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Is the end imminent for AMD?

mmj_uk said:
stuff about how using automated design tools instantly made things worse
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CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Example of AMD and Nvidia designs which did well
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Martini1991 said:
You latching onto me talking about Atom and talking about power consumption
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CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Yet last year when Zacate was launched,both Intel and AMD were both using 40NM/45NM design processes. Yet the 45NM Atom still turned out poorer overall. The reason why the newer Atoms do better is down to the process shrink down to 32NM. You saw that with Nehalem to SB.

Zacate was a mostly a design using automated tools,just like a lot of ARM licensees like Nvidia who don't design the cores but modify parts and integrate them with their own IP.

The current AMD Zacate chips were meant to be shrunk down to 28NM,but they shelved that so they could bring Jaguar forward.
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Martini1991 said:
I'm not sure why the technicalities are brought in.
They won't be able to penetrate the mobile market if their APU's are using twice as much power as the Intel stuff, performance aside (I'd take the AMD stuff personally)

And it's not just the fabrication, AMD themselves have gone to some lengths to make their new tablet/netbook stuff more power efficient than their previous offerings, but as far as I'm aware, both Hondo and Ontario (And desna etc) are 40nm.
Not vastly different from when AMD stayed 40nm on GPU's and made their designs more efficient.
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Because the conversation was about automated design and how it made worse CPUs. This is not the case all the time. The only reason that Atom is doing better is due to the shrink to 32NM. The 28NM AMD shrinks were shelved in favour of bringing forward Jaguar - this has been known for a VERY long time.

You know why?? Atom is being redesigned with new cores and being built on a 22NM process for late 2013. This is the big threat. Zacate is the most successful AMD CPU for years unlike their higher end stuff. So,AMD decided to spend their resources on getting 28NM Jaguar out as quickly as possible:

http://wccftech.com/amd-tapes-nextgeneration-power-kabini-apu/

Jaguar is a new core,and is made to be more efficient by design. Zacate was a netbook CPU,Jaguar appears to be design with tablets in view too.

This is the SOC which will make or break AMD in the tablet market.

Moreover,Jaguar is a much more portable design. They have made it such that you can change between processes far more quickly and easily than any previous AMD design. This means they are less at the mercy of an individual fab.
 
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It's not the only reason, as we've seen multiple times that designs can be refined on a set fabrication.

But it's obviously a contributing factor.

What about right now for the Windows 8 launch? That will see 20 more Intel tablets in the market, how many AMD ones?
Proper shooting themselves in the foot, they need a bigger presence now.
 
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Martini1991 said:
It's not the only reason, as we've seen multiple times that designs can be refined on a set fabrication.

But it's obviously a contributing factor.

What about right now for the Windows 8 launch? That will see 20 more Intel tablets in the market, how many AMD ones?
Proper shooting themselves in the foot, they need a bigger presence now.
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Yet, against this backdrop, we saw a continued consumer adoption of our Trinity APU in the quarter. Trinity notebook unit shipments increased more than 70% sequentially and accounted for nearly 1/3 of our total notebook shipments in the third quarter. Although Trinity is targeted at mainstream price points, Ultrathin notebooks featuring the low-power APU are also competing effectively at higher system price points. As a result, we believe we gained share in the $600 to $799 retail notebook price band globally in the third quarter. More than 125 AMD-based systems are expected to launch with Windows 8, including tablets and several new Ultrathins. While we look forward to the introduction of Win 8, the fourth quarter will continue to be challenging, and we do not expect PC market conditions to improve for several quarters.
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How any of those are Tablets i don't know.
 
Have a look through the launching tablets, last time I heard there wasn't any tablets with Z-60, IIRC Acer are launching another C-50 (Or something) based tablet.

I know AMD said they'd be able to get MW 2 at playable settings at 1024x768 or something (Probably could if they put a 1.33GHZ Dual core in with the 6250, mine could probably manage it about 25 FPS, just wish there was a way to take the CPU clock up since I've undervolted it by 0.175v, so it's obviously got the TDP headroom)
 
Martini1991 said:
Have a look through the launching tablets, last time I heard there wasn't any tablets with Z-60, IIRC Acer are launching another C-50 (Or something) based tablet.

I know AMD said they'd be able to get MW 2 at playable settings at 1024x768 or something (Probably could if they put a 1.33GHZ Dual core in with the 6250, mine could probably manage it about 25 FPS, just wish there was a way to take the CPU clock up since I've undervolted it by 0.175v, so it's obviously got the TDP headroom)
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You must have seen the full list of launching Tablets, do you have a link for that?

What brings you to the 25 FPS conclusion? again do you have data for this?
 
Martini1991 said:
It's not the only reason, as we've seen multiple times that designs can be refined on a set fabrication.

But it's obviously a contributing factor.

What about right now for the Windows 8 launch? That will see 20 more Intel tablets in the market, how many AMD ones?
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Most of the Windows 8 tablets sold will be the versions running RT with a Tegra 3 though.

A lot of the higher end Windows 8 tablets/convertable notebooks don't run Atom AFAIK(I could be wrong here) but a Core i3 and the such. AMD has something competitive with ULV Trinity designs,but I blame them for not trying to push them enough,despite prototypes being shown.

However,as you know Intel set up a fund for things like Ultrabooks,and I suspect a lot of the higher end tablets fall within the same remit. This means,companies who use the Ultrabook fund cannot use certain things for AMD based solutions.

Another reason,which I had forgotten about is the Atoms used in tablets are now SOCs,so lack a separate southbridge chip too. The process shrink enabled them to integrate everything into one die,although the CPU and GPU are more or less the same as the older Atoms.

So in that sense AMD could go ahead with a two chip design in its tablet,or alternatively bring forward a much more efficient design which is an SOC and is easier to port between processes. Otherwise they would be walking straight into the 22NM Atom refresh at the same time.

With limited R and D funding,that is the tradeoff they made.
 
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I've seen a bunch of tablets, I've been looking into it massively as I was going to get one.
I ended up getting myself an AMD C-50 powered W500 and threw Windows 8 on it (Full fat Windows 8 Pro 32 bit)

I was playing Halo Combat Evolved at native resolution on low settings perfectly fluid.
It has an AMD 6250 on the device, the limitation is the CPU, I've undervolted the CPU, so I know it has a lower TDP now, but the amount I've undervolted it is quite substantial (Imagine a higher clocked CPU?)

A higher clocked CPU in it with the 6250 would be perfectly fine for like 1024x768 or something at 30 FPS.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/9/3476286/amd-hondo-z-60-radeon-hd-6250-announcement

AMD's Z60- Hondo.

At glance it seems nothing but a more efficient version of what I have.

EDIT : Cat, the RT's will be running ARM based stuff (Tegra 3, think there's a Krait Sammy tablet too). The X86 ones will be running Clovertrail/Ivy's (That's more what I was on about, I can't see any high end Trinity tablets, or low end Z-60's)
 
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Martini1991 said:
I've seen a bunch of tablets, I've been looking into it massively as I was going to get one.
I ended up getting myself an AMD C-50 powered W500 and threw Windows 8 on it (Full fat Windows 8 Pro 32 bit)

I was playing Halo Combat Evolved at native resolution on low settings perfectly fluid.
It has an AMD 6250 on the device, the limitation is the CPU, I've undervolted the CPU, so I know it has a lower TDP now, but the amount I've undervolted it is quite substantial (Imagine a higher clocked CPU?)

A higher clocked CPU in it with the 6250 would be perfectly fine for like 1024x768 or something at 30 FPS.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/9/3476286/amd-hondo-z-60-radeon-hd-6250-announcement

AMD's Z60- Hondo.

At glance it seems nothing but a more efficient version of what I have.
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Its all just speculation on your part then.
 
humbug said:
Its all just speculation on your part then.
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Egh?

People always run low IGP's and game on, obviously we're not part of them, but I've seen a 4250 be playable for some games.

It's that article which mentions the MW2 thing.

I ran Mass Effect 2 on my tablet, it was playable, not vastly great, 800x600 and low.

If anything I'm giving massive praise to AMD based designs here...

That article also mentions 20 Intel clovertrail tablets, as well as AMD not being able to confirm a manufacturer with the Z-60 (And I've looked for one, couldn't find one)
 
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I never said there aren't more, or more coming, but be my guest, find me a Z-60 tablet that's launching on the 26th.

And it was AMD stating about the Call of duty MW 2 and 30 FPS. Given they BOTH have the 6250, and the CPU is a more power efficient design, it's almost too logical.
 
AFAIK,the C50 was essentially a netbook CPU. The Z01 is meant to be the tablet equivalent. With the Z60 they lopped off a whole lot of things such as PCI-E and SATA3.0,which they deemed not important for a tablet,plus they tweaked the power gating in the cores when compared to the Z01.
 
Yeah, the C-50 was a netbook CPU.
But I'm trying to say, find me an AMD APU Z-60 tablet that's launching on the 26th, or any AMD APU tablet for that matter that's launching on the 26th.

I'll give you an internet cookie if you do, because I want one.
 
Martini1991 said:
Yeah, the C-50 was a netbook CPU.
But I'm trying to say, find me an AMD APU Z-60 tablet that's launching on the 26th, or any AMD APU tablet for that matter that's launching on the 26th.

I'll give you an internet cookie if you do, because I want one.
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Well you know what AMD are like, tight lipped. its another problem of thires, they never say whats coming and when, while others shout about it.
So as far as anyone looking at hardware, they rightfully conclude AMD are doing absolutely nothing.

They really really really need to start putting themselves out there, they have to to even get noticed.
 
So, you can't find me a tablet then?
And I'm not sure how much control AMD would have.
It's announced/launched and the tablets are out in days time, find the tablets, and there's no AMD Z-60 ones.

And still, you ignored when I backed up my "speculation" regarding MW2.
 
Martini1991 said:
So, you can't find me a tablet then?
And I'm not sure how much control AMD would have.
It's announced/launched and the tablets are out in days time, find the tablets, and there's no AMD Z-60 ones.

And still, you ignored when I backed up my "speculation" regarding MW2.
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What? I was off that subject completely and moved on.

My answer is the same, just because you can't see them does not mean they don't exists, and MW2 you said 25 FPS, They said 30.
 
I said mine could probably manage it about 25 FPS.
I'm going to try it now.

And if you can't see them, then for all intents and purposes they don't exist (You can't plan to buy something that may or may not be there, you can't pre-order it, there's just nothing)
 
Martini1991 said:
Yeah, the C-50 was a netbook CPU.
But I'm trying to say, find me an AMD APU Z-60 tablet that's launching on the 26th, or any AMD APU tablet for that matter that's launching on the 26th.

I'll give you an internet cookie if you do, because I want one.
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This is about the only one I can see:

http://www.slashgear.com/acers-trinity-powered-iconia-tab-hands-on-06232483/

It is the successor to the W500 and is meant to be launching later in the year,but there is no exact date. It uses Trinity.
 
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