AMD Prepares December Launch of Dual-GPU "Fiji" Graphics Card

[Musaab]

So... Retail about March or so?

That is the time frame for nVidia's Pascal lunch. Too late.

 

[Xzibit]

That is the time frame for nVidia's Pascal lunch. Too late.

Nvidia wont announce anything until Q2 2016 April at GTC. No GeForce Pascals have even leaked. All the Pascal leaks are for HPC variants so unless you plan on building a IBM/Nvidia HPC to run games you'll be waiting.

AMD announced Dual Fiji for Holiday 2015 at their Fiji event.

 

[The Von Matrices]

AMD announced Dual Fiji for Holiday 2015 at their Fiji event.

If they wanted to have it ready for holiday sales, it's already too late. I wouldn't expect any offical news until at least January to prevent people holding off from purchasing existing products.

 

[Musaab]

Nvidia wont announce anything until Q2 2016 April at GTC. No GeForce Pascals have even leaked. All the Pascal leaks are for HPC variants so unless you plan on building a IBM/Nvidia HPC to run games you'll be waiting.

AMD announced Dual Fiji for Holiday 2015 at their Fiji event.

The HPC leaks you are talking about is for Volta in 2017. NVIDIA showed a complete board before along time so what prevent NVIDIA from lunching new card in Q1 2016?

 

[rooivalk]

The HPC leaks you are talking about is for Volta in 2017. NVIDIA showed a complete board before along time so what prevent NVIDIA from lunching new card in Q1 2016?

Milking more money from maxwell is one. Why the rush?

 

[Xzibit]

If they wanted to have it ready for holiday sales, it's already too late. I wouldn't expect any offical news until at least January to prevent people holding off from purchasing existing products.

Holiday timeframe is between Thanksgiving and New Years.

The HPC leaks you are talking about is for Volta in 2017. NVIDIA showed a complete board before along time so what prevent NVIDIA from lunching new card in Q1 2016?

No, I'm not talking about Volta. All the leaks never mention any game variants GeForce cards only jumping to the conclusion that it will have 16GB. There hasn't been any proof of it yet. They could launch something but I bet they would announce it at a show.

 

[Musaab]

Milking more money from maxwell is one. Why the rush?

What rush? It's almost two years for Maxwell 2 it's the time for the new generation.

 

[Musaab]

Holiday timeframe is between Thanksgiving and New Years.



No, I'm not talking about Volta. All the leaks never mention any game variants GeForce cards only jumping to the conclusion that it will have 16GB. There hasn't been any proof of it yet. They could launch something but I bet they would announce it at a show.

There is no need to mention Geforce for the following:
1- Geforce is still the main product for nVidia so logically they will lunch to keep people interested.
2- they need to mass produce the chip to get acceptable cost.
3- any chip should be tested in consumers world before heading to business sector. Intel do the same.
4- They need card for DX12 4K.

 

[RealNeil]

Sounds pretty dang powerful, hope Nvidia can come back with something just as good.

I have a feeling that they will,................

 

[HumanSmoke]

So... Retail about March or so?

Well done. You're either prescient, or truly have your finger on the pulse of technology.....either that or you know AMD all too well.

Fury X2 paper launch in December. Actual availability late-March 2016.

At this rate the next architecture should be paper launched in January with retail availability at Labor Day.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Well done. You're either prescient, or truly have your finger on the pulse of technology.....either that or you know AMD all too well.

Fury X2 paper launch in December. Actual availability late-March 2016.

At this rate the next architecture should be paper launched in January with retail availability at Labor Day.

These should have been available shortly after launch of Fury if they wanted any sales (they would be this late even without supply constraint). This is just another waste of time and money. People will just wait for the new gen.

 

[PLAfiller]

AMD so consistent in killing VGA and DVI Such persistence... gotta respect that.

 

[medi01]

Here is the nano crossfire review (TPU):
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Nano_CrossFire/1.html

 

[heydan83]

Hope it really ship this month, we can really doubt it base in passed experience, but if they managed to have again the fastest card I don´t think it will be a late lunch, if they can give it a good advertising it will sell, right now the fastest card is the 295x2 and no one cares about that, no one talks about it, AMD needs more and better advertising.

 

[Serpent of Darkness]

AMD could launch its next-generation dual-GPU graphics card based on the "Fiji" silicon, some time in December. Codenamed "Fury-Gemini," the card features a pair of "Fiji" GPUs in an internal multi-GPU setup; and is cooled by an AIO liquid-cooling solution, much like the R9 Fury X.

Calling it codename "Fury-Gemini" is like calling it "Fury-Fails." Ya there's dual Fiji GPUs on a single PCB, but implying or bestowing the name "Gemini" is already sending flags that this product is going to be a POS. If people disagree with this train of thought, I have two words for you: Donald Trump. If members still disagree, don't hate on the truth, blame yourselves if you are Child of Duality (Gemini).

In fact while AMD forced to squeeze every single technology just to design the Fury family, nVidia had the 980Ti on shelf for months and they lunch it in less than two months, AMD was forced to use untested and expensive technology like memory on die AKA HBM and a base circuit AKA Interposer.
you said that Fury X rivals/beats a 980ti at 4k but only reference cards and no one buy them to keep them reference they mostly used in open loop water cooled systems with hugr overclocking.
You said with 2/3 of the Vram and a similar energy footprint and the 4GB HBM cost much moor than 6GB GDDR5 and the reduce in energy footprint came from the memory change not the GPU design itself.
About DX12 it's still early because the only test tell us that R9 390X, Fury x, GTX 980 and 980Ti perform the same.

I think your rhetoric is very bias to one side, and you're unwilling to provide merit to the opposing party. I'd agree with you to an extent, on the side, your basically saying "lets point out the failz of AMD" because in Musaab's world, AMD doesn't deserve a break, and they can't be having good moments of their own. It's a struggling company in competition with NVidia. The economy sucks, AMD is using new tech for this generation of top-tier, gaming graphic cards, their marketing sucks, and NVidia still has a major foothold into the market. You do what you want. You're entitled to voice your opinions, but I think you're just blowing the trumpets of how epic NVidia is over a topic of discussion about a Dual-GPU AMD Card in an indirect manner. It's a waste of time, and NVidia has it's own issues. Furthermore, I think it's good for business that AMD is coming out with a dual GPU graphic card because it basically shows they are still trying to produce a product that's in competition with NVidia. I doubt NVidia is going to produce a Dual GPU graphic card of it's own, but I'm probably 1:2 wrong. If I was NVidia, they'd still feel that burn on their rear from the GTX Titan-Z when Black basically cost 1/3 less ($3,000.00*(1/3) = $1,000.00) for the same or better performance. You can argue that it was pitched to the poor-rendering crowd, but it's a load of b.s. at best because rendering is still CPU heavy, and it depends on the rendering (AV codec or 3d content creation).

What dream is that?

That under a deluge of pessimism and huge financial debt they manage to manufacture a gfx card that rivals/beats a 980ti at 4k with 2/3 of the Vram and a similar energy footprint. The only dream AMD missed on was the overclocking part - which should never have been blurted out by the PR launch. Aside from that, Fiji is a very capable design and moreover, going forward, the underlying GCN architecture is exceptionally well placed for DX12.

Perhaps instead of trollish comments you should educate yourself more on how good AMD are at making very capable graphics hardware?

I'm am cheering AMD on for the next generation, flagship discrete graphic card. 14nm with HBM v2.0 is going to be sweet.

AMD keep sleeping cause your dream never come true

I found this hilarious, but you should give them props for being persistent...

2x4=8 ^^

Your math is correct, but it's actually 4GBs HBM v1.0 per Fiji GPU. The box will be marketed as having 8.0 GBs VRAM in total, but it's 4 GBs per Processes as it's always been on all Dual GPU Graphic Cards. Dedicated VRAM or framebuffer is not shared amongst both GPUs unless their's a new heterogeneous feature on AMD Cards that I am not aware of as of late. Therefore, 2( 1GPU + 1(4GB HBM Buffer)) = 1 discrete Fury-Gemini-failz Graphic Card.


In General:

My money is on AMD coming out with the Fury-Gemini-Failz after New Years. It's possible that they had a bunch of binned cards on the side before hand, and started sending stocks to Asus and others earlier. I'm thinking more in May and less in March. On NVidia's end, I'm putting my money on the idea that if a dual GPU-Maxwell 1.0 will be out around the time they push for Pascual. I think going with a Dual GPU approach on NVidia's end is fail. If I was NVidia, I'd want to push Pascual asap. Call it a GTX NVidia 1080, hold the Titan and Ti version until AMD makes a counter punch to it. Not only would it steal earnings from AMD's end, but you know consumers are going to buy it like it's hot the minute Newegg lists it on their site.

 

[Serpent of Darkness]

Here is the nano crossfire review (TPU):
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_Nano_CrossFire/1.html

The benches doesn't really matter unless W1zzard actually does Frame Time Variance Graphs. SLI/CrossfireX graphs on here can only tell you how much more performance you're going to get with an additional graphic card, or if there are scaling issues. There's no FPS to dollar metrics, or latency metrics in W1zzards benches. It doesn't tell you how many frames are dropping or when the graphic cards are producing zero frames. Furthermore, having these graphs tell the consumers (us) how the fps fluctuates during a game, and this all goes back to the issues of the AMD 7990 graphic cards: spikey curves. If the graph shows a lot of spikey curves that look sinusoidal along an average y-value, that's going to be a major issue.

A lot of NVidia cards typically have dropped frames on single cards, and run smoothly on SLI setups unless there is a driver issue in relation to the game. AMD is has it's qwerks, but it's got the software frame-pacing features that help it out. You're not going to see this in that link. Hense my point is the link is kind of irrelevant, but your efforts are appreciated.

 

[HumanSmoke]

My money is on AMD coming out with the Fury-Gemini-Failz after New Years. It's possible that they had a bunch of binned cards on the side before hand, and started sending stocks to Asus and others earlier. I'm thinking more in May and less in March.

If they can get them out before the 14nm/16nm hype train gets up a full head of steam, then it is job done. Dual-GPU cards are all about marketing. Beat the current incumbent (295X2) and it adds a little sales push down the product stack.

On NVidia's end, I'm putting my money on the idea that if a dual GPU-Maxwell 1.0 will be out around the time they push for Pascual. I think going with a Dual GPU approach on NVidia's end is fail.

Well, it wont be a Maxwell 1.0 duallie. There are only two Maxwell v1 GPUs, the GM108 and GM107, so the chances of a dual GTX 750 are about as remote as it gets considering Nvidia is phasing out those GPUs for GeForce judging by recent accounts (the NVS 810 while a dual GM107, is a specialized non-gaming/compute SKU) . As for Maxwell v2.0, I would tend to agree that Nvidia might shun a dual GeForce card. Kepler ended up with six dual-GPU cards, and with the exception of the Tesla M40, Nvidia doesn't seem overly interested in Maxwell as duallie

If I was NVidia, I'd want to push Pascual asap. Call it a GTX NVidia 1080

I'm sure they'd love to (once their inventories had cleared), but like AMD, they are still at the whim of TSMC's 16nmFF+ and Samsung/Hynix's HBM2 production ramps. I'd still bank on the first Pascal's being Tesla's going to HPC ( to combat Intel's Knight's Landing and proof of concept/test and validation for NVLink systems) and GRID cloud compute GPGPU services - Amazon (AWS) especially has a big investment in Tesla, and MS (Azure) also jumping on board in a growing market, I could see GeForce taking a back seat - unless Nvidia develop two top tier GPUs ( i.e. GP100 for pro markets, and a cut down GP102 stripped out of FP64 SFU's, smaller cache etc) for the gaming market.

All in all, I'd say that AMD need the PR a performance champ brings more than Nvidia. AMD might also need it for the horsepower for LiquidVR development, which would probably ameliorate the expense of a low-volume part and the GPU binning requirements.

 

[Musaab]

I think your rhetoric is very bias to one side, and you're unwilling to provide merit to the opposing party. I'd agree with you to an extent, on the side, your basically saying "lets point out the failz of AMD" because in Musaab's world, AMD doesn't deserve a break, and they can't be having good moments of their own. It's a struggling company in competition with NVidia. The economy sucks, AMD is using new tech for this generation of top-tier, gaming graphic cards, their marketing sucks, and NVidia still has a major foothold into the market. You do what you want. You're entitled to voice your opinions, but I think you're just blowing the trumpets of how epic NVidia is over a topic of discussion about a Dual-GPU AMD Card in an indirect manner. It's a waste of time, and NVidia has it's own issues. Furthermore, I think it's good for business that AMD is coming out with a dual GPU graphic card because it basically shows they are still trying to produce a product that's in competition with NVidia. I doubt NVidia is going to produce a Dual GPU graphic card of it's own, but I'm probably 1:2 wrong. If I was NVidia, they'd still feel that burn on their rear from the GTX Titan-Z when Black basically cost 1/3 less ($3,000.00*(1/3) = $1,000.00) for the same or better performance. You can argue that it was pitched to the poor-rendering crowd, but it's a load of b.s. at best because rendering is still CPU heavy, and it depends on the rendering (AV codec or 3d content creation).

Friend I am not very bias to one side. No not at all I am mad about how AMD is now This isn't the AMD I loved and respect ten years ago and all thanks to a fool named ( Hector Ruiz ) This man killed AMD ( http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-merge,1774.html ). AMD today is on Life Support Machine for the last five years and every one in business say ( Oh poor AMD they are All Most Dead ) they always think about how to fight Intel and nVidia instead of thinking how to go forward, How can you expect me to respect them. call me old style or whatever you want but if they by some way managed to go back to their glory days before Hector Ruiz then and only then they can gain back their respect and marker share. Thanks.

 

[Prima.Vera]

What are we doing with all those >60% of games out there that are not working properly with CFX configurations??

 

[medi01]

Calling it codename "Fury-Gemini" is like calling it "Fury-Fails." Ya there's dual Fiji GPUs on a single PCB, but implying or bestowing the name "Gemini" is already sending flags that this product is going to be a POS. If people disagree with this train of thought...

...then they might know that something called "Gemini" was one of the NASA's most successful projects ever and that led to US beating its arch-rival USSR in the moon race.

...to a fool named ( Hector Ruiz ) This man killed AMD ...

What a pile of BS.
GPUs is the the only reason AMD "semi-custom" division is so successful, basically the only reason, why AMD is still afloat.

 

[Musaab]

What a pile of BS.
GPUs is the the only reason AMD "semi-custom" division is so successful, basically the only reason, why AMD is still afloat.

I am not sure you can understand the situation. This semi-custom piece of trash is what turns AMD from company has 5 B$ in bank to use in 2005 to a company needs 2.5 B$ to pay their debt and will be sold in 2017 to cover that debt, they could be as big as Intel if Hector Ruiz just suck up his ego and let JHH be AMD's CEO.

 

[HumanSmoke]

What a pile of BS. GPUs is the the only reason AMD "semi-custom" division is so successful, basically the only reason, why AMD is still afloat.

1. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with buying ATI. What was wrong is that AMD borrowed $2bn of the $5.4bn total ( $2bn in loans, $2.3bn in cash, $1.1bn in shares) to make the purchase. That $2bn has been a yoke around AMD's neck since 2007 stifling R&D, causing the company to sell off its foundry business and its real estate, downsizing its workforce, and having a fire sale in selling off its mobile graphics IP to Qualcomm for a paltry $65m (worth a hell of a lot more now). AMD effectively overpaid by $2.63bn for ATI - that is, it lost just over half its purchase value inside eighteen months. If Hector had paid ATI's true value - and no one else was interested in buying ATI in 2006, AMD would not have had that $2bn debt burden. So, what you term " a pile of BS" is an actual fact.
2. There was nothing to stop AMD from licensing ATI's IP - that would have cost a damn sight less than $5.4bn, and would have kept ATI afloat as a separate graphics company.

 

[Serpent of Darkness]

...then they might know that something called "Gemini" was one of the NASA's most successful projects ever and that led to US beating its arch-rival USSR in the moon race.



What a pile of BS.
GPUs is the the only reason AMD "semi-custom" division is so successful, basically the only reason, why AMD is still afloat.

1. Please keep things within context.

2. NASA's Project was a success because of the employees who dedicated their efforts and work to NASA. The name "Gemini" doesn't empower it for the better or worst in the real world.

3. AMD is calling their up coming dual GPU "Fury-Gemini" from a marketing standpoint of view to invokes and encourage their consumers with the hype-factor. Just like the time when AMD called their R9-390x "Fury" after NVidia's Graphic Card were given the title of being called "Titan" for the "Ti" part. It's to improve sales. Again, this is something that doesn't improve the performance of the man-made product, but it implies the mental qualities and characteristics to them. To the old-Greeks, a Titan is equivalent to a God, but this doesn't instill God-like powers in the 900 Series NVidia Graphic Cards on a physical aspect.

4. Now you need to understand what AMD is implying on the side whether it's their point, or other points that have less value to them on the side. AMD is saying that their new product, the R9-390x X2 aka Fury-Gemini, from an astrologer or horoscope user's point of view, is empowered by the Zodiac Sign, Gemini. The features that you would find in a Gemini person is in this card. Gemini isn't a god. To most who are familiar with Zodiacs, it's a constellation that the sun is angled to, in May 20th to June 20th, that make people born under this sign.

5. What people will say in Greek Astrology and Modern Astrology about the Zodiac Gemini, is that they are cunning. The sign is dictated by the twins. Gemini people are great debaters, so I guess the R9-390x X2 is going to be a great debater too. They can argue their way out of a paper bag. A physical trait of Gemini people is the ability to talk really fast, and from their own point of view, they relate talking fast to having faster brains. So I guess that means the R9-390x X2 is going to be superfast, or it will talk to you... AMD is basically saying on the side that these traits are being instilled upon their product. Greek Gods associated with the sign could be Uranus or some other god that's air-related. Anything related to the air is their domain if you want to feed in to their egos.

6. Here is where I think part of the problem begins. Their problems begin when they can't physically produce a discrete video card that can't live up to the hype. That continues the decent or effect where people won't purchase their product because there is no real, higher performance gains. Demand doesn't go up, but it's dependent on how well the video card performs. If performance with the new AMD product doesn't go up, demand doesn't go up, sales don't go up either. There probably isn't really any point in purchasing an AMD dual GPU for $1,100.00 for the same performance as 2 Furys in CrossfireX. If it's a scenario where R9-390x X2 is like purchasing two Nano on a single PCB, and the power consumption is less than 2 Furys in CrossfireX, ok, that may persuade some consumers to purchase this new AMD Product. Other than that, I really don't see any good pitch to the sale other than the hype.

7. The Truth about the Gemini Zodiac is this. The sign basically represents dualistic natures upon everything, and that includes the Zodiacs themselves. If Taurus is a sign of Hope and physical existence, Gemini imposes duality on it, making it a sign of Anti-hope and lack of existence. If Scorpio is the sign of all the evil in the world, then it is also true that the dualistic opposite in Scorpio will be true too. It can be a sign for all the good that occurs. A lot of people don't realize that the Zodiacs are not about silly rhetoric guys use to pick up girls or nerdgasmic nonsense. The zodiacs are actually apart of religion, created by the Mesopotamians, passed down to the Hewbrews, Chrisitans, Eygptians, etc, and it's discretely integrated into society. The Tree of Life in Jewish Kabbalah associates the signs with different areas of the Tree. Christianity associates the Zodiacs with different Angels. Greeks associated the Zodiacs to the Pantheon. It basically explains one of three thing about religion: What is the connection between yourself (as an individual) and God. If the most simplest definition of the word "Religion" is "to have a connection with the sacred," the Zodiacs are the part called "a connection." People feel and believe that praying to God is their connection, but their are other connections--this of course is assuming that you believe in God, etc etc...

What traits does the Gemini Zodiac really instill on the card, indirectly? Well it's simple. AMD is basically saying that their new R9-390x x2 is a coward. Geminis will typically run away from all forms of conflict and hardships. If they commited a crime, Gemini typically want to run away from responsibilities or blame when they know they are the guilty party. If there's a task that's to difficult for the Gemini people, they tend to retreat or make up excuses so they don't have to perform the task. The worst part I find in them is they typically say one thing, or imply one meaning now, and it changes 2 minutes or 3 months down the line. Implying that they said something else. Gemini isn't really a wind element, it's an element of the human psyche. So you can't really say that the card is instilled with qualities that make it as fast as the wind, or related to some wind god from any random culture. If you understand the true meaning, and the other points that AMD is saying about the R9-390x X2, it's already a lost cause, in my opinion, for AMD. This is already taking into account that the card hasn't hits shelves yet.

8. If you think this is a load of bullcrap, then to whoever is reading this, I'd call you a partial idiot with an inability to see the deeper nitty-gritty details, or understand the more complex truths behind symbols.. Take for example the US 1 Dollar Bill. On the back, in the middle, there's an eagle at the center. In the Eagle's left hand or leg, you see it grasping a bunch of arrows. On it's right leg/hand, you see it grasping a tree branch. Ask yourself the most simplest, rational question: Why are they there, and what do they mean? A lot of people believe that the Eagle is related to the Romans. They have the Eagle symbols with the "SPOR" signs written on them. You see this in the movies. It's a symbol of power and might.

Truth is the Eagle is a symbol of Scorpio, and Scorpio are known by another name: Children of the Serpents. The eagle represents one of three aspects to Scorpio, and it represents dominates, military might, and power. It's the aspect of Scorpio that is the most dominate. There are three aspects. One is called the Scorpion, the Snake, and the Eagle. The Scorpion representing those who don't have power and suffer from hardships. The Snake representing those who seek power, and try to obtain it. The last is the Eagle, and it represents those who have the ability to dominate and subjugate others at will because they have the power.

Now if you are familiar with the right and left hand of Christianity, your Left hand represents your unholy hand, and your right hand represents your holy hand. Nuns would slap students with a ruler back in the days for writing with their left hands because it implies that their dominate hand is their unholy hand, and they'd want to discourage students from using it. People who use their unholy hand, have a tendency to do bad things. That's their train of thought back then. Similarly, the same situation applies to wedding bands. The wedding band goes on the index finger of your left hand, and this is done by both partners because of what what they are going to do after the wedding. The wedding band is a symbol of their joint relationship or ownership of one another, blessed by god. Back to the dollar bill, the arrows in the left hand of the Eagle represent Sagittarius, and the right hand represents Taurus. So what the Symbol is saying is that with our left hand, America (represented by the Eagle) will put it's enemies down with it's unholy left hand, and with it's holy right hand, it will generate wealth and hope for itself. The right hand also means that the actions of the eagle, is blessed and guided by God himself.

So what did you learn from all this? AMD is using symbols of Gemini to sell cards... I think the end-game is epic failures at best.

 

[HumanSmoke]

If you think this is a load of bullcrap, then to whoever is reading this, I'd call you a partial idiot with an inability to see the deeper nitty-gritty details, or understand the more complex truths behind symbols.. Take for example the US 1 Dollar Bill. On the back, in the middle, there's an eagle at the center. In the Eagle's left hand or leg, you see it grasping a bunch of arrows. On it's right leg/hand, you see it grasping a tree branch. Ask yourself the most simplest, rational question: Why are they there, and what do they mean? A lot of people believe that the Eagle is related to the Romans. They have the Eagle symbols with the "SPOR" signs written on them. You see this in the movies. It's a symbol of power and might.

I might call the people who belittle the intellect of other by quoting inaccuracies partial idiots also. The Roman "SPOR sign" you are referring to is actually the initialized SPQR ( Senatus Populus Que Romanus) which translates to "The Senate and People of Rome". The use of the eagle is hardly surprising since it is one of the most prominent heraldic symbols in existence and has been since the Hittites, Greeks etc (who pre-date the Roman Empire's use) decided it made for great decoration, and is very prominent in European culture - the same culture that the 18th century U.S. designers of the Great Seal were schooled in. The original seal designs featured Germanic eagle representations.

So what did you learn from all this?

That you spend way more time reading astrology than history?

AMD is using symbols of Gemini to sell cards...

That is actually unproven. AMD generally associate code names with GPUs - not marketing. Dual card GPUs in AMD nomenclature usually feature a different name from the single GPU card variant even though they are the same GPU. Hemlock (HD 5970) is the same GPU as Cypress, Antilles (HD 6990) is the same GPU as Cayman, New Zealand and Malta (HD 7990/8990) are the same GPU as Tahiti, Vesuvius (R9 295X2) is the same GPU as Hawaii.

 

[medi01]

1. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with buying ATI. What was wrong is that AMD borrowed $2bn of the $5.4bn total ( $2bn in loans, $2.3bn in cash, $1.1bn in shares) to make the purchase. That $2bn has been a yoke around AMD's neck since 2007 stifling R&D, causing the company to sell off its foundry business and its real estate, downsizing its workforce, and having a fire sale in selling off its mobile graphics IP to Qualcomm for a paltry $65m (worth a hell of a lot more now). AMD effectively overpaid by $2.63bn for ATI - that is, it lost just over half its purchase value inside eighteen months. If Hector had paid ATI's true value - and no one else was interested in buying ATI in 2006, AMD would not have had that $2bn debt burden. So, what you term " a pile of BS" is an actual fact.
2. There was nothing to stop AMD from licensing ATI's IP - that would have cost a damn sight less than $5.4bn, and would have kept ATI afloat as a separate graphics company.

May I ask how much a burden 2$ billion debt actually is?
What is the interest rate? Let's be generous here, 10%?
So 200 million $ per year (ATI was profitable for the most of those years but let's ignore that) has "killed AMD"?
Those annual 200 million bucks of a burden forced AMD to quit EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE fab business, really?

If you bid on "APU is the future" you can't just "buy IP". You can't get to "integrated out of the box CPU-GPU"'s with just slapping some GPU transistors next to your CPU chip.


Buldozer was doomed, wrong way, no way more money into R&D would have saved it.
Neither would these money allow AMD to keep the fabs in competitive shape.
Why couldn't the new owner of the AMD fabs keep on par with Intel? Why couldn't Samsung, TSMC?
Intel can afford them only because of the dominant market share AND fat (to a point when getting 100% of the mobile market is laughable from total revenue perspective) margins.

The only competitive part of AMD at the moment is their GPUs and APUs.
Intel invests into GPUs and went APU, following AMD.
Overpaying for ATI shadows it a bit, but in no way warrants "oh, AMD was killed" comments.


Being an underdog all these years and hence having to fight uphill battles is likely to kill it eventually, and rather soon as it is very weak at this point already, but don't call things which are theories at best, "facts" please.