Monday, September 12th 2022

Robert Hallock Announces His Departure from AMD

by
TheLostSwede
 Discuss (45 Comments)
AMD's Technical Marketing Director, Robert Hallock has decided to leave the company after 12+ years with the company, to "explore new opportunities and experiences" as he puts in a post on LinkedIn. He apparently left the company last Friday, but only shared the news today. "After just over 12 adventure-packed years at AMD, I'm leaving to explore new opportunities and experiences. Over the years, I've had the honor and privilege of publicly teaching others about some truly stellar innovation: the Zen core family, 3D V-Cache, chiplet packaging, HBM memory, FreeSync, low-overhead graphics APIs, and much more. After working in both graphics and processors for roughly 6 years each, I've learned so much."

He thanked several current and ex colleagues at AMD, as well as thanking the PC hardware reviewer community and the AMD community on Reddit and Discord among others. He ended his post by saying he'll be taking some time off to travel and think about what he'll be doing next, so it doesn't seem like he has any fixed plans for the future.
Source: Robert Hallock on LinkedIn

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45 Comments on Robert Hallock Announces His Departure from AMD

#26
Bwaze


But Hallock was responsible for some disinformation in the Zen 2 era, where he "applied" (on a blackboard) a PBO+ 200 MHz overclock on top of boost frequency, and then none could achieve anything remotely similar, not even with custom water cooling. Of course it was excused "just as an example".
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#27
noel_fs
honestly they could do so much better
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#28
Aretak
AMD haven't been this DOOOOOOOOMED since Raja left. Might as well wind up the company now.
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#29
AusWolf
cvaldesThe whole valley is based on people leaving for something better.
That's the thing - he's not leaving for something better. He's just leaving.
cvaldesBut he likely has enough money where he doesn't need to get a job right away.
That might be an explanation, but somehow, I doubt it.
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#30
prtskg
Robert is leaving at peak. That's responsible behaviour. Most of tech company would love to hire him.
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#31
Chomiq
Good luck to him, for a regular Joe it wouldn't be a good time to look for a job.
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#32
[XC] Oj101
tabascosauzRobert didn't always offer more information than AMD's slides/common knowledge
It's not always allowed. Even with a signed NDA, the consumer sales manager and a regional senior brand manager for a large vendor won't say much about a lot at the moment. Speaking to the general public would be even tighter.
AusWolfLeaving a well-paid steady job to "explore new opportunities". What a load of shite! People usually say this after a disagreement with management.
Or he wanted to leave two years ago, or he feels his job has become stale, or or or... I couldn't imagine the 12th year of employment being as exciting as the first.
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#33
AusWolf
[XC] Oj101Or he wanted to leave two years ago, or he feels his job has become stale, or or or... I couldn't imagine the 12th year of employment being as exciting as the first.
I can't really think of a job that doesn't become stale after two weeks, so that's a good point.
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#34
[XC] Oj101
AusWolfI can't really think of a job that doesn't become stale after two weeks, so that's a good point.
I've previously left employment without having anything lined up, not because the job was BAD as such, but because the lack of excitement was taking its toll and it was a better idea to cut back on expenses for a few months rather than stick around until I found something new/something presented itself. If you have money in the bank and the type of resume he has, there is absolutely no reason to stick to a job you no longer enjoy. Mental well-being can be as important as financial well-being, and if your finances are rosy you may as well bail at the first opportunity.
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#35
SpittinFax
There are some cases where employees leave a job and don't have anything lined up, but they are a small percentage. In the majority of cases, they obviously have another positioned already lined up and don't want anyone to know about it.

The first manager I worked under as a graduate put in his resignation and said he was "taking a big break to spend time with his family". Everyone was patting him on the back for being such a great family man. A few months later there was word spreading around the office of a competing firm that had just recently started up and......guess who was at the helm. Family man himself.
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#36
A Computer Guy
Bwaze

But Hallock was responsible for some disinformation in the Zen 2 era, where he "applied" (on a blackboard) a PBO+ 200 MHz overclock on top of boost frequency, and then none could achieve anything remotely similar, not even with custom water cooling. Of course it was excused "just as an example".
LOL I was just about to reply to the thread "You can't leave, I still haven't gotten that 200MHz yet!"
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#37
Shtb



I don't know about you, but for me Robert will remain as _unattainable_4.75GHz_Ryzen3000_ (on first wave of Zen2 - so exactly).

What made it so?
A flaw? Misunderstanding? Deception, after all?

Who knows, but what makes the most sense to the average consumer in the end?
The fact, that he didn't get what was claimed.
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#38
Bwaze
What made it even more dishonest was Der8auer's poll after the launch where it was shown most CPUs didn't even achieve the advertised boost clock. Not even for a millisecond.

And now? Now we're waiting what the 7950X's "up to 5.7 GHz" boost clock, or "5.85 GHz Fmax" even means. We're fine with that Ryzen's can't perform any task at boost frequency, not even a purely synthetic single thread one. Sure, we need performance, frequency by itself is quite meaningless. But how do we know our very expensive CPU is performing as advertised? Frequency is the only thing advertised, promised.
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#39
dirklongshanks
cvaldesIt's Silicon Valley. How do you think it came into existence? It's not like Intel, AMD, Nvidia were there from Day One.

The whole valley is based on people leaving for something better. Shockley, Fairchild, HP, and similar companies were the cradles for many of today's tech powerhouses. The place nurtures entrepreneurship.

Based on Hallock's 12 year tenure, I suspect that Hallock had a big pile of RSUs vest in 2020 (ten year anniversary of his hiring date) but due to the pandemic he decided to stay put. Remember, Santa Clara County was the first jurisdiction in the USA to mandate shelter-in-place orders from county health officer Dr. Sara Cody. Had there been no pandemic he likely would have left two years ago.

There are still plenty of job opportunities for someone with his experience in the industry. But he likely has enough money where he doesn't need to get a job right away.
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#40
AusWolf
BwazeWhat made it even more dishonest was Der8auer's poll after the launch where it was shown most CPUs didn't even achieve the advertised boost clock. Not even for a millisecond.

And now? Now we're waiting what the 7950X's "up to 5.7 GHz" boost clock, or "5.85 GHz Fmax" even means. We're fine with that Ryzen's can't perform any task at boost frequency, not even a purely synthetic single thread one. Sure, we need performance, frequency by itself is quite meaningless. But how do we know our very expensive CPU is performing as advertised? Frequency is the only thing advertised, promised.
What is the reason behind it? I used to have a 5950X and never figured it out.

The 3100 in my HTPC, in the other hand, maintains its 3.9 GHz boost clock all the time, even when all cores are tasked. The 5500 I built my brother's new PC around clocks at a constant 4.25 GHz as well.
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#41
A Computer Guy
BwazeWhat made it even more dishonest was Der8auer's poll after the launch where it was shown most CPUs didn't even achieve the advertised boost clock. Not even for a millisecond.
That was in the early days of Zen2 right? I think I disabled something called CPPC for a few AGESA updates and was able to get around the boosting problem until they fixed it.
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#42
Bwaze
A Computer GuyThat was in the early days of Zen2 right? I think I disabled something called CPPC for a few AGESA updates and was able to get around the boosting problem until they fixed it.
Yes, and Hallock was explaining the new PBO+ overclocking of boost frequencies just before the launch of Zen 2.

AMD then publicly acknowledged there is a bug in AGESA, and prepared the fix. It took quie a bit of time, and some motherboard vendors took even longer then to implement the new bios. Fix was confirmed to have worked in a poll, but later some users reported that subsequent bios releases again lowered the maximum boost frequency - but then there was no activism to confirm or deny that. The same happened with Zen 3, again noone organised wider consumer pressure to fix that.

But as we know, it didn't really matter, Ryzen processors don't perform any meaningful task at boost frequency. It's just a random high frequency CPU boosts to with very light load for a very short time, so it looks good on paper. The performance remained largely the same for processors that boosted properly and the ones that were missing the mark by as much as 200 MHz.
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#43
MarsM4N
SpittinFaxThere are some cases where employees leave a job and don't have anything lined up, but they are a small percentage. In the majority of cases, they obviously have another positioned already lined up and don't want anyone to know about it.
In the upper income range it's a whole different world. If you're already sitting on millions you just walk out. ;)

And you don't even care if you get fired for having a Youtube channel. Can't make this $h1t up. Silicon valley seems to be pretty facist.

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