Wednesday, November 30th 2011
AMD Still Committed To x86 - But Not In High End Desktop
Further to our article yesterday, that AMD was to give up competing with Intel, they have now made a statement which semi-clarifies their future strategy. AMD told The Verge, that they are still committed to x86, but have decided to concentrate on low power, emerging markets and the cloud:
AMD is a leader in x86 microprocessor design, and we remain committed to the x86 market. Our strategy is to accelerate our growth by taking advantage of our design capabilities to deliver a breadth of products that best align with broader industry shifts toward low power, emerging markets and the cloud.This sounds very much like they are giving up competing with Intel in the high-end x86 CPU market, but will instead compete with the likes of ARM, NVIDIA, TI and Intel in the low power market. It doesn't seem like a good strategy however, not least because getting the power use levels of an x86 CPU right down to ARM levels and still have some semblance of performance seems to be an unachievable aim, as Intel has already found out. The problem is that the ancient and complex x86 instruction set dating from the late 1970s, requires complex decode logic and a bigger chip (more transistors) to implement. It also isn't very fast, which is why all the various "turbocharging" technologies and enhancements have had to be applied to it over the years to bring us the fast CPUs we see today. These are all very expensive on transistor budget, power and require a high clock speed. The fact that all modern x86 CPUs are actually hybrid x86 (32-bit) & x64 (64-bit) machines adds an order of magnitude to the problem, as they're almost two CPUs in one. Time will tell whether AMD were right to go down this road.
87 Comments on AMD Still Committed To x86 - But Not In High End Desktop
By having a Monopoly in something like Oil or Power, you have a commodity that people will always need, and in regular intervals. That means if you increase the price, they probably are required to continue paying that increased price, and since Oil and Power are consumable goods, you need to keep paying for the same thing. Since the company controls the entirety of supply will always exist, they control the entire market and the price causing the consumer to lose out.
CPU's are NOT NOT NOT the same. Intel cannot force you to buy a new CPU every 6 months, they have to entice you to, or the demand needs to be there. People are claiming a monopoly will mean Intel can keep selling the same product for very high prices, but that's just not true. People will need more performance, and if they can't get it from a "newer" CPU, then they have no reason to buy it unless their current CPU dies, but in that scenario they would have to get a new CPU regardless.
There's also the fact that AMD will continue to offer better products, so if Intel continued to sell the same exact product for a high price, eventually AMD's mid-level products for substantially cheaper would be equal to or close enough in performance to justify buying them. Then there's the part where if Intel doesn't offer better products continually, nobody would have a reason to upgrade their computers\CPU's, and Intel's revenue would tank.
All of this talk of Intel having a "monopoly" (still not sure it really constitutes one) on the High-End Desktop CPU market causing huge increases in Price and Innovation is absolutely ridiculous.
Seeing as AMD cannot compete up top, but Intel still charges the same for the top end as it did when there was competition up there, I'd say your assessment in incorrect.
Worst thing that could happen is one company having a total monopoly on chips.
Here are some charts from Barclays and intel.
Some FX chips were going for $1200 or more back when AMD was on top, but the MSRP was still $1000.
Short version = you have not made a valid point.