Tuesday, November 7th 2017

AMD Radeon Boss Raja Koduri Jumps Ship

As we reported back in September, Raja Koduri took a sabbatical leave from AMD's Radeon Technologies Group (RTG) to find himself. AMD CEO Lisa Su was left in charge during this time as Raja wasn't expected to return until December. However, our friends over at Hexus got their hands on a memo that Raja left to this team revealing his intentions to leave the company for good.
The memo is as follows:

'To my AMD family,

Forty is a significant number in history. It is a number representing transition, testing and change. I have just spent forty days away from the office going through such a transition. It was an important time with my family, and it also offered me a rare space for reflection. During this time I have come to the extremely difficult conclusion that it is time for me to leave RTG and AMD.

I have no question in my mind that RTG, and AMD, are marching firmly in the right direction as high-performance computing becomes ever-more-important in every aspect of our lives. I believe wholeheartedly in what we are doing with Vega, Navi and beyond, and I am incredibly proud of how far we have come and where we are going. The whole industry has stood up and taken notice of what we are doing. As I think about how computing will evolve, I feel more and more that I want to pursue my passion beyond hardware and explore driving broader solutions.

I want to thank Lisa and the AET for enabling me to pursue my passion during the last four years at AMD, and especially the last two years with RTG. Lisa has my utmost respect for exhibiting the courage to enable me with RTG, for believing in me and for going out of her way to support me. I would also like to call out Mark Papermaster who brought me into AMD, for his huge passion for technology and for his relentless support through many difficult phases. And of course, I want to thank each and every one of my direct staff and my indirect staff who have worked so hard with me to build what we have now got. I am very proud of the strong leaders we have and I'm fully confident that they can execute on the compelling roadmap ahead.

I will continue to be an ardent fan and user of AMD technologies for both personal and professional use.

As I mentioned, leaving AMD and RTG has been an extremely difficult decision for me. But I felt it is the right one for me personally at this point. Time will tell. I will be following with great interest the progress you will make over the next several years.

On a final note, I have asked a lot of you in the last two years. You've always delivered. You've made me successful both personally and professionally, for which I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I have these final requests from you as I leave:
  • Stay focused on the roadmap!
  • Deliver on your commitments!
  • Continue the culture of Passion, Persistence and Play!
  • Make AMD proud!
  • Make me proud!
Yours,
Raja

Lisa Su will continue to lead RTG until a suitable replacement for Raja is found.
Source: Hexus
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78 Comments on AMD Radeon Boss Raja Koduri Jumps Ship

#26
cadaveca
My name is Dave
evernessinceYou don't have to take his word for the driver issues, it's been pretty obvious that Nvidia's had a pretty rough year with it's drivers. They've made news multiple times on TechPowerUp and other tech websites for them in fact. Don't know why you are denying that so hard. Just give credit where credit is due, AMD has done well with it's drivers, Vega is medicore at best, and Pascal is excellent. The reason Nvidia is in the lead is because of Maxwell and Pascal, two awesome GPU series in a row. AMD on the otherhand had the 300 series, a refresh, the 400 series, which was pretty good but competed was still a gen behind pascal, and Vega, which launched with far too high voltage.
Because the games that this user is playing do not have issues on NV hardware. I specifically left AMD hardware behind because of the shit quality of cards and the shit drivers... BEFORE Raja ever took over. This has been a problem for AMD since the 2900XT, if we are really honest. AMD had a minor win with 4870/4890 and slightly with 5870, but afterwords... they've been far from decent. I went through 10 replacement 5870's trying to get CrossfireX and Eyefinity working right, and nothing has improved since then. They hyped features, but the features are broken, every generation since.

Meanwhile, I am typing this on a 7970.... and Ryzen. I use all hardware, but for gaming, I chose NV, because for the games I play, they work better.
Posted on Reply
#27
evernessince
cadavecaBecause the games that this user is playing do not have issues on NV hardware. I specifically left AMD hardware behind because of the shit quality of cards and the shit drivers... BEFORE Raja ever took over. This has been a problem for AMD since the 2900XT, if we are really honest. AMD had a minor win with 4870/4890 and slightly with 5870, but afterwords... they've been far from decent. I went through 10 replacement 5870's trying to get CrossfireX and Eyefinity working right, and nothing has improved since then. They hyped features, but the features are broken, every generation since.

Meanwhile, I am typing this on a 7970.... and Ryzen. I use all hardware, but for gaming, I chose NV, because for the games I play, they work better.
You left out the 7970 right? I mean you are using one right now. It was an awesome card back in the day and is still able to play games at 1080p high at sub 50 FPS.
Posted on Reply
#28
cadaveca
My name is Dave
evernessinceYou left out the 7970 right? I mean you are using one right now. It was an awesome card back in the day and is still able to play games at 1080p high at sub 50 FPS.
Actually, no, it's not that great of a card. I mean it works, but... eyefinity was ass with it. It was the last generation that I bought AMD cards, as I had been trying to get a working eyefinity system since they offered the tech, but never got it working the way it should.

As a single GPU, it's not bad, but I game at 2560x1600 with a single monitor, and have since 2007 when I bought a Dell 3007WFP. AMD cards weren't good enough for me as a single, but neither was NV... but NV SLI worked better than Crossfire for me, and with the high res of my monitor, I did need multiple GPUS to get decent framerates as I am quite sensitive to low FPS. I have been a high-end user for a long time, and AMD has not met the needs of high-end users for many many generations now. For those with 1376/758 monitors, sure, it's a viable card.
Posted on Reply
#29
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
xkm1948Praise Raja all you want. In the end the hard facts just detroyed whatever hype he was generating.

On the front of graphics they failed miserably. You think Crimson driver is good? Overwatch is broken for what, 6 months now? Go to reddit. Tons of issues with even basic AMD tech like FreeSync. I would take Nvidia 's "boring" but functional driver over this Crimson neon flashy poop any time.

On the front of computing they can't touch nvidia. Hardware wise they can not compete. Software wise they don't even provide proper OpenCL tech support.


Raja promised more than what he can deliver. If he just focused on graphics it might end up better.

Good riddance.
you may want to ask @fullinfusion what maybe coming down the turnpike because he is our own inhouse driver tester.
Posted on Reply
#32
xkm1948
eidairaman1you may want to ask @fullinfusion what maybe coming down the turnpike because he is our own inhouse driver tester.
He leaked something about a Crimson Redux driver, introducing stuff like FPS counter and GPU temp monitor in-game. Sort of like MSI Afterbuner interface?
Posted on Reply
#33
Kohl Baas
dicktracyHe's just tired of being the scapegoat despite how little resources AMD had given to his team. Radeon would've been better in the hands of Intel or Samsung.

Also seems like he's joining Intel; basically what should've happened in the first place: Intel buying ATI and AMD joining forces with Nvidia. That would've been one hell of a battle.
Wouldn't be much of a battle, since Intel is still about 10 times bigger than AMD and nVidia together. Giving them the opportunity to produce capable GPUs would propably sent nVidia to AMD's faith too.

Remember! All the downside AMD/Radeon has, comes from lacking of resources. And all the resources nVidia has, came from the fact they don't have a bigger one to compete with.
Posted on Reply
#34
Fluffmeister
After the Vega debacle someone was always gonna have to fall on a Ruby sized sword, and boys it wasn't going to be Lisa.
Posted on Reply
#35
cucker tarlson
RejZoRThat's because you don't understand technology. It's not because Vega is bad, it's because we know what they've done with Ryzen (which is what makes it so good in a very large portion) and Navi will be employing similar tech. Making massive monolithic chips is difficult, expensive and has very low yields. What Navi will bring is making "big cheap" with high yields for lower price by "gluing" together smaller "cores". That's what Navi will be. Now, doing just this alone won't be enough as they need to also do something with GCN thing. It's great for compute, but it seems to really struggle with current games.

And saying NVIDIA has excellent drivers... if you'd only know what kind of bullshit problems I'm going through with NVIDIA for months now... And all connected to monumentally fucked up V-Sync logic. Horrible image tearing and corruption all over the place for videos in various V-Sync states. Something I never experienced on any Radeon for years. I mean, how can one fuck up V-Sync? Like, seriously? And yeah, NVIDIA Control Panel is garbage. It's buggy as hell, horrendously slow, loaded with dumb glitches all over the place and all this has existed for years. Just shows the QA levels at NVIDIA and how much their users give a F about quality and experience. I'd be furious to pay 800€ for a graphic card which is then controlled with such utter garbage UI. Which explains why I'm furious about it right here. When you have the fastest graphic card in the world and you still go and check RX Vega offerings (twice!), one might ask the question what's wrong with it... Yeah, it's ridiculously fast. When it works. When it doesn't (and that seems to be happening a lot), it's the biggest dumpster fire I've seen in last decade. At least their tech support does respond in a timely fashion and they aren't complete idiots like I'm used with most tech supports.
GM200,GP100,GP102,and currently GV100 seem to point that while it is more difficult to make bigger chips, we've come so far with technology it's actuallly never been more feasible. Nvidia can do a 600mm2 GM200 DDR5 in 28nm at 250W TDP and a 815mm2 GV100 at 300W, Vega is 480mm2 HBM2 at 350W in 14nm. AMD need an architectural overhaul, GCN was good in first three or four rounds against Kepler and Maxwell but now it's got no legs left. No wonder Raja jumped ship.

About the other part of your post I'm just gonna say there's probably something wrong with either your system or you personally if your experience with nvidia software is THAT awful. Judging by your tone I'm guessing the latter. I've had GTX980,980Ti and now 1080, been with nvidia since Maxwell released in 2014. Never had v-sync tearing or image tearing and corruption in videos in my rig although I've seen it in many of my crappy workplace computers equipped with GeForce GT210, Win Vista/XP and some ancient hardware. Nvcp can be slow but never seen it have glitches or bugs. It's been an issue in the past that you had to restart to make a transition form g-sync to ulmb, now it switches effortlessly between gsync,ulmb,v-sync or fast sync. Dude, you're PMSing all over this thread. Stahp!
Posted on Reply
#36
wtfbbqlol
Interesting article from HardOCP last year...

www.hardocp.com/article/2016/05/27/from_ati_to_amd_back_journey_in_futility#.V0hUUmOdPlI
Where the plot thickens is when you look at the Koduri’s unwavering ambition. Koduri’s ultimate goal is to separate the Radeon Technologies Group from its corporate parent at all costs with the delusion that RTG will be more competitive with NVIDIA and become a possible acquisition target for Koduri and his band of mutineers to cash in when it's sold. While Koduri is known to have a strong desire to do this by forging a new relationship with Apple on custom parts (no surprise there) for Macbooks, the real focus is on trying to become the GPU technology supplier of choice to none other than Intel. While this was speculated some time ago I can tell you with certainty that a deal is in the works with Intel and Koduri and his team of marauders working overtime to get the deal pulled into port ASAP. The Polaris 10/11 launch, and all of its problems, are set to become a future problem of Intel’s in what RTG believes will be a lucrative agreement that will allow Koduri and his men to slash the lines from Lisa Su and the rest of AMD.
Posted on Reply
#37
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
Threads gotten boring to me already.

/thread
Posted on Reply
#38
RejZoR
cucker tarlsonGM200,GP100,GP102,and currently GV100 seem to point that while it is more difficult to make bigger chips, we've come so far with technology it's actuallly never been more feasible. Nvidia can do a 600mm2 GM200 DDR5 in 28nm at 250W TDP and a 815mm2 GV100 at 300W, Vega is 480mm2 HBM2 at 350W in 14nm. AMD need an architectural overhaul, GCN was good in first three or four rounds against Kepler and Maxwell but now it's got no legs left. No wonder Raja jumped ship.

About the other part of your post I'm just gonna say there's probably something wrong with either your system or you personally if your experience with nvidia software is THAT awful. Judging by your tone I'm guessing the latter. I've had GTX980,980Ti and now 1080, been with nvidia since Maxwell released in 2014. Never had v-sync tearing or image tearing and corruption in videos in my rig although I've seen it in many of my crappy workplace computers equipped with GeForce GT210, Win Vista/XP and some ancient hardware. Nvcp can be slow but never seen it have glitches or bugs. It's been an issue in the past that you had to restart to make a transition form g-sync to ulmb, now it switches effortlessly between gsync,ulmb,v-sync or fast sync. Dude, you're PMSing all over this thread. Stahp!
Judging by my tone it's the latter? No, my tone comes from paying fucking 800€ for a graphic card that has a piece of shit software used to power it. Gotta love the fanboyish denial. "Gotta be your system or you". No pal, it's NVIDIA and their garbage software. It was broken back when I had GTX 980 and it just got even more broken as I own GTX 1080Ti. The problems are very much reproducible and appear only under certain conditions. First it was constant Youtube video corruption with Fast V-Sync enabled, now it's horrible image tearing of Youtube with Adaptive or Fast V-Sync enabled, but it's only happening in Chrome and Opera (not in Edge or Firefox). And my eagle eyes spotted the tearing easily. I bet most people are so blind they don't even know the image is tearing in front of their eyes. It's not bothering them, but it sure as hell is bothering me. DSR for example will default to 60Hz at 4K to 1080p output even though I have a 144Hz screen which makes image painful to watch as it's flickering unlike with 144Hz where it doesn't, meaning I can't even use DSR because it physically hurts my eyes. Reported it, they didn't fix jack shit. Oh and DSR doesn't even work if you don't reboot the system. They of course don't mention this anywhere so you look like a retard trying to enable new resolution which isn't there because you didn't reboot. This bug was introduced recently because I know it worked straight away back on GTX 980. Reported both, they fixed none.

As for the "never seen any NV CP glitches". C'mon, go into the main graphics settings, scroll all the way down, change something and click apply. Not that it takes freaking 5 seconds to apply, the whole menu will also jump back to the top every single god damn time. If I had my own software and was behaving like this I'd fire the idiots working in QA department. It's utterly unforgivable that products that cost nearly 4 digit prices are supported by eternally broken and glitched software. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but again, it sure as hell does bother me. I'm a part of freelance QA team for avast! Antivirus and we bitch and complain to the development team to fix all such bugs till they fix them. Because it's just completely unprofessional to allow such even so tiny bugs in any kind of product that people spend money on. Hell, I'd be ashamed to have such bugs in software that was provided entirely free of charge. Why people defend and dismiss bugs as "non existent" or "unimportant" is beyond me.

AMD's original control panel was pretty bad. Then they introduced CCC. It was a bit glitchy back then, but I already loved it over NVIDIA's. The new Crimson Control Panel is just sublime to use. It's ultra responsive, well organized, applies settings instantly and provides awesome features for overclocking and monitoring. NVIDIA on the other hand has the exact same panel they had back in 2004. And it's just as broken and bad as it was back then. They don't even bother fixing or improving it because people like you apparently endlessly defend it for god knows what reasons and they just say to themselves "Well, if they aren't bothered by endless bugs, why bother fixing them at all". And the result is visible when you open idiotic NV CP.

This is why I was gravitating towards RX Vega because of vastly better experience with drivers and software, but ultimately decided for GTX 1080Ti because it was a "better value" at the moment. I guess I greatly misjudged it, because software part is pissing me off beyond belief. Sure, when it works it's very fast, but ever since I bought it I'm dealing with dumb ass bugs and glitches and I'm getting really tired of them. And they aren't even 3D related ffs. It's all being broken in browsers (which I happen to use a lot which makes it a very important thing).
Posted on Reply
#39
nemesis.ie
cadaveca. I went through 10 replacement 5870's trying to get CrossfireX and Eyefinity working right, and nothing has improved since then. They hyped features, but the features are broken, every generation since.

Meanwhile, I am typing this on a 7970.... and Ryzen. I use all hardware, but for gaming, I chose NV, because for the games I play, they work better.
Do you mean just on the 7970/cards that age? I've seen huge improvements over the last few years (290Xes in CF).
Posted on Reply
#40
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
If you're forced by budgetary restraints to focus on a compute heavy card, it'll always suffer in games against a more streamlined product (Pascal). Not having product bifurcation harms AMD. That being said, Vega was a huge dissapointment. Fury X was a competent underdog/match/victor to 980ti but Vega stillk tussles with a 1080 (OC factoring in). How do you fall so far behind?

Regardless, the Intel space is now far more interesting to watch. If Intel has any IP rights in their AMD deal, they might be able to drastically improve the mobile format with their bazillions of $$$.
Posted on Reply
#41
CandymanGR
Thank God he 's leaving. Maybe now AMD can become REALLY competitive again in the GPU market.
Posted on Reply
#42
rtwjunkie
PC Gaming Enthusiast
EarthDogNow where was that other thread and who said he would be back? :p
I know you're just having a bit of sport, but I was one of those. His letter gave no indication at all he would not be back. It was a sabbattical. Apparently he found himself early on in his sabbattical.

People who said he wouldn't be back were just engaging in the endless fantasy story making that has become the way of life for many here. Or they don't understand the word sabbattical. I go by facts, and have no problem if facts change (which they did here).
Posted on Reply
#43
Xzibit
the54thvoidIf you're forced by budgetary restraints to focus on a compute heavy card, it'll always suffer in games against a more streamlined product (Pascal). Not having product bifurcation harms AMD. That being said, Vega was a huge dissapointment. Fury X was a competent underdog/match/victor to 980ti but Vega stillk tussles with a 1080 (OC factoring in). How do you fall so far behind?

Regardless, the Intel space is now far more interesting to watch. If Intel has any IP rights in their AMD deal, they might be able to drastically improve the mobile format with their bazillions of $$$.
They're just buying the chips.
MarketWatchIt’s worth noting that both Intel and AMD are insistent that this is not a licensing deal of any kind; that Intel is simply becoming a customer of AMD’s semi-custom division.
Posted on Reply
#44
Liviu Cojocaru
IMO AMD is preparing to sell the Radeon Group...they need the capital and the latest moves are indicating this(my opinion)
Posted on Reply
#45
bug
etayoriusIf he goes to intel, Radeon Buyout incoming.
StrayKATI still don't understand what he did so badly. I don't keep up with this, but why do even AMD fans dislike him? Seems like supply and mining craze is a big problem, but that can't be predicted (this guy wouldn't even need a job if his prediction powers were that awesome).
Rumour has it he practically steered the whole RTG creation and subsequent development into a means of getting Intel to buy it. And that he made enemies of practically everyone involved, but ms Su.
I never read much into that (still don't), but atm it seems to add up.
Posted on Reply
#46
Noyand
RejZoRJudging by my tone it's the latter? No, my tone comes from paying fucking 800€ for a graphic card that has a piece of shit software used to power it. Gotta love the fanboyish denial. "Gotta be your system or you". No pal, it's NVIDIA and their garbage software. It was broken back when I had GTX 980 and it just got even more broken as I own GTX 1080Ti. The problems are very much reproducible and appear only under certain conditions. First it was constant Youtube video corruption with Fast V-Sync enabled, now it's horrible image tearing of Youtube with Adaptive or Fast V-Sync enabled, but it's only happening in Chrome and Opera (not in Edge or Firefox). And my eagle eyes spotted the tearing easily. I bet most people are so blind they don't even know the image is tearing in front of their eyes. It's not bothering them, but it sure as hell is bothering me. DSR for example will default to 60Hz at 4K to 1080p output even though I have a 144Hz screen which makes image painful to watch as it's flickering unlike with 144Hz where it doesn't, meaning I can't even use DSR because it physically hurts my eyes. Reported it, they didn't fix jack shit. Oh and DSR doesn't even work if you don't reboot the system. They of course don't mention this anywhere so you look like a retard trying to enable new resolution which isn't there because you didn't reboot. This bug was introduced recently because I know it worked straight away back on GTX 980. Reported both, they fixed none.

As for the "never seen any NV CP glitches". C'mon, go into the main graphics settings, scroll all the way down, change something and click apply. Not that it takes freaking 5 seconds to apply, the whole menu will also jump back to the top every single god damn time. If I had my own software and was behaving like this I'd fire the idiots working in QA department. It's utterly unforgivable that products that cost nearly 4 digit prices are supported by eternally broken and glitched software. Maybe it doesn't bother you, but again, it sure as hell does bother me. I'm a part of freelance QA team for avast! Antivirus and we bitch and complain to the development team to fix all such bugs till they fix them. Because it's just completely unprofessional to allow such even so tiny bugs in any kind of product that people spend money on. Hell, I'd be ashamed to have such bugs in software that was provided entirely free of charge. Why people defend and dismiss bugs as "non existent" or "unimportant" is beyond me.

AMD's original control panel was pretty bad. Then they introduced CCC. It was a bit glitchy back then, but I already loved it over NVIDIA's. The new Crimson Control Panel is just sublime to use. It's ultra responsive, well organized, applies settings instantly and provides awesome features for overclocking and monitoring. NVIDIA on the other hand has the exact same panel they had back in 2004. And it's just as broken and bad as it was back then. They don't even bother fixing or improving it because people like you apparently endlessly defend it for god knows what reasons and they just say to themselves "Well, if they aren't bothered by endless bugs, why bother fixing them at all". And the result is visible when you open idiotic NV CP.

This is why I was gravitating towards RX Vega because of vastly better experience with drivers and software, but ultimately decided for GTX 1080Ti because it was a "better value" at the moment. I guess I greatly misjudged it, because software part is pissing me off beyond belief. Sure, when it works it's very fast, but ever since I bought it I'm dealing with dumb ass bugs and glitches and I'm getting really tired of them. And they aren't even 3D related ffs. It's all being broken in browsers (which I happen to use a lot which makes it a very important thing).
If you are going in the programm setting tab, you can change the v-sync value for chrome and opera. And I though that the DSR issue had already been discussed in the nvidia driver thread, were it worked fine for most people and the one other guy that had an issue with it managed to make it work without a reboot. For me it's working fine without a reboot, so you can't call this a generality. The only thing that seems to be a common issue for most users is the v-sync, and the slugginess of the Nvcp.
Posted on Reply
#47
EarthDog
rtwjunkieI know you're just having a bit of sport, but I was one of those. His letter gave no indication at all he would not be back. It was a sabbattical. Apparently he found himself early on in his sabbattical.

People who said he wouldn't be back were just engaging in the endless fantasy story making that has become the way of life for many here. Or they don't understand the word sabbattical. I go by facts, and have no problem if facts change (which they did here).
saying he wouldnt be back was just as much of a guess as he would.

Ill say again... "Sabbatical". :)
Posted on Reply
#48
Evildead666
Liviu CojocaruIMO AMD is preparing to sell the Radeon Group...they need the capital and the latest moves are indicating this(my opinion)
Yeah, right.

If they sell the Radeon Group, no more APU's, no more console Chips.
All it would leave them with is Ryzen.

AMD is fine, this is a small bump in the road, and people are imagining wierd things, without thinking.

AMD is selling CPU's and GPU's just fine.
They just aren't as big as Intel or Nvidia.
Posted on Reply
#49
Vya Domus
cadavecaBecause the games that this user is playing do not have issues on NV hardware.
Which exemplifies nothing more than sheer luck , let's put an end to this illusion about "perfect Nvidia drivers".

Nvidia has it's fair share of problems and issues and it's not necessarily their fault , these things have garnered so much complexity you have to be really ignorant to believe nothing ever goes wrong.
Posted on Reply
#50
Liviu Cojocaru
Evildead666Yeah, right.

If they sell the Radeon Group, no more APU's, no more console Chips.
All it would leave them with is Ryzen.

AMD is fine, this is a small bump in the road, and people are imagining wierd things, without thinking.

AMD is selling CPU's and GPU's just fine.
They just aren't as big as Intel or Nvidia.
With the money that they would get from selling the RTG they would be able to improve their CPU segment and be competitive as they were before with the Athlon 64 ;) . What AMD is able to do right now is just to offer decent products in both segments but nothing spectacular. IMO if they focus on only creating great CPU's they should do just fine without the GPU side of the business and if Intel decides to invest in the GPU business they have the potential and capital to make it work ;)
Just an opinion
Posted on Reply
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