AMD gives up?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Tyler Aviss <tjaviss-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>

| Yes, the i7 will outperform the AMD for CPU-based computation... but
| if you want an affordable but decent PC then AMD is definitely still a
| contender.

[Note: I have no inside knowledge.  This is guesswork on my part.]

If they didn't price their chips so low, nobody would buy them.  But they 
price them so low that they don't make money.  Not a game that can be 
played forever.

They tried to "pivot" with fusion: OK processors fused with decent video.  
Good idea.  It just hasn't been enough.  And it came after too long a
delay.

- for Linux users, there have been annoying driver problems.

  + It took a year before the open driver code could handle sound over
    HDMI.  It took reverse engineering rather than the promised AMD
    disclosure.

  + the closed source driver has not been updated to match kernel
    changes in a timely way.

  + on Ubuntu, my go to distro for closed source driver support, some
    Ubuntu bug has prevented loading the AMD driver on my HTPC box
    for many months (six?).

- There is a reasonable HTPC niche that Atom + ION filled but the
  E-350 could have replaced with ease.  Didn't happen.  Is it because
  that niche is more apparent than real?  Even the Atom + ION
  offerings seem to have shrunk.

- Ditto for the netbook world: the C-60 is a great chip and isn't
  hobbled by restrictions placed by Intel to protect the market for
  their higher-end chips.

  But the netbook market seems to be disappearing.  I don't understand
  why.  Perhaps because regular notebooks have become so inexpensive.
  Maybe they never sold well but vendors pushed them as the next big
  thing.  Perhaps because the mindshare has been taken over by
  tablets.  This one is a real puzzle to me.

  You really had to look for a C-50 or C-60 based netbook.  I bought
  one last summer.  It only cost $229 because the mainline stores
  (Best Buy / Future Shop, Staples) didn't realize that this was
  actually a premium device and could not wait to drop it (unlike
  ordinary netbooks, this had 1280x720 screen, HDMI-out, decent video
  chip).
  

- One success: a lot of low-end notebooks have E-350 or even E-300
  processors.  This surprises me since I don't think that they are
  powerful enough for what I expect of a notebook.

- Most scary: Intel's built-in graphics HD-3000 seems quite powerful
  enough for most ordinary tasks.  In a couple of months Intel will
  introduce new chips with much improved built-in graphics.  So AMD's
  particular edge is going to be diminished.
  
- apparently AMD has had a lot of trouble with the chip foundries.
  Global Foundries, spun out from AMD years ago, hasn't delivered chip
  volumes in a timely fashion nor with decent yields.  TSMC has had
  troubles too.  AMD just spent a small fortune totally cutting the
  cord with GF.  Intel has their own fabs and is considered to be the
  industry leader.

I feel that we really need an x86 source other than Intel.  I think
that x86's success is due to how AMD and Intel have pushed each other
to greater and greater performance.
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