While AMD made a small profit last quarter, the Q4 outlook from the company is not nearly as rosy. AMD estimates that Q4 revenues will be around 12% lower than Q3, making for a rare drop in what is typically a robust season for sales. Unlike Intel, AMD is seeing a very soft PC market for their products. Intel so far has been able to deliver parts that are as fast, if not faster than the latest APUs, but they also feature lower TDPs while at a comparable price. The one area that AMD has a significant advantage is in terms of 3D performance and better driver support.
To keep the chips selling during this very important quarter, AMD is cutting the prices on their entire lineup of FM2+ parts. This includes the entire Kaveri based lineup from the top end A10-7850K to the A6-7400K. AMD is also cutting the prices on the previous Richland based parts, which include the A10-6800K. Also of interest is that buyers of A10 APUs will be able to select one of three game titles (Murdered: Soul Suspect, Thief, or Sniper Elite 3) for free, or use the included code to purchase Corel’s Aftershot Pro 2 for only $5.
| A10-7850K | A10-7800 | A10-7700K | A8-7600 | A6-7400K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compute Cores | 12 (4+8) | 12 (4+8) | 10 (4+6) | 10 (4+6) | 6 (2+4) |
| Graphics | R7 | R7 | R7 | R7 | R5 |
| TDP (cTDP) | 95 (65/45) | 65 (45) | 95 (65/45) | 65 (45) | 65 (45) |
| Suggested Price | $143 | $133 | $123 | $92 | $58 |
The A10-7850K is a pretty good part overall, though of course it does suffer at the hands of Intel when it comes to pure CPU performance. It still is a pretty quick part that competes well with Intel’s 2 core/4 thread chips. 3D performance from the integrated graphics is class leading, and the potential for using that unit for HSA applications is another checkmark for AMD. We have yet to see widespread adoption of HSA, but we are seeing more and more software products coming out that support it. Having tested it out myself, the GPU portion of the APU can be enabled when using a standalone GPU from either AMD or NVIDIA. The Kaveri chips also support TrueAudio, which will show up in more titles throughout the next year.
One aspect of AMD’s latest FM2+ platform that cannot be ignored is the pretty robust selection of good and interesting motherboards that are offered at very low prices. Products such as the Gigabyte G1.Sniper.A88X and the MSI A88X-G45 Gaming motherboards are well rounded products that typically sell in the $90 to $110 range. Top end products like the Asus Crossblade Ranger are still quite affordable at around $160. Budget offerings are still pretty decent and they come in the $50 range.
One other product that has sparked interest is the Athlon X4 860K Black Edition. This product is clocked between 3.7 GHz and 4.0 GHz, features two Steamroller modules, and is priced at a very reasonable $90. The downside is that there is no GPU portion enabled, while the upside is that there is potentially more thermal headroom for the CPU portion to be clocked higher than previous A10-7850K parts. This will of course differ from individual chips, but the potential is there to have a pretty solid CPU for a very low price. Add in the low motherboard prices, and this has the making of a nice budget enthusiast system.
So why the cuts now? We can simply look at last week’s results for AMD’s previous quarter, as well as how the next quarter is stacking up. While AMD made a small profit last quarter, predictions for Q4 look grim. AMD is looking at around a 12% decrease in revenue, as stated above. AMD has a choice in that they can keep ASPs higher, but risk shipping less product in the very important 4th quarter; or they can sacrifice ASPs and potentially ship a lot more product. The end result of cutting the prices on their entire line of APUs will be of course lower ASPs, but a higher volume of parts being shipped and sold. In terms of cash flow, it is likely more important to see parts flowing rather than having higher inventories with a higher ASP. This also means that more APUs being sold will mean more motherboards from their partners moving through the channel.
Intel does have several huge advantages over AMD in that they have a very solid 22 nm process, a huge workforce that can hand tune their processors, and enough marketing money to make any company other than Apple squirm. AMD is at the mercy of the pure-play foundries in terms of process node tweaks and shrinks. AMD spent a long time at 32 nm PD-SOI before it was able to migrated to 28 nm HKMG. It looks to be 2015 before AMD sees anything below 28 nm for their desktop APUs, but it could be sooner for their smaller APUs and ARM based products on planar 20 nm HKMG processes. We don’t know a all of the specifics of the upcoming 16/14nm FinFET products from TSMC, Samsung, and GLOBALFOUNDRIES, so it will be hard to compare/contrast to Intel’s 2nd generation 14 nm TriGate line. All we know is that it will most assuredly be better than the current 28 nm HKMG that AMD is stuck at.
You missed the fact that
You missed the fact that intel is losing $1 billion trying to buy their way into the tablet space while blocking AMD out. How much does this affect AMD’s bottom line? Hundreds of million I imagine considering AMD’s share of that market before intel started throwing billion dollar subsidies around. The worst part is, that Mullins is a better chip than Bay trail. As is Beema. intel is keeping the competitions better product off the market. Again.
You should probably include that in your list of intel ‘huge advantages’. The fact that they can get away with it raises questions and concerns.
The price cuts for these products make a very good product even better. The benchmarks that reviewers like to repeat over and over don’t reflect what the every day consumer’s experience will be. It’s a terrible way to evaluate a product, and does nothing to inform the vast majority of consumers. Times have changed, technology has changed, consumer purchasing has changed and yet tech websites continue on with the same philosophy as 10 years ago, and scared to consider change.
“The benchmarks that
“The benchmarks that reviewers like to repeat over and over don’t reflect what the every day consumer’s experience will be”
Funny you should mention that, AMD loves to use benchmarks that can use both CPU and GPU at same time. Which doesn’t reflect customers experience at all. So before you start ripping on Intel for something that AMD does and they do even worse, look at the company you are defending.
AMD in a lot of their “Press” slides tend to use benchmarks that use both cpu and gpu when they compare their cpu to intel which generally doesn’t reflect customers experience since most don’t use programs that can use both at same time.
AMD from what I have seen lately is doing what Apple used to do, using highly optimized benchmarks for their cpu’s but one that isn’t for the competitors.
You should look at the
You should look at the company you are defending. The company that when it comes to you it asks you to pay extra for it’s brand name, only to take that money and give it as a gift to the OEMs to keep the competition out. You are paying for a monopoly to continue.
As for benchmarks, most benchmarks are Intel friendly. Not today. For years. And it’s not just benchmarks. SDP anyone?
It’s funny how everyone who supports Intel, expects AMD to fight against a monopoly that manipulates OEMs and the press with it’s hands tight behind it’s back.
Could not have said it better
Could not have said it better myself. The same can be said on the GPU end although AMD is a bit more competitive on that end. I truly hope AMD brings out a good r9-300 series GPU because we need the competition. If I see a good product I buy it. But how many people will still slander them after a good product release (GPU specifically)?
All I am saying is people need to stop bad mouthing the company, they are working hard to fix issues their consumers have! (like frame pacing which is perfect now and CF support which scales beautifully)
Intel’s attempts at buying
Intel’s attempts at buying its way into markets will not succeed this time around. There is something to be said about reviews that only test the CPU, and do not take into account any HSA(and not just AMD’s version of HSA) aware GPGPU APIs, and the software that is now starting to accelerate, via OpenCL, computations on the GPU. How about we test large memory transfers between non UMA aware CPUs/SOCs that have to move entire blocks of memory from the non-unified address space of the CPU and GPU to those that do, with a targeted benchmark. Or should we be testing spreadsheet applications, both open source and proprietary, that now have the ability to utilize OpenCL to accelerate calculations on the GPU, should we not be comparing Intel’s GPU(integrated) verses AMD’s/others, in the ability of their respective GPUs, to accelerate computations. Sure single threaded performance in important, but at some point in time the software will have made the switch to the multithreaded ability becoming ubiquitous and the single threaded performance may not have as much of an advantage, as has been the case in the past.
AMD’s product in particular, will continue to produce some improvement as the software ecosystem matures, for its version of HSA aware processors, and the software that takes advantage of both CPU, and GPU, for many different workloads. AMD would help itself immensely if it could just put more effort into making its integrated GPUs, work alongside its discrete GPU offerings, with better drivers that could at least allow its integrated GPUs, with the ability, to pair with its entire line of discrete GPU SKUs, even it the integrated GPU is only used for things like physics, or ray tracing/lighting calculations while the discrete GPU performs most of the graphics grunt work. AMD does have some Ray Tracing algorithms working on its pro graphics products using OpenCL acceleration, AMD should include in its gaming driver libraries, the built in ability to have at least the integrated GPU working on calculations, it does in its marketing speak refer to its GPU/CPU cores as compute cores, so AMD needs to produce demonstrations of integrated GPUs doing Ray Tracing/lighting calculations, to assist its discrete GPUs, in rendering better lighting effects for gaming. Intel cannot and will not allow its integrated GPUs to play an assistance role, for any other GPU makers discrete product, as Intel still thinks it can play, to the detriment of its users, that monopolistic game. AMD’s move towards HSA can become a selling point, but AMD needs to produce a demonstration of this HSA ability, with working drivers, and game demonstrations, and assist the game developers in making this happen. There is nothing worse than having unusable processing power on any CPU/SOC, just because there is a lack of working drivers to enable any integrated GPU to work with any discrete GPU, for lack of standards cooperation among the market players. It only leaves the user of the hardware unable to take advantage of the true computational ability of the systems.
On AMD’s part, they are too far behind in getting a custom microarchitecture that can run the ARMv8 ISA, and both Apple, and Nvidia currently have the lead in making custom extra wide order superscalar designs that can run the ARMv8 ISA! Both Apple’s, and Nvidia’s custom microarchitectures can, and do execute, at least, twice as many IPCs as ARM holdings’ reference design core(A57) ARMv8 based microarchitecture. AMD needs to get a custom design microarchitecture that can execute the ARMv8 ISA with at least a 6 IPC rate, or better, and make a custom ARMv8 based APU with AMD graphics. Maybe Jim Keller can take his x86 microarchitecture reworking experience, and create an ARMv8 running custom microarchitecture with SMT, like he is doing in adding SMT to AMD’s new x86 microarchitecture, Keller did mention in some of the video interviews, that there was a lot of cross pollination/sharing going on, among the AMD custom ARM and x86 design teams. AMD needs to migrate over, as quickly as possible the SkyBridge project to its Custom ARM, and new x86 microarchitecture to even gain enough of an edge to stay in the game. I do realize, that AMD’s using the ARM reference design cores, is only to develop the x86/ARM pin compatible SkyBridge connection fabric, motherboards, and sockets, but with all the powerful custom design ARMv8 ISA running products coming online, such as Apple’s, and Nvidia’s, there are others developing competing SKUs, and AMD needs to be in the Custom ARMv8 game ASAP. Tablets are all going to be using mostly custom microarchitectures designed to execute the ARMv8 ISA, and Samsung, QUALCOMM, and others are also playing catch up, to Apple, and now Nvidia. AMDs x86 license will give is come advantage if it can get a power efficient x86 microarchitecture with SMT, to compete in the laptop market with, while working a custom ARM APU product against Apple, and Nvidia in the tablet market.
I’m struggling to see the
I’m struggling to see the relevance of your remarks re: tablet market to the price cuts across AMD’s line of APUs.
AMD just didn’t get the OEM contracts they were expecting for Q4, and hence have now deskto/mobile APUs coming out of their ears, which need to get dumped ASAP.
AMD suffers, because that
AMD suffers, because that monopolistic sewer gave 1 billion worth of Atoms like Z3735F for free in just one quarter.
Well, the only problem with
Well, the only problem with that thinking is… AMD wasn't selling a lot of tablet chips even before Intel started going crazy with their loss-leading mobile division. Having said that, yes, it would have a chilling effect on OEMs to develop an AMD based tablet with so many cheap/free Intel mobile chips available.
I can accept that with
I can accept that with Kabini, but correct me if I am wrong. Isn’t A10 micro 6700T better than Z3735F? And at the same TDP? How much more expensive is that AMD model compared to that specific $17 Atom? Everyone seems to be using Z3735F for some unknown(?) reason, that’s why I am comparing with that specific Atom model. And in my mind is also that HP fiasco with the $199 AMD Chromebook that ended up at $299. TOO MANY COINCIDENCES.
AMD can’t fight a free chip with an Intel logo on it. That’s why it comes directly to the consumer with these price cuts. If the rumored Zen is good enough and the rumored deal with ASUS is true, maybe AMD will have better days in the market, but until then it is in out best interest to RESPECT that company that keeps fighting two companies with much much much more cash in hand and much much much more influence in the market and press.
not just free, but subsidies
not just free, but subsidies for assembly too.
Lowering prices to move
Lowering prices to move inventory not only cuts already slim margins to the bone but also eats into future profits for two reasons: one, the customer already has a cpu now so good luck selling him another one at any price and two, this type of thing works the same way as deflation: why buy a chip now which will probably be cheaper later as AMD gets more and more desperate.
This is the good old hand-to-mouth death spiral.
On the bright side it seems like i’ve been hearing about AMD’s troubles forever at this point, so that does say something about their resiliency. But with their new architecture not due til 2016, being last in line for the latest TMSC processes (thanks apple, nvidia), and Intel being Intel… well, i’m not sure i’ve ever seen their straits being this dire. They are beset on all sides.
I would have thought they would have been bought out years ago, but i guess their x86 license is both a blessing and a curse in that regard. But maybe apple will throw them a few billion in low coupon bonds or engage in some other type of bailout in order to stem the hemorrhaging. There is, after all, plenty of value in their gpu division. It’s getting choked to death by someone eating up all TMSC’s cutting edge capacity. *ahem*
All i can say is, good luck guys!
I wonder. The last time Intel
I wonder. The last time Intel lowered prices,did you also talked about death spirals? Did you wish Intel “good luck” in selling any future products? Maybe Nvidia is desperate that’s why it sells 970 for $330 and not $450. Right? Rightttttt…..
Ehhh, i’m not sure why you’re
Ehhh, i’m not sure why you’re attacking me. You can’t compare a tiny, broke, and indebted company (AMD) with a highly capitalized giant with a 20 billion dollar war-chest (intel).
One lowers prices because they feel they have no choice, the other lowers prices to gain a competitive advantage or in order to break into markets. These are two very different states of existence. The former is death spiral territory, the latter is just investing some profits back into the business.
I have nothing against AMD, i hope like hell they succeed. I’m just pointing out the precarious position they find themselves in.
I gladly keep churning out
I gladly keep churning out AMD builds. NOW with more savings!
Good thing there is really no
Good thing there is really no point in an expensive cpu if you play @ 1440p or higher.
A cheap amd 4core kaveri + gtx970 here we come!
Price/perf through the roof
ps.fuck intel and their bully tactics.
AMD seems to be pushing hard
AMD seems to be pushing hard to increase efficiency of it’s development process, working to minimize its labor force (something like 7% for the last quarter of this year) and aggressively pushing for synergistic partnerships with other companies such us ARM, Asustech and Synopsys. Only from it’s partnership with the last one (Synopsys) AMD claims it gets cost efficiency of between 0.42 and 0.45 billion $ per quarter.
This is all usual and typical, what is atypical is that instead of using such savings to increase profit for stockholders AMD seems to be content to simply transfer those savings to consumers by cutting prices. During last two months, or so, AMD cut it’s prices over it’s entire DIY lineup, form FX, over the RADEON and now finally their APU line. While AMD apparently predicts dose price cuts will reduce their income by 13 or so %, they seem not to be concerned about dropping the bottom because of large savings they are also gaining on the other side of the balance sheet.
So honestly it sucks to be AMD stockholder, those guys will newer see any dividends, but for actual consumers that care about price to performance AMD will stay good place to get PC hardware.
For small turnkey solutions,
For small turnkey solutions, A10 is my choice. I’m my own OEM.
Does AMD offer chip discounts
Does AMD offer chip discounts to small OEMs?
So basically AMD over-ordered
So basically AMD over-ordered wafers again, didn’t manage to hawk enough CPUs to OEMs for the holidays (hey, it’s only the strongest quarter for the industry), and is now reduced to selling them off at fire-sale prices to keep inventories in check.
Another round of renegotiations w/ Global Foundries coming up? (“No, really, we’re prepared to pay you .88 on every wafer you DON’T put through the line! Just please, don’t ship us any more product!”)
no Martin – I don’t believe
no Martin – I don’t believe it is a case of over-ordering wafers, or any other case of supply management issues. It is the continued issue of lack in failure in AMD’s R&D side to develop a new chip to really bring it’s APU side to the vision it had 10 years ago.
When first announced no-one believed it was possible, now everyone waits for Intel to surpass them – some even wait for Intel to purchase Amd’s gpu side so you can just say – well that is done and dusted now- Intel CPU and AMD Graphics- best of the world in APU!
AMD is not expected to R&D anything in server or desktop standalone parts anymore, and the apu slice is looking bleak- so the slide starts, and layoffs only means less R&D.
You are AMD. You create a
You are AMD. You create a chip that kills in any way possible the Intel equivalent. A company decides to create one system based on your chip at $299. At the same time it creates 15 models with pathetic Intel chips, that lost compared to yours, with prices from $199 to $249. Why so cheap? Because Intel pays that company to keep the prices of the Intel systems down, and maybe move the AMD’s price a little higher (like $100).
Tell me this. What do you expect people to buy? A system with an Intel logo at $199 or a system with no Intel logo at $299, even if the SoC in it is superior?
Answer that, then say whatever you like about R&D.
YEP!!!!!!!!! this is a
YEP!!!!!!!!! this is a hurdle, people see a cheap price, intel.. they buy. They might be buying some hunk of crap celeron but they don’t get it.
Unless someone takes the time to explain their $$ is better spent on the faster AMD part its a losing battle.
big box stores won’t do this, pick up whatever you want let me run your CC.
AMD is such a great value for $$$ its all I build and sell.
If you are talking of
If you are talking of comparing i3 to a an fx 8350 or 9x series maybe- but then compute power is still usually close to par or better.
i really wish bulldozer was better, i wish piledriver was better, i wish AMD had released a new chipset to replace the 9xx series, i wish AMD had a new desktop replacement for the fx series with new silicon and a ddr4 controller.
it does not
the choice in the future is an apu on fm2.
that is not a rosy future – not for desktop, not for server, not for amd
JohnGR and I truly seem to be
JohnGR and I truly seem to be on the same wavelength, as regards AMD’s struggle to maintain market share, and generate enough capital to invest in R&D, when consumers are going the “Intel inside” route, heedless of the fact that that behemoth conducts itself the same way as all giga-corporations seem to have done for the last few decades: by operating by the “all’s fair in love, war, and business” axiom. Their megalomaniacal greed knows no bounds, and the ironic thing is that they are directly responsible for spawning the competition they are hell-bent on destroying, by sub-contracting AMD for x86 production, due to the exploding demand for their early processors which they weren’t prepared to meet.
Outlandishly oversize reserves of capital, on the order of a small country’s entire national worth, invariably lead to distorted business ethics, like a star’s ability to bend light and warp the space-time continuum in its sphere of influence. Taken to extremes, it’s more akin to a black hole, which sucks up everything around it, never to be seen again. That is what has been going on for the last few decades in the British/American economic system, and when Sen. Elizabeth Warren states unequivocally that 100% of the economic growth in the U.S. over the last 30 years has gone to the richest 10% of its citizens, I am stunned, but still, I believe every word.
My point, though, is that if we want for things to even out, so that level competition between microelectronics firms can start to develop, we have to be determined to “vote with our dollars”: the plain and simple fact is that we need to boycott Intel.
The gamers need to do it, too, and to be outspoken about the way Intel does business, showing them that vid-heads really understand and care about something extremely vital to what they love to do, more than they do mere FPS achieved in FPS games.
For starters, take a gander at this: http://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/061-0247/intel-corporation-matter. Intel is rotten in the business ethics department, and that’s no lie.
This kind of thing can develop to the degree it has only when people let it. It takes time for giga-corporations to re-engineer the business environment and have legislators they’ve bought pass bills and enact laws like Citizens United, which gives corporations free rein to spend vast sums to influence voters and rig elections, or to have corporations declared to be people, or, beginning in the early ’70s, for the Supreme Court bench to gradually be filled with conservative, life-time appointees who will declare such asininities as money being the same as speech!
It also requires the apathy of people in a so-called democracy. If first-time-eligible young people had turned out in even slightly greater numbers than they did for the 2000 election, instead of moaning, “Oh, my vote doesn’t matter — it’s just a drop in the bucket, why bother, I don’t care (yawn, fart), etc.,” we wouldn’t’ve had 8 effing years of Dubya, and the Cheney-gang-trumped-up Iraqi war, whereby over a trillion bucks of American taxpayers’ blood-sweat-and-tears earnings went to preferred military contractors like Halliburton. Are you starting to get the picture?
So, my fellow enthusiasts: what’s it going to be then, eh?