AMD Reports 2015 Fourth Quarter and Annual Results

[Musaab]

The problems AMD has never came from engineering departments but from the management and their terrible designs starting with Hector Ruiz till tody. Every company in this world has its bad days but the management is the one who decide whether the company will rise from ashes like phoenix or drag them to bankruptcy. And in AMD's case it looks like the second.

 

[gaximodo]

Having putting more thoughts about the situation,

I never had so much negative opinion towards any tech company, I usually love'm all,

Wait, I think AMD is the only one, they make both powerful CPUs and powerful GPUs, who does it better????

Now I see,

Fck Intel and Nvidia, brain washed me.

 

[GhostRyder]

Well, check, say, amazon. Search for "PCIe graphic card".
On amazon.de only 2 out of 24 card on the first page are AMD. (380 somewhere at the end of a first dozen, and 5450 on position 4.
=/

Yea, but those aren't the main problem. Fact is AMD graphics have been pretty competitive for the last couple of years and in many years better than their NVidia couterparts at similar price points (This is the first year in awhile that the top end GPU is more clear on which is better which in this case its NVidia). The OEM problem is the people putting them in the machines (like Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc). Even the smaller gaming computer companies make more mention of NVidia than AMD even though they offer both.
The only way they are going to win people back is by getting OEM's on their side.

 

[awesomesauce]

Still bleeding revenue....thank god for those console contracts

yeah good point !
and soon Nintendo NX

 

[Frick]

Does VIA still have a license for x86?

 

[awesomesauce]

Does VIA still have a license for x86?

found this on wikipedia

In 1999, VIA acquired most of Cyrix, then a division of National Semiconductor. That same year, VIA acquired Centaur Technology from Integrated Device Technology, marking its entry into the x86 microprocessor market. VIA is the maker of the VIA C3, VIA C7 &VIA Nano processors, and the EPIA platform. The Cyrix MediaGX platform remained with National Semiconductor.

and that
Legal issues[edit]

On the basis of the IDT Centaur acquisition,[10] VIA appears to have come into possession of at least three patents, which cover key aspects of processor technology used by Intel. On the basis of the negotiating leverage these patents offered, in 2003 VIA arrived at an agreement with Intel that allowed for a ten-year patent cross license, enabling VIA to continue to design and manufacture x86 compatible CPUs. VIA was also granted a three-year grace period in which it could continue to use Intel socket infrastructure.

 

[tabascosauz]

At what point in time will all those who still hold a grudge for Prescott accept that it was 10 years in the past and AMD's current failures have nothing to do with Intel's bribery pre-Core?

By now, it should not be of news to anyone that Intel bribed the OEMs to take its LGA775 Prescott CPUs even though they were some literal real hot shit. AMD suffered as a result, then Intel followed up with Core from refined Pentium M and began a journey out of the depths of Prescott hell. They were successful.

But what of all the years during which Intel's new darling Core and AMD's AM2+/AM3 remained competitive with each other? "Oh well Intel's devious behaviours in the years prior caused AMD's downfall and AMD was never the same" Oh, I wasn't aware that people bought both early and later Phenoms and Phenom IIs although they sucked donkey nuts and they just wanted to support AMD financially. AM3 was fantastic in price-performance, even though it couldn't keep pace with ridiculously priced crap like LGA1366. It was great even as a stopgap for AMD until they could come up with something better, revolutionary, and a true successor. AMD acknowledged that it was slipping by simply building on K10, so it wanted something new to build on.

What did AMD do?

AMD gave us Bulldozer, in all its CMT glory.

Then we received Piledriver, Bulldozer v2 (in all fairness to AMD, Vishera was a healthy effort in the right direction after the BD catastrophe). Then Steamroller, Bulldozer v3 (giving each core in a Kaveri module more independent logic doesn't solve the BD problem).

Combined with whatever was behind the lack of progress on the GCN side of things pre-Q2 2015, is it any surprise that AMD ends up where it is today? The FX-8150 was king of hype, and yet it came out only to face the SBs from Intel: 2500K/2600K, two of the greatest CPUs that Intel has produced in a very long time.

It's not so much that we cannot wait for Zen as it is that AMD cannot wait for Zen. It (perhaps it even has to be combined with the release of a madly successful Polaris) has the potential to turn AMD around, but the longer it takes, the more amazing it has to be to have a remote chance at success.

Think about what AMD has done in the past 3 years. Yes, BD was a disaster and something new was needed, and to get that new thing to the market you need to devote a good chunk of your resources to it otherwise it may fail.

1. But AMD, after the success of GCN 1.0 and minor/miner success of GCN 1.1, failed to produce responses to Nvidia's offerings and when Fiji finally dropped, when we realized that below the pretty metal shroud and liquid cooling, it was still not enough to match Nvidia's offerings at the ludicrous prices which AMD wanted.

2. Where has Opteron been in all this? Opteron is now, essentially, a relic. When was the last time you heard of the introduction of a new x86 Opteron? AMD was supposedly busy working on the A1100 series "Seattle", which dropped (I think) a few days ago. You're struggling to pick up the ruins of your CPU business and steadily slipping from your success in GPUs, and you want to introduce ARM servers into an area where x86 has brought you all your money in the years prior? Intel's E5s and E7s don't need to be sold in tremendously high volumes because each one costs 100s of firstborns, and that's where Intel makes $$$. That's where AMD used to be competitive and make $$$, until they voluntarily took Bulldozer and Cortex-A57 to the knee.

3. In devoting resources to dig itself out of BD, AMD had BD become a huge steaming pile. Introducing Steamroller to AM3+ CPUs would be extra cost for performance improvements that 1) would suck because the shrink to 28nm killed most of the Piledriver OC and 2) no one would know about except for enthusiasts. FM2+ was too weak. If FX-8350 came to FM2+, boards and CPUs and houses would burn, and it would put AM3+ completely out of business even if it didn't burn.

4. No need to discuss the mobile business. AMD was out. When was the last time you saw a "premium" laptop with AMD handling the CPU side of things? No, stacking a high-end mobile AMD/Nvidia GPU with a Richland/Kaveri quad does not count as "premium", because people don't even understand what the gimmick of Dual Graphics is, much less understand the incredible bottleneck provided by that nice AMD hardware.

5. And no discussion is complete without mentioning how much of a ****up BD really was. AMD couldn't make high-end ITX platforms because the NB + SB design from the Stone Ages takes up too much space, and look what BD did to Opteron. Remember when AMD had no shot at winning over the OEMs because Intel bribed them all 10 years ago? How do you steal them back from greedy Intel? By offering a convincing product, that's how. AMD had absolutely nothing. No OEM wants AM3+ because it can't sell; you can't sell an FX-8350 on its own with respectable graphics because it has no integrated graphics and the whole stupid NB + SB is hard to fit on mATX with that kind of power draw. No OEM wants FM2+ (which has been, in terms of FCH and power improvements, been a step in the right direction for AMD) because stuff like i7 sells; you market it as "four core eight thread" and don't have to worry about graphics either because HD Graphics has you covered, and half of all consumers still think that the CPU is what makes their PC game. No OEM wants AM1 (where is AM1? It's been AWOL for the past little while with no progress, kind of like AM3+ was AWOL for the past 3 years) because it's low-powered, still takes up desktop-level space, and is a small market which Intel requires no extra effort to expand into (because Silvermont was the same damn thing they used in phones and tabs). Like @GhostRyder says, the $$$ doesn't care if enthusiasts love you for the revolutionary new Zen you've dropped. If OEMs can't sell it and make a profit off of it, you can guarantee that it's not going to save you from financial straits or OEM scorn.

We all want to see some real justice for the nasty stuff that Intel did back then, and, for some of us, the shit they still do right now including charging $1000+ for HEDT because no reincarnated version of the X6 1100T is there to provide competition. But is it really necessary to bring back the salt of the Prescott affair every time AMD's current financial woes are brought up? The quagmire they are in right now is not Intel's doing. The demon in the form of BD paid a visit to AMD, and now they're trying to get rid of it; AMD had better do it quick because Zen's chances at success get a little bit dimmer with each passing month.

 

[cdawall]

If Intel is a monopoly, it's because AMD has consistently failed to provide adequate competition. You can't punish a company that's executing well and making money simply because their competitor is not.

Incorrect AMD has shown improvement and the only thing Intel does is cheat. To this day they still compete in anti-competition practices.

 

[HumanSmoke]

I'll just leave this here:

Spoiler

View attachment 71229

Spoiler

Keep in mind that the amounts they paid to AMD are laughably small compared to the long-lasting damage Intel done to AMD with this

Good work fella
The AMD PR guy making up that list conveniently forgot that AMD was fined for patent theft. The judgement was three times as much ($58m vs $18m) as that levied against Intel for breach of good faith. It also doesn't mention anything about AMD breaching Intel's copyright (for example the later MMX case), their deliberate false benchmarks with fictitious processors, or their misleading claims about Llano yields currently before the courts.

Because of anti-competitive practices of Intel, AMD, despite having vastly superior products, couldn't gain momentum, couldn't grab adequate market share, profits. Smaller profits, smaller investments in R&D, need to outsource fab business etc etc.

That is a severely blinkered view my friend.
When Intel was paying kick backs to Dell and Toshiba to keep AMD processors out of their products, AMD had Hewlett-Packard (the world's #2 OEM at the time) and couldn't keep them supplied with chips. Rather than outline the whole timeline again, I'll point you towards this post

The facts remains that while AMD have had the shitty end of the stick and Intel became the corporate embodiment of Andy Grove's merciless personality, AMD owes its existence to Intel and acquisition. The company would not have met it's incorporation target of $1.55m had Intel's Robert Noyce not invested in AMD. The company wouldn't have flourished had it not been for the licensing of Intel processors and released of the need to have their own sockets/chipsets/boards, and wouldn't have been able to survive without buying NexGen, DEC's IP, and ATI. This time around, Intel is holding onto its IP and there aren't any ailing companies for AMD to kickstart its project developments. Building from the ground up is a lot more hard work than taking over someone else's nearly completed efforts.

Does VIA still have a license for x86?

Yes until 2018. The original license (which came by way of National Semiconductor when they sold assets including Cyrix - who didn't have an x86 license - to VIA) was extended to 2018 since the accompanying Intel ISA IP licences VIA has also expire at that time.

 

[cdawall]

That is a severely blinkered view my friend.
When Intel was paying kick backs to Dell and Toshiba to keep AMD processors out of their products, AMD had Hewlett-Packard (the world's #2 OEM at the time) and couldn't keep them supplied with chips. Rather than outline the whole timeline again, I'll point you towards this post

Intel still pays kickbacks to keep AMD out of US based products. The only companies with a reasonably sized AMD lineup is HP/lenovo. Dell and Acer have Intel branding mixed with their own marketing. If you look into the numbers on AMD based units its atrocious there are more 4th gen i3 based units sold at microcenter than the entire AMD market laptop and desktop across. The A8 quad and A6 quad easily keep up with the entry level 1.7ghz i3 dual in their price point same with the pentium quads of the same price point. Most costumers don't give a shit who makes the CPU as long as the damn thing works and their kid can play minecraft on it.

 

[Frick]

Yes until 2018. The original license (which came by way of National Semiconductor when they sold assets including Cyrix - who didn't have an x86 license - to VIA) was extended to 2018 since the accompanying Intel ISA IP licences VIA has also expire at that time.

I'm still wishing for those decent nanoITX boards. Won't happen.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Intel still pays kickbacks to keep AMD out of US based products. The only companies with a reasonably sized AMD lineup is HP/lenovo. Dell and Acer have Intel branding mixed with their own marketing. If you look into the numbers on AMD based units its atrocious there are more 4th gen i3 based units sold at microcenter than the entire AMD market laptop and desktop across. The A8 quad and A6 quad easily keep up with the entry level 1.7ghz i3 dual in their price point same with the pentium quads of the same price point. Most costumers don't give a shit who makes the CPU as long as the damn thing works and their kid can play minecraft on it.

You are underestimating Intel's brand awareness with both consumers and the OEMs. You are also conveniently overlooking the fact that while Intel generally meets its obligations regarding product ramps to OEMs (maybe less so for retail), AMD - partly due to GloFo - has a sad record of keeping to timetables which doesn't endear itself to OEM/ODM's that live or die by new release schedules. You are also overlooking another important element - OEM's - because of Intel's brand - can achieve higher margin's on Intel branded products. The increased BoM for a fully featured system (maxxed out with RAM, SSD, I/O, screen res) is more than covered by the increased pricing OEM/ODM's can charge for the product. AMD's cachet isn't high enough with consumers (largely fostered by AMD themselves as the "bang for buck" option) to warrant OEM/ODM's selling fully featured systems....and if consumers don't see fully featured AMD systems it just reinforces the budget perception. Until AMD follow through on the PPS presentations, meet their time to market targets, shed their own marketing of themselves as the budget value option, and has confidence in their product that requires no asterisks and screeds of footnotes, I doubt the overall perception will change.

 

[rtwjunkie]

And the back and forth begins yet again. Can't wait for next quarter. This has all gotten to be tiresome. All the heated comments back and forth by armchair executives about Intel this or AMD that aren't going to change the facts about the market. It serves no purpose here except get some people mad at each other, because too many people seem to take this personally.

Despite Intel's shenanigans, AMD's primary reason for being so far in the hole was the vastly overpriced purchase of ATI, on which they still owe money, and the fact that when Intel Core 2 was released, AMD had nothing ready except bluster. Do AMD make good products? Yes, especially on the GPU side. Do they have good management? Not that I've seen, in a very long time.

Despite having decent products, it is however, going to take them a long time to get out of the financial hole that their management, primarily, has put them in. Rest assured, AMD supporters, Intel will not be allowed to be the sole CPU provider, or Nvidia the sole GPU provider. Intel and Nvidia supporters: AMD is not going to go anywhere.

 

[64K]

And the back and forth begins yet again. Can't wait for next quarter. This has all gotten to be tiresome. All the heated comments back and forth by armchair executives about Intel this or AMD that aren't going to change the facts about the market. It serves no purpose here except get some people mad at each other, because too many people seem to take this personally.

Despite Intel's shenanigans, AMD's primary reason for being so far in the hole was the vastly overpriced purchase of ATI, on which they still owe money, and the fact that when Intel Core 2 was released, AMD had nothing ready except bluster. Do AMD make good products? Yes, especially on the GPU side. Do they have good management? Not that I've seen, in a very long time.

Despite having decent products, it is however, going to take them a long time to get out of the financial hole that their management, primarily, has put them in. Rest assured, AMD supporters, Intel will not be allowed to be the sole CPU provider, or Nvidia the sole GPU provider. Intel and Nvidia supporters: AMD is not going to go anywhere.

It's the news forum. The financial status of tech companies are interesting to discuss. It may be tiresome for you but maybe not for everyone.

 

[rtwjunkie]

It's the news forum. The financial status of tech companies are interesting to discuss. It may be tiresome for you but maybe not for everyone.

No, the news is interesting and avidly watched. Financial numbers, as I've stated before are extremely important, and point to alot of different trends for numerous companies.

What is tiresome are the armchair executives who shout insults and hatred back and forth as if they could do better whenever it comes to Intel and AMD. If any of them could, or had the answer, they would be working for the respective companies, not here.

Discussion is fine but you know as well as I do that what goes on in these Intel Vs. AMD debates goes beyond discussion.

 

[cdawall]

You are underestimating Intel's brand awareness with both consumers and the OEMs. You are also conveniently overlooking the fact that while Intel generally meets its obligations regarding product ramps to OEMs (maybe less so for retail), AMD - partly due to GloFo - has a sad record of keeping to timetables which doesn't endear itself to OEM/ODM's that live or die by new release schedules. You are also overlooking another important element - OEM's - because of Intel's brand - can achieve higher margin's on Intel branded products. The increased BoM for a fully featured system (maxxed out with RAM, SSD, I/O, screen res) is more than covered by the increased pricing OEM/ODM's can charge for the product. AMD's cachet isn't high enough with consumers (largely fostered by AMD themselves as the "bang for buck" option) to warrant OEM/ODM's selling fully featured systems....and if consumers don't see fully featured AMD systems it just reinforces the budget perception. Until AMD follow through on the PPS presentations, meet their time to market targets, shed their own marketing of themselves as the budget value option, and has confidence in their product that requires no asterisks and screeds of footnotes, I doubt the overall perception will change.

This is part of the issue you don't even see AMD's in the budget market. I understand Globalfoundries is essentially one big ass mistake for AMD and that shows, however the lack of a market share as a whole is embarrassing. The laptop market is the only section AMD has anything remotely competitive and yet it is a wasteland of intel.

I am starting to see quite a few entry level SMB products getting the APU PRO lineup. Those also seem extremely popular as of now. Those are undercutting intel in price point very nicely for decent products, typically loaded with more ram/hdd to make up for the weaker processors.

 

[tabascosauz]

This is part of the issue you don't even see AMD's in the budget market. I understand Globalfoundries is essentially one big ass mistake for AMD and that shows, however the lack of a market share as a whole is embarrassing. The laptop market is the only section AMD has anything remotely competitive and yet it is a wasteland of intel.

I am starting to see quite a few entry level SMB products getting the APU PRO lineup. Those also seem extremely popular as of now. Those are undercutting intel in price point very nicely for decent products, typically loaded with more ram/hdd to make up for the weaker processors.

I am genuinely curious about how desktop products featuring Kaveri have sold. In theory, all those A10-7800 units out there would be huge winners because at that price point, you would otherwise get a i5-4460 equipped system that can't play games for shit. Any higher and manufacturers start throwing in R7 240 (at which point the A10-7800 still stays in for Dual Graphics, but any options for higher end GPUs and the AMD APU gets out). Yet, I don't think it's doing anything to help AMD (perhaps because they sell them for cheap?).

I would expect SMB to move straight to Intel though, because Haswell and Skylake HD Graphics can handle pretty high resolution productivity work with no problems.

AMD is more competitive in the budget desktop market than laptop because Kaveri and Carrizo have so far proven to be a flop when it comes to performance in a tight power envelope. Do they stay nice and cool? Yes. Do they offer the performance that you would expect at 15W? No. Again, competitive until you reach a certain point where discrete GPUs come into play and AMD's APU becomes just another weak CPU that can't pull its weight in IPC and clock. Unfortunately for AMD, the trend over the years is a boundary between iGPU and dGPU laptops that is slowly lowering in price. That's bad news for the APU business, if it stays as weak as it is now.

Do you mean entry level products as in NCIX's SMB builds, Dell's SMB PCs, or custom office builds done by the dozens?

 

[64K]

No, the news is interesting and avidly watched. Financial numbers, as I've stated before are extremely important, and point to alot of different trends for numerous companies.

What is tiresome are the armchair executives who shout insults and hatred back and forth as if they could do better whenever it comes to Intel and AMD. If any of them could, or had the answer, they would be working for the respective companies, not here.

It's not all garbage though. Emotional for some and they act out but what can you do? Sometimes a video game gets people worked up too even though they can't code the game any better.

 

[Aquinus]

Anybody ready to take a risk? AMD stock is dirt cheap right now. Could make an easy 50-75% on it as it stands right now because it won't remain this cheap forever.
https://www.google.com/finance?q=AMD
1.80
-0.15 (-7.69%)

 

[EarthDog]

Buy and hold until after Zen...

 

[Aquinus]

Buy and hold until after Zen...

Hold until it goes over at least 2.50 which you know will happen regardless if Xen sucks or not. This is a typical trend for AMD's stock after watching it for the last several years. It's almost always a safe bet because the industry wouldn't let AMD keel over because it would mean anti-trust suits for Intel. Not to mention, AMD has enough stake in the market to be able to cling for dear life thanks to the Xbox and PS4 arrangements.

Also for what it's worth Intel's stock is practically tied to trends in the Nasdaq where AMD tends to be more volatile.

 

[rtwjunkie]

It's not all garbage though. Emotional for some and they act out but what can you do? Sometimes a video game gets people worked up too even though they can't code the game any better.

I hear you!

 

[HumanSmoke]

Anybody ready to take a risk? AMD stock is dirt cheap right now. Could make an easy 50-75% on it as it stands right now because it won't remain this cheap forever.
https://www.google.com/finance?q=AMD
1.80
-0.15 (-7.69%)

The stock might not have bottomed out yet. AMD's guidance for Q1 2016 is a worse outlook than for Q4. The first financial quarter is a traditionally slow hangover of sales after the holiday season and shipping for revenue takes a dip as the Chinese New Year put the brakes on production.

 

[Aquinus]

The stock might not have bottomed out yet. AMD's guidance for Q1 2016 is a worse outlook than for Q4. The first financial quarter is a traditionally slow hangover of sales after the holiday season and shipping for revenue takes a dip as the Chinese New Year put the brakes on production.

True but staying under 1.50 for a sustained period of time is asking to get kicked out of the Nasdaq. Simply put, I think we can safely say if you decide to buy now or later down the road, AMD will see 2.50 or higher again, so it's almost a solid bet IMHO.

 

[Musaab]

Having putting more thoughts about the situation,

I never had so much negative opinion towards any tech company, I usually love'm all,

Wait, I think AMD is the only one, they make both powerful CPUs and powerful GPUs, who does it better????

Now I see,

Fck Intel and Nvidia, brain washed me.

You are right. AMD is the only company that make CPU and GPU with competitive performance but didn't you ask maybe that what pull them down. Once a wise man said don't bite what you can't chew. I thought that Radeon will spin of and that maybe the only way to save AMD or part of it at least.