing a game in Linux with an AMD card. At least with NVIDIA you can play AAA titles in Linux, AMD cards are worthless for Linux users. I know as I tried for 5 years to get it working.
HighTech4US - Friday, July 17, 2015 - link
Lies from AMD's CEOs are like clockwork.I lost a bundle on Hector's "$2 is dooable" quote. It turned out that it wasn't. Not even close.
Since then AMD has been on my "never ever buy again" stock and/or products.
Michael Bay - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
Google around about jewish overrepresentation in media, banking and government, it`s not exactly secret information. Then read what they say, look at what they do.Then maybe, just maybe, words of those kooks will cease to be so unbelievable.
redraider89 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
Who determines what is "overrepresentation"? Couldn't some people say that there is an overrepresentation of white people in media, banking and government? So according to your implication, that would be bad. But I think there is an overrepresentation of liberals in media, banking and government and THAT is the reason we are having problems now, and it has nothing to do with any particular race.D. Lister - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
@redraider89"Couldn't some people say that there is an overrepresentation of white people in media, banking and government?"
They certainly could, if "white people" were less than 10% of their population, and yet were seen in the media much more than 10% of the time.
"I think there is an overrepresentation of liberals in media, banking and government"
LOL, no actually it is called "changing times" grandpa. Keep up, 'cause you seem to be falling behind.
By the way, this is a tech site, so let's all try to keep our tin-foily sociopolitical ideologies in check.
D. Lister - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
WAAAAY off-topic, but nonetheless... the over-representation is there because the powers that be, have allowed it to create support for the Zionist regime of Israel, which acts as a US stranglehold on the mideast. As soon as the Arab oil runs out, the US would be dropping Israel like yesterday's garbage, and the OVER-representation would return to normal levels. In the meantime, we all can hope for the best for humanity, and try NOT to form another Nazi party. :)Chaser - Saturday, July 18, 2015 - link
Remember when an "AMD build -CPU and GPU" was like the smarter, insider, more informed choice?"Those were the days my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
Those were the days, oh yes those were the days"
zlandar - Saturday, July 18, 2015 - link
When I think AMD I think:"runs hotter, slower, and sucks more power than Intel and Nvidia"
I don't even consider AMD any more for CPU and GPU. The couple bucks I could save isn't worth it when building a system that will be there for a couple years.
redraider89 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
You are minimalizing the difference. One, you save more than just a couple of bucks, so that is inaccurate. And the facts are that the difference in speed is ONLY evident in benchmarks and are not perceptible in actual use. So the bottom line is that you mischaracterize AMD and misrepresent the facts just so you can make your invalid point look plausible. I sent my brother, who is not very technical, to a computer parts store to pick up some parts I had pre-ordered. He was there to pick up AMD parts. The clerk gave him an i5 instead of the AMD processor. The i5, not an i7, but an INFERIOR to the i7, an i5, processor, BY ITSELF, cost several times MORE than both the AMD processor and motherboard together by multiple times. That is proof your claim of "a couple of bucks" is not accurate or true.redraider89 - Monday, July 20, 2015 - link
In short, you need to stop lying to yourself.redraider89 - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
What is really needed is a government that understands how our country's economy is supposed to work and therefore is more friendly to people keeping their own money and spending it the way they like to spend it and not Washington D.C. taking it and spending it the way Washington D.C. wants to spends it. The bottom line is that the PC market would be less likely to be soft if the economy was not soft.redraider89 - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
Apparently my comment was removed. But it's asinine to think that soft PC sales have nothing to do with the economy and therefore soft PC sails have nothing to do with how the government is being run, which is what my comment was about. But apparently that is what people at Anandtech think, that neither the economy, NOR the government's policies have anything to do with soft PC sales.redraider89 - Sunday, July 19, 2015 - link
My bad, I misread the order of the comments and my comment was not deleted. Thanks Anandtech and my apologies.foxmulder_ms - Sunday, July 26, 2015 - link
While they have still time, they need to merge with someone else. I think they will be a great buy for companies like Foxconn. We need competition in x86 business.