AMD Not Competing with Intel Anymore, Goes Mobile

[OBR]

OH DEAR!

In a move than could very well be interpreted as exchanging one problem for another, Advanced Micro Devices has decided to stop focusing so much on the PC business and get its act closer together on the mobile front.

The Bulldozer disaster, as it is known in some circles, must have persuaded AMD's leadership that the PC side of their business wasn't flying very well and far anymore.


Though everyone was expecting much from 8-core processors, the performance was, in the end, well lower than some of AMD's own previous-generation chips.

Whether because of this or something else, it was reported that Advanced Micro Devices has chosen to distance itself from its competition with Intel.

That is to say, it will focus less on processors for PCs and pay more attention to the mobile market.

As such, it will probably start to customize its Fusion platform in such a way as to create tablet and smartphone chips.

"We're at an inflection point," said AMD spokesman Mike Silverman, according to a Mercury News report. "We will all need to let go of the old 'AMD versus Intel' mindset, because it won't be about that anymore."

If anything, 2011, with more than half a year of lacking an actual CEO, was a clear symptom that Advanced Micro Devices had to do something, and soon.

The company has a new leader now and, sure enough, the man took some fairly drastic measures, and that includes more than this latest change in direction, as well as a branded RAM project.

The workforce also suffered, especially the PR and marketing departments AMD axed large portions of each as part of its plan to cut total worldwide employee count by 10%).

The complicated thing about the focus on mobile is that ARM already has that well enough in hand, and NVIDIA just launched the Kal-El too. AMD may just be exchanging one headache for another with this.


http://news.softpedia.com/news/AMD-Not-Competing-With-Intel-Anymore-Goes-Mobile-237103.shtml

[Massman]

Not a shock really, but definitely a problematic evolution.

[filmbot]

Bad news to hear competition wise obviously. Hopefully this doesn't pan out super bad for us enthusiasts.

[saint19]

Will this be the end of those 8GHz chips? Maybe AMD isn't the best one but a competition in the market always add something interesting.

[richba5tard]

Awww... very bad news. While they might not have be the fastest, competition is always good. :(

[dinos22]

this is even worse for AMD. They has ZERO strength in mobile. Intel will absolutely thrash them :(. This sounds like the end of a great company...

[George_o/c]

Terrible news, competition-wise and price-wise... :(

Is the news source accurate? Have other sites reported it as well?

[Massman]

Bad news to hear competition wise obviously. Hopefully this doesn't pan out super bad for us enthusiasts.

Actually, this might be very bad news for us enthusiasts.

What Intel has been doing over the past couple of generations is try to close as many open doors that enthusiasts used to improve performance. From a business point of view, it's very normal that you try to make sure every target market is buying the products you want them to buy. For instance, Intel wants the power users to buy a top-of-the-line X-model at the price of $1000 rather. Or wants a regular user to buy a completely locked version to reduce warranty claims.

It's exactly what they're doing right now with the Sandy Bridge. You have to buy an unlocked SB/SB-E if you want to overclock a little bit. You just have to buy the most expensive one.

With a lack of competition in the performance market, I don't think Intel will be pushing new architectures so much anymore. For them, it makes much more sense to, for instance, release a new revision every 6 months with small improvements rather than one new product every year. With a monopoly, they can decide the amount of performance the end-user will get at any time. Normally, the market would decide the performance level (ie: whoever delivers the most performance will be prefered choice of purchase), but if there's no competition ...

I'm not sure how we, as an enthusiast group, should respond to this. Just go with it or somehow shift our own focus to different products.

[Massman]

Terrible news, competition-wise and price-wise... :(

Is the news source accurate? Have other sites reported it as well?

It makes perfect sense. Just look at what AMD's new CEO did at Lenovo ...

[wesjuhdabomb]

Omg.. Very bad news, as massman points out, if there is no competition why should intel stick to the tick - tock (1 year between both) strategy? Cost wise it will be more interesting to do little refreshes of existing architectures and a new one when enough money has been made with the old one.

[richba5tard]

Let's not forget the AMD spokesman did not say they pull out of the desktop cpu wars completely, just the high end. If AMD continues to focus on awesome bang for the buck, they will still be fun to play with for overclockers and remain a competitor for Intel. Just not on the high end market.

In the mean time, we are discussing at the bot how to make HWBOT more fun for AMD overclockers. The concept would be to have an AMD only bot, focussing on AMD guru's and their latest hardware.

http://hwbot.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1055&stc=1&d=1322583606

[Hondacity]

I was expecting this...good bye athlon

[Massman]

Let's not forget the AMD spokesman did not say they pull out of the desktop cpu wars completely, just the high end. If AMD continues to focus on awesome bang for the buck, they will still be fun to play with for overclockers and remain a competitor for Intel. Just not on the high end market.

Hm, might be possible.

Usually, the high-end market ($500+) is just a cutdown server product. Maybe AMD's strategy will be to have low-end/mainstream to be an upgraded mobile product?

[hokiealumnus]

Let's not forget the AMD spokesman did not say they pull out of the desktop cpu wars completely, just the high end. If AMD continues to focus on awesome bang for the buck, they will still be fun to play with for overclockers and remain a competitor for Intel. Just not on the high end market.

^^^ This. If you read the post from which this rather sensational piece pulled a single quote, it is not as dire as it makes it seem. AMD is probably just facing reality. Without serious engineering victories they won't be competing with Intel's kilo-buck CPU any time soon.

The FX series is not at war with Intel for the top performance crown. It's not exactly stellar for any crown, but is still decent for the price point AMD set (it's still too over-inflated at retail IMHO). Price for performance has been the AMD mantra for years, they're just embracing that rather than putting out stupid comic books saying they're going to topple Intel. :D

[Hondacity]

Omg.. Very bad news, as massman points out, if there is no competition why should intel stick to the tick - tock (1 year between both) strategy? Cost wise it will be more interesting to do little refreshes of existing architectures and a new one when enough money has been made with the old one.

they still have to sell processors....

[Trouffman]

Hm, might be possible.

Usually, the high-end market ($500+) is just a cutdown server product. Maybe AMD's strategy will be to have low-end/mainstream to be an upgraded mobile product?

Coming to this point... i can smell intel going to play kinda the AMD game during opteron time... like having 1 or 2 reference max for HIGH End (then only one) but allow some server CPUs (and actually more pricey, and not really impacted by the amount of customers sells) to be used on high end customer platforms... and then having another 'level' of : this chip is not made to be overclocked so don't complain or buy or very high-end rocket-priced CPU...

In the end... market focus make sens on a business level, but it cut the eveolution in the other hand, why is there new architecture like this over and over ? (on the cpu side), because there is competition and need /r research for more...

by the way cutting top (that is not nearly top to intel) so keeping mid-range only (because low-end doesn't mean to live anymore :)) this will kinda redifine was will be the AMD line up in the near future...

all the low-end (if we can call them so..) will be intended to low-power device / tablet / embeded computing etc... and the high end range gone, will only have the actual mid-range, going a bit upper in term of quality at same price but without need of major evolution... Add to that the AMD memory Brand... you push to have more and more and more OEM done but actually reducing cost too (no extra testing, you get a AMD CPU + AMD memory... what's next to be done ? the AMD branded mobo ?) oh and then finally... no more of this ^^ get the memory directly onboard and the CPU soldered.. tadam :D you've got the future... yes but you killed all the fun xD

NB : this is only my opinion at this moment I might write something up about it later on...


On Hwbot Side, I think that there should not be a drop on AMD support, I, myself, much prefer OCIng AMD thatn Intel, because it's mnuchmuch more fun :) but this is until you're not looking for kicking Kingpin arse with good result...