Wednesday, September 12th 2018
AMD CEO Speaks with Jim Cramer About the "Secret Sauce" Behind its Giant-Killing Spree
Jim Cramer of CNBC Mad Money interviewed AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su on the floor of the NYSE remarking her company as the year's biggest tech turnaround stories. The two spoke a variety of topics, including how the company went from a single-digit stock and a loss-making entity to one of the hottest tech-stocks, which threatens both Intel and NVIDIA. Dr. Su placed emphasis on taking long term strategic decisions that bear fruit years down the line.
"We decided to make the right investments. Technology is all about making the right choices, where we're going to invest, and where we're not going to invest...three or four years ago, it was mobile phones, tablets, and IoT that were the sexy things, and we were like 'hey we know that those are good markets, but those are not AMD.' We focused on what we thought the future would hold for us," said Dr. Su. "We are making decisions now that you won't see the outcome of for the next 3-5 years. We're making some good decisions," she added.
AMD Can Stay Competitive Even If Intel Sorts Out Its Foundry Mess
AMD is armed with a deep CPU architecture roadmap going all the way down to "Zen 5," stated Dr. Su. She seems to express pride in some of the investment decisions taken in designing AMD processors, such as the way AMD is building its EPYC chips (a multi-chip module as opposed to a monolithic die that would have eaten up far more resources to design and manufacture alongside a smaller die). Right now AMD only has to manage two dies - a CPU-only die that builds Ryzen and EPYC processors; and a CPU+GPU die for Ryzen with Vega APUs and some of the company's mobile Ryzen SKUs.
There Can Be Many Winners in the GPU Market
Cramer's interview focused on the secrets behind AMD's giant-killing feat against Intel, which is saddled with not just a dated CPU architecture peppered with security holes, but also silicon fabrication foundry issues that are preventing an advance from 14 nanometer. Dr. Su mentioned that AMD does not count on competitors underperforming, and is mindful that the competition is "very strong." Towards the end of the interview, almost like a "one more thing," question, Cramer questioned how AMD's rivalry with NVIDIA is going. Dr. Su's response was crafty.
In the first part of her response to that question, she mentioned that "competition is good for the marketplace and GPUs is a great market, but I've always said that there can be multiple winners in this market." With this, AMD hinted that although its market-share in the discrete gaming GPU market is on the decline, there are areas where the company is winning. AMD rode, although conservatively, the crypto-mining boom over the last year with highly marked-up graphics cards; and is dominating the game console semi-custom SoC market.
AMD is Helping Both Microsoft and Sony with Their Own "Secret Sauce"
Elaborating on AMD's partnerships with competing firms Microsoft and Sony (in the gaming console market), Dr. Su stated that her company is providing semi-custom chips, and is helping both firms develop their own "secret sauce" for their consoles. The partnership with Microsoft spans not just consoles but also Windows and Azure. AMD could be working with Microsoft in future cloud-computing projects driven by its EPYC and Radeon Pro/Instinct products. "Our strength is that we can work with all customers and we can differentiate for each one of them."
You can catch the full video in the source link below.
Source:
CNBC
"We decided to make the right investments. Technology is all about making the right choices, where we're going to invest, and where we're not going to invest...three or four years ago, it was mobile phones, tablets, and IoT that were the sexy things, and we were like 'hey we know that those are good markets, but those are not AMD.' We focused on what we thought the future would hold for us," said Dr. Su. "We are making decisions now that you won't see the outcome of for the next 3-5 years. We're making some good decisions," she added.
AMD is armed with a deep CPU architecture roadmap going all the way down to "Zen 5," stated Dr. Su. She seems to express pride in some of the investment decisions taken in designing AMD processors, such as the way AMD is building its EPYC chips (a multi-chip module as opposed to a monolithic die that would have eaten up far more resources to design and manufacture alongside a smaller die). Right now AMD only has to manage two dies - a CPU-only die that builds Ryzen and EPYC processors; and a CPU+GPU die for Ryzen with Vega APUs and some of the company's mobile Ryzen SKUs.
There Can Be Many Winners in the GPU Market
Cramer's interview focused on the secrets behind AMD's giant-killing feat against Intel, which is saddled with not just a dated CPU architecture peppered with security holes, but also silicon fabrication foundry issues that are preventing an advance from 14 nanometer. Dr. Su mentioned that AMD does not count on competitors underperforming, and is mindful that the competition is "very strong." Towards the end of the interview, almost like a "one more thing," question, Cramer questioned how AMD's rivalry with NVIDIA is going. Dr. Su's response was crafty.
In the first part of her response to that question, she mentioned that "competition is good for the marketplace and GPUs is a great market, but I've always said that there can be multiple winners in this market." With this, AMD hinted that although its market-share in the discrete gaming GPU market is on the decline, there are areas where the company is winning. AMD rode, although conservatively, the crypto-mining boom over the last year with highly marked-up graphics cards; and is dominating the game console semi-custom SoC market.
AMD is Helping Both Microsoft and Sony with Their Own "Secret Sauce"
Elaborating on AMD's partnerships with competing firms Microsoft and Sony (in the gaming console market), Dr. Su stated that her company is providing semi-custom chips, and is helping both firms develop their own "secret sauce" for their consoles. The partnership with Microsoft spans not just consoles but also Windows and Azure. AMD could be working with Microsoft in future cloud-computing projects driven by its EPYC and Radeon Pro/Instinct products. "Our strength is that we can work with all customers and we can differentiate for each one of them."
You can catch the full video in the source link below.
99 Comments on AMD CEO Speaks with Jim Cramer About the "Secret Sauce" Behind its Giant-Killing Spree
I guess what AMD is trying to do now is make a ton of money (or market cap), and make a big investment in a brand new GPU architecture (i.e. not a GCN evolution), after it achieves sufficient financial cushion. Until then it will be a pest for NVIDIA.
It does appear as though AGESA is a 'take it if you please' kind of thing for motherboard vendors. I've noticed that not all vendors offer the absolute latest release, while some seem to offer just about every single release.
Oh. Hang on a sec...
This is why I think AMD will only invest in a new big GPU if that GPU can crush NVIDIA's big GPU. Until then it will stick to lower segments (bigger market), or semi-custom work. Investment into said big GPU will only happen when AMD has a ton of disposable income from selling CPUs.
If Lisa Su is as smart as I hope she is, she will spin-off Radeon as a separate company once she's confident AMD has a CPU market leadership that is sustainable.
Nvidia barely made profit on Tegra (considering R&D costs). 20 millions chips is not that much btw. 1/4 of PS4 total sales.
Not alwys for business news reasons. :p
It's really strange to such glowing positivity about Zen, but negativity about Vega. It's not that even bad! * Says the oddball Intel user with Vega*
7nm should solve some of this.
Vega 64 is around GTX 1080 performance I think. So it's decent.
Xaffects perf/W with all the Jigarays.There is also the issue of drivers. 18.5.1 was a great driver, but all the 18.6, 18.7, and 18.8 drivers have been hot garbage, with blackscreen crashes and outright system freezes reported by many users (myself included).
I want AMD to succeed, I just bought a ryzen 1700 and am eagerly awaiting zen 2, but AMD has the consistent problem of after-sale support, and once they prioritize one part (CPUs) they let the other parts (GPU, driver teams) wither on the vine.
This notion that their GPU division is a liability to AMD is just plain wrong. If anything it was the only reliable source of revenue ever since they acquired it.