6.27.2007

Barcelona Set For A "Squishy" Launch

Please accept my apologies for the odd term I used to describe AMD's next generation microprocessor launch. News from the INQUIRER claims that Barcelona is set to launch sometime in September in a trickle-like manner similar to the R600 launch. Since the industry is in complete agreement that R600 wasn't a hard launch and AMD claims it doesn't do soft launches therefore, please, understand my need for a better word.

AMD plans to launch Barcelona at a measly 1.9Ghz/2.0Ghz. AMD's desperation to stop the server share erosion couldn't be more obvious. The wait to achieve target speeds appears too long and literally too costly that AMD is sacrificing the great launch for a timely launch. Everyone can now forget about the grand performance topping Barcelona entrance. AMD just wants it out. Perfect or not.

There will be frantic reviews and debate at Barcelona's launch. For AMD's sake I just hope they have at least enough 2.5GHz sent out to tech journalists. The future of this company hinges on Barcelona performance and an R600 media disaster is the last thing AMD needs. The slow speeds at launch plus the high 120W TDP on a low 2.4GHz part only spells trouble for AMD. On the other hand, we're all used to the over-promise and under-deliver rhetoric from AMD so I can't really say I am surprised.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Although we've come
To the End of the Road
Still I can't let go
It's unnatural
You belong to me
I belong to you

DAAMIT

Anonymous said...

Victory for the Blue Team.

289/500 are Intel based. Of the top 100, 41 are Intel based just 13 for AMD.

Anonymous said...

Really, didn't we all know, those with independant rational thinking,that the whole AMD smoke and mirror campaign was there to protect a failed product? This was all done months ago to obtain the 2 billion convertable note and keep the stock from tanking. This was all to buy time. and time is now running out.

2.4 @ 120 TDP!?!?! Holy macaroni! My 955EE @ 4.26gHz doesn't cook like this thing! At 3 gig this chip will fall flat on it's ass. 40 percent, what were they smoking? These guys are running scared AND deperate. Frankly, I was hoping Barcelona would have faired better. Intel would have turn Penryn loose a bit sooner for my next upgrade.

So, INTC has had it's cake and is eating it, too. Unfortunatly, a lot of people are going to be unemployed. God speed to all.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3023

"We want to paint an accurate picture here, but it has become nearly impossible to speak negatively enough about the AMD Radeon HD 2000 Series without sounding comically absurd."

Anonymous said...

Let's face it - AMD really doesn't have a choice. Might as well try to offload a few 1.9/2.0GHz chips while working on the higher bins. Yes, it will make for a weak PR spin - but these are not desktop chips where this strategy would have been an absolute disaster.

Given server erosion it doesn't appear that AMD needs the capacity to make more K8's so it's not like they are taking much of a capacity hit by doing this.

Anonymous said...

Gotta love the "spinsters"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070628/tc_pcworld/133551

"Our plan is not to have a paper launch. We want to do a launch with a product."

Wow, the plan is NOT to have a paper launch...you mean you WANT you want to actually launch with product? What a brilliant "plan"! I wonder if this plan is to launch across a wide family of products (like you know graphics?) - wait it's just going to be the 2 lowest bin parts initially?

"IDGNS: With large numbers of Barcelona servers available for sale?

Knox: Right. And given what's been going on in the market, it's extremely critical that people understand that. We have had a number of launches in the past, I'll point to Intel's Clovertown launch as an example. They launched Clovertown and I think it was less than 10 percent of their product mix two quarters later."

Is this guy for real? Clovertown was launched in NOVEMBER, so it is barely 2 quarters from launch to negin with! 10% of the mix? He's probably mixing all the desktop and mobile product in to make Clovertown (SERVER!) mix look small - I wonder if AMD will do the same with Barcy quad core? He might want to look at % of Intel server chip shipments that are quad core in MAY07 - might be just a wee bit more than 10%... of course the truth would make for a much less better sounding sound byte for the press. And is the interviewer asleep when he hears BS statements like this?

This is an AMD vice president!

Anonymous said...

http://news.com.com/AMDs+quad-core+Barcelona+coming+in+August/2100-1006_3-6194022.html?tag=nefd.top

AMD has prioritized production of our low-power and standard-power products because our customers and ecosystem demand it, and we firmly believe that the introduction of our native Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor will deliver on the promise of the highest levels of performance-per-watt the industry has ever seen," Randy Allen, corporate vice president of AMD's server and workstation division, said in a statement.

That is the biggest crock: customers are demanding the highest clocked parts but AMD cannot deliver them on schedule.

Anonymous said...

Anyone else find it interesting that neither Scientia nor Shari-nutjob have new posts trumpeting the official Barcelona announcement from AMD?

Anonymous said...

Anyone else find it interesting that neither Scientia nor Shari-nutjob have new posts trumpeting the official Barcelona announcement from AMD?

They'll claim to be out on holiday or spin it that it is good for AMD to get product out for revenue even if it's at the abysmal intro frequencies.

Or maybe they will once and for all come clean and admit they've been duped.

Anonymous said...

"Or maybe they will once and for all come clean and admit they've been duped."

What do you mean duped? AMD promised it would INTRODUCE Barcelona in Q2 and true to their word they very proudly announced their latest and greatest technology to the world, via a press release on a Friday on the last day of the quarter... PREFECT EXECUTION!

You can tell how monumental an event this is by going to their home page... errr... not mentioned in the "News and Reviews" areas... errr... not near that important link on benchmarking 101... well if you follow several links to the news release area you will see it very PROUDLY diaplayed....

AMD also PROMISED product in mid-2007, they will have some "energy efficient" (read: the only crap that we can get to sort out) processors in August. Once again PERFECT EXECUTION! Might as well launch some ultra mobile 1.0GHz parts for UMPC's while there at it...

Yeah they may have mentioned up to 2.6GHz at launch (or let it conveniently, unofficially leak out) but they never PROMISED those speeds. Sure they may have said on average 40% faster than the best Intel chip, but they didn't say they would do that at launch...

I'm just glad they CHOSE (wink, wink!) to release the "energy efficient" processors first as opposed to the high performance ones. It's not like when they actually debug the chip the power consumption will also likely come down - the early adopters will get doubly #(*&! They get low performing parts at higher early adopter prices under the guise of energy efficiency - about 6 months when the higher end chips come out, AMD likely cuts TDP on low end chips with better steppings, and likely cuts prices to introduce the higher perf parts, the initial customer will say "thank you sir can I have another!"

Anonymous said...

Whatever it is you're smoking, must be really, really good ;)

AMD BK Q2'08

Roborat, Ph.D said...

i sense sarcasm...

Anonymous said...

Roborat please download below and enjoy it before it gets pulled.

http://vd.verysell.ru/files/ie/252_10_DOCUMENT_Server_Section_PUBLIC.ppt

Can Scientia and the rest of the AMD fanbois handle the truth in slides 71 and 72? This would look pretty on your blog...

Live long and prosper.

Anonymous said...

I hate squishy. I like things nice and hard, the harder the better. Robo-stud, you are the only one who can bang my ass all night. Yum! We can watch "The Birdcage" together.

Anonymous said...

Hey, now that's a plan. I'll bang your ass good!