I reckon R&D is getting more expensive also which has contributed a little
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Alder Lake-S leaks
- Thread starter Grim5
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Soldato
That's not 100% accurate though, since supply and demand will always play a role in pricing of anything, if the manufactures are not able to keep up with demand, then prices go up until the market reaches a price it can no longer bear then it settles, once supply again meets the demand or exceeds it then the prices will drop.
Consumers of self-build boxed products don't make any real difference to the pricing though (for CPU's), the MSRP is totally fake in that respect, the volume vs OEM is almost irrelevant, hence the MSRP matters not a jot.
Associate
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Pat is feeling confident:
https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/com...er-with-new-alder-lake-sapphire-rapids-cpus/1
Guess Pat spoke to Ryan Shrout who gave him the thumbs up and told him we have good 'un!
Judging by the prospective prices looks like we're not dealing with another Rocket Lake here.
https://www.crn.com/slide-shows/com...er-with-new-alder-lake-sapphire-rapids-cpus/1
Guess Pat spoke to Ryan Shrout who gave him the thumbs up and told him we have good 'un!
Judging by the prospective prices looks like we're not dealing with another Rocket Lake here.
Yeah they are not equivalentthat would be a Ryzen R3 3100, maybe they think the 3600 is the lowest end Zen 2, the 3100 was a late addition and not well known.
it could be worrying for the previous zen cpus
Caporegime
This is the thing with Intel that just makes me want to see them suffer, its the peacocking about how they are the best.
Most of these companies, even Nvidia just quietly get on with it and let their products do the talking but not Intel, they behave very publicly like they are on a constant war footing, Its like they were all bullied at school and have some sort inferiority complex where they feel they always need to be on the defensive and it come across as incredibly combative, Pat Gelsinger certainly has the appearance of someone like that. Creepy.
My brain is melting. You add an add in board to a motherboard. An AIB partner is a GPU term.
Soldato
Net margins have been rising for years,so ultimately any costs which they bare have been outpaced by the consumer paying more for stuff.
It is mostly true when it comes to DIY "gaming" parts sales IMHO.If PCMR hardware enthusiasts have no self control and want to pay the increased prices at every generation,the prices will go up irrespective of costs.
GPUs and CPUs for gaming rigs are not essential items,and neither is having to run games at ultra settings,4K,200HZ,etc. So enthusiasts who keep justifying the massive price increases on DIY branded parts have their own selves to blame,just like all the PC gamers who throw money at microtransactions,then get shocked when they get worse and worse. We are all guilty to some degree in this regard,but its our fault for being too engrossed in this frivalous pass-time.
You said once TSMC supply increases,prices will decrease. I would say not necessarily unless AMD/Nvidia/Intel have a glut of CPUs or GPUs they need to ditch or one company decides to undercut the other.
Once you have made higher prices happen,they can only go down via direct consumer action(not buying enough at that price),or a competitor undercutting the pricing and taking sales away from the other company forcing their hand. Otherwise it becomes a captive market.If they feel they can make more money selling slightly less CPUs/GPUs,but at higher margins it works for them. It's something Apple does too.
This is a tech forum where we buy DIY branded stuff,so we are talking about DIY branded stuff. So yes DIY buyers influence the price of DIY branded stuff sold at retail,ie,if people don't buy them there is a glut of stock which needs to be shifted.Prices will drop. It happens all the time with CPUs - a number of the Intel Cometlake parts dropped to silly low prices at one point. People just ignored them. Parts like the Core i3 10100F and Core i5 10400F were £70 and £120 until the stock started drying up(and the price started to rise). Zen and Zen+ parts also had the same thing happen - Ryzen 7 CPUs dropping well under £200.
DIY buyers don't control OEM sales - the OEMs do that,and it is usually downwards. It was weird you could get an OEM Ryzen 9 3900 with a decent MSI B450/X470 motherboard for less than a retail Ryzen 9 3900X last year from a retailer.
It happens with GPUs too.Market research determines final DIY pricing sometimes mere weeks before launch.
I know people who work at some big OEMs such as HP,and they certain pay below the DIY "RRP" hence why prebuilt desktops and laptops are actually cheaper to buy with dGPUs in recent years than self building. DIY branded parts are sold at higher prices than those supplied to OEMs,and AMD/Nvidia/Intel know this.
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Well it has and so have process nodes.
On the other hand margins have been increasing. Mostly. Intel's went down a bit but Nvidia's are crazy and AMD's have been gaining too:
I'm sure the foundry's margin have gone up too but they are harder to find.
And they are all going crazy with capex too. Running TSMC must be like running a small country:
4K8KW10's post in GPU prices thread: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/posts/35147623
had this quote from the TSMC chairman:
So $100 billion capex in three years is like a country's national development plan.
So, what the increased costs have done is vastly increase the barriers to entry. That's partially why there are really only two x86 players, 2 (soon to be 3) GPU players, and only really three DRAM players left, etc.
The barriers to entry is why competition is stagnant. Sure increase costs have a bearing, and so does constrained supplies. But even taking just AMD's prices, if they weren't obsessed with margins they would have saved something to do make on the cheaper GF processes etc. With the wafer shortage that probably wouldn't make much of a difference to Zen3 prices, but some GF 14nm Zen1+ or backport of Zen2 could server the lower end market; still make decent profit etc. But crucially it wouldn't increase their overall gross margins which is what the short-term focussed (Western) stock-market wants. Even if ironically such a strategy would probably get them extra profit and volumes.
Soldato
AMD constrained itself despite getting record TSMC 7NM wafer allocations,especially as they got an unexpected windfall when Huawei was booted off TSMC. Instead they pushed quite a lot of wafers towards console production - which is more than all the GPUs they have sold since last year. Then at the same time,have had no interest in making many more 12NM/14NM CPUs or GPUs because as you correct identified they want to increase margins(and need to compensate for lower console margins). Hence,essentially for the most part in DIY sales,in many countries AMD CPUs now start at £200+ and they really don't have any dGPUs under £300 either. In the UK which tends to be served somewhat better for AMD CPUs,you can get an Athlon 3000G/Ryzen 3 1200 for £80~£90,and a Ryzen 5 1600AF for £120 and then a huge Gulf to the Ryzen 5 5600G. This pretty much means under £200,AMD has said Intel can have that market.
Look at their GPUs - the under £250 market they have given up on. Nvidia still makes the 12NM/14NM GT1030,GTX1050TI and GTX1650,have been far "easier" to get than an AMD equivalent. High margin Nvidia sees the value of having cheaper dGPUs,AMD not so much.
But as AMD said they don't want to be seen as the budget brand,and said they are more interested in expensive products. So that means the more budget limited DIY PC builder has to now rely on Intel and Nvidia....so fantastic times ahead if you are not a more well off gamer. It's more likely if AMD doesn't actually try to redress the "lower end" DIY markets,Nvidia and Intel might also follow suit. Everyone seems to think one is better than the other,but they are closely following each other's moves very carefully.
Then I expect all the enthusiasts on forums will be saying its OK,you need to spend £100s on a CPU or GPU to just get on DIY gaming build ladder at the entry level with a relatively anaemic rig. I suppose consoles and game streaming will be where many of us will be forced eventually(or just take up another hobby).
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Got to love how the console sales are lumped with servers.
What must be their lowest margins stuff (consoles) mixed in with what must be their higher margins stuff (EPYC). They are not trying to hide anything, honest!
Surprisingly, I don't think any analysts have asked them about that.
I want to find out why those console contracts seem so generous!
Soldato
Yep. I really don't know but maybe AMD themselves were expecting Intel/Nvidia to have better performance than what we got,so thought going all in on Zen3 and RDNA2 was risky?? Consoles were a safer bet? I suspect,maybe even they were surprised at Intel still not being able to compete in 2020,and Nvidia being so close in rasterised performance. Having said that,sadly for them they also probably missed out on a lot of sales due to people being stuck at home. It makes you wonder how much more they could have made even if they had 50% more CPU or GPU supply. Either way I got some good deals on my Zen2 CPU and an Intel CML CPU,so can just hopefully wait a few years until DDR5,etc has become more cheaper.
Nobody could have expected the level of demand for chips or even had time to react if they did.
I’ve just had to cancel an order from VAG because they can’t get the silicon for the car or even give me an ETA.
Caporegime
Consoles is about more than money, its about AMD appearing as a competent and reliable friend, its about showing they can be trusted and relied up on to make custom chips tailored to any potential customers needs.
Its why AMD IP is now in Samsung Mobile Phones, you guys have any idea how bigger win that is? Intel and especially Nvidia have been desperate to do something like that for a decade and AMD not only did it but landed the worlds largest Mobile Phone manufacture.
Mercedes Benz are now using AMD SoC's in their cars.
Elon Musk being a gamer wants AMD to create a PS5 like SoC to put in to his cars.
It looks like Microsoft now want AMD to make ARM chips for thier Surface Laptops.
Its why AMD IP is now in Samsung Mobile Phones, you guys have any idea how bigger win that is? Intel and especially Nvidia have been desperate to do something like that for a decade and AMD not only did it but landed the worlds largest Mobile Phone manufacture.
Mercedes Benz are now using AMD SoC's in their cars.
Elon Musk being a gamer wants AMD to create a PS5 like SoC to put in to his cars.
It looks like Microsoft now want AMD to make ARM chips for thier Surface Laptops.
Don’t the console makers pay most of the upfront development and costs?
But yeah AMD are pushing into many markets and having a large impact.
Caporegime
I'm not sure but yes i think both Sony and MS contributed to AMD's RDNA R&D.
Caporegime
The thing is the more AMD push in to these markets the more desirable they look to others, if AMD can prove yes we can design SoC's for Samsung's mobile phones and they are happy, yes we can design a PS5 level games console for an electric car, Microsoft trust us with a halo product, we can do ARM.... the more people come knocking on their door "can you do this for me?"
Soldato
The issue is AMD went into all of this with a lot of 7NM production geared towards consoles,as KompuKare crunched some of the numbers. Last year when Mediatek dialed down 7NM orders,AMD got that extra capacity but their were reports from reliable sources,they moved more towards the PS5. So its clear even if there was no pandemic,they were not going totally in with their consumer CPUs/GPUs.
One also has to question why they dialed down production of 12NM/14NM GF CPUs and GPUs. Nvidia didn't dial down their production as much - its why the 12NM Turing chips are still widely found in a lot of prebuilt systems,and tons of systems with AMD CPUs and Nvidia dGPUs.
Things such as IP licensing and MS/Sony console chips are great,but the problem is stuff like servers,CPUs,etc are high margin. AMD server growth is constrained by its production volume - Intel is again using this against Intel(from what I am hearing).
Intel and Nvidia have much higher margins still,so something is dragging down AMD especially as their current pricing isn't a bargain either. When you look at the amount of GPUs Nvidia have sold,ie,both 12NM and 8NM its staggering how much volume they must have received,especially as they use much bigger chips than AMD does.
AMD got a bit lucky Intel still has production/design issues and Ampere had problems meaning it was a bit underwhelming. The issue here is Nvidia(and even Intel) won't be making that mistake twice,especially Nvidia.
The fact that Intel is buying up TSMC capacity,and is using TSMC 6NM before either Nvidia or AMD,means you can see good old Pat Gelsinger trying to screw over AMD/Nvidia a different way - making sure they restrict access to TSMC production. It does make you think whether Nvidia moving to Samsung was more about volume,than cost itself.
He was there at Intel when they gave Dell,etc those backhanders.
I personally think,that AMD wasted a golden opportunity on 7NM to really destroy Intel/Nvidia marketshare. But ATM,Nvidia has massively more share than AMD in every GPU related area,and Intel despite loosing share still has far more share,with worse products.
This is the same problem which also hurt them to some degree during the Athlon 64 era - they got limited by volume,and Intel used that against AMD(they leveraged this against OEMs IIRC).
But again,if they don't have enough available volume,then they are spreading themselves thin.
A 300mm2~400mm2 console chip is going to be lower margin than say AMD selling a GPU with a similar sized chip. A CPU with under 200MM2 of 7NM chips,and a cheap 12NM/14NM I/O die sells for nearly £700. A fully enabled 300MM2~400MM2 console chip,might be equivalent of enough working 7NM chiplets for a few Ryzen 9 5950X CPUs,or an Epyc one.
The same chiplets and GPUs sold in Enterprise devices,even more money.
The problem of being a supplier for mass made products like consoles,etc is the larger companies such as Sony/MS push prices down as much as they can. If Sony can sell a PS5 disk model profitably for £450,it makes you wonder how much AMD is getting from each sale. Even with a phone,Samsung,Apple,etc are notorious in pushing suppliers downwards,and Nvidia found that the hard way. The PC space is definitely higher margin - Nvidia with over half of its revenue from "consumer dGPUs" is doing extremely well.
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Caporegime
AMD bought their capacity long before Intel showed up at their door, AMD helped TSMC get to where they are today with their decades old production and packaging expertise, AMD second in size only to Apple at TSMC are a partner, a friend, Intel are a temporary leach while they hope to get their own #### sorted and go back to being a loud bolshie competitor, one that as we speak is trying to block TSMC from setting up in their desired US state. Both Nvidia and Intel's problem is their own success has gone to their heads, they don't play nice with people, they don't think they need any friends, AMD have failed hard enough to realise the humble importance of friendship.
They are still a business, one still with tentative coffers, if people are willing to pay £400 for one of their CPU's you can't expect them to say "aww.... have it for £300" I don't like AMD's jacking the price up of their CPU's just as soon as they beat Intel but its not exactly their own choice either, these days AMD are a 120 Billion $ company, that's a lot of people with a lot of money invested and they want to see those margins go up, that's how the world works unfortunately. Just as long as AMD don't go daft, Like Intel did, they haven't yet, i'm ok with it.
Also, competent people make their own luck.
Soldato
The problem its a leech with tons of money,and now the US government has handed Intel even more taxpayer funds for NatSec reasons as part of its innovation fund. You don't seem appreciate how much the US government considers Intel more important for NatSec reasons than its competitors. Intel has a ton of political sway in the US and the issue is the Taiwanese government hasn't got many political options against Intel applying pressure. Taiwan needs the US,and Intel is one of the big tech corps. Intel is also investing billions on the Continent too,which means again they are going to be buying a lot of new friends over here. Something like $20 billion,maybe even more. The EU wants to leverage more European located fabs,so they will probably get billions of Euro in assistance there.
The issue here is AMD,basically through not managing its own 7NM portfolio properly has handed Nvidia and Intel billions of USD in potential sales,when they got very lucky the US thumped Huawei,and AMD picked up more 7NM capacity than they expected. Huawei was booted off between 2019 and 2020,and AMD was apparently the recipient of a lot of this "bonus" capacity....which a fair amount was pushed towards consoles. Just look at the 10s of millions of consoles made - AMD didn't even make anywhere as many dGPUs in that period.
As much as some of you don't like it,Intel and Nvidia still make more than AMD does,with higher margins and still managed to sell more entry level/mainstream parts than AMD does. Intel with its utterly crap CPU line-up still did better because they could sell more volume.
AMD pushing up prices,is because they screwed themselves over with capacity overcommitting to consoles,so had no choice but to ignore whole sections of the market. They did the same during the Athlon 64 era,when they relaxed on 90NM(pushed back 65NM investment and the Phenom)when they were leagues ahead of the P4,and it gave Intel enough leeway to sneak back in with Core and Core2. AMD has to be very careful with Nvidia and Intel. People on here just dismiss the threats of both of these companies.
If Intel could survive having its arse kicked between 2000 to 2007,and having stuff like the P4 which was dire,AMD needs to protect its core markets. They are acting like they have already won.These still provide the bread and butter,because in the end these markets are high margin.
AMD prebuilt systems and laptops are shipping with Nvidia dGPUs - that should be an AMD dGPU,and its literally enabling more Nvidia sales.
They really need to do something about consoles eating away so much volume. Their competitors will "win" not through "better" products but by being able to supply enough volume. The new fabs will take time to ramp up in volume too,and that is time their competitors have to fix their design problems.
Is AMD going to get as much 5NM/6NM volume as they got with 7NM in the immediate future?? Because I hope for their sakes,they haven't signed a whole lot of 5NM/6NM volume to console SOC shrinks.
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