In my opinion AMD should do the following to recover sales

Hades · 19 Sep 2006 at 01:32

It's clear the AMD's current offerings can't compete with Core Duo and that K8L is some time away. That got me thinking of how they could recover their position slightly. Obviously they are going to have to compete on price but there are two other options which occured to me. If AMD dropped the price and considered these then would people be interested in A64 again?

1) Drop AM2 and concentrate on S939 again - or at least offer both products.
2) Unlock all multi's.

The reason for (2) is obvious as it would suddenly generate a lot of interest from the enthusiast community. But (1) is perhaps a little confusing. The reason I think this would help sales is that anyone considering an upgrade from S939 will need a new motherboard and memory. So it doesn't make sense to buy AM2 anymore. If you have to buy mobo and mem then you may as well go Core Duo. But by bringing out faster S939 chips it would drive sales again. People considering a Core Duo may stay with AMD and upgrade. Or people who can't quite afford a complete platform change may uprade when they wouldn't have been able to.

Opinions?

Justintime · 19 Sep 2006 at 01:44

A good idea if the enthusiast community made up a substantial % of sales, unfortunately this is'nt the case.

NathanE · 19 Sep 2006 at 07:31

I don't think it would work. At the end of the day enthusiasts seek the best performance. Intel has already proved that this wouldn't work through its attempts to increase interest in the aging P4. And there's a small point that I don't think AMD is cared to much about gaining back 0.3% of the market.

FrankJH · 19 Sep 2006 at 07:50

Exactly due to the recent price drop, AMD rigs on the street will easily be price competitive which is what most punters look for

Very few would notice 10fps or whatever, or a second in Pi, it just doesnt concern them browsing or playing mindsweeper

HighlandeR · 19 Sep 2006 at 08:03

Guess AMD need to cut Socket 939 eventually, so lack of support towards Socket 939 and less cpus on that make everyone jump onto AM2.

Just hope AM2 will go the distance, hopefully it sports AMDS Quadcore this Xmas also...

Minstadave · 19 Sep 2006 at 09:09

I like the idea of unlocking multis, that would certainly show some support for enthusiasts, which is what got AMD really doing well in the first place.

MadMatty · 19 Sep 2006 at 10:38

I didnt think AMD were having problems with sales concidering there having to build new fabs to keep up with production orders, especially with the huge ammount of processors dell want from them now, so perhaps dont fell they need to lower the already great pricies they offer already.

Minstadave · 19 Sep 2006 at 10:41

Yeah the Dell/AMD deal looks sweet, some reports of major savings over the equivalent Intel systems.

Biggles 266 · 19 Sep 2006 at 12:06

AMD have been selling everything they can make for a year or two now.

The reason for going DDR2 is that it's become the mainstream - it's cheaper and more readily available. It also allows for larger memory sizes, given that 2GB sticks are out there, even if they are damn expensive.

AMD needed to move to DDR2 even though it didn't really offer any performance benefits because if they didn't, the extra expense from having to use DDR would mean that AMD based systems cost more. A case of something becoming mainstream once Dell decided it was time for it. SATA optical drives are next

In the future, with K8L and quad-core, AMD are going to need extra memory bandwidth anyway. Now was just the time to move.

Cob · 19 Sep 2006 at 12:56

Yeah the Dell AMD systems are coming in at $150-200 cheaper than the equivalent Intel system. When it comes to bulk orders the cheaper system will win everytime.

FrankJH · 19 Sep 2006 at 13:08

Biggles

I agree with you completely.... apart from the sata optical drives. Very few manufacturers are even making them it seems, and even those that do sell one or two models, compared to the dozen or so IDE (between retail and oem parts)

Its going to take mobo manufacturers to scrap the IDE port on majority of mobo's ( by which time a newer connection will probably be out) before optical drives move imho - after all plextor I believe had the first optical sata drive out agessssss ago (at least a year i think) and hardly anyone has followed their lead

Cob · 19 Sep 2006 at 13:16

FrankJH said:
Biggles

I agree with you completely.... apart from the sata optical drives. Very few manufacturers are even making them it seems, and even those that do sell one or two models, compared to the dozen or so IDE (between retail and oem parts)

Its going to take mobo manufacturers to scrap the IDE port on majority of mobo's ( by which time a newer connection will probably be out) before optical drives move imho - after all plextor I believe had the first optical sata drive out agessssss ago (at least a year i think) and hardly anyone has followed their lead

Intel have already scraped the IDE controller on their new 965 chipset. Board makers are being forced to bolt on a 3rd party controller to keep the masses happy. And the Samsung SATA optical drive is readily available, just as cheap, and just as good as current IDE optical drives. I'll never buy an IDE optical drive again.

payingattention · 19 Sep 2006 at 13:49

It is nice to flatter ourselves by thinking that companies like AMD and Intel actually care that much about winning back the enthusiast market. They get much more profit from OEM deals aimed at the large portion of the market which doesn't know or care which CPU socket is inside their computers, or whether the multipliers are unlocked.

PeteLucky7 · 20 Sep 2006 at 10:37

Hades said:
So it doesn't make sense to buy AM2 anymore. If you have to buy mobo and mem then you may as well go Core Duo.

Perhaps because the cheapest cpu you can build an AM2 system around is about £30 (sempron 2800) but the cheapest Conroe is about £130-40?

valerian · 20 Sep 2006 at 10:48

NathanE said:
I don't think it would work. At the end of the day enthusiasts seek the best performance. Intel has already proved that this wouldn't work through its attempts to increase interest in the aging P4. And there's a small point that I don't think AMD is cared to much about gaining back 0.3% of the market.

it depends on what 0.3% equates to in real terms i.e. $$$$

Scoobie Dave · 20 Sep 2006 at 15:55

HighlandeR said:
Just hope AM2 will go the distance, hopefully it sports AMDS Quadcore this Xmas also...

That I look forward to.

Jabbs · 20 Sep 2006 at 18:33

PeteLucky7 said:
Perhaps because the cheapest cpu you can build an AM2 system around is about £30 (sempron 2800) but the cheapest Conroe is about £130-40?

What about the celerons ? and a sempron 2800 isnt' dual core either unlike a conroe

NathanE · 20 Sep 2006 at 19:19

valerian said:
it depends on what 0.3% equates to in real terms i.e. $$$$

Technically it would be a negative value. Because AMD will just produce 0.3% more server/workstation chips which are higher value anyway...

OC_A64 · 20 Sep 2006 at 19:22

Why do AMD need to recover sales? Where have they shown they've lost any since Conroe arrived? Most of the enthusiast market know Conroe is quicker than A64, but does the average joe?
Also I think naming has helped AMD out here a little too. They've played the fact that the A64 is a 64 bit CPU, 64 bit IS the future. Intel haven't really marketed in this way at all... Whether it was intentional I'm not sure but if someone said to me Core 2 @ 1.86 or A64 at 1.86, both had dual cores then I'd probably choose the A64 just 'cos it sounds more futureproof...

Also, Conroe doesn't actually make that much difference to every day performance. Gaming wise you may notice a few FPS here or there, but in general day to day office/opening word etc people just don't need uber quick PC's. Day to day machine at the mo is X2 3800 @ stock. Been running high end intel rigs for ~ 9 months along side as "play" machines, selling kit off as and when. In all that time, despite the intel stuff being quicker there's been no temptation to sell the A64 instead. For general everyday use the A64 is DAMN quick. Windows useage etc between a Conroe @ 4ghz and X2 at 2ghz is almost the same. Apps load in the same speed, websites load at the same speed etc...

AMD doesnt have anything to worry about. It's in a great market position at the moment, its got some big customers and K8L might well be a Conroe beater. Certainly no need for AMD to worry about loosing sales to the dark side at this moment in time...

NathanE · 20 Sep 2006 at 19:39

Where have they shown they've lost any since Conroe arrived?

Exactly. They've not lost anything since Conroe. Infact quite the opposite. The position AMD is in currently is actually a win-win situation. Intel can bite away desktop market share but as soon as that happens AMD's production resources are allocated to high-value Opterons instead - which bites away at Intel's server market share. AMD = win-win, Intel = lose-lose. You've got the feel for Intel... they are trying their damndest not to lose more grip.