Editorial AMD is Becoming a Software Company. Here's the Plan

[RJARRRPCGP]

it became very obvious that in those days clockspeed was not everything. There where chips out there like AMD or Cyrix that where clocked slower but executed instructions faster. Many people did not understand that concept.

Just like how multiple automobile manufacturers, realized that moon-high-RPMs are not the answer to everything, and thus started using turbos. Back in the '00s, that was their version of the stereotypical P4, LOL. Also, thus going back to longer-stroke.
Now back to computers, I like how they went to having more IPC.

Interestingly, a Northwood 2.4 I had, acted more like an Athlon! 2.8 GHz performed well, despite people claiming I would need a lot more than 2.8 GHz!

 

[ir_cow]

I didn't attach nuance to your comment, I pointed out the complete lack of it. The "nuance" I had in my comment was recommendations as to how you could word it better but clearly you'd rather fight than consider constructive criticism.

This is getting silly now and it's time to move on. I'm not fighting anyone. I defending ability to freely say what I want and you don't like it. Simple.

 

[evernessince]

This is getting silly now and it's time to move on. I'm not fighting anyone. I defending ability to freely say what I want and you don't like it. Simple.

No one ever said you couldn't say whatever you want. That doesn't stop anyone from pointing out the pitfalls of making inflammatory, unpopular or poorly worded comments when you are TPU staff member without properly stipulating that you speak for yourself and only yourself.

I'll re-post my original comment for reference:

I don't think the issue he had was that you have an opinion but that you expressed it as a broadly applicable fact that AMD has bad drivers. If you are speaking for yourself you need to be verbose about it as in your case you are TPU staff. Had your first comment been "My person experience with AMD drives has been sub-par" is a good example of a measured comment but unfortunately in this case it's your 2nd stab at it. In addition, working for a company does come with some compromises in terms of free speech as your actions reflect on said company. If something could be considered inflammatory extra consideration should be taken and there's always the option of not commenting and letting whatever TPU's stance on a specific matter stand. I have seen quiet a few staff members express opinions as of late that do not align with TPUs own reviews or articles on the respective topics and often have only served to further inflame the comments section. If TPU doesn't already, it should have rules in regards staff member conduct in the forums / comments.

You could also hold your opinion but also acknowledge the strides AMD has taken in regards to their driver quality. The two are not mutually exclusive.

My original comment was worded in a very constructive manner but hey, can't stop people from doubling down on the internet I guess.

 

[wolf]

The biggest issue with Advanced Micro Devices is their Lack of Advertising.

That and from my experience, poor and/or misleading advertising when they do it. The amount of times the marketing material has backfired, like they manage to kick and own-goal .... to me it's no surprise they're shy about doing a whole lot of it. As others have suggested even just little AMD stickers on stuff that has their APU's somewhere might be a start, heck it could even be hard to spot like a little easter egg that becomes fun to find, put it on consoles, steam deck, handhelds etc.

I defending ability to freely say what I want and you don't like it. Simple.

Yet I get the distinct feeling that if those comments were about a couple of other brands, there would be no uproar at all, AMD is the chosen one don't you know

As for this whole push, it does smell of wanting a slice of the success felt by Nvidia, but boy oh boy do they have an absolute mountain-and-a-half to climb if they want to even feel half of their success. I wish them all the best, competition is sorely needed and good for everyone, but they better be truly committed and willing to play the long game.

 

[A Computer Guy]

If AMD can't make good drivers for their own GPUs, how can anyone trust them to be a software company?

I almost threw in the towel with AMD after I got my RX 5700 because of driver issues. Thankfully they got it sorted (mostly) because even discounted GPU water blocks are kinda expensive. I'm sure Nvidia has a few issues too somewhere but after I put in my 4060 low profile in a different Windows build for the first time I had zero problems and it felt good, real good. On Linux I was having a much harder time with getting it to play nice but it might have been with the game I was testing and it ended up being a dumpster fire. So I think I've settled for using Nvidia GPU's on Windows and AMD GPU's on Linux as a general rule going forward. Having said that using only the WHQL drivers now my issues have been minimal with AMD GPU's on Windows.

 

[Sound_Card]

This was your original comment for reference:


I didn't attach nuance to your comment, I pointed out the complete lack of it. The "nuance" I had in my comment was recommendations as to how you could word it better but clearly you'd rather fight than consider constructive criticism.

"you think staff views should always align with TPU reviews" is simply a scarecrow argument on your part, not what I said. You are trying to strip my argument of context because you know such a statement doesn't stand when taken in whole.

"I was laughing inside" reacting with an emoji is an externalization.

I agree, it really is an obtuse post. But to his credit, it probably is not his actual opinion.

Yet I get the distinct feeling that if those comments were about a couple of other brands, there would be no uproar at all, AMD is the chosen one don't you know

As for this whole push, it does smell of wanting a slice of the success felt by Nvidia, but boy oh boy do they have an absolute mountain-and-a-half to climb if they want to even feel half of their success. I wish them all the best, competition is sorely needed and good for everyone, but they better be truly committed and willing to play the long game.

But my question is ... is really about just being competitive? The x1900xt and x1800xt were objectively faster than the 7900GTX and 7800GTX and they got outsold 11-1.

Nvidia can price a video card at $2,000 dollars and it will outsell an AMD card priced at $1000 that performs within 15% of it 20-1. This is not about being competitive, Nvidia is a cult.

 

[Nordic]

Does that 90% include games with anti cheat?

Most games with anti cheat or drm don't work on Linux because the developer refuses to allow it on linux. Easy anti cheat for example works fine with linux if the developer allows it.

Rather than taking me at my word of "90%" go look at protondb. Out of the top 100 most popular games on Steam, 89% are playable without any messing around with settings. https://www.protondb.com/

Nvidia can price a video card at $2,000 dollars and it will outsell an AMD card priced at $1000 that performs within 15% of it 20-1. This is not about being competitive, Nvidia is a cult.

Nvidia is insanely overpriced. I don't care about RTX or DLSS. I think AMD is a much better buy. I am but one consumer. The market is not a cult just because you disagree. People are choosing the product that best meets their needs. Nvidia isn't outselling AMD for arbitrary reasons. Most GPU consumers think it is a better product.

 

[95Viper]

I will say this just once.
Discuss the topic.
And, the topic is "AMD is Becoming a Software Company. Here's the Plan".
It is not bickering with each other about what one believes or does not believe.
Let's keep it civil and non-personal.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

That is for training the models.

Consumers running the trained form of these LLMs locally do inference which is nicely done with cheaper hardware.



I am optimistic because I think AMD has no choice. NVidia's customers hate to be locked in. I'm talking about customers like Google here. They want choice. They want the certainty that the software is not developed in an unwanted direction in the future. AMD better complies with that.

Please square the circle.

If you read the piece, you'd have noted that part of this was to save on having to unload the heavy computation to outside sources. IE you'd not need something like an H20 because they'd magic together some software that would use internal accelerators like your own GPU to do the work locally.... If not, and I'm understanding this right, then the claim is that LLMs will continue to work exactly the same as they always did and thus nothing changes... I either missed a step, or you're claiming their same magical "software will fix everything" shenanigans.

I for one think that something like an ASIC+CPU+FPGA would be a fantastic fusion of hardware to make something that can retool itself to virtually any task...but I've also got no illusions to this being PR more than game changing. Note that whatever BS Nvidia says, 12 grand a pop is going to be a huge plus for the stock holders....the only people that they absolutely have to please. Proving that CUDA is worth millions will be much harder...unless they intend to go whole hog and start charging for their "software" which only runs on their hardware...which I see as a cost of business for industry but basically killing consumer sales.

 

[Caring1]

Is the is the No plan, plan?
I find they tend to work the best.

 

[wolf]

But my question is ... is really about just being competitive? The x1900xt and x1800xt were objectively faster than the 7900GTX and 7800GTX and they got outsold 11-1.

Nvidia can price a video card at $2,000 dollars and it will outsell an AMD card priced at $1000 that performs within 15% of it 20-1. This is not about being competitive, Nvidia is a cult.

They have absolutely had some bangers over the years that sold very well and took the top spot (performance), they can do it again and if they get on the right path keep building a good thing, the ship takes a long time to turn, but it can turn. That's all squarely on AMD to sort out, consumers shouldn't have to do them favors and buy inferior products and act like volunteer sales reps just to help a multi billion dollar company (obviously not all do but some clearly do, don't have to look far), and why would their competition take their foot off the gas pedal intentionally?

Nvidia is more of a household name I'd argue, and has mindshare due to the years and years of getting it right and having polished hardware, software and features. From my perspective, AMD (Radeon) fits the description of cult far more but I digress.

In some ways I think they're damned if they do and damned if they don't, many products would FLY off shelves at sharper prices, but then they wouldn't be able to produce enough to meet demand, driving the price back up and being accused of a paper launch, maybe that'd beat what they do often now with underwhelming launch prices?

 

[AusWolf]

Yeah at the time that whole strategy did sound like a plan though right? This software company thing strikes me as similar. It feels similarly unfocused, not really worked out, just general ideas flying over the table there about some sort of new direction while keeping the old. Everyone feels that something is needed and that it is probably found 'in software'. But there's no strategy involved any deeper than 'we need to cover this space'. No shit, sherlock.

You know what it reminds me of? Volkswagen 'switching to the EV'. They've produced some okay EV's but nothing special in any sort of way, while the competition is racing past them left and right, both in the West and East. They're still making ICE's, still spending tons of resources on it, still really not changing anything and thinking they can do EV's 'on the side'. It really spells lack of commitment, and I think AMD is guilty of the same thing. Its the story of their GPU architectures' lives too. Good start, sometimes a good followup, and then things stall again. The only space where they keep their commitment (renewed...) is CPU.

If it's really like Volkswagen with EV's, then you can't fault them for not fully committing to something that has no long term track record of being successful. A handful of companies parroting "this is the future" is not the same as being successful and making long term profit. This can be said about EVs and AI/software alike.

@evernessince TPU staff have independent thought. We can say whatever we please outside a review. Also not all staff are reviewers either. Remember that.

I didn't say TPU hates AMD and that is exactly what you are making it seem like.

"My experience with AMD drivers has been sub-par" is an expression of opinion. "AMD drivers are bad" is a broad fact statement (which happens to be false).

My experience with the R5 3600 was bad. It was slow, and hot as heck. I couldn't cool it with any LP cooler in a slim case. The i7-11700 worked out a lot better, it could take a lot more power under similar circumstances before throttling. Does this mean that the R5 3600 is a bad CPU? Absolutely not.

Having an opinion is fine, but the way you express it matters.

 

[nguyen]

Well AMD could definitely act more mature and not compare itself against other companies for once, AMD could simultaneously improve on their weaknesses and investing in new products/softwares to strengthen their brand name.

For example AMD could have created their own handheld gaming device, instead of relying on Valve or other AIB. But nah AMD prefers to spend their money buying IP, making them look like an IP hoarder instead of a tech company.

 

[Vayra86]

If it's really like Volkswagen with EV's, then you can't fault them for not fully committing to something that has no long term track record of being successful. A handful of companies parroting "this is the future" is not the same as being successful and making long term profit. This can be said about EVs and AI/software alike.

It is like that. So you can't fault AMD either then, right? They do what they think is best at the time, we can't really tell if software is the key to a successful EV errr GPU Meanwhile Nvidia BYD / XPENG and others are driving around an oversized smartphone filled with software, and even every Western competitor has a much better Android Car experience going on inside.

Just to place things in parallel here... do you see how silly it is what you're saying? AMD should have started software focus many years ago and now we can't fault them for not going all in because 'they might not make it'. LOL. This is about risk averse management and no follow through. In one way understandable, in the other it all signifies too little too late. With great risk comes great reward and in business, the actual opportunity you might strike gold and a new market. Look at Nvidia. The best way to mitigate that risk, is by working through a strategy that mitigates that risk. I'm not seeing strategy in this Editorial.

Timing is everything and AMD has steadily been late.

 

[AusWolf]

It is like that. So you can't fault AMD either then, right? They do what they think is best at the time, we can't really tell if software is the key to a successful EV errr GPU Meanwhile Nvidia BYD / XPENG and others are driving around an oversized smartphone filled with software, and even every Western competitor has a much better Android Car experience going on inside.

Just to place things in parallel here... do you see how silly it is what you're saying? AMD should have started software focus many years ago and now we can't fault them for not going all in because 'they might not make it'. LOL. This is about risk averse management and no follow through. In one way understandable, in the other it all signifies too little too late. With great risk comes great reward and in business, the actual opportunity you might strike gold and a new market. Look at Nvidia. The best way to mitigate that risk, is by working through a strategy that mitigates that risk. I'm not seeing strategy in this Editorial.

Timing is everything and AMD has steadily been late.

AMD has been a pioneer of many things that ended up being failures. The biggest one that comes to mind is Bulldozer. The difference between Nvidia and AMD is that Nvidia has way more money to play with and can afford a lot more risk in future ventures. They also have a lot more marketing power to turn any potential failures into successes.

 

[Vayra86]

AMD has been a pioneer of many things that ended up being failures. The biggest one that comes to mind is Bulldozer. The difference between Nvidia and AMD is that Nvidia has way more money to play with and can afford a lot more risk in future ventures. They also have a lot more marketing power to turn any potential failures into successes.

True just the same... Hindsight...

 

[AusWolf]

True just the same... Hindsight...

"Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me", I guess.

 

[Kn0xxPT]

But my question is ... is really about just being competitive? The x1900xt and x1800xt were objectively faster than the 7900GTX and 7800GTX and they got outsold 11-1.

Nvidia can price a video card at $2,000 dollars and it will outsell an AMD card priced at $1000 that performs within 15% of it 20-1. This is not about being competitive, Nvidia is a cult.

I must say that AMD Gpus are more a cult than Nvidia.
yeah, AMD gpus are cheaper, and have litte more performance. but it doesn have everything else. the "eco system" that works best.
The thing is that Nvidia GPU's just works and are efficient, very efficient (power wise) and drivers are optimized(compared with AMD ones). In the end, Nvidia offers what AMD has but better and at premium. Why buy something inferior ?
A friend of mine is struggling on imagequality to have a 4k gameplay with Upscalling because it uses AMD. While Im using an inferior Nvidia GPU with no problems in DLSS. those things makes a difference in day-to-day gameplay.
AMD gpus are a cult, Nvidia gpus are just better.
I do hope that AMD and Intel surpasses Nvidia. because nvidia is having to much "premium pricetag".

 

[ARF]

The thing is that Nvidia GPU's just works and are efficient, very efficient (power wise) and

AMD GPUs can be undervolted and underclocked.

drivers are optimized(compared with AMD ones)

How?

A friend of mine is struggling on imagequality to have a 4k gameplay with Upscalling because it uses AMD. While Im using an inferior Nvidia GPU with no problems in DLSS. those things makes a difference in day-to-day gameplay.

Tell your friend to stop using the nasty upscaling techniques, but rather turn the settings down, from ultra to high, from high to medium, etc.

 

[DaemonForce]

I must say that AMD Gpus are more a cult than Nvidia.
yeah, AMD gpus are cheaper, and have litte more performance. but it doesn have everything else.

What do you mean everything else? Are you the type to subscribe to the "check all relevant and irrelevant boxes" philosophy?
There are three major things I care about when picking a GPU:
The raw stats like generation, clockspeed, cores and shaders.
The actual memory type, size and bandwidth.
Then there's the actual displacement of the card. I can fit any longboi but anything deeper than a triple slot is a chonker that needs to go on a diet that even water cooling may not provide.
The total performance of the card in DX9/10/11/12/Vulkan apps seems like an afterthought but I shouldn't have to think about things like that anymore. Pixel shader? Vulkan version? OpenGL? It exists, it's good. The only real extras on the table that grab my attention are the encoders. I need those for creation.

How do nVidia users pick a card? How fast it makes their wallet implode?

 

[AusWolf]

I must say that AMD Gpus are more a cult than Nvidia.
yeah, AMD gpus are cheaper, and have litte more performance. but it doesn have everything else. the "eco system" that works best.
The thing is that Nvidia GPU's just works and are efficient, very efficient (power wise) and drivers are optimized(compared with AMD ones). In the end, Nvidia offers what AMD has but better and at premium. Why buy something inferior ?
A friend of mine is struggling on imagequality to have a 4k gameplay with Upscalling because it uses AMD. While Im using an inferior Nvidia GPU with no problems in DLSS. those things makes a difference in day-to-day gameplay.
AMD gpus are a cult, Nvidia gpus are just better.
I do hope that AMD and Intel surpasses Nvidia. because nvidia is having to much "premium pricetag".

"Ecosystem" is just a marketing buzzword. AMD GPUs have the exact same feature set for gaming except for DLSS, which isn't necessary when you have FSR. Day-one drivers aren't necessary to run your games, either. AMD drivers work just as well as Nvidia. I know because I own several GPUs from both manufacturers.

 

[wolf]

AMD GPUs can be undervolted and underclocked.

So can nvidia GPU's, further enhancing how they perform stock, moot argument.

Tell your friend to stop using the nasty upscaling techniques, but rather turn the settings down, from ultra to high, from high to medium, etc.

They're not mutually exclusive, you can do one, the other or even both, all are tools in your optimisation toolbox to get your desired balance of IQ and performance for your setup. Calling it nasty just reeks of ignorance, as if using it isn't perfectly valid and useful.

 

[Assimilator]

AMD has been a pioneer of many things that ended up being failures. The biggest one that comes to mind is Bulldozer. The difference between Nvidia and AMD is that Nvidia has way more money to play with and can afford a lot more risk in future ventures. They also have a lot more marketing power to turn any potential failures into successes.

Wrong, the difference is the execution strategy. NVIDIA has consistently demonstrated that they have a long-term one that outright prevents failures from occurring or is able to compensate for them quickly, while AMD has historically appeared to pin all their hopes on moonshots like Bulldozer while having no backup if those big plans don't pan out.

"Ecosystem" is just a marketing buzzword. AMD GPUs have the exact same feature set for gaming except for DLSS, which isn't necessary when you have FSR. Day-one drivers aren't necessary to run your games, either. AMD drivers work just as well as Nvidia. I know because I own several GPUs from both manufacturers.

Ecosystem matters in business, which is what this thread is about. Please can we stop derailing it with fanboyism about consumer GPUs.

 

[AusWolf]

Wrong, the difference is the execution strategy. NVIDIA has consistently demonstrated that they have a long-term one that outright prevents failures from occurring or is able to compensate for them quickly, while AMD has historically appeared to pin all their hopes on moonshots like Bulldozer while having no backup if those big plans don't pan out.

That's a fair point.

Ecosystem matters in business, which is what this thread is about. Please can we stop derailing it with fanboyism about consumer GPUs.

Ecosystem is a buzzword, regardless of which company uses it. There's no fanboyism here.

To me, ecosystem means a set of features and/or products that work closely with each other to provide a distinct experience. AMD has nothing of the sort. Nvidia has one single distinct feature, DLSS, which on its own, is hardly an ecosystem. Every other feature runs on any GPU from any vendor. I don't see any ecosystem here - it only exists in marketing.

 

[wolf]

Opinions and facts do need to be worded differently.

Don't they just! Plenty of other examples don't get called out however, some in this very thread, so it seems like personal bias (form absolutely everyone) about the facts and opinions seems to override the compulsion to take exception to every time they're worded incorrectly.