AMD Announces Q4 2015 Earnings, Posts 10% Loss – Full Year Results in 2015 Show 28% Decline in Reven

[Gregster]

Yeah but a lot are too short sighted to put there money where there mouth is Come the next Nvidia promotion (even if it's not very good and still overpriced) you'll still see all the people wetting there pants and buying half-baked stuff like the 970.

I'm really hoping AMD do a wing dinger with the polaris and zen, nothing annoys me more than watching people moan and cry that something is 2 or 3% performance difference below the competition so it is awful.

Not sure it is short sighted or more "better the devil you know" for most. The occasional stalwart will stick Nvidia regardless and vice versa but I would like to see an even playing field where we have to pick a specific game or max overclock to split them apart.

 

[AiiR]

I try to support AMD by buying their products whenever possible, their Kabini range has been fantastic for my HTPC. Really wanting Zen to work out so I can upgrade my aging X58 setup.

 

[beany_bot]

I tell you what I've noticed. And what really doesn't help AMD...

So so many posts on these forums along the lines of "which graphics card should I get for £250-300."

Then almost every single post (from amd users and nvidia alike) all say get the 290/390 etc etc." best bang for buck""great card" "can't go wrong"... Yet the people saying this just bought themselves a 970..and the people saying great advice thanks..and then pop back on the forum and say" how do install my new 960". It's like a dirty little secret or something. Everyone knows that midrange the AMD cards make the most sense... Yet people don't pull the trigger on them. I nearly caught myself doing it too. I guess that green shiny marketing slick is just too good... Shame.

Going by the forum recommendations I see, 95% of people should be running 390s. And yet the opposite is true. 95% of people are running 970s. It's so weird. Even people who use 970s openly recommend people buy the 390.

 

[Orangey]

I tell you what I've noticed. And what really doesn't help AMD...

So so many posts on these forums along the lines of "which graphics card should I get for £250-300."

Then almost every single post (from amd users and nvidia alike) all say get the 290/390 etc etc." best bang for buck""great card" "can't go wrong"... Yet the people saying this just bought themselves a 970..and the people saying great advice thanks..and then pop back on the forum and say" how do install my new 960". It's like a dirty little secret or something. Everyone knows that midrange the AMD cards make the most sense... Yet people don't pull the trigger on them. I nearly caught myself doing it too. I guess that green shiny marketing slick is just too good... Shame.

Going by the forum recommendations I see, 95% of people should be running 390s. And yet the opposite is true. 95% of people are running 970s. It's so weird. Even people who use 970s openly recommend people buy the 390.

It's because of gameworks. Most games atm have at least the stub code.

 

[shankly1985]

Its really sad that so many people seem to want them to fail. What fun itl be with Intel and nvidia milking their customers. If it comes to that Il just abandon pc gaming tbh.

They already are doing, it will only get worst if AMD was to go.

2016 needs AMD CPU Zen to smash Intel and AMD GPUs too come out on top in the Price and performance.

 

[humbug]

They already are doing, it will only get worst if AMD was to go.

2016 needs AMD CPU Zen to smash Intel and AMD GPUs too come out on top in the Price and performance.

Zen isn't going to smash Intel. Intel have been trying to smash Intel for the past 5 years and failed, nothing but incidental single digit percentage increases and its not for the lack of trying, they have been trying to get their performance per watt up because they need to break into the mobile markets.

Zen if their own gumph is to be believed will have an IPC on par with Haswell or perhaps Skylake.

Thats not to be sniffed at, IMO we have hit a wall on real CPU performance increase back with Sandy Bridge, perhaps even as far back as Nehalem given Sandy Bridge is not much faster clock for clock, barley double digit % if that at all.
An X5650 still blows an 8 thread Haswell out of the water.

Zen will have comparable performance as Intel per core / clock but offer more cores for the same or less money, that may start a cores pricing war but ultimately they will never go as low as AMD would be prepared to go as they will want to keep the "premium brand" impression and their massive revenue.

IMO In the end they will concede a level of market share to AMD.
AMD could probably quadrupole their CPU share and it not worry Intel to much, but that is very significant to AMD's coffers being a tenth the size and currently about 4% market share.

 

[drunkenmaster]

We need two things to happen for better cpu performance, one, software which requires devs to have incentive to move to multithreading more effectively and two, to use gpu acceleration which requires software and hardware, both of which are coming.

People always forget that there are also two reasons Intel hasn't increased cpu performance significantly. One they were producing 200-250mm^2 cpus, today they are making 130mm^2 APUs where half the die or more or taken up by a GPU. If they were 230mm^2 with the same gpu size(not proportion but actual size) then there would be double/triple the transistors available just for the cpu and performance could be much higher.

Intel have been chasing gross margins with smaller dies and GPU performance for well, nothing. Their drivers for gaming are atrocious and they've done everything possible to hold the industry back from really pushing multithreaded/gpu accelerated software. AMD have done 100 times the work behind the scenes to push those aspects of software forward. The first APUs had some of the hardware, but not the software infrastructure. While you can use gpu acceleration on a APU pretty effectively it takes a fairly large amount of work in software. This stage, the push for HSA is a much more complete venture. Pushing the industry as a whole towards streamlined coding for gpu acceleration.

AMD/HSA foundation for instance working with Java to get native extremely easy to code for gpu acceleration into the language. Likewise with ARM as well as AMD, Apple and others involved you have a far higher install base for software devs to then decide to take advantage. With HSA meaning code for instance in Java meaning you put the minimal amount of work to gpu accelerate and a AMD APU and a Qualcomm, Mediatek , Samsung, Imagination and Apple(people still expect them to be the final member), all of their APUs will also be able to run the same code, get it accelerated and not have a problem. That is the ballgame, that is the point where rather than specific and difficult code per platform you instead jump to easy and non specific code for all platforms. That means it goes from specialised and expensive to implement to cheap and easy with direct performance or power saving gains to be made. It WILL happen, it is happening.

The big things to drive application performance forward in the fairly near future are falling into place, at which point frankly Intel will have to push on their side to get gpu acceleration support in standard software and/or to improve their CPU performance by larger amounts. The very few HSA accelerated things there are like image search in windows run incredibly fast on an AMD APU. That kind of performance is a showcase of things to come.

 

[beany_bot]

There seems a lot of misinformation out there too. I was watching a twitch stream two days ago and I said in the chat.. "hmm I wonder if my card can run this at ultra graphics". Then the host of the channel said "What card do you have" "390x" I said. "Whats that?" he said. "It's an AMD card". "hmm I dont think you can run this game mate, it need like at least a 950 to run it".....eh....OK.

Not to mention GPU boss massively favouring Nvidia.

None of this is helping AMD. Some of it is their fault (poor marketing). Also their CPUs being weak won't be helping novice peoples confidence in their GPUs. A lot of it is down to Nvdivia marketing and dirty tricks. Most everything AMD does is open source. Most everything Nvidia does isn't. AMD just seem to play fairer.

To be honest, regardless what card I am using (I tend to alternate between brands, my last card was a GTX770 and I loved it). I way favour AMD as a company.

 

[maonayze]

I would like to see an even playing field where we have to pick a specific game or max overclock to split them apart.

Correct me if I am wrong but, apart from the even playing field bit, isn't that where we actually are right now?

What with the fps performance advancements made in the last few driver releases by AMD then most of the time the only thing that does separate them is overclocking or specific game tuning.

That's what I cannot understand about some people saying that the Fury cards were a failure....I agree they made a right mess of the launch and are not the fastest with game related day one release drivers....but I still think they are damn good cards and do compete with the top end Nvidia cards. Sometimes they edge it, sometimes they dont.

 

[Gregster]

Correct me if I am wrong but, apart from the even playing field bit, isn't that where we actually are right now?

What with the fps performance advancements made in the last few driver releases by AMD then most of the time the only thing that does separate them is overclocking or specific game tuning.

That's what I cannot understand about some people saying that the Fury cards were a failure....I agree they made a right mess of the launch and are not the fastest with game related day one release drivers....but I still think they are damn good cards and do compete with the top end Nvidia cards. Sometimes they edge it, sometimes they dont.

They certainly wasn't a failure but with the Fury/X, it is pushed to its limits at stock and trying to get 50Mhz at times is nigh on impossible. When you compare those cards against the 980Ti, you see big boost clocks on the Nvidia OC cards but even the Fury cards which the AIB's were allowed to customise, there just isn't any sizable clocks on any of them. It doesn't make them less desirable but then you look at benches of say "MSI Gaming 980Ti against the Fury X and it does look a little one sided.

My latest Video I recommended the 980Ti at the top, then the Fury, then the 390 and then the 380, so from my perspective, AMD have the rest of the market but just not the top.

 

[maonayze]

It doesn't make them less desirable but then you look at benches of say "MSI Gaming 980Ti against the Fury X and it does look a little one sided.

My latest Video I recommended the 980Ti at the top, then the Fury, then the 390 and then the 380, so from my perspective, AMD have the rest of the market but just not the top.

Cant disagree with any of that.....but in the mid-range (i.e. the range that probably has the biggest user base) they do have the best cards so it must surely be the power of the Nvidia Brand itself that gives them the 80% market share.

See it definately is smoke n mirrors with Nvidia. LOL

AMD are just seen to drop the ball more often....that doesnt help them at all IMHO.

 

[Gregster]

Cant disagree with any of that.....but in the mid-range (i.e. the range that probably has the biggest user base) they do have the best cards so it must surely be the power of the Nvidia Brand itself that gives them the 80% market share.

See it definately is smoke n mirrors with Nvidia. LOL

AMD are just seen to drop the ball more often....that doesnt help them at all IMHO.

Yer, might be a bit of driver history that puts people off, of brand awareness (GameWorks in everything lately) or just Nvidia being more talked about. I did read a while back that the Asian markets are where the majority of GPUs sell, so maybe their advertising is bigger there?

Who knows

 

[Ian Evey]

Cant disagree with any of that.....but in the mid-range (i.e. the range that probably has the biggest user base) they do have the best cards so it must surely be the power of the Nvidia Brand itself that gives them the 80% market share.

See it definately is smoke n mirrors with Nvidia. LOL

AMD are just seen to drop the ball more often....that doesnt help them at all IMHO.

People that wanted a mid to high end card bought a 970 as at the time the only alternative was a 290 which if they wanted they would have already bought. Imo