Quote:
Originally Posted by
jason387
Notice how we say Intel and Nvidia are hammering AMD. It's like two companies pitted against one. To be fair, if Nvidia or Intel had to do double the work, like AMD, I'm sure they won't be seated in the position that they are today. I'm no fan boy. I'm just pointing out a fact which many seem to overlook.
Nvidia would not but Intel likely could. They waste so much money that the money on wasted project could easily budget GPU development.
What prevents Intel from doing so are the margins just aren't there for how much R and D costs. If it wasn't for Nvidia pummeling AMD in marketshare, they would barely be making money, particularly in the figures Intel fines desirable. Right now, GPU money and profits is a race to the bottom because the market is shrinking and so are sales.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Serious_Don
It's obvious that AMD would be bought out as constantly brought up on these forums, so competition wouldn't simply vanish. The idea of no more AMD is a tough pill to swallow though but that's how it goes in the competitive world. We're nearing the end of silicon and advancements aren't as simple as smacking on more transistors and cranking up the clocks anymore. The "lower power" phase we're in right now is going to reach a brick wall soon enough as well.
Zen is looking to be good and I'll be grabbing a chip and Am4 board once available, the real question is can AMD sell it. A good product isn't going to save the company alone, there must be some kind of marketing campaign and push to get these chips in OEM machines. They are also in dire need of better pricing strategies, I don't see any reason why a die hard Nvidia user is going to jump over to fury for similar performance and no major discount. I also don't see a reason anybody running any Intel chip will make the jump when the performance per dollar is totally on Intel right now at every price point. 5 years ago the Phenom II lineup did so well because they were by far the best performance you could get in a chip for only $200 (or less), prior to that it was the same AND they were releasing flagship chips (tbird) to boot.
Surely they must realize the R9-290 is so popular because it is pound for pound the best performer by quite a margin for somebody looking to only spend around $270 on graphics? I know tons of people who just grabbed CFX setups of the tri-x 290 simply because of the performance per dollar. In this insane price $700-1100 GPU market, the Fury X would completely stamp out Nvidia's line up if AMD was just able to get it on the shelves at a lower price. Likewise, an 8 core Zen CPU doesn't have to beat a 4790k or better, it needs to be comparatively close and much cheaper. Fighting for the flagship isn't going to save a company when the money isn't in the premier performance market and never has been, they have to get into the average Joe's home and work PC again.
Just my opinions.
The problem for AMD is AMD is not in an enviable position and the war to beat Intel is going to be a long expensive battle. Plus they have a tonne of debt.
Considering AMD market capitalization of 1.7 billion or so which is peanuts for the IP and it's been lower than this, why hasn't anyone bought AMD yet.
The reason being is no one wants to buy a failing business if the cost the bring them up to par is an amount of money that makes even the richest company do a double take if they can afford it. What I mean is to make AMD competitive with Intel, it wouldn't take billions, it would take 10's of billions of dollars, particularly a fabless company. And even if you spent this amount, there's still a good chance you won't reach your goalpost. Add in it's a shrinking market due to ARM and you have no biters.
This is why ATIC hasn't talked about it at all lately. If ones company was going to do it, ATIC and the GF would have done it a long time ago.
The r9 290 is a very good card at $270, however the problem is it's not a profitable card for AMD at 270 dollars or the 250 price I have seen before. Think of the profit margins for the chips. The 290 series is one of AMD's most expensive chips to produce, but they have to sell the chips at 100 dollar apu level to achieve 270 dollar price point. Think of Asus's cut(plus they make and have to absorb the cut of everything else), newegg's cut, distributers cut(the suppliers for newegg).
Ever since maxwell forced the Price of AMD products downwards, AMD margins have taken blow after blow and they have taken 100+ million dollar loses. Given the warning from AMD, I am expecting another loss of 200 + million dollars, and another 100-150 million dollar blow to their cash pile, meaning 2-3 more quarters like this and they are done.
Zen is AMD's last stand if they can make it. If Zen doesn't exceed, AMD is good as bankrupt.