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What Went Wrong for AMD's AM2?
An anonymous reader writes "When AM2 was first announced it seemed like it was going to be a guaranteed hit. After all, this platform would be moving the tremendously successful socket 939 into the future with its use of DDR2 memory, a greatly increased memory bandwidth, hardware virtualization, and a number of exciting new CPUs. Despite everything AM2 had going for it, this includes a dedicated enthusiast base and a tremendous amount of pro-AMD spirit at the time, the new platform has largely been dismissed by consumers. The question now is, what happened? How did AMD go from record growth and being the darling of enthusiasts to having a new platform which failed to impress?"
Before it gets slashdotted, or if you don't want 3 pages with ads -- here's most of the text.
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Before we get started it should be made clearly that despite what people may say, AM2 does make for a capable computer. We took a look at an AM2 build based on an Asus M2N32 SLI motherboard not too long ago and were happy with the system. The disappointment in AM2 is not a result of its failure to perform, but rather the failure to match the performance gains seen in the move to the K8 platform. Our testing has confirmed what the industry at large has found to be true- the move to AM2 should bring performance gains of about 3-10% when compared to socket 939, with an average increase below 5%. This is what we would comfortably call an "incremental" performance boost, but nothing more.
So what happened to AM2? Where did things go wrong for AMD, a company that was on a legendary upswing, during which it could seemingly do no wrong. Even with reasonable pricing, a well-timed release date, and high availability AM2 was unable to take off in a way that was commensurate with its potential.
1. Conroe
An appreciably part of the success of sockets 754 and 939 were due to a colossal blunder on the part of Intel: Netburst. This architecture was kept around since 2001 and was always being improved in piecemeal, rather than simply being replaced. The whole episode was capped off by an unimpressive dual core architecture that was kept alive practically on price alone. During this time (754 came out in fall 2003 and 939 came in early summer 2004) AMD did their homework and put out the impressive but short-lived socket 754 and then 939.
But the landscape was changing by the time AM2's release date was announced. Intel had released its Core architecture and the word had begun to spread about Conroe, what would come to be known as Core 2 Duo. Early benchmarking by a number of hardware sites not only let consumers know that AM2 would be a slight performance increase, but that Conroe would be a dramatic one. By the time AM2 was available Core 2 Duo was one of the most highly anticipated processors of all time and AM2 was the "also ran". There was no way that AMD could compete with Intel's marketing clout, regardless of the performance or previous successes.
2. AM2 is setting up AMD for the future
As good as 939 was, it could only last for so long. AMD had to start to look towards the future, which meant moving to DDR2 memory, increasing the availability of memory bandwidth, launching a platform for improved chipsets and the like. Improvements must be done in stages: Socket 754 brought 64-bit, 939 brought dual core, dual channel memory, and mass acceptance of PCI Express video, and AM2 would bring us DDR2. AM2 may not be terribly exciting, but it is paving the way for K8L, AM3, and AMD's 4x4.
3. AM2 is confusing
Unless you follow the processor market closely, AM2 can be confusing. The naming convention "AM2" or "M2" is much different from 754 or 939 and a little investigation reveals that AM2's socket uses 940 pins. As you may recall AMD has already has a socket 940, it came out along with 754 and was used for Opteron and high-end FX systems. Despite the numerical similarity AM2 and 940 are extremely different and are not compatible with one another. Once consumers get past that they will have to figure out the processor they want, more than a few of which have the same name as their 939 counterpart.
4. 939 was too great
OK, a platform can't perform too well, but the success of 939 meant that in order to top it AMD would have to do bring something really innovative. They were clearly unable to do so (or did not intend to) so most 939 owners were never inclined to upgrade. The strong performance of 939, the availability of cheap processors and great motherboards, and the overclockability of most systems meant that convincing people to upgrade has been difficult. A new system would require a new motherboard, memory, and a CPU in the very least, possibly more if the user was upgrading from a
Why should anything be wrong with the AM2 platform?
Nothing.
It is just an evolutionary step for the AMD.
How did AMD go from record growth and being the darling of enthusiasts to having a new platform which failed to impress?"
Question asked, question answered. It failed to impress, and they let Intel jump ahead.
One only has to look at the seesaw video card wars between ATI and NVIDIA to realize the truth. The people who care about such things are a fickle lot. Let one or the other realize a huge gain in performance and odds are that most people--even "loyal" customers--will jump ship in a second.
And if you don't care about such things, then... well, you don't care. So there's no demand, and you might as well have a hamster cage inside the box.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
AM2 really is an excellent platform, it consolidated AMD's Value, Mid-Range, and High-End market segments into a single platform. The reason it's not viable in the larger market-wide Enthusiast, Performance, and High-End segments is simply that Core 2 Duo rapes it. If you're already considering spending the money for a higher-end Athlon 64 X2 or FX processor, you can move to a Core 2 Duo-based platform that will destroy the AMD options performance-wise by a margin that is nearly unprecedented while still providing good power and heat usage. Basically, if the market was perfectly rational and had no transition times, all systems would be AMD AM2-based until you reached high enough prices that it was cost-effective to use a Core 2 Duo, and the P4 and Celerons would be merely a bad memory. AMD's aquisition of ATI helps it in this regard, as ATI has been making some chipsets that are very reliable, very fast, and rather inexpensive. ATI definitely has the best integrated graphics solution in the laptop market, and AMD's Turion 64 X2 is more competitive here than the Athlon 64 X2 is in the desktop arena.
Currently, my pc runs fast, i can do everything I want on it and easily. Plus I am running an amd 3200. I have not been willing to update anything because my pc runs just fine. If I upgrade now, vista is around the corner and also unreal 2007. I want to make sure I can run the game when I get it. I also have not forked out for a new video card since I am running AGP. The last card I can use to upgrade my rig to play at least the current flock of games nicely is the 7800gs+ agp. This pc is going to become a Linux box to run unreal 2007 and I have no intention of updating until i see some benchmarks. at the moment, it runs just fine just like every person I know who owns a pc and does not wish to update. There is also HD video playback, HD video editing, currently, people are asking me about this and I keep telling them the technology is coming and there is no reason to update because your pc needs to be hdmi ready which current new brands and video cards are just barely getting into it. Current flock of technology is no reason to upgrade and most people I know are still making rediculous payments for the current pc's to lowsy dell and circuit city.
I have a AMD X2 4800 Socket 939 with 2GB of RAM. It does what I want. For me to upgrade to the next level, it's not only a new CPU but new motherboard and new RAM too and that DDR2 stuff ain't cheap if you go for the higher speed stuff to try and futureproof.
Many, including myself, are starting to see the introduction of a new CPU socket type as nothing more than a vain attempt to try and keep revenue flowing by trying to persuade us of all the benefits that these new sockets can offer which apparently the old ones can't. Two downsides to this. The first is ASROCK who have proven that the chipsets are more than up to running new sockets with the help of a low cost adapter to allow you to use the different RAM and CPU. The second is Intel who have come along with the undeniably impressive Core 2 processors that not only run on the existing 775 socket but also the i965 chipset with many boards requiring nothing more than a BIOS update to recognise the new range of processors.
So my message to you, AMD, is simple. We're sick of CPU sockets changing every 18 months. For christ sake, Socket 754 had about 6 months before it was superceeded. Slot A, Socket A, Socket 754, Socket 939, AM2 in less than 6 years with the last three having no real benefit over each other..WE'VE HAD ENOUGH.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
When you look at it that way, other than being more "future-compatible",
Which is majorly overrated. What am I missing in my fairly current machine?
1) No Dual-core. Motherboard just won't support it, no matter if you tweak the BIOS.
2) No PCI Express. Last generation AGP port.
3) No DDR2 support (not important unless I could upgrade my CPU to a memory hungrier CPU)
4) Too few SATA ports
5) Too few SATA power connectors
6) No PCI Express slots for expansion cards
7) No eSATA port
8) No SATA II support
9) No RAID5 support
The best future-proofing you can get is the money to buy a machine in the future. Chances are that by the time you're ready to upgrade, all the standards have changed. Unless there's a *very* compelling game that requires a better GFX card than I got coming out in 2007, I expect I'll get a new one in 2008. By then I expect it will have already skipped one generation and go straight for DDR3, DirectX 10 card etc etc.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Motherboards vary by about $10 for comparable features. Seems like the AMD fanboy is just grasping for straws here...
Core 2 motherboards start at $46 (Newegg; VIA chipset) and Athlon 64 FX AM2 motherboards start at $47 (Newegg; SiS chipset).
A motherboard with an Intel chipset can be found at $66, while a AM2 motherboard with the nForce 410 can be found for $57.
The cheapest SLI board for Intel costs $78 (rebate). The cheapest SLI board for AMD costs $85 (sale). Their original prices were $97 and $95 resepectively.
LGA775-compatible CPUs start at $45 (Celeron D 326). Dual core CPUs start at $90 (Pentium D 805). Core 2 Duo CPUs start at $180 (Core 2 Duo E6300).
AMD AM2 compatible CPUs start at $41 (Semprom 64 2800+). Dual core CPUs start at $153.
Summary -- Intel motherboards are usually within a few dollars of an AMD equivalent. Budget CPUs start within a few dollars of each other. Intel dual core is cheaper. Core 2 Duo is $27 more expensive than the cheapest AM2 Athlon 64 X2, but faster.
Meaning that that Core 2 Duo E6600 still crushes that FX-62.
Back in the day if you're shopping for CPUs and come across a P3 933, you instantly had an idea of the chips performance, at least enough to say well that's probably a bit faster then an Athlon 750. I'm sure some nitpicking AMD fanboys will argue and say it wasn't, but lets face it 933 > 750.
Your own example is the very reason that AMD "broke" the naming scheme. It was because idiot consumers like yourself were apparently incapable of making the leap of logic that "clock speed" != "performance." Since Intel was aggressively pushing clockspeed while AMD was pushing the operations per cycle, this would leave AMD at a great marketing disadvantage. So they named their chips with numbers represented the clock speed of the Intel chip they roughly performance-competitive with. In reality, you got what you wanted - numbers that represented performance, not just clock speed.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
This very thing is coming back to bite intel on the ass lately. The idiots who cant let go of the clockspeed thing. I had a notebook I was recently trying to sell, a guy that was interested was completely irate because I had the nerve to sell a 1.6ghz notebook for only a few dollars less than some other guy was selling a 2.0ghz system. He refused to comprehend that the one I was selling was a centrino while the other one he was looking at was an early p4 mobile and that mine was actually faster and cheaper. I finally grew so frustrated that I lied and told him I sold it already and reposted the ad with a new picture.