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
Just a short reminder to be sure we're discussing the same thing. Stock price comes from future earnings (mostly*). Agree? :)
You're making a product. You're earning 1 cent per item.
You fire your cleaning lady. Now you're earning 6 cents per item.
You didn't improve your product. You didn't improve the sales. Your stock price went up sixfold.
*) there's also some minimal stock price that reflects assets (both physical and intangible)
AMD was unprofitable for a long time and they had financial losses in their forecasts.
Now AMD is making a profit, so the price reflects the expected cashflow.
It doesn't really matter if it went up 6-fold since 2014, since the level you compare to has no meaning profit-wise. What will matter, is what happens in 2018 and 2019, i.e. whether they'll manage to match the forecast profitability or not.Depends how you define "little". The technology behind their products is better, but it's not translating into sales.This text is clearly one-sided and not really written to a level I'd expect from a news site. Unless we agree this is an opinion site.
Seriously:
"Intel, which is saddled with not just a dated CPU architecture peppered with security holes"
"Intel, which is saddled with not just a dated CPU architecture peppered with security holes"
I mean, is it not true? Whiskey lake is still basically Skylake. It finally has some security holes plugged in hardware, but not all. Sure, AMD has their problems with security too, as does just about anybody who made a processor in the last 20 years, but based on what we know, Intel's are worse and they have more of them.
Now take a deep breath and remind yourself the last time you've seen sales statistics that confirm this thesis.You think too much about subjective product quality and too little about sales. Even if AMD's desktop CPU market share is now 12% instead of 8% or something like that. They're still small compared to Intel. Nothing changed here.
In fact, the limited figures we have don't add up very well. AMD was selling cheap CPUs for the last few years. Ryzen stuff is twice as expensive. It suggests that, while revenue is clearly going up, volume remained on similar level.I'm talking about ethics and objectivity. About how this is presented in a text.
Intel's architecture is old, but is it dated? Most people here agree that it's still more compelling than Ryzen. Even the hardcore AMD fanboys say that "we're almost there!" or "the difference is very small anyway".
Intel's architecture has security holes, but which isn't? Intel is at least being properly tested (because of market share in servers).
I'm not saying that the author is an AMD supported (not here - in next paragraph). He might be just an enthusiast who admires AMD's work (innovative, very enthusiast/gamer-oriented) and despise Intel's (conservative, enterprise-oriented, somehow dull and slow). But the way he shows this is below the quality that I'd like to see from a journalist. I know this is not The Times, but we're allowed to expect some professionalism, right?
As for the journalism comments... I for one would find the words "old" and "dated" synonymous. And the architecture is old. Whiskey lake is basically Skylake 4. Such comments are not spared for AMD either, with their long history of re-hashing GCN. As for the number of people who find it more compelling than Ryzen? We've got a fair amount on either side. Saying the architecture is old and peppered with security holes is not only true, it's an advantage AMD currently enjoys over Intel. It's likely helped them gain some sales in the server market.
amietia.com/q2pt.html
Vega would defiantly do better than that for the record. All they need is a multi-chip GPU that's like a quad-core VEGA and PCI-E 4.0 x16 and it would crush at Quake 2. Ray tracing is far more parallel friendly than rasterization. AMD should just lock out SLI on PCI-E 4.0 boards and capitalize on ray tracing's parallelism and they'll win that fight pretty easily. I mean besides one less license to pay for.
Because I believe it's correct - that's why. :)
I've never said AMD has no sales. But it does seem like they sell more or less the same number of CPUs as before Zen - just at a higher price point. Numbers add up pretty well.So have you seen any market share information? Would you mind sharing it?:) Because I've seen none sensible enough.
But I do have a laugh once in a while looking back at the ecstasy PassMark created last year. Not to look very far:
www.techpowerup.com/234864/passmark-stats-indicate-amd-gaining-market-share-vs-intel-thanks-to-ryzen
As for stock price... Why not care about it at all? This is not a financial forum and the crypto period shown financial knowledge is weak within the members. :p
Just a suggestion from me: notice how AMD stock price moves each time a dude from a brokerage firm says "7nm". No new tech, no new financial statement, no sales info. But a "recommendation" arrives and AMD stock jumps 5-10% daily.Are they? On TPU? :)So you believe there are less holes in Ryzen?
Are you aware of the fact that AMD still hasn't officially confirmed that Zen is resistant to Meltdown? :)
As for "old"... well. I doubt any great redesigning is needed in camp Intel. Their 10nm CPUs will be very similar. 5nm should be as well, if they ever happen.
A good product works for a long time. It just needs some tuning and a refresh once in a while. There's no reason why Skylake wouldn't live for another 3-4 generations.
AMD for some reason can't find a long-time recipe. Once in a while they make a big splash with something new which sometimes sticks (Zen) and sometimes doesn't (Vega). Thing is though, with this kind of approach, you never have enough money or manpower to push the idea further.
Just how long will the Ryzen party keep going? Will 7nm help at all?
I believe some people will keep calling Intel's arch "old" whatever happens.
Few weeks from now we'll have an "old", "dated" architecture 8C/16T doing 5GHz and a "new", "innovative" one bouncing off 4.5GHz.*alleged* - unless you have any figures :p
And it isn't so radical that I can't run the same games or something on it.
As for the old architecture, well, it is old... We're on Skylake 4 now. As far back as my memory goes, we had a few variations of Netburst, Core 2, Nehalem, then we had Sandy Bridge, and Ivy Bridge, which was reworked Sandy, Haswell and Broadwell, then... Skylake, 4 times over. At least with Skylake 1, we got the same little bit of performance increase and efficiency we saw since Sandy. Now we just get more cores lopped in, which, don't get me wrong, is a good thing, but it doesn't serve to increase performance where single thread performance is important. That's my problem with AMD right now (who does have a new architecture), they still haven't beaten Intel there.
I look forward to seeing what Zen 2 does... but I also remain wary of all these security flaws and crappy mitigations... so it's still pretty meh for me right now.
But they're not running out of ideas. If you really want something different, it depends on Windows (and it's users) moving forward along with them. Easier said than done.
AMD Releases response to meltdown and spectre exploitsJust when one thought that post cannot get any worse...
That strange connection between FUD: Fear Uncertainty Doubt and amd haters.