AMD Goings On...

[1337Goat]

So what's the catch?

AMD is doing pretty darn well, but a lot of people are saying: "They're only being "nice" while they're second. The moment they surpass Intel, or even Nvidia, that's when they go rotten and get greedy."

Will their innovation stop?
Will they stagnate?
Will they start instituting weird backdoors?
Will they become unfriendly towards the FOSS community?
Will their prices go orbital if they ever gain control of the market?

Or will they stay true to benevolence, intelligence, innovation, and good value for the people?

What do you guys think?

 

[thesmokingman]

They've surpassed Intel a while ago. Where is this moment that they've become the darkside???

Shit ass threads like this... what is the point?

 

[auntjemima]

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I believe the first threadrippers were amazingly priced and each subsequent release was more and more expensive. As they passed Intel, their prices increased.

Any company worth their salt is going to sell their product at the maximum they think a user will pay. AMD is no different. When Intel was on top, they charged more than AMD, and now we are seeing something similar with Intel making massive drops on their CPU's becuase they aren't the top guy anymore.

 

[tunatime]

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I believe the first threadrippers were amazingly priced and each subsequent release was more and more expensive. As they passed Intel, their prices increased.

Any company worth their salt is going to sell their product at the maximum they think a user will pay. AMD is no different. When Intel was on top, they charged more than AMD, and now we are seeing something similar with Intel making massive drops on their CPU's becuase they aren't the top guy anymore.

i paid like $1400 for my 3960x that not that bad when you think it has 24 cores that run 4.4 all core cinebench and 4.55-6 in most games...amd is in a strong spot right now the cores are a bit faster then Intel clock for clock all they really need to do is get the latency down

 

[Ready4Dis]

i paid like $1400 for my 3960x that not that bad when you think it has 24 cores that run 4.4 all core cinebench and 4.55-6 in most games...amd is in a strong spot right now the cores are a bit faster then Intel clock for clock all they really need to do is get the latency down

What was the "equivalent" Intel chip selling for? What was the same chip line selling for 2 generations ago. There is a reason Intel had to slash prices on the 10900x by half compared to 9900x.... Because they realized they couldn't compete and keep charging their premium. It's tough to really compare ethough since AMD completely moved the goal posts, you can now get a consumer CPU with 16/32 and a HEDT with 64/128... But honestly the 3950x is more along the lines of older HEDT chips and a 3990x is more than you got with most Intel server chips. I still feel their prices are reasonable for what you get. They are a company and have to make money and they are publicly traded so have to keep investors happy.

 

[Smoblikat]

My pricepoint for CPUs is $230. I dont care which company delivers what, whomever can get me the fastest CPU (for gaming mostly) for no more than $230 is the one I go with. Which usually means I only buy used CPUs anyway, so they can price their new chips at whatever insane prices they want, I dont think im their target audience

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but I believe the first threadrippers were amazingly priced and each subsequent release was more and more expensive. As they passed Intel, their prices increased.

Any company worth their salt is going to sell their product at the maximum they think a user will pay. AMD is no different. When Intel was on top, they charged more than AMD, and now we are seeing something similar with Intel making massive drops on their CPU's becuase they aren't the top guy anymore.

relatively yeah they were priced to compete but each generation has been priced to compete even though they likely could of charged more.

1950x 1000 dollars -> 2950x 899 dollars -> 3950x 750 dollars and on a cheaper socket
2970WX 1299 dollars -> 3960x 1399 dollars without all the issues the 2970WX had
2990WX 1799 dollars -> 3970x 1999 dollars without all the issues the 2990WX had
1700x ->399 dollars > 2700x 329 dollars -> 3700x 329 dollars
1600x 249 dollars -> 2600x 229 dollars - > 3600x 249 dollars


so the only things that went up in price were the 3960x and 3970x and for good reason..

now should they increase prices? probably, especially if intel keeps over charging for their garbage but it really comes down to whether or not they feel zen 3 will get them the market share they want while being at a higher price. i'm going to assume their profit margins must be pretty good if they were willing to drop prices as quickly as they were for zen 2.

 

[lopoetve]

Innovation is driven by competition, innovation costs money. You take profit when you can. No one company is evil or good, in general, they're just a corporation that wants to make a profit for its shareholders and stakeholders.

 

[nimbulan]

Yes, AMD absolutely will increase prices like Intel or nVidia have when they're on top. As others have pointed out, this has already happened with Threadripper and there are already rumblings of it happening with the Ryzen 4000 series since they will likely surpass Intel in gaming performance.

 

[jlbenedict]

So what's the catch?

AMD is doing pretty darn well, but a lot of people are saying: "They're only being "nice" while they're second. The moment they surpass Intel, or even Nvidia, that's when they go rotten and get greedy."

Will their innovation stop?
Will they stagnate?
Will they start instituting weird backdoors?
Will they become unfriendly towards the FOSS community?
Will their prices go orbital if they ever gain control of the market?

Or will they stay true to benevolence, intelligence, innovation, and good value for the people?

What do you guys think?

They are trending in that direction (IMHO) with these "XT" releases..

 

[GotNoRice]

So what's the catch?

AMD is doing pretty darn well, but a lot of people are saying: "They're only being "nice" while they're second. The moment they surpass Intel, or even Nvidia, that's when they go rotten and get greedy."

The catch is that even if they "surpass" Intel, that won't put them in the same position Intel has been in for the last decade or so. Things are very different now. They aren't just competing with Intel anymore. You already have tons of Chromebooks out there using ARM processors. Soon, Apple will be using ARM processors in all of their desktops and laptops. Both Intel and AMD are now competing against ARM CPUs from multiple companies. There is a real possibility that ARM will fully replace x86 within the next decade unless we see some serious innovation from both Intel and AMD.

 

[blackmomba]

Which Intel parts are less expensive than AMD parts while also offering the same features and performance ?

 

[kirbyrj]

They are trending in that direction (IMHO) with these "XT" releases..

I don't see it that way. IMHO, it's no different than the 8086k or the 9900KS. Just binned for a little higher speed (whether or not the value is there is another story). I think the process is just more mature and they are getting better clocks (single core). You can't raise the clocks without changing the name of the processor or else those with the existing processor get mad. Solution: change the name of the processor...

 

[Randall Stephens]

I don't see it that way. IMHO, it's no different than the 8086k or the 9900KS. Just binned for a little higher speed (whether or not the value is there is another story). I think the process is just more mature and they are getting better clocks (single core). You can't raise the clocks without changing the name of the processor or else those with the existing processor get mad. Solution: change the name of the processor...

agreed. Xt is an opportunistic launch. Without Covid-19 it doesn’t happen.

 

[Ready4Dis]

They are trending in that direction (IMHO) with these "XT" releases..

Because they released them without a price hike??? How does that even make sense that people keep spewing this. Give customers 100-200 extra MHz and keep same pricing... "FU AMD for trying to scalp me with your slightly better performance for the same price, I wanted it for free!!". So while that's your opinion, if you can't tell, I do not share it based on them not charging more, it's hard to complain they are hiking prices when they didn't actually change the prices.

 

[Ready4Dis]

I don't see it that way. IMHO, it's no different than the 8086k or the 9900KS. Just binned for a little higher speed (whether or not the value is there is another story). I think the process is just more mature and they are getting better clocks (single core). You can't raise the clocks without changing the name of the processor or else those with the existing processor get mad. Solution: change the name of the processor...

But it is different... Intel raised prices for 9900ks....

 

[defaultluser]

You have nothing to worry about AMD overcharging until they re back above 20% server market share..until then, they will be forced to price their entire product range to make room for server prices _. Threadripper -> mainstream

After 4 year of Zen, they're barely at 7%, so I would say you have a decade to go.

This isn't like the 40% IPC spanking Athlon 64 had over Pentium 4, Intel is a lot more competitive this time around.

 

[Deleted whining member 223597]

If AMD could sell you a 3300X for $1000 they would.

 

[blackmomba]

If AMD could sell you a 3300X for $1000 they would.

Yup and in that world the equivalent Intel chip would be 1100$

 

[kirbyrj]

But it is different... Intel raised prices for 9900ks....

Well, I mean, I think AMD actually raised prices back to the release prices of Zen2. I'm pretty sure the current pricing was in the form of official price cuts. I doubt the "official" price of the 3900x is still $499. I'm pretty sure I read that it was $420 now.

Once again, whether or not it is worth it is subjective. I probably would just save the money with the non-XT chip.

 

[whateverer]

Well, I mean, I think AMD actually raised prices back to the release prices of Zen2. I'm pretty sure the current pricing was in the form of official price cuts. I doubt the "official" price of the 3900x is still $499. I'm pretty sure I read that it was $420 now.

Once again, whether or not it is worth it is subjective. I probably would just save the money with the non-XT chip.

No, Zen 2 kept -pace with Zen 1 pricing (1700 was the exact same price as the 3700X launched at)

And the $500 option (3900X) jumped you up to 12 cores, instead of a highly-overclocked 1800x.

I'd call that a high-end price-cut, and of course the prices have fallen by around $100 froom launch.

 

[kirbyrj]

No, Zen 2 kept -pace with Zen 1 pricing (1700 was the exact same price as the 3700X launched at)

And the $500 option (3900X) jumped you up to 12 cores, instead of a highly-overclocked 1800x.

I'd call that a high-end price-cut, and of course the prices have fallen by around $100 froom launch.

That's not what I'm talking about at all. I am saying that the original price of the 3900x was $499 and then got a price cut, and now the XT is $499. I am in no way comparing it to previous generations.

 

[Ready4Dis]

Well, I mean, I think AMD actually raised prices back to the release prices of Zen2. I'm pretty sure the current pricing was in the form of official price cuts. I doubt the "official" price of the 3900x is still $499. I'm pretty sure I read that it was $420 now.

Once again, whether or not it is worth it is subjective. I probably would just save the money with the non-XT chip.

I was talking about 3800xt vs 3800x, etc. However, 1700x was $399, 2799x was $329 and 3700x was $329. So prices have not gone up with zen2, they have remained the same, which is LOWER than zen (same as zen+). The official price of the 3900x is still $499 on AMD's website (https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-9-3900x 7/18/2020).

That said, it IS available for less than that and that's still the case with this XT release. So they are offering the XT for the SAME price and prices of the previous release have dropped slightly. So, I guess you can consider it a price hike because prices have already dropped on previous model? Kind of a grey area to me, but Intel RAISED the MSRP of the KS regardless of what the K was actually selling for.

 

[CraptacularOne]

Trust no company who's only goal is to move money from your account to theirs. I'm not a fan of any one company as I know they don't really care about "me" per se. They are there to make money, and their only goal is to make as much of it as possible. That goes for both of them. People that fanboy for one company or the other are just sheep.

 

[1337Goat]

Trust no company who's only goal is to move money from your account to theirs.

I keep hearing this over and over, and I'm starting to become skeptical.
Is it REALLY true, or just "common wisdom" that all companies are just trying to profit, even at the expense of ethics and decency?

I've become skeptical, and wonder if there is a difference between certain companies that do implement deceptive marketing, lock out features for no reason other than profiting, create sketchy backdoors, and fail to innovate, in contrast to companies that actually do innovate, contribute to GPL open source software, and price their products reasonably.

If that difference exists, then I won't blind myself to it in the name of "all corporations are evil."

A more true statement is, "Some corporations are greedy, and others are honest and decent."

Of course they must make profit, but that doesn't make them wicked. But some certainly are very unethical and others are ethical, and so it's worth it to know which ones are more benevolent than others.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

Trust no company who's only goal is to move money from your account to theirs. I'm not a fan of any one company as I know they don't really care about "me" per se. They are there to make money, and their only goal is to make as much of it as possible. That goes for both of them. People that fanboy for one company or the other are just sheep.

100% agree, but still had to put the facts out there to stop the shit show of misinformation.

I keep hearing this over and over, and I'm starting to become skeptical.
Is it REALLY true, or just "common wisdom" that all companies are just trying to profit, even at the expense of ethics and decency?

I've become skeptical, and wonder if there is a difference between certain companies that do implement deceptive marketing, lock out features for no reason other than profiting, create sketchy backdoors, and fail to innovate, in contrast to companies that actually do innovate, contribute to GPL open source software, and price their products reasonably.

If that difference exists, then I won't blind myself to it in the name of "all corporations are evil."

A more true statement is, "Some corporations are greedy, and others are honest and decent."

Of course they must make profit, but that doesn't make them wicked. But some certainly are very unethical and others are ethical, and so it's worth it to know which ones are more benevolent than others.

not all corporations are "evil" but at the end of the day they exist to make money so don't think that if they have the chance to increase profits significantly at the expense of the customer that they won't do it. that's why you research, research and research some more on the things you buy.. don't ever take a company at their word no matter how much they try to claim they care about customers.

 

[Ready4Dis]

I keep hearing this over and over, and I'm starting to become skeptical.
Is it REALLY true, or just "common wisdom" that all companies are just trying to profit, even at the expense of ethics and decency?

I've become skeptical, and wonder if there is a difference between certain companies that do implement deceptive marketing, lock out features for no reason other than profiting, create sketchy backdoors, and fail to innovate, in contrast to companies that actually do innovate, contribute to GPL open source software, and price their products reasonably.

If that difference exists, then I won't blind myself to it in the name of "all corporations are evil."

A more true statement is, "Some corporations are greedy, and others are honest and decent."

Of course they must make profit, but that doesn't make them wicked. But some certainly are very unethical and others are ethical, and so it's worth it to know which ones are more benevolent than others.

Some companies try harder to be helpful to their customers and communities than others. Reason being, they think it will help drive them customers and make them more money . They don't do it out of the goodness of their heart, but as a business model. Sorry, Santa Claus isn't real either if you're still holding onto that one too! Ok, maybe I'm just being to cynical, but honestly, this is true for the majority of companies. While there are a select few that were build to help others, without making money, they aren't able to help. The more money they make, the more they can help out w/e their chosen group is. This means these companies require even greater profits/margins in order to maintain their spending on their cause and you will likely pay a premium to support said company (whether it's worth it depends on their cause and your views of course and I won't get into that discussion).

 

[nimbulan]

I've become skeptical, and wonder if there is a difference between certain companies that do implement deceptive marketing, lock out features for no reason other than profiting, create sketchy backdoors, and fail to innovate, in contrast to companies that actually do innovate, contribute to GPL open source software, and price their products reasonably.

You do have to keep in mind that the way a company runs their business can depend on their market position. AMD as the underdog HAS to do these consumer-friendly things in order to stay in business. Never expect the business model to stay the same when the market changes. We can always hope to be pleasantly surprised, but never expect it.

Personally I think the scummy tactics that are often employed by market leaders (and sometimes by new players) are rather short-sighted and counter-productive. It inevitably leads companies like Intel to the position they're in now that could easily have been avoided.

 

[travm]

AMD doesn't need to be "good, honest or decent" to come out on top.
Literally just less so than Intel. Which is not difficult.

 

[CraptacularOne]

AMD doesn't need to be "good, honest or decent" to come out on top.
Literally just less so than Intel. Which is not difficult.

AMD is only doing what they have to do to get back in the game. Make no mistake, if you think that if the shoe were on the other foot AMD wouldn't do the same thing you are only fooling yourself. It only good business practice. If there is no competition other than what YOU create why bother with innovation if all you are doing is competing with yourself? It makes much better business sense to iterate on what you have and keep R&D costs down and milk what you can out of what you have.

If you think AMD is the "champion of the people"....well I also happen to have a bridge to sell you.....

 

[travm]

AMD is only doing what they have to do to get back in the game. Make no mistake, if you think that if the shoe were on the other foot AMD wouldn't do the same thing you are only fooling yourself. It only good business practice. If there is no competition other than what YOU create why bother with innovation if all you are doing is competing with yourself? It makes much better business sense to iterate on what you have and keep R&D costs down and milk what you can out of what you have.

If you think AMD is the "champion of the people"....well I also happen to have a bridge to sell you.....

Breaking anti trust laws is not good business practice

 

[CraptacularOne]

Breaking anti trust laws is not good business practice

Iterating on your previous designs isn't breaking anti-trust laws

 

[travm]

Iterating on your previous designs isn't breaking anti-trust laws

paying customers not to use your competitors products is.

 

[CraptacularOne]

paying customers not to use your competitors products is.

You're referencing something from 2014. But furthermore do you really think if the shoe were on the other foot that AMD would not do the same things? You are very naive if you think not.

 

[travm]

You're referencing something from 2014. But furthermore do you really think if the shoe were on the other foot that AMD would not do the same things? You are very naive if you think not.

I do like to think that most companies wouldn't do the things that intel has done.
What about that sketchy E-security company that released all these big bad AMD security holes, that really were barely newsworthy and quickly fixed if i recall. That was much more recent.
No I don't think AMD is like Intel. I don't think many companies are (some surely are), but I would like to think the majority are less like intel.

 

[CraptacularOne]

I do like to think that most companies wouldn't do the things that intel has done.
What about that sketchy E-security company that released all these big bad AMD security holes, that really were barely newsworthy and quickly fixed if i recall. That was much more recent.
No I don't think AMD is like Intel. I don't think many companies are (some surely are), but I would like to think the majority are less like intel.

Now I think I see what's going on here. Look you can be an AMD fanboy all you want but to trust a company, any company who's only goal is to just make money you are only fooling yourself.

 

[travm]

Now I think I see what's going on here. Look you can be an AMD fanboy all you want but to trust a company, any company who's only goal is to just make money you are only fooling yourself.

Im afraid I disagree.
No fanboy here. I wouldn't hesitate to buy Intel if I thought the value was there and it met my needs. In the past ten years price has been the biggest issue for me. Along with how I approach upgrades has made AMD CPUs my best option by far. In fact now that they are more competitive it's harder to choose, and I tend to fall back on platform longevity. The ability to buy last year's chips and put them in five years ago motherboard and drive on is huge for me.

But none of this is relevant to the fact Intel is about as shady as you can get.
Trying to make that seem less bad by calling all companies just as bad with 0 evidence, might make you a shill. Or a motivated employee. Either way it's weak.

 

[Nside]

Power breeds corruption in all sectors, companies, governments, faiths... you name it... People who want to be a part of something that is already powerful USUALLY (almost always) don't have the best intentions...
Competition helps curb that behavior

I don't think AMD is benevolent, and they never have been. They've done their share of shady tactics and marketing.

- Look what they did to their GPU partners and early adopters of the 5600XT. Sure, that was in response to a price cut from Nvidia, but it could have been handled differently than a panicked "surprise VBIOS boost"

- Then how they handled 400 series AM4 backwards compatibility for upcoming Zen3 CPUs. While nobody in the press said it, AMD's plan all along was likely to support it on B450/X470 boards, but they needed a way to weasel out of support on older boards, and to justify the necessary BIOS update being an exercise in hoop-jumping. Yes, it would be that way no matter what, but AMD made the promise at the beginning of AM4 of socket support through 2020, and needed a way to get out of it without looking like the bad guy. So take support for 300 and 400 series away, but then give 400 series back... "Oh look, they did what they could!"

There's other little underhanded things they've done (Naming schemes for instance), but they often get a "pass" from enthusiasts because they are the underdog.

That said, their prices haven't gone up for any CPU. That's a weird argument I see in here. The XT variants of their CPUs are MSRP of the X versions, and the X versions are $30 to $80 cheaper these days. The only thing that would make AMD "The Bad Guy" in that scenario would be if they stopped making the X versions, which they explicitly said they are not going to do.

As for the Threadripper/Higher-end pricing, prices have fallen. They release a CPU that 5-years ago nobody would ever dream of being able to walk into a MicroCenter and buy, and they're "Greedy" for wanting $2000-4000 for it?
In 2016, Intel was charging $1700 for a 10-core processor on their own designation of an HEDT platform. In fact, if you wanted anything from intel that had more than 4 cores, you were paying more than $430 plus another $400-ish or more for an x299 motherboard. In fact, that's what you had to do up through most of 2017. From 2009/10 through most of 2017, intel's mainstream lineup was essentially unchanged with incremental upgrades of 5-10% every generation.

Early 2017: "A single 64 core 128 thread processor? It has HOW many PCIe lanes? Is that for some kind of government funded super-computer? I bet it costs millions!"
Mid 2020: "I'm not buying that $3600* 64 core CPU unless they give me TWO free games with it... pfff"

*current Amazon pricing

AMD has pushed Intel to the point of not only having to try to compete, they've completely buried their i5 as we knew it for 7 years. It's no longer in their mainstream lineup under the core series... 4-core/4-thread was their mainstay, their bread and butter... Intel was going to send their kids to college on the sale of that chip until the end of time if they could (and had obviously planned to) ... AMD shook things up with performance AND price, and I appreciate it, and i will continue to root for the underdog in this competition...

However, don't get complacent. Don't be a brand-wh**e... a "Fanboy" ... They all have the potential to be greedy, especially when they are on-top. At the end of the day, AMD is out to make money. Once that stock-price stops rising like it has in the last 3 years, I will bet you'll see it.
/rant

 

[vegeta535]

It will only take the investors to start demanding more profits. If Lisa doesn't meet their goal or refuses they will remove her and put someone that will do as told.

 

[1337Goat]

It will only take the investors to start demanding more profits. If Lisa doesn't meet their goal or refuses they will remove her and put someone that will do as told.

Lisa Su is an engineer, and currently represents the entire modern success of AMD.
If Lisa Su is replaced, the entire face of the company changes. I'm sure we will see AMD differently if someone wicked rises to power.

Lisa has earned her place.
All of the best engineers and scientists at AMD earned their positions. Investors need to know their place.

Engineers and scientists come before shareholders on the ladder of corporate authority.

Engineers, programmers, and scientists are the only ones that *really* make the company, no matter how you want to spin it.
And people WILL spin it. It might even be you who tries to "correct" the statement: "Engineers come before shareholders." Don't even try.
Their power is great, but it lies with money alone. We need intelligence to advance.

So remember who's in charge here: Lisu Su and her team of engineers, marketers, programmers, scientists, and the other vital parts of AMD. The glorious Radeon team can't be forgotten. Look what they're about to do to Nvidia. Even if they don't "beat" the top dog of the 3000 series, they're still making incredibly impressive strides. The only reason they can't beat Nvidia so easily is because Nvidia respects its scientists and engineers too.

The moment a powerful CEO or leader within the company is replaced with some sort of "yes man" corporate slave, instead of a proper engineer, that's when the company begins to falter. Stick with engineers who have passion, intelligence, creativity, and every other decent human trait, including benevolence, at least to the degree that they don't maliciously manipulate everything.

Of course profits are important, but being the builder of the pinnacle of human computer technology is surely worth more than mere profits.