Slashdot Mirror
AMD Announces A Shift In Focus From PC Processors
slughead writes "Forbes Magazine is reporting that AMD will no longer compete with Intel to make faster, smaller, and more efficient processors. Just as Mac users would be worse off if Windows didn't exist, Intel users will be much worse now that AMD will no longer compete. You see, there's this thing called demand, and when there are no competing products in a market, a good or service will always increase the price to the economic equilibrium, unless forced not to by the state (forget that right now, communists!!). In English: you're going to get less new technology, and higher prices on existing technology." On the other hand, AMD is definitely not exiting the chip business -- they're just trying to branch out from chips for microcomputers.
If you hadn't been paying attention, memory bandwidth has gotten a huge shot in the arm lately. Graphics cards are up in the 20GB/sec and in a couple of months, main memory will be at 6.4 GB/sec (dual channel DDR-400). That's a *huge* jump in memory bandwidth over what was the case only a year ago. No, CPU speeds definately need to go up, because as of late, memory bandwidth has been keeping pace. As for why home users need 3.0 GHz, I can rattle off a list of several things:
1) Not everyone uses just Word. A large chunk of the population actually does demanding work on their PCs, and this includes video/audio editing, 3D, programming, scientific computing, desktop publishing, etc.
2) Gaming!
3) Natural language processing/artificial intelligence.
4) Windows Longhorn and KDE 3.1!
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Again, verbatim from my site:
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I should really start out by saying that I have never owned and Intel chip, my PC is an AthlonXP. I'm about to attempt to put an end to any dispute, and I'm going to use Forbes as my main source (because I think the man might know a thing or two about money, because he's got a lot more than me).
After the PC market's recent downturn, AMD was facing tough times. However, unlike Intel, AMD has little diversity in chip manufacturing. Recently, Intel announced their 3ghz processor with hyperthreading (a way of fooling software into running more efficiently). So AMD cut 15% of their employees shortly after.
Not that anyone needs to be reminded, but when a company cuts jobs, it doesn't just mean that they will have less employees, it also means that they will pay taxes. In addition to their current financial problems, just 5 days ago, AMD converted $300m of debt into stock, which will hurt their economic standing in the future, and by extension, the present (the news left AMD's stock in shambles at $5.90).
Converting debt into stock on such a large scale has consequences. Like, for instance, S & P could cut your credit rating. Of course, when the S & P does that, you have to convert more debt into stock.
Just a bad time for PC CPU mfg.ers? Well Intel's doing great, so how about that?
So whether the article said it directly or not (I read it 5 times and I think it pretty well did), AMD will not be competing in the PC market for a while. Their 64bit chip might help bridge the gap between 32bit and 64, but it has to come out first, and then it has to beat Intel's benchmarks on 32bit applications (which I could presume it will not). It will beat it in UT2003 though, hopefully that'll be enough!
Latewire
Also, I don't think it's fair to assume Intel's primary domain is purely in PC Chips. Their work in Communications chips is nearly as important, and is becoming more so. I think they're trying to develop it into a stronger market force in the next few years.
All circuits busy.
Didn't AMD just mention that it planned to surpass Intel as the world's number 1 chip maker?
And I quote:
AMD BOSS HECTOR RUIZ says AMD is "dead serious" about ousting Intel to become the number one player in the "computational processor market".
"We're not just trying to be a good number two," he said.
Ruiz claimed its "competitor" had done "everything possible" to keep it from competing in new segments of the market but, despite Intel's best efforts, AMD was on course to make significant progress in a number of areas.
Surely AMD didn't change its entire business direction and core corporate strategy in a matter of days. It seems to me that there is a misunderstanding, and seeing as how the Forbes article quoted not one single comment from AMD brass stating that they "will no longer compete with Intel", I think it's Forbes, and the story submitter.
I seem to recall rumors back when AMD was kicking ass that Intel planned to leave the PC CPU business to pursue more "long term profitable measures." Well, what sure doesn't seem to be the case.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
How is it that this forbs article got an entilrely different spin on what AMD is doing from everyine alse who reported on the same event and was sitting in the same rooms for the same lecture?
Again here is the headline. I will decode some of what may not be obvious.
1) The first thing is the title which you could maybe read to mean what the slashdot article makes this story out to be, but technically they dont say that AMD is moving out of PC processors or anything remotely like that.
2) The story actually comes from rueters, not forbes, so they just picked a meaty article to post on their site, not necessiarily paying much attention to any possible fud or slant. Again not the most responsible, but not as bad as the slashdot article.
3) Dont know who this guy is, but probalby a reuters hack.
4) "LAS VEGAS, Nov 19 (Reuters)" - this was from the same stuff on the same day as all of the other Ruiz (AMD CEO) articles, but this is the most creatively different article (besides slashdot) that I have read so far.
5) The leading paragraph is true as is technically the rest of it.
6) The other two paragraphs I show here, when mixed with the title, is where people might begin to get the wrong idea and where I think they could have done a better job. I dare say that this is the part where it could seem slanted.
7) The last sentence in the excerpt that I show above is the "hook" for the article. Its where an actual statement is made as proof of the "moving away" title. It is this sentince that makes it sound like AMD is not doing PC things at all for these guys.
I'll try to counter a few of these:
- Cray is going to be made of commodity PC processors. Many/most of the super computers these days are made with commodity procesors (and many of the other parts are commodity as well).
- The Lucus pre-rendering was done on PCs and there was never a mention of *not* user PCs for any other work. Here is a real quote form a real reporter: "Using the Athelon processor, JAK Films was able to help realize George Lucas' vision of his fantastic world," Ruiz explained after a brief onstage chat with Star Wars robot character R2D2. http://www.showgo.com/storytest.cfm?story_id=2054
- And as for gibson: It features a "hexaphonic" pick-up that transfers the analog sounds of the strings to a digital format. The signal is then moved via Ethernet to an AMD Athlon 64-bit digital audio workstation (DAW), where it can be amplified, modified or blended with other musical instruments. The technology will allow musicians to collaborate and jam with others even if they're in different cities around the world.
http://www.showgo.com/storytest.cfm?story_id=2054 (same as other link).
Thanks for reading
what about Crusoe? what's the status of the Crusoe processor and why don't they take advantage of this opportunity and jump into the market?
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
Here is the actually press release from AMD. Theres nothing in there that says they are stopping consumer chips (infact, they talk about the 64bit chip, and unreal). they do mention that they are 'branching out' Microsoft branched out from Operating systems (everything from keyboards, to chairs, to crappy networking hardware) but they still make the same great os!
If I remember correctly, Intel just released its 3.0 GHz chips. If I were AMD, and I wanted Intel to slow down a bit, I'd want them comfortable and happy in their current position so they didn't have quite the same sense of urgency about developing newer, better, faster technology.
;)
In fact, I might just start off with such a press release. I might continue by quietly starting up subsidiary firms, owned by the AMD corporate head office, and moving people and tech over to those companies, while making a big show about how the AMD CPU processor focus is being back-burnered, production factories are being retooled for different things, the corporate vision is changing (frequently), etc... All the signs of a firm that is visionary, bold, courageous - in other words, about to show up at fuckedcompany.com.
And when Intel was sitting pretty, regaining market dominance and feeling pretty good about its position vs. "former competitor" AMD, AND the market is starting to boom and demand is increasing, AMD could release something that blows Intel's doors right off.
Yes, it's risky. Long term profit in the face of a short/medium bear market usually is.
With Transmeta still trying to push into the PC CPU market I'd think AMD backing off a little would be good news for them. Two names is about all most customers can keep track of. This will let the Transmeta name have a chance at becoming known outside the geek society. If the recent news of Transmeta's new much faster and even more effecient CPU is true and that CPU is cheap and faster (and more energy/heat effecient) than a 1.8Ghz Intel CPU then they might grab some decent market share.
Just to make a wild prediction I'd say handheld wireless devices will be a big boom over the next decade or so.. faster CPU's probably will matter less than extending battery life. If they can make them cheap enough and so that they don't need massive cooling then they also should work well for parallel designs.. for the power users.
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