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."

Comments

Re:Intel is doing something right.

[rm69990]

I have to say I am very impressed with the Core Duo on my Mac Mini (1.66 GHz). For a long time I would only buy AMD, but with a Mac I don't really have a choice. But after hearing how quiet this thing is, and seeing how it flies, I'm happy it has a Core Duo in it.

dying industry

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:dying industry

[ScrewMaster]

Technology limits are one thing, but the ones we have have taken us to about where we need to be for the time being. As you say, for the desktop market the need for speed really isn't there any longer. So Intel is (much like Microsoft, which is running into its own hard limits) casting about for other markets to enter, such as the embedded-systems space, wireless technology and anything else that might be profitable in the near term. The question really isn't about processor speed, but more about whether Intel can re-invent itself in some fashion that leaves it a significant fraction of its traditional profitability. That remains to be seen.

Re:dying industry

[tomstdenis]

That's why they are improving in other directions. Not just higher clock rates but more efficient [IPC, MIPS/watt, etc]. That and there are many people who can find ways to fill pretty much any cycle count processor.

For the desktop/laptop market things the more dominating factors will switch from speed to power as people try to reduce their electricity and cooling bills. I'm sure if you could have a 10W Opteron running as fast as a 95W one you'd be interested in making the switch.

Tom

Re:dying industry

[evilviper]

I'm sure if you could have a 10W Opteron running as fast as a 95W one you'd be interested in making the switch.

Not too likely, actually. You'll save a few cents each month on your electric bill, and the fans will be somewhat quieter. Few people would want to spend more money for no performance improvement, and a hardly noticable savings in power.

In portables the benefits would be more significant, but with most mobile CPUs below 35watts now, you won't be saving that much power. A lower-power LCD backlight would probably be a bigger energy saver.

My problem with AMD

[Revolver4ever]

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.

At what point will AMD have to be bought out?

[VikingThunder]

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.

Re:Here's what's going on

[Overly Critical Guy]

Well, Intel's already on 65nm today. They have plans to move to 45nm by the time AMD finally gets around to 65nm. The Core 2 has been trouncing AMD's top-end chips in the benchmarks. Frankly, I think AMD's sales have been slowing because the AMD hype has died down, and Intel's Core chips are just really that good. Core 2 will be incredible according to the reviews.