AMD's ARM Efforts Appear Stalled, But At Least Zen Should Be Great

[nomadewolf]

I thought I just gave a list of things they need to fulfill for users to start buying their hardware.

What list? Focusing on one area and beating Intel instead of just matching?

Did you know that when AMD most dominated (in terms of performance) is when their sales declined the most?

[bug77]

What list? Focusing on one area and beating Intel instead of just matching?

Did you know that when AMD most dominated (in terms of performance) is when their sales declined the most?

And whose fault was that? AMD came up with a brilliant product and expected intel to roll over and die. "Surprisingly", intel did something else instead.

[nomadewolf]

And whose fault was that? AMD came up with a brilliant product and expected intel to roll over and die. "Surprisingly", intel did something else instead.

Yes.
They used their huge market share to coerce OEMs to use their intel processors instead.
Knowing that AMD didn't have the production capacity to supply all the demand in the market and faced with the possibility of losing discounts which directly translate into final price, made the choice easy to the OEMs.
Added to the fact that a similar aproach was taken into coercing stores regarding product placement and display... well, let's say that it was almost impossible to buy an AMD product. It seemed as no one made them or sold them...

I wonder what could AMD possibly do against that... other than recurring to justice, which it did. But the damage was already done.

[bug77]

Yes.
They used their huge market share to coerce OEMs to use their intel processors instead.
Knowing that AMD didn't have the production capacity to supply all the demand in the market and faced with the possibility of losing discounts which directly translate into final price, made the choice easy to the OEMs.
Added to the fact that a similar aproach was taken into coercing stores regarding product placement and display... well, let's say that it was almost impossible to buy an AMD product. It seemed as no one made them or sold them...

I wonder what could AMD possibly do against that... other than recurring to justice, which it did. But the damage was already done.

First of all, I was using AMD exclusively back then, so CPUs were available (and I'm in Eastern Europe).
Second, AMD's management should have foreseen intel will retaliate and have a contingency plan. They didn't.

What do you think will happen this time is Zen is merely as good as Skylake? Sitting on a mountain of cash, intel will simply slash prices, rendering AMD unable to sell their CPUs at a profit.
That's why I think AMD needs a slam dunk, not an "also ran".

PS I'm not saying intel hasn't played dirty/illegal back then, because they did. I'm saying this is business and AMD was caught unprepared.

[nomadewolf]

First of all, I was using AMD exclusively back then, so CPUs were available (and I'm in Eastern Europe).

Cmon man, let's be fair...
That must mean that you've built your own PC.
I am talking about people that buy laptop, OEM PCs and custom PCs made by others.

How much market share do you think that people that are capable of building their system like you represent vs the rest.
And what processors do you think the rest used?
We don't even need to go into the small portion of people that build their own systems...

Second, AMD's management should have foreseen intel will retaliate and have a contingency plan. They didn't.

I am sure that even today, AMD would love to hear some suggestions.
I would also...

That said, going for the market where they can sell (mid-low range) and catering to custom hardware needs (consoles) seems like a strategy that just might work. I also can't think of a better one.

What do you think will happen this time is Zen is merely as good as Skylake? Sitting on a mountain of cash, intel will simply slash prices, rendering AMD unable to sell their CPUs at a profit.
That's why I think AMD needs a slam dunk, not an "also ran".

PS I'm not saying intel hasn't played dirty/illegal back then, because they did. I'm saying this is business and AMD was caught unprepared.

I think that consumers will benefit from the price drop and competition.
Quad-Core processors will become the norm.
The i3 will be discontinued.
People will still buy Intel/NVidia.
Hopefully, the other moves AMD is doing behind the scenes will start to pay off.

[ldo17]

Microsoft plans a new Windows on ARM as a Desktop, not only for IoT.

That will fail for the same reason Microsoft failed before.

Let me refer you back to this recent item about features of the Linux 4.9 kernel: it mentions support for “29 more ARM machines”. As we all know, there is no such thing as a standardized “BIOS interface” for ARM: each SoC has its own way of identifying and accessing available hardware, setting up the boot process and so on. Linux can handle this through its “device tree” system, but Windows cannot.

Microsoft’s previous efforts at Windows-on-ARM only worked with a narrow range of specific chipsets. And as they lost market momentum, the range of supported chipsets shrank over time. Without the ability to radically rearchitect Windows to adopt a Linux-style approach, any future efforts will remain stuck at the same hurdle.

To reiterate: Windows is an inflexible OS! It simply cannot adapt to the range of hardware that Linux can support.

[nomadewolf]

That will fail for the same reason Microsoft failed before.

Let me refer you back to this recent item about features of the Linux 4.9 kernel: it mentions support for “29 more ARM machines”. As we all know, there is no such thing as a standardized “BIOS interface” for ARM: each SoC has its own way of identifying and accessing available hardware, setting up the boot process and so on. Linux can handle this through its “device tree” system, but Windows cannot.

Microsoft’s previous efforts at Windows-on-ARM only worked with a narrow range of specific chipsets. And as they lost market momentum, the range of supported chipsets shrank over time. Without the ability to radically rearchitect Windows to adopt a Linux-style approach, any future efforts will remain stuck at the same hurdle.

To reiterate: Windows is an inflexible OS! It simply cannot adapt to the range of hardware that Linux can support.

Let's not forget the fact that no one bought M$'s devices...

[Ansla]

To reiterate: Windows is an inflexible OS! It simply cannot adapt to the range of hardware that Linux can support.

Windows does not adapt to hardware, hardware adapts to Windows. That's the way things always worked. M$ signs a big contract with Qualcom and Qalcom makes X86 emulation layer and probably will also implement EFI for their chips so that Windows can work just like on X86. For M$ it's irelevant that non-Qualcom ARM chips also exist. If the new Surface whatever devices will be successful other ARM chip makers will start making changes to their chips to work with Windows.

[ldo17]

Windows does not adapt to hardware, hardware adapts to Windows. That's the way things always worked. M$ signs a big contract with Qualcom and Qalcom makes X86 emulation layer and probably will also implement EFI for their chips so that Windows can work just like on X86. For M$ it's irelevant that non-Qualcom ARM chips also exist. If the new Surface whatever devices will be successful other ARM chip makers will start making changes to their chips to work with Windows.

There can be no Windows contract big enough. Just look at the numbers:

• x86 — down to 280 million chips per year (down from a peak of over 360 million), and still declining.
• ARM — more chips shipping per year than the entire population of the Earth.

Compared to the existing ARM market, Windows is a drop in the bucket. It is Windows that has to adapt to ARM, just like Linux has done.

[vein]

lol, out of thousands of phones you found one which was subsidized by intel in 2015. intel killed off its smartphone dreams and stopped wasting money on subsidies, so 2016 lineup of zenfones uses only arm socs(2015 was mostly arm)

True, but it was said that I should find one and I did, even though it was old :P (Sorry for late post, but I have been on vacation)