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Death of AMD


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AMD's recently release of the 300 series cards indicates that AMD is a downward spiral that it's unlikely to recover from. Discuss the eventual 2016-17 issue of no effective competition even GPU side and the affect on technological progression.

 

The dystopia is real.

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The rather large fraction of their business that is in things such as the semi-custom business resulting in the console wins (who else will do decent x86, good graphics and cheap for you?) and the fact that their debt isn't due to mature for a while should get them another roll of the dice. If Fiji is technically good, they may very well have the fundamentals to put out a very good generation in what's likely to be one of the biggest generations of graphics cards in history.

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3xx has been released? Rebadged cards is not a death knell - using the savings on R&D to put them at a more aggressive price point than nvidia's new designs should result in a very competitive range that sells well, maxwell has been more expensive than comparable AMD cards since the 750ti and if the 390X and 390 remain anywhere near as cheap as they were during the stock clearance then they ought to fly off the shelves. It's understandable with 14nm production scheduled so soon that they're cautious about releasing an entirely new architecture - the defining competition is next year when everyone gets to shrink their dies.

 

As for CPU's, pray for zen to close the gap. Intel integrating eDRAM on package with their latest chips is concerning. Everyone's known that integrated GPU's need more bandwidth than RAM can supply for ages, and by doing this before AMD intel has stolen a lead and is now faster in CPU and IGP. Hopefully AMD can integrate something similar for bristol ridge - maybe we could even dream of 1GB of HBM for in-package cache! I've heard that summit ridge will not have IGP's, which isn't what I'd like to see - it would mean that their APU's are still relying on excavator cores. Hopefully we see a zen based APU soon after the first zen CPU's, because chasing the top end with CPU-only zen products has very still competition from intel.

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Not sure I understand. Explain like you're working at the local ARC branch and have no one else to talk to about it.

EDIT: Also, link or die.

 

Title and assertion are hyperbolic, however the 300 series rebrand, it's poor performance, and bad price point indicate that unless AMD beats Pascal to the market with Arctic Islands, it's unlikely they'll recover enough in the GPU market to successfully release Zen in required volume.

 

The rather large fraction of their business that is in things such as the semi-custom business resulting in the console wins (who else will do decent x86, good graphics and cheap for you?) and the fact that their debt isn't due to mature for a while should get them another roll of the dice. If Fiji is technically good, they may very well have the fundamentals to put out a very good generation in what's likely to be one of the biggest generations of graphics cards in history.

 

Fiji does not look to be technically good - all reports so far on the 300 series have proven true, so it's likely leaked performance is also true. Without an aggressive price point, AMD will not be able to sell Fury. Bulldozer was new tech, that didn't mean it sold or was good.

 

When will their debt mature, and in what amounts?

 

3xx has been released? Rebadged cards is not a death knell - using the savings on R&D to put them at a more aggressive price point than nvidia's new designs should result in a very competitive range that sells well, maxwell has been more expensive than comparable AMD cards since the 750ti and if the 390X and 390 remain anywhere near as cheap as they were during the stock clearance then they ought to fly off the shelves. It's understandable with 14nm production scheduled so soon that they're cautious about releasing an entirely new architecture - the defining competition is next year when everyone gets to shrink their dies.

 

As for CPU's, pray for zen to close the gap. Intel integrating eDRAM on package with their latest chips is concerning. Everyone's known that integrated GPU's need more bandwidth than RAM can supply for ages, and by doing this before AMD intel has stolen a lead and is now faster in CPU and IGP. Hopefully AMD can integrate something similar for bristol ridge - maybe we could even dream of 1GB of HBM for in-package cache! I've heard that summit ridge will not have IGP's, which isn't what I'd like to see - it would mean that their APU's are still relying on excavator cores. Hopefully we see a zen based APU soon after the first zen CPU's, because chasing the top end with CPU-only zen products has very still competition from intel.

 

It is when market share is already so low that one could be easily pushed out of the market entirely - Savage, SiS and Voodoo all disappeared due to this. Price point is basically the concern though - they're not competitively priced. No one is going to pay nearly 400$ for an 8GB 290X or 350$ for a 290, not when that same performance can be had for so much cheaper and cooler. Nvidia is managing to supply gamers with what they need now, no one needs 8GB now. AMD could have released a really competitive 380X Tonga XT to beat the snot out of a 960/960ti/965 but that seems MIA, which is worse because ~230-270$ is where most cards are bought and AMD has a gigantic gap there.

 

Bristol Ridge and AM4 are supposed to come really soon. AMD is basically trying to push the supporting elements for Zen out as quick as possible, which is basically why I hope AMD has Arctic Islands complete and ready to ship in 6 months, "so why care about the 300 series?". It's possible AM4 will see the last generation of Construction cores from AMD, both APU and FX, as a fully mature product on 28nm, along with dual DDR3/4 boards, just so there is plenty of volume.

 

Also, 1GB of HBM on an AMD APU would crush any Iris Pro.

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How much does a 970 normally sell for? WCCFtech is claiming an RRP for the 390 of 320 Vs 350 USD for a 970, and looking at this review with a stock clocked 970 Vs an overclocked 290 (which is running 10MHz short of the 390) the 290 is comfortably ahead. It looks like these cards slot in very neatly into the existing price:performance structure, which is not a good thing - I'd like to see keener pricing to blow nvidia out the water, which is what AMD needs to regain that market share.

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How much does a 970 normally sell for? WCCFtech is claiming an RRP for the 390 of 320 Vs 350 USD for a 970, and looking at this review with a stock clocked 970 Vs an overclocked 290 (which is running 10MHz short of the 390) the 290 is comfortably ahead. It looks like these cards slot in very neatly into the existing price:performance structure, which is not a good thing - I'd like to see keener pricing to blow nvidia out the water, which is what AMD needs to regain that market share.

 

Pricing actually seems to be worse, the R9 390 is supposed to be 349$, and theres plenty of 970s for 300-320$. Factor into the better perf/watt of the 970 and it's a nobrainer since it'll have wider system support. The 290 is competitive @ 250-270$, which the 390 would also have to be priced at.

 

No one is going to pick a 390 over a 970.

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AMD's recently release of the 300 series cards indicates that AMD is a downward spiral that it's unlikely to recover from. Discuss the eventual 2016-17 issue of no effective competition even GPU side and the affect on technological progression.

 

The dystopia is real.

 

The thing is I'm not entirely sure if there really will be a big enough market for multiple GPU makers within a few years in the first place.

 

AAA gaming is pretty much the main driver of GPU development, but that's also an industry beginning to show cracks. The resurgence of PC gaming for instance was in large part driven not by AAA titles like Call of Duty, but by indie and smaller developers who don't need the latest and greatest hardware to run. In the current ongoing Steam Sale for instance the only "AAA" title I'm really considering is Witcher 3; everything else is indies (e.g. Darkest Dungeon), old games (e.g. Commandos), or mid-range titles that are filling the niches ignored by AAA (e.g. Cities Skyline).

 

Which is why I still don't have a dedicated GPU - relying instead on the built-in GPU included with my AMD processor. It has crazy heating issues, but spending on a more heavy-duty heat sink to resolve this cost only $20 as opposed to spending $200 for a GPU that I would only really need for one game.

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The thing is I'm not entirely sure if there really will be a big enough market for multiple GPU makers within a few years in the first place.

 

AAA gaming is pretty much the main driver of GPU development, but that's also an industry beginning to show cracks. The resurgence of PC gaming for instance was in large part driven not by AAA titles like Call of Duty, but by indie and smaller developers who don't need the latest and greatest hardware to run. In the current ongoing Steam Sale for instance the only "AAA" title I'm really considering is Witcher 3; everything else is indies (e.g. Darkest Dungeon), old games (e.g. Commandos), or mid-range titles that are filling the niches ignored by AAA (e.g. Cities Skyline).

 

Which is why I still don't have a dedicated GPU - relying instead on the built-in GPU included with my AMD processor. It has crazy heating issues, but spending on a more heavy-duty heat sink to resolve this cost only $20 as opposed to spending $200 for a GPU that I would only really need for one game.

 

There is a theory that AMD is pivoting to do this - with 2-4GB HBM backed by DDR4, the thought is that APUs will replace low end and possibly mid tier GPUs, and AMD is hoping to get temps under control for the mobile market, while having a blatantly superior ARM+GPU design (K12) or even a power gated Zen SoC. Strong server chips will filter down to desktop, and focusing exclusively on highmid and better GPUs for supercomputing, and letting that filter down to desktop.

 

If Zen/K12 can be successes, and their GPU share exceeds that of Nvidia in "notdesktop" and isn't abysmal in desktop than in 2 years time we may instead ask "how can Nvidia survive?"- keeping in mind Nvidia is basically locked out of the CPU market and based on the Denver and Tegra SoCs they're shit compared to Samsung, Apple, Qualcomm and Intel. If AMD jumps on board, where the hell is Nvidia going to go?

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TBF with strong IGP's in APU's of both flavours, there's little point in staying in the low end GPU market. When's the last time anyone released a new GPU?

 

By "anyone" who are you referring to? Apple, Qualcomm, AMD, Intel and Nvidia have all released new GPUs within the past year.

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Yeah, for the most part sales for desktop GPUs center around mid to high end, tapering off at low and halo tier (BellCurve.jpg). However OEMs tend to buy the low end stuff for office work, but even that is and will die out if Zen is a success - desktops will come standard with a competitive low tier GPU out of the box, reducing cost.

 

Due this it's unlikely there will be any new discrete GPU maker - even being generous, PowerVR would still get trounced by anything AMD or Nvidia could offer, and the new Iris Pro GPUs would too if put on a discrete PCB with GDDR5 (the Iris Pro 6200 can run BF3 @ 40fps on high, that's with only 128mb eDRAM, 2GB of GDDR5 would mean Iris Pro can run most games on high @ 60fps, even modern).

 

As ARM develops though and the market shifts away from dependence on x86, it's possible we will see new players crop up in the CPU/GPU space just because there are no restrictions on GPUs and ARM is relatively free (1 million is still free compared to Intel's "No, fuck off and die").

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TBF with strong IGP's in APU's of both flavours, there's little point in staying in the low end GPU market. When's the last time anyone released a new GPU?

 

GTX 750 Ti is the lowest end video card that isn't basically a breakout box from a PCIe slot to video outputs.

 

This is simultaneously saying that a basically modern architecture has a low end GPU and showing just how high it is before it's worth making a chip not part of an SoC.

 

On the other hand NV are being lying liars who lie and making their naming scheme represent their chips as bigger compared to how they used to be so that's more an x40 part. The chip in a x70 and x80 is now in the Titan and x80 Ti.

 

 

There is a theory that AMD is pivoting to do this - with 2-4GB HBM backed by DDR4, the thought is that APUs will replace low end and possibly mid tier GPUs, and AMD is hoping to get temps under control for the mobile market, while having a blatantly superior ARM+GPU design (K12) or even a power gated Zen SoC. Strong server chips will filter down to desktop, and focusing exclusively on highmid and better GPUs for supercomputing, and letting that filter down to desktop.

 

If Zen/K12 can be successes, and their GPU share exceeds that of Nvidia in "notdesktop" and isn't abysmal in desktop than in 2 years time we may instead ask "how can Nvidia survive?"- keeping in mind Nvidia is basically locked out of the CPU market and based on the Denver and Tegra SoCs they're shit compared to Samsung, Apple, Qualcomm and Intel. If AMD jumps on board, where the hell is Nvidia going to go?

 

I think this is very likely. After all why not follow the strategy for convergence that they bought ATI for now that it seems to be the time when the market and technology are ready. A full SoC like Zen+Radeon+HBM is something they can do better than anyone else, with HBM being their thing, and Intel being okayish at graphics and NV being godawful at CPUs before we get into a lack of x86. And imagine what you could build with that. If I could go custom, that and a 280mm AIO cooler could probably fit into a case with room for a PSU over the board. Fitting them all into something like a Phanteks Enthoo EVOLVE ITX would make a heck of a small system.

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Yeah, for the most part sales for desktop GPUs center around mid to high end, tapering off at low and halo tier (BellCurve.jpg). However OEMs tend to buy the low end stuff for office work, but even that is and will die out if Zen is a success - desktops will come standard with a competitive low tier GPU out of the box, reducing cost.

 

Due this it's unlikely there will be any new discrete GPU maker - even being generous, PowerVR would still get trounced by anything AMD or Nvidia could offer, and the new Iris Pro GPUs would too if put on a discrete PCB with GDDR5 (the Iris Pro 6200 can run BF3 @ 40fps on high, that's with only 128mb eDRAM, 2GB of GDDR5 would mean Iris Pro can run most games on high @ 60fps, even modern).

 

As ARM develops though and the market shifts away from dependence on x86, it's possible we will see new players crop up in the CPU/GPU space just because there are no restrictions on GPUs and ARM is relatively free (1 million is still free compared to Intel's "No, fuck off and die").

 

oh god why does dell put this in PCs, somebody please kill it

 

GTX 750 Ti is the lowest end video card that isn't basically a breakout box from a PCIe slot to video outputs.

 

This is simultaneously saying that a basically modern architecture has a low end GPU and showing just how high it is before it's worth making a chip not part of an SoC.

 

On the other hand NV are being lying liars who lie and making their naming scheme represent their chips as bigger compared to how they used to be so that's more an x40 part. The chip in a x70 and x80 is now in the Titan and x80 Ti.

 

 

 

I think this is very likely. After all why not follow the strategy for convergence that they bought ATI for now that it seems to be the time when the market and technology are ready. A full SoC like Zen+Radeon+HBM is something they can do better than anyone else, with HBM being their thing, and Intel being okayish at graphics and NV being godawful at CPUs before we get into a lack of x86. And imagine what you could build with that. If I could go custom, that and a 280mm AIO cooler could probably fit into a case with room for a PSU over the board. Fitting them all into something like a Phanteks Enthoo EVOLVE ITX would make a heck of a small system.

 

I'm going to disagree with you about the 750ti being the smallest card worth buying - even a GT640 will score well above an AMD IGP in firestrike, and double what an intel IGP stutters out (ignoring the very latest intel stuff, because 14nm is hax), while anything above an R7 250 will improve an AMD IGP.

 

I'd love to see 4 zen cores and a huge IGP (so it's the same die size as a current 28nm construction APU) sat on an M-ITX motherboard with a large passive cooler (so 60-90W CPU TDP) - that'd be a pretty cute system, and very powerful.

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I'm going to disagree with you about the 750ti being the smallest card worth buying - even a GT640 will score well above an AMD IGP in firestrike, and double what an intel IGP stutters out (ignoring the very latest intel stuff, because 14nm is hax), while anything above an R7 250 will improve an AMD IGP.

 

I'd love to see 4 zen cores and a huge IGP (so it's the same die size as a current 28nm construction APU) sat on an M-ITX motherboard with a large passive cooler (so 60-90W CPU TDP) - that'd be a pretty cute system, and very powerful.

 

 

Worth making, not worth buying, but fair point. I don't think there's really that much room for improvement in such cards because they get bought for reasons other than gaming usually.

 

Yes that sounds fun, but I wonder what you could do with two packages on the same interposer and going relatively big core on both for the smallest gaming computer.

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Worth making, not worth buying, but fair point. I don't think there's really that much room for improvement in such cards because they get bought for reasons other than gaming usually.

 

Yes that sounds fun, but I wonder what you could do with two packages on the same interposer and going relatively big core on both for the smallest gaming computer.

 

I keep thinking about this and the surface area server sized CPUs have would allow some pretty impressive IGP performance.

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I think this is very likely. After all why not follow the strategy for convergence that they bought ATI for now that it seems to be the time when the market and technology are ready. A full SoC like Zen+Radeon+HBM is something they can do better than anyone else, with HBM being their thing, and Intel being okayish at graphics and NV being godawful at CPUs before we get into a lack of x86. And imagine what you could build with that. If I could go custom, that and a 280mm AIO cooler could probably fit into a case with room for a PSU over the board. Fitting them all into something like a Phanteks Enthoo EVOLVE ITX would make a heck of a small system.

 

Uuh, I think AMD was listening

https://www.techpowerup.com/213512/amd-announces-project-quantum.html

Weird looking thing, I think the top section is a radiator. I wonder what CPU it has? I can't see it selling well, but I want it to sell well - if I was in the market for a new high end rig I'd like to buy it

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Uuh, I think AMD was listening

https://www.techpowerup.com/213512/amd-announces-project-quantum.html

Weird looking thing, I think the top section is a radiator. I wonder what CPU it has? I can't see it selling well, but I want it to sell well - if I was in the market for a new high end rig I'd like to buy it

 

It's an intel of some variety. 4790k seems a likely bet.

 

 

AMD is making the claim that Fury X will not only OC well, but beats the Titan X in performance for 980ti price.

 

WTB if true.

 

If it does that, I'll take a GPU that likely will depreciate $300 by the next gen.

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