AMD Loses $1.2 Billion and Its CEO 373
Barence writes to mention that after seeing almost $1.2 billion in second quarter losses, AMD's CEO has resigned. Stepping up to fill his shoes will be Dirk Meyer, previous company president and COO. "Only two years ago, the company held a processor performance lead and was making serious inroads into Intel's market. However, AMD failed to keep pace with Intel's Core technology, and it once again surrendered its performance crown at the dawn of the multicore era. Those problems were exacerbated by the bungled launch of the Barcelona processors, which prompted Ruiz to make a frank public apology last December."
i hope they keep up (Score:5, Insightful)
The last thing i want is an intel/ms only world. Bad enough MIPS and PPC have gone the way of the dodo more or less. AMD is the last bastion of creativity in CPUs.
Fix it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For me, it's all about the graphics. (Score:2, Insightful)
I would rather drop a cheap nvidia card in a machine than deal with intel graphics 3d acceleration problems.
Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
Get 'em while they're cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
Better grab those Intel processors while they're cheap, because once AMD goes under, you just know Intel will return to the good old days and jack prices up through the roof.
Must be nice having no competition in the market.
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Score:4, Insightful)
Doomsday? (Score:3, Insightful)
AMD (Score:3, Insightful)
I love my AMD systems. What the hell? How can you have a GREAT product, market share, and blow it as often as AMD has.
I hope they can come back. ATI was such a mistake, EVERYONE knew it was, I shake my head at what passes for management or vision these days.
You just know the guys that destroy good companies get many millions of dollars while the stock holders get shafted and the stake holders get ignored.
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to worry. History (or the Slashdot version of it at least) will remember AMD being taken down by the evil Intel, and things like AMD having taken to lead in the desktop CPU market or the fact that buying ATI was a phenomenal mistake will be ignored.
Companies don't die, they're just taken down viciously by companies we don't like.
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem was that Intel wasn't spending money on products that could compete with CoreDuo. They got really, really, really lucky.
The Core line of chips were originally developed as low-power laptop chips based around an older technology than Intel's "mainstream" chips of the day. Intel's roadmap up until very recently focused on further development of the Pentium 4 and Itanium lines (both of which ultimately proved to be unsustainable)
One of Intel's development teams in Israel saw the huge potential that the old Pentium III architecture had to be fast and power-efficient, when coupled with a more modern manufacturing process. In the end, the low-end power-efficient chips began to outperform their power-hungry Pentium 4 desktop offerings, and Intel quietly rebranded the line, and began to offer the Core chips as their flagship desktop offering.
Intel also made a great many mistakes with the development of Itanium, and their reliance on RAMBUS (which was proprietary, expensive, and actually slower in many cases than plain old DDR SDRAM). Their failure to embrace x86-64 could have also easily spelled disaster for the company. In terms of 64-bit development, AMD has always been the clear leader.
Intel should be counting its blessings, as they've made far more missteps than AMD have. Fortunately for them, they have a massive marketing team and extensive manufacturing facilities, both of which AMD lack.
Hopefully AMD can make something out of their R&D relating to GPGPUs, and stay viable as a competitor.
Re:What about the video cards? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Enough time to turn around? (Score:3, Insightful)
Any other big multigazillion dollar companies with a few billion to spend who want a chip manufacturer? I'd say IBM, but their interests seem to be elsewhere.
If AMD goes under, I'd bet the Chinese would take a crack at it. Being in such an important industry, government support for a multi-year development effort isn't out of the question.
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd hesitate to call that luck, let alone "really, really, really lucky". It sounds like terrific teamwork by engineering, production and management.
Re:For me, it's all about the graphics. (Score:3, Insightful)
Last computer I bought, I got an Intel CPU, since that was the only way I could get decent 3D.
Clarify something here for me: what the hell does your CPU have to do with it? Your GPU is what's pushing the pixels, that's the key component.
You may not have noticed, but Intel are the #1 GPU maker, in terms of sales and quality/stability/openness of drivers. Last time I checked you need an Intel CPU, since the GPU is integrated in to the chipset.
Re:What about the video cards? (Score:3, Insightful)
the number of video cards sold vs. the number of CPU's sold is jsut a small fraction.
and considering the price distrubution of products bought - having the best on the high end doens't help too much as it is out of the price range of most computers sold.
so no - it isn't going to save them - while it helps - it willnot save by any means.
Re:Stocks fall (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:AMD (Score:3, Insightful)
i agree buying ATI was amistake for AMD - i never in my mind would have seen that comming..
if nothing i would see AMD buying nVidia and Intel buying ATI. that to me seems like a better match up.
now Intel woln't use ATI chips on boards as that is supporting their competitor - so they forced Intel into competing the graphics market - which i will say they seem to be doing quite well with.
while i like ATI (alwasy have like their cards compared to nVidia - i liked that ATI designed and built the cards them selves - you got exactly what you though you where getting when purchaseing) at this point i am left wondering what to do. but i do know i am not going to the AMD camp again.. their defect rate is way to high for my sanity
Re:Stocks fall (Score:1, Insightful)
What?!?
A company announces worse results than expected and the share price falls.
Unheard of!
Re:Doomsday? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is only one case where fleeing investors, and thus dropping stock prices, affects a company: if they need to issue more stock to raise more capital.
Other than that the stock price doesn't hurt the company since it's already been sold (during the IPO).
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you haven't tried the new ati linux driver (yes, it's a binary blob, waaah) then you should. Ever since AMD took over, it's gotten a lot better.
What's with the "waaaah" comment? These days, I steer clear of binary drivers. I spent many years on proprietary hardware with binary drivers. I have used binary blobs in Linux as well. I have consistently found that open drivers provide a better experience, with more stability, better implementation/larger quantity of features, and greater longevity of the hardware, since support stays around. Binary drivers (and closed software too, as it happens) have always come back to bite me sooner or later. Are you saying I should:
1) Ignore my years of previous experience
2) Support manufacturers who do not supply products I like
because you think I'm needlessly complaining?
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. Intel got lucky in the sense that this little R&D group in Israel was able to come up with something brilliant, and the company was able to capitalize on it. If the Israeli group hadn't done so, the situation might be much much different.
That doesn't mean the Israeli R&D group got lucky - they're just brilliant. The company got lucky.
Re:AMD (Score:5, Insightful)
ATI was such a mistake
If the future is an integration of CPU and GPU, ATI might have been a necessary, if expensive, purchase for AMD. Also note that what AMD got was not just the ATI graphic cards, but also the chipsets. The support chipsets were always AMD's week spot.
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
But the Israeli group *did* exist, they *were* given the autonomy to do that work, the management *did* recognize the merits of it and decide to change course, and the production people *did* make it happen! That's not luck! If you don't understand how remarkable all of that is, you've never worked for a huge company.
What you people all seem to be arguing for, putting all your eggs in one basket and having it work out as you'd planned -- *that* is luck!
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:2, Insightful)
The thing is, the last thing INTEL wants at this point is for AMD to disappear as well. Their competition over the last few years has driven the industry forward and I doubt INTEL doesn't recognise this.
The death of AMD would be rather bad for Intel in the long run as well as for the industry.
Re:Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Score:3, Insightful)
If this was true AMD would still be making money, but the fact is they have to discount their middle range parts below cost to stay competative with Intel.
Right now AMD cannot compete with Intel.
Re:Don't invest in AMD... (Score:2, Insightful)
Because companies want good CEOs.
Imagine you are an excellent CEO, and are offered 2 contracts.
In one you are guaranteed 10 Million a year, in another you may make 20, but have it all taken away due to the economy.
Not only to shareholders not care, stocks go up when these huge deals are cut, because shareholders want a good CEO.
When they find out later it was a bad fit they do the same again.
Re:The beginning of the end for AMD (Score:1, Insightful)
NVidia fan here, but I have owned ATI before (9800 xt, DECENT CARD), however, I presently own an NVidia 8800GTX!
Now, on your point(s)? Hey - I will give you them by all means!
ATI/AMD, right now in the 4870 series, has a better "bang for the buck" overall, mainly, than does NVidia!
(NVidia, I think @ least, tends to "overprice"... Doubtless to get monies from 'early adopters' &/or speed-fiends, who could care less about cost - they just want & can afford the "latest/greatest + fastest").
Re:Buying ATI = idiocy (Score:3, Insightful)
But the Israeli group *did* exist, they *were* given the autonomy to do that work, the management *did* recognize the merits of it and decide to change course, and the production people *did* make it happen! That's not luck! If you don't understand how remarkable all of that is, you've never worked for a huge company.
The real question is how likely this will be repeated for the next product.
We don't know how much autonomy this group was granted initially, we don't know how much effort went into this, we don't know what sort of management battles were fought to avoid the smart decision here.
If Intel has good management, this sort of feat would be easily repeatable and good products will continue to be brought to market. If this smart move turns out to be more of a fluke, if we don't see anything like it again, then it was luck.
I think it was Patton who said that the army that wins the war is the one that makes the fewest mistakes. AMD has done well taking advantage of Intel's shortcomings. Then again, Intel can afford to blow through a lot of cash in order to get it right; AMD has far less buffer in that regard.
Re:For me, it's all about the graphics. (Score:3, Insightful)
Nevertheless, that's still better than an Nvidia or ATI card that is not accelerated at all due to lack of drivers!
Re:Enough time to turn around? (Score:2, Insightful)
I really don't think AMD is hosed. AMD still has lots of assets, not all of which are centered around processors and (now) GPUs. They could unload some of these assets to stay afloat if need be. Additionally, I think a lot of the press about Phenom being completely owned by the Core 2 architecture is a bit biased and exaggerated. One thing that people don't seem to talk much about is the fact that on a Phenom die, all cores share a common L3 cache. Core 2 Quad processors do not share *any* cache among all 4 cores. This means that if a process gets moved to a core on the other die of a Core 2 Quad, the cache needs to be reloaded, which means going through the relatively high latency memory access process again. As I understand it, "processor affinity" code in OS kernels is still fairly non-optimal, so this probably happens fairly often. I'm sure someone out there in Slashdot land knows some value about how often this actually happens. If so, it would be good if you'd post it, since I'm curious to know what it is. :)
With regard to benchmarks, situations where multiple processes share a chunk of memory and situations where processes get shuffled around to different cores frequently are examples of when a Phenom might be a Core 2, other things being equal. I have not been able to find any benchmarks of these two architectures that include, for example, PostgreSQL serving a large number of queries simultaneously, (thereby using all cores most of the time.) The benchmarks all seem to revolve, at best, around measuring the performance of a single process, possibly while something else is also running. It wouldn't surprise me if Phenom spanks Core 2 in some situations that aren't talked about in the reviews much.
Reviews that consider some of these other situations that identify some places where Phenom beats Core 2 could do a world of good for AMD.
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't be so sure. Intel has been convicted of anti-competitive practices as a monopolist before. Right now, they're concentrating on AMD. But they've shown themselves willing to grab as much of every market as possible. How long do you think ARM will be able to last if Intel throws the full weight of the company at it, secure in the knowledge that Intel can let the other processor family development slide, once AMD is no longer breathing down their necks?
Re:STFU Lin-sux user. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't invest in AMD... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking purely as a cynic, Intel were dragged into having to innovate by somebody (AMD) producing something better and also instruction-set compatible. That meant they had to invest some money in R&D rather than continuing to push their fairly abysmal P4 line because there was no choice. The emergence of AMD as a serious contender is what has done the industry good in this instance.
I'm sure that without actual competition, we'd be in the usual position (again) of a company not bothering to innovate because their profit margins are fatter without doing so.
Re:i hope they keep up (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For me, it's all about the graphics. (Score:3, Insightful)
>The hardware is low-end (and low power, which is good). The drivers ahve always proven rock-solid to me. And all the features work out of the box with no tweaking.
It's wouldn't be that bad except that Intel claims their integrated graphics are Vista-ready and 3D-game ready which are both lies.
There are no decent 3D games out there that are less than 5 years old that run at a decent framerate on Intel graphics and even the Vista Aero interface is too overwhelming for the Intel graphics to run quickly.
Having solid drivers that always work doesn't mean the chips are any good if dragging a window around in Vista slows your machine to an unuseable crawl.
Re:It's all about the architecture (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in 2003, when rumors were circulating about an AMD "K9" processor, everyone thought that a new, revolutionary, designed from the ground up processor architecture was in the works. Actually, it was. AMD was designing an *8-issue superscalar OoOE* 64-bit x86 processor. Basically the Alpha EV8 reincarnated in the form of an x86 chip. ( remember that AMD inherited a substantial portion of the Alpha design team after DEC was swalloed up by Compaq )
Unfortunately, as usual, management could only see 6-months ahead and the chip was canceled in favour of a 64-bit processor that was cheaper and easier to design and consequently would increase short-term revenue.
No, they canceled it because it was over-ambitious and couldn't work. The thermals of the design were impossible to manage, and the frequency scaling was predicted to be horrible.
No halfway-successful CPU company thinks "6 months down the road" like you claim. CPUs take years to design, tape-out, and manufacture, and CPU company management knows this.
The processor that was hailed as a "revolutionary" x86 design, the Opteron, was, in fact, *directly* based off of the *K7* design. It was basically a K7 with a beefed up datapath, support for SSE2 and other miscellany, an on-board memory controller, and a high speed serial point-to-point interconnect as a replacement for the front side bus ( Hypertransport ) bolted on.
The "mode switching" behavior that allows K8 to switch between 32bit and 64bit modes on the fly is pretty impressive, as well.
So, while AMD basically did nothing essentially new with their architecture over the years, it gave Intel ample time to design, *from the ground up*, 5 new processor architectures : The Pentium-M, Core, Core 2, Nehalem, and Atom.
AMD's worst mistake was the cancellation of the Alpha EV8 inspired "K9" in 2003. Now they are paying for it.
jdb2
What the fuck? Pentium-M, Core, Core 2, etc are not "revolutionary, from the ground up" architectures. In fact, the basic architecture, when you boil it down, is nothing more than a "very beefed up" P6 -- AKA Pentium Pro -- which predates even K7.
I don't disagree that K9 is a disappointing warm-over of K8, but truely "new" cpu architectures don't come around all that often. Power6 is "beefed up" Power5, which is "beefed up" Power4, etc. A good architecture can last a very long time, and it's wasteful and dangerous to throw out a proven design for an unproven "new" design -- see NetBurst for an excellent example.
Re:That would be interesting.. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Remember that IBM is forbidden from selling CPUs for home desktops."
Huh?
Since when? IBM made the PPC for Macs for years.
So where is your documentation on this?
Re:dont worry (Score:3, Insightful)
And what, exactly, did all that accomplish?
Re:EU Antitrust Charges. Don't blame the Victim. (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you seriously trying to blame Twitter for Vista's poor reputation? Take a look outside Slashdot for a second;
Google search:
Results 1 - 10 of about 9,170 for "Vista failure". (0.18 seconds)
Do you really think Twitter is that influential?
Fud, BS, and Baseless Comments All at Once (Score:1, Insightful)
1) From a technological standpoint, Intel is no better off than AMD. The Q9300 is only about 6-8% faster [xbitlabs.com] than their previous CPU (the Q6600), and it trails at many task because it has 2MB less L3 Cache than the Q6600. In addition, not only does it run hotter, but it doesn't overclock nearly as well. Of course you could go up to the Q9450, but you'd be paying $325 for a CPU with an 8X multiplier and a faulty temperature sensor (which is a known problem for their 45nm CPUs).
2) In terms of efficiency, nothing Intel makes comes even close to the 4850e. 2.5Ghz Dual Core CPU, running at only 45w. That's more than enough muscle for the average joe, and quite impressive if people weren't so thirsty for quad cores they don't even need.
3) The AMD A770 and 780G are both excellent chipsets, and the 3800 series GPU's marked the return of ATi, while the 4800 even further closed the gap from nVidia. Meanwhile, the G35 chipset has compatibility issues with DDR2 1066, as well as another chipset (who's name escapes me at the moment), and the GeForce 9600GT suffers from the Black Screen of Death [nvidia.com]. Now, can someone PLEASE tell me why purchasing ATi was such a bad idea, seeing how they're the only division of AMD that's actually gaining momentum at the moment?
The only part of AMD that need to be fixed is their flagship CPU department. The Phenom is an exact repeat this idiot CEO did with the 64-Bit transition. In short, he let the Athlon XP line go completely to shit because he knew Hammer was coming soon. Only this time when he put his all his eggs in one basket, the basket had a hole in the bottom of it. Granted, needing a better flagship product is quite the problem to fix, but to say that the company sucks from top to bottom is hyperbole at its finest.