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AMD Admits To Slowing Sales
An anonymous reader writes "Forbes is reporting that AMD has fessed up to investors about slowing chip sales. The price war that Intel has initiated seems to be taking its toll on the manufacturer." From the article: "The current drivers of business in the computer chip industry seem to revolve around Intel and AMD price war, uncertainty about how a slowing economy will impact consumer spending plans, and imminent product introductions from Intel that may be causing some consumers to hold off on purchases. Investors should get a better picture in the next few weeks--AMD will issue its full second-quarter report on July 20, a day after Intel is scheduled to report its results."
are the customers - without competition we would have been paying a lot more for the power we get.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I have been a big fan of AMD since I bought an Athlon XP 1700+. It's very easy to overclock when you buy the right one (not limited). I've owned an XP 2500+ (running like a 2800+), and a laptop with a XP-M 2800+. I just bought a laptop recently with an Intel T2400 core duo. I compared running programs side-by-side on both laptops, and for single-processor tasks, the T2400 is about 5% faster. However, it runs MUCH cooler than the XP-M, and therefore the fan doesn't run as fast and so is quieter.
And with Intel making the prices very competitive, they are doing something right. Personally I am very happy to see that there is real competition between the two big CPU chip makers. This is where the real innovation comes from.
Price fixing, especially at a strategic time like this, just shouldn't be allowed. I'm not sure there's really enough evidence for it to go to court unfortunately, and could cost AMD dearly if they try to fight it legally. Intel have a small bump in performance that brings them a bit closer to AMD performance, and they use this along with a lot of intel fanboyism in the media in the last six months to boost their image, and on top of that they price fix their prices downwards to half of AMD. No single one of these things is probably any different to what most companies would do if given half the chance, but they're stacking the odds in their favour by performing all things at once, making cheaper chips, better chips and putting good reviews out in the media.
:(
And in the end the better man (AMD) is the one that suffers. Being a smaller company too they will suffer more than Intel will suffer from having to put up with lower prices. It's a classic MS strategy
I am currently in the market for a new computer. I was going to buy a new computer back in January, but I waited for a price drop for the AMD X2 chip that I wanted. Then I learned that there was going to be a completely new socket AM2 coming out that will use DDR2 RAM. So I held off a little longer. Its six months later, and now I hear that there is another AMD chipset coming out in January with 4 cores, and a new Intel chip coming out in a month that trounces anything AMD has.
Plus, there are no reliable reviews of the new motherboards yet...and the reviews of both the new AMD and Intel chips are all preliminary...so, why should I commit right now? In fact, most major websites and magazines are saying to hold off buying!
The CPU industry will probably implode in the next decade or two.
1) Upgrade cycles just keep getting worse as business and people realize they do not need the latest and greatest. During the boom, a 3 year upgrade cycle was average, now it is in the range of 7 years. For the majority of businesses, all the box has to do is run Office decently. Only the high end enterprise and HA market will care about upgrading to the latest. And even they are getting cheap by simply clustering 2nd generation boxes.
2) They are hitting technology limits. It is doubtful that they will be able to get below 32nm silicon (right now the best is 65nm). That is why we are seeing multi-cores and performance/rating specs being redefined to account for threading capability; It is more an act of desperation than innovation. Yes, some technology will take over-- quantum, bio, optical, but there will probably be a significant waiting period for the new tech to emerge. Moore's final predicition is rapidly coming true; It is becoming too expensive to build state of the art fabs to justify the returns.
It's not surprising that sales are down, considering this is always the weakest quarter and the huge price war.
However according to Inquirer (http://uk.theinquirer.net/?article=32880), server sales continue to improve.
Price fixing, in a nutshell, is when competitors join forces to set prices in such a way to inflate the market value of a product. Price fixing is illegal, but it isn't what is going on here.
What is going on here is Intel decided that it can afford to lower its margins in order to either take back the market it lost, or squeeze its competitors because they cannot afford to operate on lower margins.
There is nothing illegal about operating this way (though some might find it immoral). AMD employed a very similar strategy in the late 90's, early 00's in order to position themselves where they are today in the market.
Welcome to the technology market, where there's always something better on the horizon.
Buy what you need, when you need it, and don't worry if it's the absolute latest thing out. If you always wait for the latest & greatest thing you've just heard about, you won't end up with anything.
OTOH, if you really don't need it, save your money. When you eventually do get around to buying, you'll always get more for your buck.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
From TFA, it is still unclear if AMD is losing market share or if the whole chip market is slowing right now. Basically Intel and AMD are in a price war (good for consumers) and we will have to see how it all works out.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
From Newegg:
Athlon XP2 3800+ : $297.00 Pentium D 930: $170.00
Benchmark results are very similar with the Athlon winning most of the game benchmarks by a bit. Is that bit worth $130.00? Hell no.
I really wanted the 3800+ but it's price has remained the same for a very long time now. Meanwhile, Intel has been slashing prices daily. At the end I caved in and could not be happier. Until AMD starts price matching Intel processors, I'll stick with my Pentium D.
If O2 is good, O3 must be 1.5 times better!
I think it's bound to happen if AMD can't muster enough resources to continue competing that they will need help. And no, I doubt AMD buying ATI will do much of anything. It seems AMD will have to be bought by IBM if they want the same deep pockets necessary to compete with Intel. They already work together, so it's definitely possible. I don't see how AMD can possibly do more for every bit of money than Intel forever.
I guess you'll know better next time before making such asinine remarks regarding matters you are obviously not knowledgable enough.
Woodcrest, yawn, yeah... Of course specialized publications have been abuzz with that for a while - the fact that I was pointing out how the Forbes article was regrettably short on details could have told you I'd heard about some of them. ;-)
A 10 w cpu is not a hardly noticable improvement over a 95 wat proc in a laptop.
It translates into much longer battery life with a smaller battery, ie, a lighter laptop.
A lighter laptop is much easier to carry around, and even small improvements in laptop weight are very noticable. Yes, most cpus run at a lower wattage, when they are clock throttling. But if their continuous full clock power were 10 W...
Especially if the laptop turns into a pda / cell phone / blackberry.
There is tons of room for improvement in these directions, not to mention all the other directions available but not yet made, like complete voice control, the ability to talk to the computer and let it do the writing (dictation),...
Get real. Anyone who says the cpu industry is about to implode is an idiot. Just like the one who said 640k is all anyone will ever need (Bill Gates?) or the one who said everything has been invented, let's shut down the patent office (in ~1900)
the cpu implode statement is just a troll, and a fairly stupid one, at that. From a clueless idiot.
Yes, I am a computer designer - engineer, and I work at Dell.
wake up and hold your nose
At the International Symposium of Computer Architecture (ISCA) a couple weeks ago in Boston, Dr. Phil Emma of IBM gave a keynote talk. He said that CPUs will become commodized to the same level as DRAM is today. I think there could be truth to what he says and that innovation will have to come from higher levels than the CPU. And he is one of IBM's lead technologists.
Any reference to Forbes magazine articles (the Enquirer of the Financial World?) is causing ballistic responses.
We should just tag any entry to any Forbes article as "Fantasy" or "Satire" and just enjoy the amusement.
1) Intel is dumping its aging Netburst cores onto the market at such low prices that they're displacing lower-end AMD sales.
2) Intel is setting up for a Big Bath in their Q2 earnings report. Their selling off of their ARM processor unit to Marvell is part of this (they'll have to recognize a huge loss on the sale).
3) All of this is obvious to AMD, so they're putting even more emphasis on Opteron sales where Intel is weakest. This results in lower total sales, as they sell in far fewer numbers than low-end CPUs, but should keep net income at a nice level since they're extremely high margin chips.
4) Since each Opteron sale displaces an Intel Xeon sale, Intel's net income is hurting.
5) Any advantage Intel will gain from C/M/W will be gone when AMD does their transition to 65nm in Q4. Sooner if Intel screws up, as is reported.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
My 3 year old 3ghz box is fast enough and capable enough. I'm sure I'll get new equipment in the future sometime, but it will be after VISTA comes out.
You may have reservations about adopting VISTA, but when you buy equipment a few months after major OS releases you get the longest support and the longest productive use of your equipment. I'm sure I'm not alone in milking my Window-XP until VISTA comes out (even then I won't be on the bleeding edge of first buyers).
This in my opinion is a major factor in the slow down for computer manufacturers, that and the end of the ability to ramp up the Hz number. It is now very hard to convince customers they need new hardware, and in most cases they don't. It also seems to me that we haven't been keeping up with Moore's Law. When you break the Law, there's always a penalty.
Letter To Iran
Computer Designer is to Engineer as Interior Decorator is to Architect.
And quit being flaming idiot with the personal attacks. You come off as a douche. Take a pill, settle down, you'll live longer.
I get the monthly flyer from Micro Center even though I'm pissed off at rebate failure and will not buy any item over $30 (no rebates allowed) like paper or cable etc. it does gove me the chance to keep up with market changes (watching the book store computer section change also is a good market indicator) ....
But here is the thing. I've generally gained a distaste for the computer industry leading edge stuff as in 3 months what is out is old. So with this in mind, I wait for people to throw their old systems out and from that build my own. I'm at just over 500Mhz running Free OSS and honestly if I want to get a noticable boost in performance I can move to 2Ghz or better processing for less than $150. But I have to have a need for it to seriously consider it.
Haven't yet found a good enough reason or need to not just wait for free/tossed out hardware to upgrade from 500Mhz....
So those who need leading edge... let me know when you decide to toss something that just isn't good enough for you anymore.
Seems to me that his "law" has been faltering since 2002. I remember back to Q1 2001 you could buy a 3 GHZ chip (533 FSB) from intel and it it's not exactly been doubled since then. Multicores are just (in my view) like having a multiprocessor machine from way back, but now they're putting two cores together which doesn't double speed for most things that need it. There's a few programs that can take advantage of dual core, but from what I can tell they are all fairly specialist, not exactly mainstream.
And don't forget that the driving factor for Graphics cards is the home market, which tends to put pressure on people to buy a fast cpu (because without a fast cpu a top of the line gpu is partially crippled).
The other market is business, but they only upgrade hardware when software upgrades make them. From Office 95 to Office 2000 saw massive improvements, but since Office 2000 I haven't seen great steps as there really isn't that much more a business would want from that type of product. So a machine running Office 2000 can probably run Office XP fine, and doesn't need upgrading.
I'd say that in 95, 100Mhz chips were the norm, and in 2000 1000Mhz chips were. Then in 2005 3Ghz chips became the norm. So I see computers in 2000 being able to run most software that runs in 2005, but that doesn't seem possible for 95>2000
I see, that's because no one needs more than 640k of memory, right? The funny thing about computers is how every time someone says no more power is necessary somebody else invents a new application.
What do you mean, run office "decently"? If it's just basic text editing, then any old VT-100 terminal coupled to a 6502 CPU motherboard with 64k memory and a 1.44Mb floppy will do. However, if you mean the whole lot of tasks one does in an office, then we still need a lot more power than we have today.
Let's see, for a start, how about a system that reliably corrects the "to-two-too" mistakes that so many slashdotters commit? Do you have an idea on how difficult is that? Or how about automated translation? Or reliable OCR, including handwriting recognition? Or speech to text?
A truly "decent" office software would need a CPU with at least the same processing and storage power as a human brain. Meanwhile, we have to cope with office systems that in many cases hinder more than help us.
Your first paragraph it pretty on, people just don't need top of the line machines to do most work anymore.
Your 2nd one is way off. There's no problem with 45nm right now, and 32nm will work too. And multi-cores isn't a dodge because of the inability to reduce feature size (increase transistor count), it is a simple trick to USE UP all those transistors it would otherwise take a lot of redesign to utilize well. So, we go to small process, have more transistors than we know what to do with, and so add cores. It works great!
Fabs are expensive, but they do manage to sell their output, so they keep buiding them.
NAND flash companies are already producing 55nm and 50nm parts as samples, with full production coming soon.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Ever since Pentium-M (not P4-M), AMD hasn't been able to match Intel on power/heat for laptop processors. Current Turions are just binned Athlon 64s that can run at lower voltages. They don't have an actual laptop design, unlike Intel.
Because of this, Intel has outdone AMD by a lot in the laptop space for quite some time now. There's other reasons that I don't want to get into. I should just make a web page about it and link to it over and over.
I do agree comparing an XP-M to a T2400 is pretty much a joke.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Made one mistake, the EE cpus.
Broadcasting we can make faster silicon but we're going to make you pay a leg for it...
Now they're doing what AMD used to do, great performance from their consumer level chips... Not just their Enthusiast level chips.
2400 goog chip 62+ not good chip...
I thought Socket 939 was supposed to last us forever... But at least I don't have to replace the video card or any of the drives -- PCI Express, SATA2/300, standard IDE optical drives, keep the same monitor, keyboard, and mouse. So, new mb, cpu, and ram is still not even close to the cost of the whole computer -- and I can still use the old stuff, put the CPU/MB in storage to swap into a server (which has identical CPU/MB), put the RAM in that server (3G total, when combined with what's in there)...
And keep in mind, you can sell the old stuff on ebay anyway.
And every 2 years isn't horrible, especially if you do computers for a living. Me, I'll be shooting for four years or so between upgrades, unless I get back into gaming...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Why is anyone reading Forbes? A publication whose senior editor Daniel Lyons has written numerous articles supporting SCO and troll baiting Linux users. One of Lyons' masterpieces begins with "Linux zealots...". Lyons is senior editor.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
My mistake, I meant, when I get more seriously back into gaming. My last major hardware purchase was a whole computer, but it wasn't just for gaming. It mostly gets used for anime and movies now, and the massive amount of hard drive space helps there. It's also used for work.
Gaming is a reason to get upgrades, but since I'm no longer a hardcore gamer -- the kind who drools over every new FPS just for the eye and physics candy -- I no longer require upgrades every year or two. Not that I no longer enjoy that kind of game, but every three or four years should be enough.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
The price war that Intel has initiated seems to be taking its toll on the manufacturer.
I just put down some money for a new AMD X2 system (nothing all that special, but it'll have a lot of RAM and two video cards).
Since the store's online customization program was broken I ended up having to go there in person to place the order. Things were going fine until I realized that I was being set up for an Intel-based system, contrary to all my previous email and telephone communication. It made me wonder if there wasn't an advantage for the sales guy to push Intel by default.
Gamers and those into photo/video editing will benefit from newer CPU hardware. All those in your list don't require anything other than the equivalent of a "base" PC today. Those $100 laptops are looking better all the time for these folks. Another year or two, and those will be just perfect for them.
The thing that will get people to buy a new PC is voice or writing activated tablet type PCs, and maybe not even then.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
That's why NT4's life-cycle was extended twice, and 2K is still running?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I baught a Dual P3 667 about 5 years ago its was very cheap at the time.
Over the years Ive added a bigger hardisk (200G-AU$120) and kept the old one (20G) baught two 1Ghz (AU$25ea) CPU , added a dual Layer DVD burner (AU$95) and doubled the ram to 1.0G (AU$70) and I just updated the Geforce2 card to a Geforce4 (AU$18).
The machine does everything I want, runs Linux just fine, plays anime, burns DVD's, surfs the net, plays mame roms
So in the last few weeks I decided to look at 64Bit cpu's and a reason to even bother updating. For me a new 64 bit cpu isnt going to do anything Im going to really care about, that my old machine doesnt already do just fine.
So there's the whole deal in a nutshell, unless you a gaming nut (Im a anime nut) why would you bother updating the cpu, bigger hardisk and a nice high res monitor maybe, but the cpu! why bother.
Congratulations on your complete lack of reading comprehension skills.
As I already said: "most mobile CPUs [are] below 35watts now,"
That means you can't possibly save the theoretical 85W by switching to a lower-power CPU... unless you have a CPU that GENERATES ELECTRICITY and gets COOLER as it operates!
No, 35W is the TDP for Intel/AMD's latest (powerful) mobile CPUs, meaning they will average far, far less, particularly when idle.
I wasn't defending him, or anyone else. Nor do I believe the CPU industry will implode. I was just addressing incorrect facts and assertions, like the ones you're now making.
That's very, very depressing.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
.. Woodcrest is the real deal. Companies that held their noses and supported Intel in the past for financial reasons now say that Woodcrest has actually caught up with or leapfrogged Opteron. DATallegro is just the most visible example. At the risk of yet another shameless plug, you can see some details via http://www.dbms2.com/2006/06/28/good-datallegroint el-white-paper/
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
Because as you surely know (given your sig), AMD makes more than just processors.
Is there a breakdown on projected revenues from processors (related to PC sales) as opposed to Spansion memory, for example?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Right. It's not about clock speed any more. It's about interprocessor communication speed, cache speed, etc., etc.
Judging chips has gotten a lot more complex than it used to be, and not just because power consumption rivals speed in performance. There are a lot of factors affecting total throughput now. Reality is catching up to Intel's marketing hype. :D
To err is human. To forgive is good system design.
Its the hardest thing to do, so fiddly
1) Every edition has a new damn pin layout, wtf so damn many? get it right. It forces
us to get a new MB which means perhaps a diff chipset, which upsets windows and that needs usually
a damn Repair Install, (though there is a hack that if you remove your IDE drivers and shutdown, then swap MB, it will be ok, worked for me
one one P4 system, but not from P3 to P4.
2) because of 1, it requires everything to be unplugged, rewired to the same box on a new MB. So time consuming, unless
you do it 8 times a day for a job. (used to take me 4hrs to step upgrade/retrofix 3 machines in one night, 2 win, 1 Lin)
3) The old cpu is still within 50-80% goodness of the new one, why cant we use it too? It would be nice to have one MB with two
cpu slots, that at least standardize for a while. Maybe we need Slots again, rather than back to PGA, and therefore perhaps gold ribbon
cabled versions so we can slot plugin/play new CPUs like 1inch slottable HDs, but at the front of the computer. ie. like HAL 2001,
slot in each new cpu in realtime, up to 4 max!!! Make an intergrated CPU+SLOTcard+heatsize+fan+cables+plastic case into something
half the size of a DVDburner. If the upgrade is easy, then more people will, if its damn difficult like heart surgery, then most wont.
4) Windows, thats another problem, you swap MBs, or chipsets, or perhaps 32 to 64bit, and it either needs a proper repair install, or at worst
if its braindead, a clean install. Why cant it just, re-init and re-load all hardware info as if it was installing, is it that braindead designed
and nonsensical that it cannot be done aka win98, or is it a case of ROI for MS, where it would take a bit of effort and coding plus lots
of testing to make sure its good, or does NO ONE understand the full windows architechture to do it at MS?
Maybe admins and corporate people can do it, but the average Joe at home cannot easily go into one control panel of some sort and click on
"prepare system for new hardware" and select it then, shutdown, and then swap new HD.
Back to WorldCup.
-Done.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.