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AMD Reports 2013 First Quarter Results

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CAT-THE-FIFTH

CAT-THE-FIFTH

Caporegime
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The PC market fell by 14% this quarter.
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It's sad to watch the decline of the boxed PC, I feel like a Brit would have in 1945 watching the Empire in it's twilight years slowing fading away. We might as well all face facts and admit the days of the desktop PC will never return in the near future rescission or no recession but that doesn't mean we can't all enjoy PC gaming.

I'm worried about AMD, if Intel are finding it hard then it's got to be especially difficult for company that's constantly haemorrhaging cash every month. The biggest problem AMD have had is they have lacked a true visionary at the top of the company for a long time, someone who can think ahead of the curve. It''s to late in the day for AMD to be coming up with mobile chips, every man and he's dog is designing one these days AMD need to be thinking of where the market will be 5 years from now and working on that product.
 
Freddie1980 said:
It's sad to watch the decline of the boxed PC, I feel like a Brit would have in 1945 watching the Empire in it's twilight years slowing fading away. We might as well all face facts and admit the days of the desktop PC will never return in the near future rescission or no recession but that doesn't mean we can't all enjoy PC gaming.

I'm worried about AMD, if Intel are finding it hard then it's got to be especially difficult for company that's constantly haemorrhaging cash every month. The biggest problem AMD have had is they have lacked a true visionary at the top of the company for a long time, someone who can think ahead of the curve. It''s to late in the day for AMD to be coming up with mobile chips, every man and he's dog is designing one these days AMD need to be thinking of where the market will be 5 years from now and working on that product.
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Whilst at the moment the PC market seems to be getting "ignored" (as shown by that 14% decrease), I still think that this mobile bubble will burst at some point as so many tech companies are pouring a huge amount of money into mobile technology - but there's only so much you can do.

At the end of the day, people will still come back to desktop PCs at some point given their much higher performance potential over mobile devices and the fact that it is much better to have a larger monitor (I'd imagine most would agree here) for viewing your work / browsing / gaming etc.

Point is, mobile devices are all very well for convenience and taking up less space - but they just cannot match the potential for performance that a desktop PC can achieve. Imagine if these tech companies were pouring the money they invest in mobile technology into PCs - the potential for the performance is enormous given the advances in silicon technology.

Don't write the desktop PC off yet.
 
PhysicsMan94 said:
At the end of the day, people will still come back to desktop PCs at some point given their much higher performance potential over mobile devices and the fact that it is much better to have a larger monitor (I'd imagine most would agree here) for viewing your work / browsing / gaming etc.
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System requirements for Windows have been more or less stagnant for a long time. That has encouraged the ultra cheap 'good enough' PC and people to hold onto existing equipment for longer.
 
I guess the average person looking for a PC wants to do a bit of web browsing and email / facebook etc. Even a ten year old Athlon XP is going to be fine for that there just doesn't seem to be the need to upgrade as often these days.
 
14% is a pretty nasty decline to be fair but what do they expect? Intel refuse to lower prices or bring 6-8 core into the mainstream and Nvidia have basically withheld the Titan on anyone who is not rich enough to afford a £900 GPU to play BF3 or witcher II.


Look at the Titan benchmark scores at 2560x1600 on Witcher or BF3.Just about grabs the magical 60 frames per second minimum i would demand of a £400 GPU nevermind £900!

They make think that profiteering and milking is best for thier profit margins now but it wont be when the whole pc market shrinks further due to thier lack of innovation and selfishness.I expect more for my money and would upgrade tomorrow if Titan was £450.The PC needs to be unleashed to its full potential to get back in the lead in the face of the PS4 and mobiles.Im talking 8 cores with GDDR5 mainstream and GTX 700 series coming before christmas.
 
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The simple matter of it is that most people don't need PCs anymore. Those that do will often prefer a laptop due to space limitations. A tablet can replace even that for media consumption and browsing.

What are people using PCs for now?

Gaming... Yes sometimes but consoles and more recently casual games on tablets are cheaper.
Email... Tablets are fine for this.
Music and video... Tablets again

For the vast majority of people a big expensive ugly box just isn't needed.
 
Hades said:
What are people using PCs for now?

Gaming... Yes sometimes but consoles and more recently casual games on tablets are cheaper.
Email... Tablets are fine for this.
Music and video... Tablets again

For the vast majority of people a big expensive ugly box just isn't needed.
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You can't replace a desktop for work tasks, video editing, cad, photoshop etc.
 
For AMD the shrinking market doesn't matter, its better for AMD than Intel, during the recession period AMD did comparitively less badly than Intel.

If the market is buying say 500million cpu's a year, then during a recession shrinks to 300million, if you're Intel and sell 450million cpu's then when the market shrinks you WILL lose sales, AMD only selling say 50million cpu's a year, during the recession they can still sell 50million cpu's a year, the market is still there.

Same goes now, the market is shrinking AND the biggest shrinking part of the market is the most profitable and the most expensive pc's, somewhere AMD doesn't compete anyway so the biggest sales reduction is almost exclusively Intel and their highest profit segments, hence their profit went down 25% on a 14% sales slump, and AMD's sales dropped way below the drop in overall sales, its still good to be Intel obviously.

In terms of what people need pc's for, its NOT performance that matters, but usability and thats where the biggest change has happened.

When you had a single core pc, and were playing a game, that download unraring in the background brought your game to a stuttering halt of unplayability. Run an encode and opening a broswer became laggy.

Its not performance now, so much as an ssd + improved OS + dual/quad core cpu mean that you can do something high load and not effect your day to day business on your computer. When you had a single core cpu, you wanted that 4 hour encode to take 30 mins because that would be less time the computer sucked. Today that encode could take 2 minutes or 2 days, its essentially "in the background" and you can use your computer as usual while its happening.

Usability is FAR more important than outright performance. PC sales should dwindle but people will still buy them, so they'll level off at some point, and as computers become more important in poorer countries, sales should increase elsewhere in the world to compensate, but again a better value £50-100 APU will do more than having the fastest £300 hex core available.

A lot of AMD's losses are restructuring losses though so aren't very comparable, and their revenue has dipped in large part due to people buying less of older chips when the new better ones are around the corner.

Brazo's was a resounding success and was shipping something like 8-10mil a quarter, but it was a bit too small, a bit too cheap and not brilliant in so many markets. Outside of netbooks it didn't gain a lot of traction, it was a very narrowly targetted chip. jaguar is better aimed at 5-25W, Temash should do well in high end tablets, dual/quad core Kabini's in everything from hybrid tablets to high end ultra portable laptops, and importantly, the cost of the chip will mean more profit in "ultrabook" style laptop sales.

Its going to kill Atom in performance/cost/efficiency, it will be competitive if not better than Haswell at lower power levels, which means sales and competition for AMD in a more profitable segment.

I really don't get why people think gaming on tablets is easier or replacing pc gaming, its a joke. Tablet games vs pc games, its night and day, tablet games are replacing BOARD games, and that kind of crap, I've never met a single person that went from playing the latest AAA titles on a PC to playing rubbish on a tablet, not a single person in the history of mankind have I met or heard of like this.

People USED to play crap like monopoly to waste time, now they pick up a tablet and play monopoly, or a sudoku, angry birds, etc. Completely different markets, with zero overlap, one isn't encroaching on the other at all, never has, never will.

Also, video, on a tablet, yeah, I love sitting in a comfy chair and extending my arm holding up a tablet for 2 hours, its great fun, and really comfortable.... no, if I'm on a plane or train and want to watch a film, I might use a tablet, though a laptop is better in every single possible sense. If I'm at home, not a chance in hell the tablet becomes my main source of media, ever. Keyboard please, typing without blocking the screen, at a fast rate. Desktops will never be replaced by tablets... replaced by a server in every house, wireless/wired screens and wireless keyboards/mice with the ability to hook it up to a screen in any room in the house by logging in, that will happen eventually, it won't be run by a freaking tablet though.
 
Freddie1980 said:
It's sad to watch the decline of the boxed PC ... We might as well all face facts and admit the days of the desktop PC will never return in the near future rescission or no recession but that doesn't mean we can't all enjoy PC gaming.
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Microsoft have themselves greatly accelerated the decline with Windows 8, everybody sees a tablet OS and fanboys defend it by saying "tablets are the future, the PC is dead" and so people either buy tablets (iPad's) or don't bother upgrading their PC at all.

The funny thing is Microsoft have abandoned one of their biggest markets in favour of tablets where they're nothing but a bit part player feeding off scraps. Microsoft management need taking out and shooting.
 
before pcs monopolised everything from gaming, video editing, spreadsheets and a lot more.
technology has advanced so much in the recent decade that mobile is the way to go and even in gaming the updated consoles that will be released this year will not help the pc market either.
 
mmj_uk said:
Microsoft have themselves greatly accelerated the decline with Windows 8, everybody sees a tablet OS and fanboys defend it by saying "tablets are the future, the PC is dead" and so people either buy tablets (iPad's) or don't bother upgrading their PC at all.

The funny thing is Microsoft have abandoned one of their biggest markets in favour of tablets where they're nothing but a bit part player feeding off scraps. Microsoft management need taking out and shooting.
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Yeah, Microsoft effectively gave the Desktop PC crowd a two finger salute.

They designed Win 8 to mirror a Tablet and then made it purposely obtuse for a traditional Desktop power user to use.

In their heads this was a good way to ween those Desktop users on to their Tablets instead.
All the so called industry experts agreed: Oh... that's a brilliant idea....
In reality its hurt Microsoft quite badly, while those same industry experts now say "oh, its nothing to do with Windows 8.. no no no no no...."
It just goes to show how idiotically out of touch these idiots are and how little they know and understand.

Microsoft will now have a 'boot to Desktop' option in Windows 8.1, so perhaps they have now realized that no one likes that Metro thing and no Desktop user is switching to a Windows Tablet.
But i wonder how much they have actually learnt. Will we also see a return of the Start Menu, and all of those backed functions access that they have hidden or taken out completely in Win 8.

----

As for AMD, Intel and Nvidia.

AMD have an extremely tarnished name, Their CPU's need work on the IPC and efficiency front, but they are well priced and they are not as bad as a lot of people would like you to believe, they are a viable, more cost effective alternative to Intel.

Intel's CPU's are way to expensive, 190 for 3570K and 280 for the 3770K is silly, IMO.
A lot people thinking about going Dsektop Gaming look at that, and after being told consistantley a 100 Pound FX-6300 or 140 Pound FX-8320 is not an option and is a really bad CPU..... Get Intel.... they just think "Stuff that, an xBox 360 costs less than the only CPU i can have: alone" :mad:
i get a real sense that the only reason Intel price they way they do is because of that brand thinking.
if Intel was to drop its prices by anything more than a token amount it would cut very deep into their revenue, they would also have to restructure and down size, just like AMD did. which would send a very bad signal to investors.
For Intel to remain as they are today they need to keep the prices high and sell as many CPU's as they do today, if the market continues to shrink they would have to put the prices up accordingly, whats worrying about that is Intel's prices have been creeping up in the last year.

With GPU's its the same, they just cost to much, especially Nvidias GPU's, again for the same reasons as above.

AMD's future: before restructuring they were twice the size of Nvidia with exactly the same level of revenue (1.2BN)
Before restructuring (Q4 2012) they made a $500M loss, after restructuring (Q1 2013) its down to under $200M with a small revenue decline, but a small margin increase, this is better than they and anyone predicted, that restructuring is also still ongoing.
2013: They have a partner in Vizio who will be using AMD low power APU's in their Tablets and ultra thins, Lenovo and Fijitzu will also use them for some models. (currently they are better than Intel)
Notebook APU's and HD 8000 GPU's are currently shipping to such 3'rd party markers. as are discrete Desktop HD 8000 (re branded HD 7000) GPU's
Desktop APU's should follow some time this year, one or two new HD 7000, one being the long awaited HD 7990.
possible GCN 2.0 real HD 8000 Deseret GPU's, Possibly an FX Piledriver refresh.
There are a couple of significant SeaMicro server contracts signed.
Minimal IP revenue from Nintendo.
Much more significant revenue from MS xBox 720 and Sony PS4 APU's

2014....?

Intel:
2013: New Haswell CPU's which will now doubt be popular.
 
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consoles do 90 percent of gaming now and it will only increase .

get ready for awesome deals though ;) which is good for us gamers who stay on the platform.

next few years will see the fall of some very big pc components retailers . i think a lot of them will start focusing more on consoles . those who dont adapt will be with the dodo.

for general use a ten yr old pc will do what most people do on the internet go on facebook or ebay.

so i cant see how the gaming will switch from being focused on consoles or people changing to use that much more power when there is no need to .

so get your selling geniuses ready ocuk cause you gunner have a bumpy ride over next few years.
 
Which companies have successfully transitioned from workstations/laptops to tablets/phones?
 
humbug said:
2013: They have a partner in Vizio who will be using AMD low power APU's in their Tablets and ultra thins, Lenovo and Fijitzu will also use them for some models. (currently they are better than Intel)
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AMD's current tablet/mobile offerings are neither better in CPU performance or power efficiency.
Better IGP, but that isn't really what mobile is about.

They're also not exactly selling great, given the Fuji is priced at the same level/higher than the W700 which is an i5 X86 tablet.
 
~>Dg<~ said:
consoles do 90 percent of gaming now and it will only increase .

get ready for awesome deals though ;) which is good for us gamers who stay on the platform.

next few years will see the fall of some very big pc components retailers . i think a lot of them will start focusing more on consoles . those who dont adapt will be with the dodo.

for general use a ten yr old pc will do what most people do on the internet go on facebook or ebay.

so i cant see how the gaming will switch from being focused on consoles or people changing to use that much more power when there is no need to .

so get your selling geniuses ready ocuk cause you gunner have a bumpy ride over next few years.
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A lot of truth in this, IMO, the new Consoles are going to be very popular. And they will ween a lot off Desktops given their huge expense as Gaming rigs.
 
They are also low powered compared to what the PC will offer in 2014.Nvidia Maxwell will most likely mop the floor with the PS4 big time.Hell just imagine when titan performance is £300.What will the PS4 do then with its APU and GDDR5?


If the PC ever gets GDDR5 soon then there is no comparision.It is PS3 v 8800 GTX all over again and 8800 GTX wins.The only reason console are going to be popular is the masses are morons with more money that sense.With all those £45 PS4 titles they will be buying they will be spending about the same as i will on a PC that laughs upon it.
 
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