Crapped out

[Mau]

Hey guys !!!!
What the hell is going on with AMD ?!!
Barton delayed six moths ?!!
Hammer too ?!!
XP 2600+ paper launched, but nowhere to be seen ?!!
For all the heat that Intel catches, they really are delivering the goods, aren't they (and at comparable prices)
AMD needs to get it together and do it fast or I'm sure I won't be the only loyal (to a reasonable point) consumer they'll lose.........

[cloasters]

Welcome to AOA Forums, Mau!

Vaporware always bothers me, too. AFAIK, AMD is held back because they need to rely on Fab's other than their own. They invested in a new UMC Fab in Singapore, but it won't be operational for quite a while.

I've read that re-tooling AMD's Fab in Dresden (jointly owned with the German gov't)is not simply a snap your fingers process.

AMD is in a weak position vis a vis Intel atm. As AMD is less than five percent "as big" as Intel, it is difficult for them to win battles. Yet they did for roughly two years, with the introduction of the K7 family of processor's.

I don't know when the latest top of the line Thoroughbred will hit the shelves. Personally, I'd rather see the production of the Barton and Hammer's miss the original schedule than see a release of a botched CPU, a' la Intel's release of the 1133(?) Mhz P3E.

AMD is scrabbling now. They're trying to retain market interest in their upcoming CPU's. Sometimes a "paper" release is just the best that can be accomplished. I'm sure that AMD knows that Vaporware angers a lot of people. Maybe one has to be an AMD supporter to put up with it?

Bigger outfits than AMD do the Vaporware thing. MS, for instance. Intel, too.

[Pinky]

Probably a manufacturing issue... the technolgy's developed, probably having issues getting enough of them made for proper distribution... and they may be aware of something we're not. One thing is for certain, next spring is going to be a very interesting time .

[Pinky]

Whoops, cloasters had that in his sights too

[dimmreaper]

Barton has been "delayed" because it will be fabed in Tiawan by UMC next year. Myself and others have been saying "next year for Barton" for many months now, some websites have been spreading misinformation stating Barton would come earlier than that. Sorry guys, but it was never going to happen.

Hammer on the other hand seems to in fact be delayed. It was previously thought by many market experts(including chipset firms) that we would not see Hammer 'till December or January. Again there were websites spreading misinformation claiming an October launch. But now February or March seems like a more likely launch date. Sources claim AMD is having troubles with the current integrated memory controller holding back core speeds slighty, and that they are redesigning the memory controller so that AMD will be able to out-pace Intel with future speed grades. Some sources are also stating that an extra metal layer is being added to the process, ala Tbred-B. This delay will allow AMD to further refine there SOI process for increased yeilds, as well as allow for other minor stepping changes to be made for increased clock speed.

[Mau]

Well, I suppose a few more months won't kill me, but I sure am dying to get my hands on some of this up-coming hardware (I'm sure we all are
I appreciate all your replies

P.S. DIMMREAPER- SABBATH RULES!!!!!

[dimmreaper]

Damn skippy Sabbath rules!(for those not in the loop, the lyrics in my signature are from the Black Sabbath song Children of the Grave). No other band has managed to say so much(musically) by saying so little. Did you know they were once a blues band!?! You can really hear the blues influence in The Wizard. I like Sabbath Bloody Sabbath the best.

[drunken_master]

Just to point out the hammers haven't been delayed, the roadmap amd haven't changed in over a year had the t-breds set for Q2 '02' and Q3 '02', it was spread over both and that was right so wasn't delayed. LIkewise the hammers are marked as Q4 '02' and Q1 '03' and it will jsut be at the later half of that time period. Wheres the delay. ITs when INtel biased sites say when they expect to see AMD stuff as they know it will look bad when they don't deliver, even though they never planned to.

AS has been said, to upgrade AMD's main fab means total loss of production for however long, whereas Intel can just refurbish one at a time so never losing more than what, 20% production. Also due to sheer mass of money they have they can afford to do it much more quickly using much more people to do it.

I had another point to make but I fear its forever lost in my head of a million thoughts(brief idea of what they are, Britney spears, britney spears, britney spears, computers...britney spears).

[Pinky]

Originally posted by dimmreaper
No other band has managed to say so much(musically) by saying so little.

ROTFLMAO

That's what I've been saying all along, so much and yet so little

[mrpcman]

Originally posted by Pinky


ROTFLMAO

That's what I've been saying all along, so much and yet so little

although we still have no proof about the former.

[drunken_master]

OH yeah, the other point i was gonna make was that with AMD's fab being in Dresden, germany, the huge amount of flooding around there the other week would have slowed production, sending them out, getting stuff in. ALso slowed up any plans to refurbish. Probably the main reason they are aiming for the later part of the dates they said it could be released.

[dimmreaper]

Originally posted by drunken_master
to upgrade AMD's main fab means total loss of production for however long

Not true, FAB30 has two massive clean rooms. FAB30 is basically two and a half Intel-sized fabs(in terms of capacity) in one complex. Clean room 1 was finished in 1998, and was producing excelent yeilds by 2000 when clean room 2 was just being completed. AMD is updating clean room 2 to SOI first(they are probably going to be finished in a month or two), then clean room 1 after Hammer is launched and K7 production moved to Tiawan, this is why there is a 3 months time span between the launch of Hammer and "volume shipments" of Hammer. The first 3 months Hammer is going to cost you if you want it, since AMD will be lucky if they can supply 75% of the demand.

The new UMC/AMD FAB going in on China's mainland(to be operational in 2005 with 12" waffers on 65nm process) in is going to have 3 times the capacity as FAB30. The down-side is that AMD doesn't get to use all the capacity.

[drunken_master]

ONe thing AMD don't do is charge £500 for the new chips while supplies are low. That would be an INtel thing. They were low stocks of the 2200+'s and prices weer, errrmmm, £180. So that proves you pretty wrong. ALos they dropped that price by 33% after 1 month of being available.

AMD won't make them ludicrisly expensive. I'm not trying to say INtel =bad, amd=good here. Just it seems to me to be a Intel fanboy who posted the first post and this pops up all over net, its a little irritating.

Errm, paper launch of the 2600+, let me think, and 6 month delays, wheres the prrof in that. SO they showed the hammer at 800Mhz several months ago(they didn't show bartons anywhere at all). If you remember the P4's were showcased at 600Mhz 8 months before initial release too. Thats wat they do, there release roadmap is deaed on schedule. Most of the "EXPECTED" release dates come from reviewers, 90% of the time seem to be coming from Tom.


LIke i said , AMD not perfect but far from being bad, also they have not lost any market share, despite slowly upgrading FAbs, and wer INtel struck with huge flooding, production problems for a good deal of time, no you say?? desttop market share, from 18% to 19% this year, notebook share up 12% and server% going up quite a bit but have forgotten that firgure.

Has anyone seen a review of the 3.6Ghz P4 and been told it smokes the whole market?? WHen is that one out, oh yeah, next July. AMD got struck with the huge floods exactly as they released the new t-bred revision, very bad luck and i really don't think blaming them is the answer.

[dimmreaper]

Originally posted by drunken_master
ONe thing AMD don't do is charge £500 for the new chips while supplies are low. That would be an INtel thing. They were low stocks of the 2200+'s and prices weer, errrmmm, £180.

There was no demand to speak of either.

Hammer will be expensive, if there is demand. I have pretty good reason to believe boards will be expensive as well, as Hypertransport is apparently more difficult to design for than it appears on paper, and Hammer calls for a more complex and more expensive Vcore power supply.

The notion of a cheap Hammer system is a pipedream drucken_master. AMD is moving K7 to UMC in Tiawan so they can ship those CPUs in great volume as the value parts. Barton will be cheap, somewhere between a Celeron and a P4. Clawhammer will be more expensive if demand is as high as AMD anticipates, somewhere between a P4 and a Xeon. Sledgehammer will probably be comparible in price with the large on-die cache Xeon's that will be available at the same time.

What we are seeing is a change in the market. Once upon a time the high-end CPUs were the volume desktop parts, where value CPUs just sucked up a little more money. The present trend is value CPUs are representing more and more of the volume, and CPU manufactures believe this trend will continue. Last quarter 35% of the CPUs Intel shipped were Celerons, and 50% of the CPUs AMD shipped were Durons. Both companies are making changes in light of this; Intel is moving the Celeron to a 130nm process, AMD has stopped making Durons and is pricing there stock-pile of low-end XPs to sell(they mis-calculated the Athlon/Duron ratio in the first half, and are now paying for it). Very few people need a high-end CPU these days, so those that do need them will pay through the nose. High-end systems will longer be PCs, but rather "x86 Workstations."

[drunken_master]

Well, AMD have said that by the beginning of the fourth quater we will see pre built computers with hammers in for under £1000, thats $1500, my friend just paid £2300 for a system with £800 moniter inc, so £1500 for a t-bred sys with a leadtek 4600(around £200 here now).


AMD long ago, like 6 months ago stated plans to drop duron by end of year, and do everything you've said they are going to do.

THe thing you are missing here is this. Its not a case of INtel are still gonna run P4's as their top CPU(for mass buying), so amd will do the same and price their 64bit chip like INtels. They have always stated the XP's will be budget, sub £150 on most new processors by mid next year . With the hammers starting at around £250, they have always planned this chip as a direct replacement for th XP series. The ONLY possibly way for AMD to stay in buisness is to do this. They have 19% share of the market, they can't afford to price there 64bit chips at high prices, they would go bust, simple as that. They wil lbe cheaper than you think, as will the boards. Also it looks like the range of hammers will be running at extremely low voltages, the boards weer being planned with voltage adjustment from 0.8v to 1.55v. Seriously that low.

[drunken_master]

Your also forgeting, and adding in lots of complex stuff there that is irrelevant. Of course hyper threading will make boards more expensive, but of course you know that most of the CHEAP boards will be for SINGLE chips, where hyper threading(not in single chip like P4's) is only used inbetween the different chips. SO it will make dualie boards more expensive, not single processor ones.

AS for demand high, prices high, i think you will find in any idustry if the demand is high, they sell more, can make more at lower cost, and this makes prices low. The itaniums are expensive as NO ONE WANTS THEM, and they are expensive to produce in such small quatities.

ALso the only difference between sledgehammers, from waht i can remember is the extra pins on the chip to cope with all the hyper threading involved in 8 way set ups. BUt there are two things to mention. The extra pins will not add a silly amount to the cost, so will very likely be cheaper than the XEONS, they will also require very expensive boards for running 8 way anyway, anyone that can afford a setup anything like that won't care about the cost. We are taking £4-5k up for a setup like that with all the other stuff needed to.

When was the last time AMD released a newer better, faster chip and priced it straight out of the market?? NEver you say, shocking, as i said before, the main point here is AMD can't afford to price it high, they will go bust, the only way AMD can hold there market share is to sell as many chips as possible to as many peeps as possible, you can't do that the way you think they will.

[dimmreaper]

Originally posted by drunken_master
The ONLY possibly way for AMD to stay in buisness is to do this. They have 19% share of the market, they can't afford to price there 64bit chips at high prices, they would go bust, simple as that.

Not true. AMD has long planned for Barton to put bread on the table. Hammer is designed only to bring home the tasty bacon(IE to make AMD prifitable once again and to maintain that profitability). All of AMD's talk about "bringing 64-bit computing to the mainstream" is rubbish, it always has been. What they really mean is that they plan to make 64-bit CPUs more of a commodity than ever before, not that they will be mainstream.

Originally posted by drunken_master
Also it looks like the range of hammers will be running at extremely low voltages, the boards weer being planned with voltage adjustment from 0.8v to 1.55v. Seriously that low.

Yes that is low voltage, but wattage remains very near to that of a K7 CPU, which means amperage is higher. Amperage is much more expensive to supply than voltage. Hammer also calls for greater current stability and lower voltage ripple than K7, this requires the use of a high frequency quad phase switching supply, which is more expensive to build and design.

[cloasters]

I mooted the possibility that the first Hammer's would be expensive. This idea was nay-sayed. Is it a safe bet that Sledgehammers will always be beyond most regular user's pocketbooks? I think this is a given.

I can't tell if what I read lately about pricing, which cites ~$400 as the initial price, applies to the first Clawhammers or Sledgehammers.

There's a BIG difference between these processors. Leave it to AMD not to build upon already established trade names. Dumb*sses! Noo, we need a new name. Yeah, you do. BUT you can't afford three hundred million for a tv ad campaign. Duh!

As no new CPU with the "hammer" name will exist, I think it's time for AMD to clearly differentiate the CPU's that are best known as "....Hammer's." People are confused, especially me. "Opteron" and "Opteron x86-64?" "Opteron" sounds too wussy! Gimme a Hammer!

[dimmreaper]

Athlon = K7 and single memory channel small cache K8(AKA "Clawhammer")

Opteron = dual memory channel K8 with double the cache as "Clawhammer" and two extra 32bit hypertransport controllers(AKA "Sledgehammer"), or two "Clawhammers" in SMP configuration.

Got it now Cloasters?

The ~$400 intial price for the Athlon branded Clawhammer is probably spot on what the official price will be(though I'm sure druken_master will disagree). Expect basic single Clawhammer boards to cost around $160-200.

Hammer looks cheap to build, but when you think about it AMD has no reason to sell them cheap when they will be selling massive numbers of Barton CPUs cheap. When you first look at Hammer motherboards, they look cheap to build, but the reality is they are not. Hammer systems will be of a premium nature, of this I am quite certain(though I wasn't always).