1.02.2008

AMD’s Law: “Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get worse…”

For AMD, 2007 was the year where everything turned south. Just when you thought it can’t possible get any worse, AMD’s management comes out with more bad news. In fact, it’s gone so horrible wrong that I am starting to feel a sense of weariness from too much AMD bashing. To be honest, it was most exciting when AMD’s decline was debatable. Then it was instantaneously gratifying when our analysis turned out to be correct. But today when we finally see closet fanboys re-write our opinions while gobbling up large quantities of crow, you begin to gather a sense of indifference. Have we heard so much bad news about AMD that we’re beginning to feel numb?

Case in point: today Banc of America downgraded AMD’s stocks from “neutral” to “sell”. Frankly, telling someone to sell when they have lost more than half of its value is quite useless especially when the reasons stated aren’t new and profound:
“Irrespective of whether AMD will be able to deliver on its promise to ramp the much-delayed Barcelona platform in volumes by the first or second quarters of 2008, we believe Barcelona will do very little to stem the share losses AMD will likely witness in servers and desktops vs. Intel's more competitive line-up. Furthermore, we believe that AMD's cost structure will be further pressured by higher depreciation and higher material costs associated with the ramp of quad core parts in 2008,"

I’m sure there’s a lot of AMD shareholders who would appreciate such advice right about a year ago! Nonetheless, finding this news completely uninteresting proves my point. On the other hand, an excess of gloom and doom of AMD can only be good for the company. Expect AMD’s stock to tick higher on any news that’s less than disastrous (i.e., see Q3’07 report). Clever management strategy, I say.

95 comments:

Unknown said...

I totally agree. Analysts are complete idiots. All they do is state the obvious. Buy rating at $25. Sell rating at $7? Surely that's meant to be the other way around. If i'd lost $18/per share I'd be willing to lose the last $7. The risk reward ratio at $7 share is far better than at $25.

Chuckula said...

There were some negative remarks made about the semi industry in general for next year, Intel is off about 5% as of 2PM on the 2nd, but AMD is off by even more percentage wise. Of course, Intel is dropping from near 52-week highs while AMD is dropping from near 52 week lows, so this stings Intel a little, but it is even more disastrous for AMD.

Going forward Intel does continue to look pretty strong. The entire sector could go weak since 2007 was actually a surprisingly strong year for semis and semiconductors are very cyclical. The good news for Intel is that it has already paid all the costs for 45NM R&D, and can control how fast Penryn ramps to meet market demand even if the market goes soft. It won't make record profits, but it will still be profitable and ready for when the market recovers. AMD... well let's just say that their guidance to "break even" (if you can call having neutral operating revenues while still hemorrhaging money "break even") was based on a bullish prediction of 2008's semi market.... we'll see how that goes.

Unknown said...

I hope semis do "badly" this year on the market. Investors will overreact and it will create bargain buying opportunities.

I think 2009 is going to be a great year for Intel. Silverthorne could really boost their stock price. It's cheap to produce and if they can get them into more and more mobiles the stock is only going to go one way.

With AMD already so low any trickle of news that suggests they will start perfoming could really turn their stock price around too.

Anonymous said...

Telling someone to sell when prices has dropped half (or 3/4) it's value is not useless...many folks ignorantly think well I lost 1/2 my money so I might as well stick around to see if it rebounds (only to watch it further drop), as evidence by the first commentor.

I owned a mortgage company earlier this year as the whole subprime mess started (AHM) - I lost about 33% and was thinking about sticking around to see if it would rebound, but I decided to sell. Last I looked the stock was now under $1 and had lost virtually the rest of the 67% I had left.

"The risk reward ratio at $7 share is far better than at $25."

BASED ON WHAT?!?! You just would have less money to lose - do you really think the upside is better (or even equivalent to what it waswhen it was $25) now? Please attempt to quantify the risk reward at $25 vs now at $7.... The potential upside on the stock was better when the Barcelona performance was an unknown. Now that it is known - the only way AMD sells these things is through low prices...which means lower margin, higher costs and struggling profitability.

You must be the guy in poker who when holding a pair of 2's and knows he's beat, calls that last $10 raise because you already committed $50 earlier, so what the hey, right?

Anonymous said...

"I think 2009 is going to be a great year for Intel. Silverthorne could really boost their stock price. It's cheap to produce and if they can get them into more and more mobiles the stock is only going to go one way"

Just keep in mind the overall impact to Intel's revenue. While this is a growth area if Intel sells $1Bil worth of these chips in 2009, that would represent an ~2.5% increase in revenue (~40Bil/yr). Now factor in the likely margin on these chips vs other things Intel sells and the stock would likely go up by less than the revenue increase due to these increased sales. These things are cheap to produce, but is the margin going to better than CPU's? (Unlikely)

I'm not saying this is not a good area for Intel to get in to, but just how much revenue do you think these things will generate in 2009? $5Bil? that would be a ~12% increases in revenue, would this move the stock? sure... but would it move it a lot?

Clearly Intel needs to keep developing new markets (medical?), but short term (next 2 years) - Intel only grows significantly by overall x86 CPU market growth.

Roborat, Ph.D said...

Anonymous said: Telling someone to sell when prices has dropped half (or 3/4) it's value is not useless...many folks ignorantly think well I lost 1/2 my money so I might as well stick around to see if it rebounds

This is a very valid statement from the point of view of a stock holder making an investment decision. The criticism however is directed at the manner the downgrade was decided upon. Making new investment advice with old news is quite useless considering that 1) we've known for a while now that Barcelona is late, 2) AMD has admitted quarters ago the negligible financial contribution of K10, 3) We've discussed a long time ago how 65nm quad-cores are expensive.

"The risk reward ratio at $7 share is far better than at $25."
BASED ON WHAT?


I do understand you position. The old school always says that the value of any stock is what it is currently priced. Historical valuation doesn't really mean anything especially for a company like AMD with an uncertain future. Then again, one shouldn't forget that AMD is trading at book value which makes it easy for anyone to assume a better risk reward ratio.

Anonymous said...

Perfect, the Anal-ist, once again, decide they are going to single handily drive down the entire sector so the big money can load up on the good stuff. Downgrade AMD and INTC!?!?! NVDA takes a hit too!?!?!

I’ve got a couple of questions for these bozos.

If AMD looks so bad for the second half, whom then, pray tell, will absorb AMD’s market share, VIA perhaps? Is the entire world going to stop buying computers and chips to make way for VIA?

Who, now that the bottom has dropped out of Barcelona, will supply the server market in 2008, IBM perhaps?

Let’s see, power sipping 45nM Penryns 2500 per wafer, already in HP (and others) laptops, ready for release; I suppose this with have no effect on INTC’s bottom line?

http://www.pclaunches.com/notebooks/
hp_pavilion_hdx_9200_dv2700_dv6700_and_dv9700
_laptops_also_run_intel_penryn.php

Ummm, does any one want to venture a guess what will happen to the low end market during the second quarter 2008, WHEN INTC slashes prices on ‘old’ Conroe chips to make way for new faster Penryn as they ramp? Higher margins on die per wafer with Penryn, greater market share on the lower end with 65nM Conroe, this is bad?

I called for AMD share holders to GET OUT of AMD in October, 2006, WTF took these bastards 15 months of 18 dollar a share losses to figure this one out, today, no less???? Some IDIOT’s still have a BUY on AMD!!!!!

Listen, this whole INTC and AMD thing is like “The Highlander” story, “THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!” INTC has run away with all the marbles for the next year, or two, so they now down grade them? You simply can’t down grade both. With INTC, it won’t stick.

Now, those MORONS at the INQ are suggesting that NVDA may buy AMD. Wait, let me send “Big Paulie” a nice new solid Gold, Monte Blanc pen to sign the new X86 license over to NVDA.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/
inquirer/news/2008/01/02/amd-dawns

Hey, I’ve got some nice real estate here in New York, it called the Brooklyn Bridge. Please, anyone who would like to make a serious offer contact my agents, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and Wiley Coyote. Daffy Duck is unavailable, as he has his head in the sand.

INTC has NEVER looked better. 4Q INTC earnings report to follow in two weeks! Everyone with REAL money will load up on INTC. This is LAW.

SPARKS

Orthogonal said...

I wouldn't put much weight in a BAC analyst downgrade, they lost all credibility when they fraudulently traded Intel shares over this decade based on their own ratings.

http://www.forbes.com/business/2007
/03/14/bank-america-fined-biz-cx_
lm_0314bofa.html

Also, I am surprised that this entire sector downgrade caused AMD to drop so much. Considering that their downgrade is based on very old information and are just now making a decision about it. Also, AMD stock is VERY oversold in the daily timeframe. This doesn't mean a stock can't go down (very oversold for this long generally means there's a big problem), but by now all negative news should be priced into the stock and I'd be more worried about violent up-spikes if you're short rather than gamble on it going down right now in the near-term. They're not going BK in 2008, but long term prospects are continually more hazy.

Anonymous said...

And further, concerning AMD’s laptop sales, it get uglier.

"Additionally, Dhanda said that semiconductor channel checks suggest that AMD is likely to see more share losses in the notebook PC market. Dhanda said an example of this comes from Toshiba, which had given AMD about 20% of its notebook business. However, because of weak demand for the AMD-powered notebooks, Dhanda said Toshiba "is likely to revert back to Intel based platforms exclusively."


Oh, now that Toshiba may drop AMD from their line up I, suppose the Anal-ist will downgrade INTC, yet again? Yeah, ok.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/chip-stocks-tumble-b-
cuts/story.aspx?guid=%7B53762D65%2DC34D%2D4298%
2DB7DE%2DA21262349C57%7D&siteid=yhoof

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

"Making new investment advice with old news is quite useless considering that 1) we've known for a while now that Barcelona is late, 2) AMD has admitted quarters ago the negligible financial contribution of K10, 3) We've discussed a long time ago how 65nm quad-cores are expensive."

Note - the downgrade was for chipmakers (not just AMD); Intel was downgraded as well, which is why its stock price dropped too,and if you look by roughly the same %. While I put little weight into analyst opinions, I don't see anything out of the ordinary with this specific case.

'Then again, one shouldn't forget that AMD is trading at book value which makes it easy for anyone to assume a better risk reward ratio.'

With all due respect this is a naive perspective - there are many banks trading that are now trading far closer to book now than they were 12months ago - I would not call ANY of these better from a risk/reward ratio. Also many mortgage related companies were operating at close to book value (or in some case below) only to see there price drop further (and in some case the companies went under). Trading at book value doesn't necessarily make upside/reward better, ESPECIALLY when the company has strategic issue (underperforming new products, strong competitors, debt, etc...), and when the assets will depreciate rapidly. As with all technical indicators you have to look at price/book with other value stocks (PEG, forward PE, EBIDTA, recenue growth) in addition to the strategic factors (mgm't, product portfolio, etc...)

One additional thing to consider, if 2008 overall CPU growth is estimated to be lower this puts additional pressure on AMD's stock as the belief is that Intel would then be able to take more share (or force AMD to lower prices further). If the market grows, then Intel is less likely to eat into market share as they are relatively lean from an inventory perspective, and Otellini said in the Q3 call that Intel would be capacity constrained (short term) if the market grew more than expected. So while AMD has much of THEIR bad news priced into the stock, an impact to overall CPU growth would hurt them some more.

I'm not trying to defend B of A, but AMD's 65nm quad issues get compounded if the overall market doesn't grow very much (which would put a NEW impact on the stock). If the market grows rapidly, AMD is going to sell product (and will not be forced into further price cuts) as Intel will not have the capacity to supply the entire market. So the combination of a lower forecast CPU growth and AMD's no longer new product and production issues combine for a 'new' impact on the stock.

Either way, this price drop on Intel looks (to me) like an opportunity to buy - most analyst still have an ~$31 price target (12 months). Though tech stocks in '08 may in general be a dicey situation.

Anonymous said...

“If the market grows, then Intel is less likely to eat into market share as they are relatively lean from an inventory perspective”

“this puts additional pressure on AMD's stock as the belief is that Intel would then be able to take more share”

“Intel will not have the capacity to supply the entire market.”

“Either way, this price drop on Intel looks (to me) like an opportunity to buy”


Ah, it seems Jupiter is aligned with Mars and the Sun is in the Seventh House. I agree with your excellent analysis. Margins, as you well know, haven’t been in the traditional 52% range, which Wall Street loves for INTC, by the way. The mid 40 thing, rears its ugly head no mater what dividends they pay out.

One thing, though, if INTC can ramp up to full capacity on all fronts, raise margins and supply emerging markets, I would call this a win, win scenario. Perhaps, this is why INTC hasn’t cut prices-----yet? They don’t need to. Maybe the delay on low cost Penryn's was because Conroe was/is selling so well? Why do I think the BOA Anal-ists are missing the big picture, at least as far as INTC is concerned, in 2008?

AMD’s market share erosion is to be expected. The bottom line here is with no competition in sight, INTC will sell everything they make (including 65nM) in the next year, regardless. It all boils down to price in which INTC could conceivably give the entire sector a shot in the arm, if needed, with a mere price drop.

Now that's what I call JUICE. Lets not forget you've got a marketing guy running the company.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

"Maybe the delay on low cost Penryn's was because Conroe was/is selling so well? Why do I think the BOA Anal-ists are missing the big picture, at least as far as INTC is concerned, in 2008?"

The question is whether you want to grow the top line (revenue) or bottom line (earnings)... ideally one would like to grow both (thank you captain obvious, eh?) - but in order to take away AMD's low end notebook and desktop mix, it would likely mean a margin hit and I don't know if the street would like the extra revenue and some additional earnings at the expense of margin.

Even if Intel builds out capacity to supply the entire 100% of the market - AMD still has manufacturing capacity and would be forced to drop prices until they sell their product - it's not like chips age well and they could just wait until demand picks up or Intel's supply is not enough (it's either that, cut prices to sell product or idle the fabs).

And I don't think Intel wants to completely take AMD out (that's assuming they could), as the FTC, EU, et al would likely step in and 'help' consumers via regulation. I would also rather compete against a company that is 'questionably' managed as opposed to one which would be forced to re-structure if it went chapter 11 (or if AMD got bought by a competent mgmt team). If I were Intel I would hope Hector's 'reign' as CEO would last for a while. The trick (from an Intel perspective) is to keep AMD in a wounded enough state that even if they hit a home run (like a new design) it would take years for them to capitalize on it, but not too weak where you have governments trying to regulate you.

Unknown said...

" "The risk reward ratio at $7 share is far better than at $25."
BASED ON WHAT?"

Based on when it was $25 it was completely over priced and obvious Intel had a huge advantage and AMD's constant price cuts were going to hurt them.

AMD are now worth less than 4bn. They have a lot of assets and graphics is doing quite well. It can't get much worse for AMD. If that analyst was any good he'd have told people to sell at 16. Plenty of them were upgrading at 16 though saying the stock was under valued. Nice pumping by institutions so they could dump off.

They are full of shit and mainly in it for themselves, at least when it comes to the semi industry. I don't think I've seen one of them get something right about AMD or Intel. If you need an analyst to tell you when to buy and sell stocks then you should probably just stick your money in a fund.

The good thing about analysts though is a lot of people will blindly listen to them so people like me can use their nonsense to my advantage.

Roborat, Ph.D said...

Anonymous said: With all due respect this is a naive perspective - there are many banks trading that are now trading far closer to book now than they were 12months ago -

Not really, you asked on what basis the risk-reward ratio is determined to be better at $7 vs $25 and I simply responded with one possible answer. (I never said I do agree with acquiring the stock at this volatile moment.) I just implied one possible reason why anyone would think the stock has more chances of an upside at $7 than when it was at $25. It’s never a question of possibility that the stock could go further south of $7. It’s a question whether the chance is greater now when it is closer to its book value than when it was at $25 which is multiple times its total assets. It’s only natural that the risk-reward ratio gets better as you approach book value. You’re arguing that it can go further south, which I’m sure it can, but this is really beside the point.
Likewise you shouldn’t compare how a financial services company is valued compared to a capital-intensive manufacturing company. You’re also forgetting that AMD can easily generate over $1B per quarter. AMD’s ‘business model’ may be broken, but being in a dual monopoly on an industry that continues to grow, the business remains viable.

Anonymous said...

People like you? If you seriously think AMD's risk reward is better now then when it was say 25, then you must have also thought the risk reward was better earlier this year when say the stock was at 15? (How's it done since then)

Just because stock price goes down, it doesn't mean the upside is better. When AMD was at $25, Phenom was not released, noone really knew about the performance (or schedule issues) - at that point the upside is better than it is now when the performance and schedule issues are known.

Please don;t pawn yourself off as an expert with the logic you are using which is fundamentally flawed. It is no different than the AMD fans who were sayong mortgage the house when the stock had dropped to $15. You sound like someone who cold calls and say I like it at $60, I like it even better now that it's $20.

YOU CAN"T BASE UPSIDE (or risk/reward) ON DECLINING BOOK VALUE! You can speculate on it, but a declining price/book does not mean an asset is more attractive if the company is flawed.

If you truly think risk reward is better than give a QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATE or provide a price target or something other than a gut feeling based on no data whatsoever. Simply sayoing ATI makes good products is a useless statement - Nvidia also makes good products and Intel is entering the discrete graphics biz at end of 2008.

Anonymous said...

$6.77... the upside just keeps getting better and better! Buy, buy, buy!

I like it at $15... it's a steal under $7... what do I need to put you in this stock today?

If I flip a coin and it comes up heads 3 times in a row, is the next time I flip it more likely to come up tails?

Why again is the 'upside better' now (other than the price falling)? Is AMD's competitive position better or worse than it was 6 months ago? 12 months ago?

You can mask your feelings/analysis in price/book or market cap, but all that is changing is the stock price - so in effect your analysis is as stock price goes lower, the upside is better. In fact one can argue things are worse now as the problems with K10 are known, the performance relative to Intel is known and Intel delivered on their 45nm schedule (which when AMD was @$25 was only a plan) and appears to be on track with their next microarch... what exactly has gotten better for AMD since the stock price was @25? Discrete graphic cards? Please don't say integrated graphics as that market is now inextricably linked to CPU success and market share as the Intel biz is gone for ATI chipsets.

I might add that overall CPU growth in 2008 is thought to be softening, credit will be harder to secure and on less favorable terms, and the US economy (and perhaps the world economy) is slowing.

Other than a takeover attempt (or merger), what exactly is the upside on AMD in the nest 6-12 months?

Roborat, Ph.D said...

Please don;t pawn yourself off as an expert with the logic you are using which is fundamentally flawed.

I really would like to know how you value a stock then because i'm using the same logic as most investors use: the the Price-Sales ratio, Price-Book ratio including comparing AMD's current market cap of 3.7B versus its enterprise value of 7.7B - all clearly showing that AMD is currently undervalued. The further AMD's stock goes south, the more undervalued it becomes to MOST investors, probably even more so for buyout companies. I don't understand why this concept seems to ellude you.

Unknown said...

AMD was an awful stock to buy at $25. We didn't need to know about phenom. Intel was punishing them hard and AMD was price cutting. How is a company making price cuts going to make money. Then they bought ATI A few months later. 5BN in debt, investors don't like that. I wouldn't have bought at 14 either.

At the beginning of 2007 I valued the stock at $8/share. There were a few other people who thought $8 was where AMD belonged too. People laughed at us, Barcelona this that and the other. Luckily I do research before I make decisions. Blogs like this one helped me quickly realise Barcelona was going to be a technical flop. The secrets, the lack of product demos, late tape out. All signs that all AMD had was a lot of hot air. There was of course a lot more facts than that. I can't remember them all but the overall consensus all facts and information considered was AMD really didn't have anything.


I'd put a value of $6 on AMD right now, but that's not to say they can't turn around. $16 was way over priced. Institutions kept it up, pumping and dumping it. This stock has finally hit a reasonable value. Anyone buying it last year (day traders aside) was out of their mind. I don't see how you can say at $25 it was a better buy. For AMD to have doubled to $50 a share after falling from $40 and buying ATI is just....unthinkable. Don't forget to consider Core2 had just come out and AMD was cutting prices heavily. The writing was on the wall for most of us.

It's taken a long time to drop. I'm not making any moves though. If I had been advised by one of these "experts" to buy at $16 and was being told to dump at $7, I'd ignore them. Actually I wouldn't but of course that is totally hypothetical. If I was listening to them in the first place then I'd probably not have the brains to figure out they are clueless the second time around, nor realise the fact that I've already lost $9 per share and a large company with a large amount of assets and good backing in Germany is worth less than $4bn. AMD own some good technology they just have awful management.

There are good points to cut losses. If you are a long player this is not one of them. People going long do not cut at 7 to buy back at 6. They will ride the rough and pickup more later on. If you put all your eggs in one basket, then well I guess you are screwed. If you gambled at 7/8 though. I guess the words are get out. Cut losses and sit and watch. It's a volatile market at the moment, AMD is not worth a gamble.

Unknown said...

"Why again is the 'upside better' now (other than the price falling)? Is AMD's competitive position better or worse than it was 6 months ago? 12 months ago?"

IMO they are doing better now. ATI is up and running and actually producing chips. Barcelona might actually launch this year. As I've already said. AMD was completely overvalued all last year. Even if you don't get the X86 licence off Intel the company is still worth less than they paid for ATI for a potential buyer.

I think AMD is technically undervalued but still has a lot of risk. The risk is far less than at $25 though. $25 was nowhere but down. I wouldn't buy AMD though because I think it will drop further. The trend is down and finally the people who thought it was worth money last year are dumping it off. Creates opportunities for us though. AMD could turn around and be one of those stocks you look at the graph and go "Why on earth was such a good company so cheap then?"

If AMD goes below $3Bn Market cap would you really think it is worth less than that?

Anonymous said...

“The further AMD's stock goes south, the more undervalued it becomes to MOST investors, probably even more so for buyout companies.”

Agreed, however, every morning I ride the train with a guy work works on the floor (gold). My lesson from him is most of these professional traders, given the opportunity, will gamble on two cockroaches, and bet, to see which one will make it across the floor without getting crushed first.

As far as AMD’s “value” is concerned, being over valued or undervalued, for that mater, the question BEGS, in fact PLEADS, how does their long term debt factor into the M&A mix? Someone has to eat it, no?

Sure, market capitalization, intellectual property, tangible assets, and then all of a sudden, blaah, wrong, massive debt. Don’t you factor in AMD’s debt when you look at their, so called, ‘value’?

Combine this debt with their aging 65nM tools and failed architecture; I really don’t think they could have made this company more unattractive, even if they planned it this way. Then there is NVDA.

You guys aren’t arguing about AMD’s value. Your trying to define how ugly, ugly is.

It doesn’t get uglier than AMD, at this juncture. My bet is on the cockroaches.

Think debt.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

Roborat/others,

Have you seen below?

http://www.hkepc.com/?id=568

Intel touts 1.2x to 2x improvements over existing Penryn designs with Nehalem.

What will AMD do? Keep its head buried in the sandbox?

Roborat, Ph.D said...

AMD's enterprise value is at $7.7B. This is the value of the company if liquidated - which includes all assets minus all debts.

Just from this metric alone you can see how attractive it is for a buyout then quickly selling it off piece by piece.

Anonymous said...

'I really would like to know how you value a stock then because i'm using the same logic as most investors use...'

While I look at the 'value' metrics, this is only half the story and if you were only to look at the metrics you mentioned (or ones like them), solar companies, google, apple, monsanto would all be bad purchases as these trade at high multiples, high price/book, etc.

In addition to some of the value metrics (I typically look at PEG, forward P/E, and to a much lesser price/book), I also look at revenue growth, earnings growth, insider holding %, short float %, past tracking vs EPS estimates and general competitive situation.

Price/book CAN BE an indicator value, but BY ITSELF IT IS NOT AN INDICATOR OF VALUE. All companies heading to bankruptcy for example will have their price/book decrease (look more attractive) as the price drops. Simply saying that because price/book is lower does not NECESSARILY mean better value or more upside. If you think this is the case do a stock screen for companies with a price/book less than 1 and look at what you'll find...perhaps a few good companies and a bunch of companies that are simplay at or near their 52 week lows.

Also the book value estimates (which feed the price/book ratio) can have high margins of errors. As an example the price/book on financial companies I refuse to look at - the book value includes an estimate of so called 'Tier 3 assets'. By definition Tier 3 is for assets which a company cannot accurately put a price on (yet somehow they get factored into the book value calculation). It is not necessarily as bad for tech companies but valuing equipment is a tricky proposition. Sure you can do the textbook depreciation over 4 years, however that is not what the tool will fetch on the open market and does not represent real asset value, especially once it has been used and needs to be de-installed, likely loses any warranty from the OEM, and has to be decontaminated.

'If AMD goes below $3Bn Market cap would you really think it is worth less than that?'

Potentially yes, as market cap is not such a meaningful metric. Market cap != asset value...you should know this if you truly are an investor. Also if the company is bought there is a premium put on the stock for the purchase (often around 30%) - so a company buying AMD when it has a market cap of 3Bil would have to pay at least 4Bil to buy it. Yet another reason why you cannot use market cap to assign inherent value of a company.

So if you apply your value metrics to Apple, is Apple a strong sell? How about Google? RIMM? Baidu? At the beginning of the 2007 (before most of these doubled) what would your metrics such as price/book say then?

My point is you cannot make decisions on value metrics alone, nor can you say risk/reward is better or worse based solely on stock price.

Andy - you can say the upside of AMD is better because they have a better product or you think they may execute on 45nm (laughs) or K10 will gradually get better and enable higher ASP's (not likely) or the consumer electronics division will take off - but to say it has higher upside simply because it is cheaper (which was your original point) is naive.

"The further AMD's stock goes south, the more undervalued it becomes to MOST investors, probably even more so for buyout companies."

So the cheaper the stock becomes the more attractive it is? If the fundamentals behind the company are the same, then this is POSSIBLY true (you need to also consider external factors). Also if this were indeed true then the slope of the stock price decline should slowly lessen as investors start to see this is more and more 'undervalued', no? Have you looked at a 1 year chart of AMD recently?

It's fallen faster from 15 to 7 recently then it did when it went from $20 to 14 at the beginning of the year. Either some put options are being blown out or their is as little (or less) faith in the company now as the beginning of the year.

It would be nice if you could support some of your comments with actual data or metrics (how did you predict the $8 target, how is the stock far less undervalued today then at the beginning of the year). To be blunt it is easy to make predictions and statements after the facts come out.

Anonymous said...

"AMD's enterprise value is at $7.7B. This is the value of the company if liquidated - which includes all assets minus all debts."

This is an interesting #, though not sure how accurate it is especially as a good chunk of it is equipment - it is the theoretical value... But let's take the # at face value.

What is lost in all of this is the value of the assets are worth more as a whole then they are separately. While the value of the 65nm may be 2-3Bil (equipped), you will not get 2-3Bil when sold off piecemeal.

You have to factor in a buyout premium over current market cap (which would put purchase price closer to 5Bil). Then you have to factor in whether the current mgmt or the FTC would allow a takeover if the company is going to be sold off piecemeal, severance cost for 16000 employees and other expenses for just the acquisition and liquidation.

So I agree with you guys that yes the current market cap increase the likelihood of a buyout or a merger.. but you can't simplistically use the EV or market value to figure this out.

Nvidia has an enterprise value of 16.5Billion - is that really what you think you would get if you sold off all of Nvidia's assets piecemeal?

Intel has an enterprise value of $137Billion.... Apple $155Bil.. Google 201Bil!!! Do you really think Google could be sold off in pieces for 200Bil - what are their assets?

Unknown said...

You appear to think we are pro AMD. I have no doubt AMD will struggle to keep up with Intel and I am constantly accused of being an Intel fanboi, especially regarding Nehalem. I had heard a long time ago nehalem was going to be the same as Core 2 to Netburst. Of course I am not an analyst and people working at Intel are not analysts either so what does what we know matter?

Intel dominance aside I don't think AMD can just go to 0 and that be it. If i'd lost 1/2 of my investment on this stock, I'd just stick it out. Other parts of my portfolio would be keeping it up anyway. The fact is AMD is kind of a cheap buy at the moment. They have some smart people, ideas and technology. The management is failing them.

The fact is if I was insane enough to invest in this stock in the first place thinking they had a comeback chance why pull out now!?

Think of it this way. This guy is effectively telling you to short AMD. That is what selling is. Whats the point of selling if the price is going to go up? Are you going to short AMD? I wouldn't. My shorts are covered. Reward to risk is rubbish for shorts right now. Well at least for us people who have sat through the frustration and experienced the institutionals manipulate this stock.

Anonymous said...

“but in order to take away AMD's low end notebook and desktop mix, it would likely mean a margin hit and I don't know if the street would like the extra revenue and some additional earnings at the expense of margin.”

I must confess, this one took a bit of time to register. In fact, was going to give it a pass, simply because it’s correct. Then the key phrase “margin hit---expense of margin”. However, there is something lurking in the shadows here, and it’s not too clear.

There are genius tech guys on this site; you know the usual suspects, who are pounding home the fact that INTC’s yields are good and 45nM, 300mm wafers, are substantially increasing margins per die. I don’t doubt them, what so ever, not for one second.

The carefully planned, and perfectly timed, INTC 45nM delay on low end Penryns was orchestrated beautifully. I truly believe all of the “delayed” low end 8000 and 9000 series processors were, in fact, diverted to AMD’s strongest remaining market where they have enjoyed the most growth and favorable margins. Yes again, ‘captain obvious’, the laptop market.

Laptop growth is the largest growth sector for the entire industry, presently. There are those who say they may even supplant the desktop in the near future. This ride for AMD is about to end. Powers sipping, fast, 45nM chips are absolutely perfect for 5 hour or better, multi core Laptops in 2008.

There is nothing AMD can do but helplessly watch as INTC pours these things out to the laptop market. Further, given this, is it any wonder the rumors are flying about Toshiba dropping the entire AMD lineup? What does AMD have, broken, leaking, power hogging, tri cores? And, what the hell happened to Shang Hide?

18 month old Conroe has the desktop front locked up. This last generation chip is kicking the guts out former threat, Barcelona. If, by some Area 51, Alien intervention, Barcelona’s do become relatively competitive in May or June, INTC could just lower the prices on TWO YEAR OLD Conroe’s. Q6700 and E6850’s are the weapons of choice here.

In the mean time, INTC will be supplying the planet’s 45nM laptop chips exclusively. I’ll bet a months pay that’s where the bulk of fab 32’s product is headed, as I type.

No, because of the increased die per wafer at 45nM, I don’t believe INTC will suffer a margin hit and sacrifice the extra earnings by reeling in more market share.

I don’t think INTC gives a flying frig what the street thinks, either. This time they are going to have their cake and eat it, all served on 300mm wafer, in 2008.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

'The fact is if I was insane enough to invest in this stock in the first place thinking they had a comeback chance why pull out now!?'

I'll say again this is how you increase your losses in the stock market. The question you should be asking is not will it come back... it's should be if I had money to invest would I buy it right now? If the answer is yes, one should continue to hold the current stock. If the answer is no, then there is no point in holding the stock further. AMD is clearly not a buy right now, so if you have the stock why would one continue to hold it simply because you've already lost money - that is an emotional response not a rationale investment response. There is new information now that was not there when the stock was at $25 - the K10 delays are known, the underperformance is known and AMD's inability to clock 65nm higher on a well established architecture (K8) is known, also known is AMD's forecast to breakeven has pushed out from Q4'07 to at least Q3'08.

Simply because one has lost money on the stock is not a rationale reason to continue to hold it - the environment and fundamentals change.

I'm not challenging you on pro or anti AMD or Intel - I'm challenging the (what I think) is complete misuse of price/book, and the philosophy of if I bought before thinking it would go up I myself keep holding it, and to some extent the over-reliance on value technical indicators.

At the low stock price, you don't need the stock to go to 0 to lose a bunch of money, a simple $1 drop now is a 14-15% change.

A Sell recommendation DOES NOT MEAN short it either - it simply means if you have stock you should SELL it. Many analysts will rarely recommend shorting a stock. The problem with shorting individual stocks is that stocks can often be buoyed by overall growth in a sector, regardless of fundamentals (short term).

I;m just a bit frustrated at people throwing around terms (in my view mistakenly) to justify an opinion on the company which is really based more on feel then the actual financial fundamentals.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps some of you would like to drool over some interesting Nehalem information:-

http://www.hkepc.com/?id=568

I can't wait for Nehalem, it should completely blow away the existing Barcelona product in every dimension! In fact, I wouldn't surprised if Intel finds that Nehalem will be 40% faster than Barcelona across a wide variety of workloads!

One thing is for sure, Intel doesn't go around making grandiose claims that are just blatant lies i.e. Randy Allen style.

Anonymous said...

"No, because of the increased die per wafer at 45nM, I don’t believe INTC will suffer a margin hit and sacrifice the extra earnings by reeling in more market share."

Sparks to some extent I agree with you but here are a few additional factors to consider.

) At the real low end desktop and laptop (which I think is the majority of AMD's non server sales are based on relative ASP's between Intel and AMD), the primary purchasing decision is price (I think). If you offer the average Joe at Best Buy a $500 Athlon/Turdion vs a $650 Centrino, many customers will choose the $500 laptop EVEN if you tell them the battery life or performance is significantly better on the 650 laptop.

And to be honest for some laptop uses, price probably should be the primary buying factor. Thus I think for Intel to recapture the bottom of these markets and gain market share they need a part that is equivalent or lower cost, almost regardless of performance.

2) So how much cheaper is 45nm vs 65nm? Well the scaling is not quite 50% by area (or double the die per wafer) it is more like 30-40% area shrink. If you assume yields are roughly the same then you are talking more like 1.4X - 1.6X the number of die. Now factor in the wafer cost typically goes up ~10% (extra metal layer, tighter litho, new process steps) and factor in another 5-10% for high K metal gate (a bit of an educated guess for the replacement process)...

You now have 1X the die at Y cost on 65nm vs ~1.5X the die at 1.15Y cost on 45nm. This puts a 45nm die at around 75% the cost of a 65nm die... significant yes, but I think lower then what most people perceive.

3) So will a 25% cost reduction be enough to eat into the low end market? I don't honestly know - it will obviously help. If it's not enough, then Intel is left with cutting prices and margins to regain that market share.

4) Intel will have significant 65nm in the mix throughout 2008. So while you may be 25% better cost-wise on some parts you need to multiply that by relative 45nm/65nm as the 65nm parts obviously will not have the cost advantages. I think Intel's crossover on 45nm/65nm is ~Q3'08. Generally speaking your older technology is feeding the low end of the market (unless you are AMD and the new process isn't very good!) So it is likely the low end battle through the majority of 2008 will be Intel 65nm vs AMD 65nm.

All said, I don't think that the transition to 45nm will give Intel the cost advantage to win back substantial low end market share without Intel having to cut prices and taking at least a small hit on margins. Of course Intel will be getting better margins on the high end parts with the move to 45nm so this will offset some of the margin hit on the low end (without knowing relative volumes and margins this is impossible to say whether one offsets the other).

Ho Ho said...

I'd better start collecting money now. Quadcore with 8 logical CPUs, 12GB of fast RAM with their bandwidth being actually usable. At minimum this should be around 20% faster than similarly clocked Penryn, much more if memory bandwidth is the bottleneck or SMP can be used efficiently.

I wonder what can be done if paired with Larrabee ...

Ho Ho said...

"Intel will have significant 65nm in the mix throughout 2008."

Intel has said that they expect to have mobile CPU crossover in Q2 so they do seem to want to lower prices there first.

Anonymous said...

"Intel has said that they expect to have mobile CPU crossover in Q2 so they do seem to want to lower prices there first."

I don't think this has to mean lower prices - 50% crossover in Q2 will likely mean they convert the upper end of the mobile sector to 45nm.

If you assume a linear ramp in mobile going from 0% in Q1 to 100% in Q4, this would mean on average ~1/2 of all mobile chips sold in 2008 will be 45nm. I'll stand by my estimate that the majority of the low end of the mobile segment will remain 65nm product through 2008 (and thus the impact of 45nm die size will not be felt that much in that area). Obviously converting the high end to 45nm will allow Intel to either fatten the margins in this segment or cut the high end mobile prices ~25% and keep margins flat.

My argument is somewhat superficial as the overall margin is a mix of high end and low end so fattening the high end margin with 45nm allows Intel to make the low end margins more lean (i.e cut prices). Intel appears to be interested in increasing margins at this point which would indicate they are more likely to use 45nm to feed the margin as opposed to support price cuts.

If the overall market continues to grow - Intel should just cede the low end until they have the capacity. If the market growth slows (which may happen this year) then they can attack the low end as they will have the capacity and the cost advantage. I'm still struck by Otellini's comment in the Q3 earnings call (or it may have been the CFO), where they said they just walked away from some low end business when there were questions on where the margin gains were coming from. So long as they are capacity constrained, there really is no point in going after the low margin segments and/or market share.

Anonymous said...

http://www.news.com/Dirk-Meyer%2C-the-man-to-watch-at-AMD---page-3/2100-1006_3-6224419-3.html?tag=st.num

An interesting read - first iteration of fusion will use K10 based core and it appears bulldozer is now a 2010 project (apparently confirmed by an AMD rep). While this is a bit of a nightmare from a competitive situation (K10 will now also be the primary competition for Nehalem and possibly the shrink Westmere), it seems like this was the only rationale thing AMD could do without seriously rolling the dice.

With Fusion using a new GPU core (I think), changing the CPU core at the same time would be similar to changing a tech node and architecture at the same time - if it works great, but there are a lot of things that could go wrong. Also with Bulldozer previously coming at the end of 45nm - do you optimize it for 45nm or optimize it with highK/metal gate in mind?

This enables them to flush out the fusion integration without having to deal with flushing out a new CPU architecture, it also gives them more time if Bulldozer is not as far along as planned. It's a tough choice between a new CPU core vs a potential (?) competitive advantage with fusion. I do like the apparent mobile focus for Fusion - this is an area which tends to sell an entire package and customization (things like chipset for SLI or no SLI, # SATA ports, PCI slots etc...) is not as vital or necessary. Also if AMD focused on Bulldozer at the expense of Fusion and Intel executed cleanly on Nehalem/GPU integration then AMD's gains in mobile could have been quickly erased. It's really a tough call for AMD!

Without a new core - it appears as AMD's only real major growth hope will be if Fusion opens up a new market (and assuming Intel can't execute on their version).

45nm just won't have the clockspeeds and while K10 may be somewhat competitive with Penryn, it is by no means a reason for AMD to retake market share. If you consider Intel can currently clock better, and will likely either maintain or expand this even when both companies are on 45nm, and the fact that Nehalem should have at least some IPC benefit, it is looking like 2010 before AMD's next shot at a performance homerun.

Also there is nothing inherently cheaper about AMD's process technology which will enable AMD to beat Intel at the pricing game. Putting aside yield and binsplits as those are impossible to prove....consider SOI, additional metal layer(s) and use of immersion on 45nm.

Robo - might be worth a blog for your insights on this?

Unknown said...


I'll say again this is how you increase your losses in the stock market. The question you should be asking is not will it come back... it's should be if I had money to invest would I buy it right now? If the answer is yes, one should continue to hold the current stock. If the answer is no, then there is no point in holding the stock further. AMD is clearly not a buy right now, so if you have the stock why would one continue to hold it simply because you've already lost money - that is an emotional response not a rationale investment response. There is new information now that was not there when the stock was at $25 - the K10 delays are known, the underperformance is known and AMD's inability to clock 65nm higher on a well established architecture (K8) is known, also known is AMD's forecast to breakeven has pushed out from Q4'07 to at least Q3'08.


I still can't agree. Although the discussion is kind of pointless because its a hypothetical non existant scenario (because buying AMD stock was an absolute no no last year) if AMD was a buy at $14 it is most definately a buy at $7. Nothing has changed to devalue AMD so much recently. Obviously though if all you do is pick what some analyst says AMD was never a buy. I'd never lose 50% on a stock. I just don't see the point of downgrading AMD now. Looking for a bit of publicity maybe. AMD is no worse than 6 months ago. Of course analysts should have been downgrading to sell back at $16, I guess whoever they worked for didn't want that though. Institutions 92% of AMD's stock. Issuing sell ratings on an overpriced stock was not in there interests.

$25 was a long time ago. Ok the press and dumb analysts couldn't see the writing on the wall. That doesn't mean the stock is worth what they rate it. They are only people at the end of the day. At 25 they had just bought ATI (huge debt)and Core2 had just started killing AMD's prices. Barcelona or no barcelona thats goingto hurt. Then the lack of Barcelona news. "Waiting to surprise people. Keeping secrets from competition" or as I call it "We don't have anything"

You can use engineering milestones to see what a product is doing. Penryn was demoed before Barcelona. It became clear then. Barcelona hadn't even taped out and Penryn wasn't due till Q4'07. AMD were behind and at the time were claiming release in Q2 was it?! Haha. Promises that could not possibly be kept were keeping the stock up. Analysts just go "Oh the CEO said this I'll give it a buy" none of them even look into the technical side of this industry. They have lost all faith in hector now though.

anyway some more rubbish analyst opinions right here
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ud?s=AMD

If you are stupid enough to jump in on what analysts say, at least put at stop loss in at 5-10%.
They mainly operate in hindsight anyway.

Unknown said...

Right a simple way to make the point I am trying to make.

If you bought AMD at 25 and you needed an analyst to tell you to sell at 7 after losing $19 per share then you are probably better off risking keeping AMD, because If you lose all your money it won't make any difference. If you are making these sort of poor decisions it's not long before you've lost every penny. If you needed someone to tell you to dump it after losing so much money you are just not cut out for the market.

Anonymous said...

Ho Ho said...

Didn't you just get banned by SpaceGhost over at AMDZone?? First Thermaltough and now you - looks like ghostie is on an anti-Intelian rampage.

It's funny how the Zonerz are OK with insulting Intelers but get all bent out of shape when given a little bit of their own medicine.

Anyway, seems futile to argue with those who have made their minds up long ago - my advice is to just let them die off quietly. $10 says AMDZone defunct by Q109, same as Giant predicting AMD's BK :).

Anonymous said...

Yeah I got banned for no reason what so ever.

That azmount guy spills out so many lies and keeps getting away. He refuses to back up what he says and makes idiot statements left and right.

He still has not provided the 3.6ghz proof...what bologna that was. It's people like him that make me not wanna buy AMD.

Ghost is a tool himself.... at 54, he should have better things to do than to sit around on the internet and bully your way through.

The only way that site gets any traffic is when someone talks about Intel and people have something to talk about.....any other time, they all sit in a circle and jerk each other off....

I'm done there (banned for no reason what so ever). So I would say that the rest of with an open mind stop posting there as well....

Anonymous said...

"if AMD was a buy at $14 it is most definately a buy at $7...nothing has changed recently..."

You are now changing the argument to defend your absurd position... so let's take a step back.

Your original point if it was a buy at $25 (actually I think the analyst recommendation was hold but it may have been a buy)...then at $7 it was a sell... nothings changed...

Let's see...
1) K10 had a bug and was delayed
2) Barcelona was released at 2-3 bin lower clockspeeds then expected
3) The IPC improvement is nowhere near what AMD claims.
4) The power envelops are higher then expected (especially when you consider the lower clockspeeds)
5) AMD pushed out their profitability estimate 2-3 quarters
6) R700 was delayed until (2009?)
7) The R600 was soft launched
8) Bulldozer is now pushed out until 2010
9)AMD is taking a goodwill charge on ATI (they overpaid for the merger)
10) The acquistion merger charges continued throughout 2007 (it was projected for Q4'06 and possibly Q1'07
11) Intel has executed on 45nm, and has demo'd functionality on their next gen architecture
12) The overall PC market is now projected to be slower in ters of growth than original estimates.

.....but hey nothing's change since the stock was at $25 (and some of these things occurred AFTER the stock was at $14)

'If it was a buy at $14, it's a buy at $7' is just plain nonsensical - things HAVE changed - for AMD, for their competitor's and for the PC environment in general. If you want to put the bilnders on as an investor and say that an analysis done 6 months ago should apply just the same as today (except for the price).... well I wish you well in the market.

BTW - How's the Sell recommendation working out...had people listened to them would they have saved some money? Of course analysts won't always be right, that's why the average Joe should do their own research or buy mutual funds or ETF's. Hey we all can't be perfect like you and predict a $8 stock price AFTER it has already occurred.

Anonymous said...

"If you bought AMD at 25 and you needed an analyst to tell you to sell at 7 after losing $19 per share then you are probably better off risking keeping AMD, because If you lose all your money it won't make any difference."

1) OK this is just plain ignorant...first off $7 still represents more than 25% of your original investment...if you think throwing that much more away won't make any difference than I would love to play poker against you sometime. "well I know I'm beat and didn't hit the gutshot straight I was drawing too, but hey I dumped $100 into the pot, what's another $20?"

2) The SELL recommendation is not just for people who bought at $25 you moron! Suppose someone bought it at 9 (ignorantly thinking it had higher 'risk reward' now that it had a price/book close to 1 or as the value metrics got 'better')... a SELL recommendation will potentially save that investor a lot of money.

You guys act like the only way to use an analyst opinion is to always use it - people newly buying the stock may see this and take a 2nd look at the fundamentals, instead of saying ignorantly if it was a buy at $14 I should just keep running into the wall now that it's at $7 and not consider if some things have changed.

The recommendation is the analysts best projection of what a person should do with the stock at that time REGARDLESS OF WHEN THEY BOUGHT IT!

3) The market is not always rationale and will react to rumors, speculative trading, momentum...

You seem more eager to prove your right then objectively look at things - the analyst got the BUY recommendation wrong at $25, should they not change their mind, re-evaluate and try to get it right when it was slightly above $7? Or should they say let's just irresponsibly keep a BUY on it, so we don't look like fools.

Also some people, I know this is crazy, look at the average of all analyst as they trend qtr to qtr (not the specific buy, sell, hold).

If someone invests in a stock at 20 and it drops to $5 are they better off holding it hoping it will come back or move their money into a stock that has better fundamentals and a chance to grow better?

I;m frustrated becuase there are people reading your comments who will likely say that makes sense - it is one of the biggest mistakes an amateur investor can do. Not re-examining the investment or saying it might snap back (or has a better chance now that it is lower) is long term a losing strategy, it may work a few times but generally speaking there is a reason why the stock has dropped that much.

So rather than continuing to try to catch a falling knife...why not put whatever money is left (whether it is 1% of your initial investment or 99%) into a better stock.

Anonymous said...

Just as we are in the middle of discussion and commentary, the anal-ists strike the entire sector, yet again. This twice in one week! INTC down 4 bucks on the week.

AMD down 67 cents.
INTC down 2 dollars

Believe it or not, this time, it has been said INTC has HIGH INVENTORIES. This brilliant observation completely contradicts not only our "capacity constrained" comments, but Paul Otellini’s, as well.

What do you think will happen Monday? Big money will be all over INTC, ready for a nice 10% boost come INTC’s 4Q earning call.

God, I hate those guys.

SPARKS

Ho Ho said...

"Didn't you just get banned by SpaceGhost over at AMDZone?"

Seems so. I get a big "_LOGIN_BLOCKED" message when I tried to refresh the page :)


thermalthough
"That azmount guy spills out so many lies and keeps getting away. He refuses to back up what he says and makes idiot statements left and right."

... and Ghost questions every single thing anyone non-AMD fanboy asks, even the things that are common knowledge. He also fails to give any proof to what he is saying and never questions any AMD fanboys.

I guess I was still right and that place is an internet version of AA meeting for AMD fanboys.


sparks
"AMD down 67 cents.
INTC down 2 dollars"


Isn't that bigger drop for AMD when you calculate the percentage of price change?

Roborat, Ph.D said...

With Fusion using a new GPU core (I think), changing the CPU core at the same time would be similar to changing a tech node and architecture at the same time - if it works great, but there are a lot of things that could go wrong.

i doubt it will be as difficult as doing a uarch and a process node at the same time because this is mostly done in simulation, but I'm sure the challenges are there.

The challenge for AMD is the fact that the expertice comes from 2 different companies and integrating the technology as well as making two different cultures work together can be quite a challenge. Intel doesn't have this problem. Although I must admit, the GPU technology AMD has now is far superior.

Also with Bulldozer previously coming at the end of 45nm - do you optimize it for 45nm or optimize it with highK/metal gate in mind?
It depends on how complete IBM's 45nm HK/MG is. there are technology milestones that AMD is currently watching in order to make a decision wether it should plan for contingencies and qualify/optimise two processes.

Robo - might be worth a blog for your insights on this?

I don't have enough write a blog about it - sorry. One thing I have noticed is the fact that AMD seem to be re-adjusting their roadmap after realising the new and tougher competetive landscape. I don't think they're done with the changes.

Ho Ho said...

Hehe, nice text from Ghost:

I said to Ghost
"Please try to follow what am I quoting, it shouldn't be that hard."


I said to Scientia
"Even more proof you have little idea when it comes to programming"

Ghost replied
"i think that you have insulted people here long enough"


So, when I'm pointing out the obvious it is insulting? Is it something like when I say someone "hey, you're white" it is OK but when I say "hey, you're black" it is racism?



later scientia said
"Not for 64 bit SSE."

There is no such thing as 64bit SSE instructions in x86 ISA. All the instructions are exactly the same, just that in older CPUs the 128bit operations are divided into two 64bit ones in CPU microcode. The binary is exactly the same for P4, K8, Core2 and K10 and later two will be twice as fast as first ones.

This is exactly why I said he has no clue when it comes to programming.

Roborat, Ph.D said...

The only way that site gets any traffic is when someone talks about Intel and people have something to talk about.....any other time, they all sit in a circle and jerk each other off....

I thought pretending to shut down the site after too much AMD bad news was the best thing that's ever happened to site. I didn't know the forum is back up.

What do they talk about there now? How AMD's future 9900 finally matches Intel's old Q6600? How sad is that?

Anonymous said...

'It depends on how complete IBM's 45nm HK/MG is. there are technology milestones that AMD is currently watching in order to make a decision wether it should plan for contingencies and qualify/optimise two processes.'

Well, we should spell out (speculate) on IBM's plans...
- a brief mention of IBM introducing it on some products on 45nm
- AMD saying they may or may not do it toward the mid/end of the 45nm node (read - no chance unless 32nm is a complete disaster and is severely delayed))
- no actual 45nm high K data presented at one of the more important conferences (IEDM)
- More press about 32nm and IBM making it available to the fab club

So IBM will do some sort of low power/low performance part which is very doable with an unoptimized metal gate process and a substantially silicated HfO2 (which lowers the K value and doesn't allow as much performance scaling, but adds stability to the film and it becomes much easier to integrate). Thus IBM will attempt to save face and say look we did it on 45nm too...did I mention these will likely be low volume too?

AMD will make up some fluff about how it is not the right time to introduce it on 45nm and 45nm is as expected (meaning they met their lowered expectations) and they will therefore 'choose' to introduce it on 32nm (as if they had the ability to do it on 45nm all along)

As Bulldozer now is pushed out until 2010, that lines up with 32nm and there is now no point doing a 45nm optimized design. What will be scary is that 32nm for AMD should be ~mid 2010 so Bulldozer will potentially be right when they make a process conversion which is a risky proposition (I smell 2011 Bulldozer)

Anonymous said...

Roborat, Ph.D said...

"I thought pretending to shut down the site after too much AMD bad news was the best thing that's ever happened to site. I didn't know the forum is back up.

What do they talk about there now? How AMD's future 9900 finally matches Intel's old Q6600? How sad is that?"

Supposedly a server crash - must have been that 9500 oc'ed to 2.6GHz causing a fire :)

As for what they talk about - now that HoHo and Thermaltough have been escorted out the door, there's only a couple closet Intelians there and they are pretty mild with comments.

A$$Mountie cherry-picks benchies and makes wild assertions about Intel compilers crippling AMD cpus when he finds what is obviously a mistaken benchmark showing a Q6600 almost 4x faster than a 9600, from some obscure middle eastern amateur website.

In the meantime, Ghostie amuses himself (way too much time on his hands - should get a paid job I guess) by making a big deal about the bans - painting "RIP" over the Intel Inside logo and adding "Idiot Outside" underneath.

I see that Abinstein has returned as well - either he was on vacation or got a temp ban for flaming long-time AMDers, even got a caution from ghostie about it..

I only visit the Zonerz for the amusement factor - for actual information, this blog beats teh Zone hands-down..

Ho Ho said...

"I only visit the Zonerz for the amusement factor"

That was the reason for me too. I posted there so the discussion would be more active and I could laugh more :)

Anonymous said...

“ Isn't that bigger drop for AMD when you calculate the percentage of price change?”


Nah, basically, yesterdays hit was around 8 percent, on the day, for both companies.


http://moneycentral.msn.com/msn/stock_quote?Symbol=intc


http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?symbol=AMD


For the week, however the percentages were closer to 20 percent. The thing is INTC, as we all know, is a far better position financially than AMD. (How’s that for a brilliant observation?). The point is though, INTC will just crank along merrily as it breezes through this ‘Wall Street fart’ as if nothing happened. AMD’s position, in contrast however, is much more untenable, as they are neck deep in a financial cesspool with no product or revenue to start breathing again.

If you read the above posts, there was an argument regarding the value/speculation of AMD. I must admit, Andy’s argument seems a bit weak in light of these new developments. I’m afraid that ‘Anonymous Finance Guy’s’(read: this guy is no joke) comments, although a bit harsh on Andy, were spot on.

As for me, 22.67 for INTC could be a very nice pick. I’m in it for the long term. INTC’s dividends will not change, either. If by some chance (slight) INTC is headed for the teens, I’ll pickup some more. The next couple of weeks will be a fairly good indicator on which direction the entire sector is headed, as INTC is the industry “bell weather”. I just wish the anal-ist would drop the goddamned hammers and stop clanging away. However, they do seem to make for some nice opportunities, if you’re careful, very careful. Hey, even suppository’s have their benefits.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

“Well, we should spell out (speculate) on IBM's plans...
- a brief mention of IBM introducing it on some products on 45nm
- AMD saying they may or may not do it toward the mid/end of the 45nm node (read - no chance unless 32nm is a complete disaster and is severely delayed))
- no actual 45nm high K data presented at one of the more important conferences (IEDM)
- More press about 32nm and IBM making it available to the fab club”

I LOVE GURU


Will you marry me?


SPARKS

hyc said...

hoho: sorry our conversation got terminated. Frankly I find all of ghost's posts utterly unreadable; he's more illiterate than an inner-city gangbanger. Definitely one of the poorer choices of Forum moderator I've ever seen in my life; I think you ought to at least be able to spell and use proper grammar. And of course, he has no business letting his personal irritation with another poster influence his actions as an admin. Oh well.

Anyway, my test results are here
Connexitor Blog

and a bit more discussion is here
OpenLDAP Devel list

Ho Ho said...

hyc
"sorry our conversation got terminated"

No problem, I got to know almost all I wanted to know. Thanks for taking time benchmarking. If you ever do something similar just let me know somehow. This blog is quite good place. I hope I can one day see some similar benchmark with Shanghai and Nehalem included :)

There is one thing that might be interesting to benchmark: 1P machines. NUMA might not always be that good with big memory footprints and perhaps even intel could be better if there is a bit less cache coherence data travelling through the FSB. Also if possible then Intel with regular DDR2 instead of FBDIMMs would be interesting. Perhaps in 1P FSB is not that big bottleneck and a bit lower latency could help it somewhat.


"Definitely one of the poorer choices of Forum moderator I've ever seen in my life"

That's one thing I can't understand. How can someone like that ever be a moderator? I wouldn't be surprised if he was simply a kid brother/son to the site owner or something like that. He has no clue of pretty much anything and most definitely is awfully biased.

To be honest you were one of the few, if not the only one in that forum I could have intelligent conversation with. At older times it was possible to talk with scientia too but even he has changed quite a bit and keeps on talking about things he has no clue about. I guess when one shows that he is absolutely sure that what he sais is true others start believing that too.

Khorgano said...

Just a few comments on the market as a whole. It is starting to look more and more likely that we will enter( or already have) an economic recession that could even turn global. Compound this with the increasing probability that we'll have a new Democratic President in 2009 which is generally met with dismay on wall st. we're looking at rough times ahead in general.

Hopefully the economy will have a soft landing and the credit and housing markets will straighten out by mid '08, but if not, things could get ugly real fast. In fact, I would actually start to get real worried about AMD's future in such a market. Generally, Good companies do ok, Ok companies do poorly, and bad companies go out of business in a recession. AMD hasn't done well, even during the best of times they barely managed to do anything of significance to their long-term profitability. Sure they've been in bad times before, but never with so much debt and red ink while the overall economy was on the brink of recession. If this happens, we very well could see an AMD BK in the next 18 to 24 months.

So, as this blog is so aptly named, "just when you thought it couldn't possibly get worse..." Well, it's poised to get much worse for the Green/Red (Christmas? :p, Santa wasn't nice to them and gave them a lump o' coal) team.

InTheKnow said...

The amount of misinformation out there is nothing short of mind boggling. I picked this up elsewhere on the web and just can't leave it alone.


...The continued enhancement of AMD and IBM's transistor strain techniques has enabled the continued scaling of transistor performance while overcoming industry-wide, geometry-related scaling issues associated with migrating to 45nm process technologies. In spite of the increased packing density of the 45nm generation transistors, IBM and AMD have demonstrated an 80 per cent increase in p-channel transistor drive current and a 24 per cent increase in n-channel transistor drive current compared to unstrained transistors. This achievement results in the highest CMOS performance reported to date in a 45nm process technology...
Source: HPCWire


Interesting that this wasn't presented at IEDM. But the bigger question is whether this stunning breakthrough is on an integrated device, of if we are just talking transistor performance. I'm betting on the later.

I also think that great leaps and bounds from strain are pretty much finished. See Jumping Jack's rubber band analogy in this blog for why.

I'm also wondering what Intel's third generation strain technology provides at 45nm compared to transistors with no strain.

I now recommend that Guru take a Valium as we are about to see more "immersion litho is king" drivel. ;P

“As the first microprocessor manufacturers to announce the use of immersion lithography and ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics for the 45nm technology generation, AMD and IBM continue to blaze a trail of innovation in microprocessor process technology,” said Nick Kepler, vice president of logic technology development at AMD. “Immersion lithography will allow us to deliver enhanced microprocessor design definition and manufacturing consistency, further increasing our ability to deliver industry-leading, highly sophisticated products to our customers. Ultra-low-K interconnect dielectrics will further extend our industry-leading microprocessor performance-per-watt ratio for the benefit of all of our customers. This announcement is another proof of IBM and AMD’s successful research and development collaboration.”
Current process technology uses conventional lithography, which has significant limitations in defining microprocessor designs beyond the 65nm process technology generation. Immersion lithography uses a transparent liquid to fill the space between the projection lens of the step-and-repeat lithography system and the wafer that contains hundreds of microprocessors. This significant advance in lithography provides increased depth of focus and improved image fidelity that can improve chip-level performance and manufacturing efficiency. This immersion technique will give AMD and IBM manufacturing advantages over competitors that are not able to develop a production-class immersion lithography process for the introduction of 45nm microprocessors. For example, the performance of an SRAM cell shows improvements of approximately 15 per cent due to this enhanced process capability, without resorting to more costly double-exposure techniques.
Source: Physorg


Of course immersion scanners are being given away at fire sale prices on the street corner. There is no cost of ownership burden with using a new technology or cost impact to depreciating a more expensive piece of equipment to offset the "high" price of double exposure. Oh, wait, did they leave that part out? How odd.

This week IBM has tried to one-up Intel through openness. IBM is claiming a level of mastery around 32nm chips that rely on high-k metal gate technology. And IBM has announced plans to share that technology with all its chip friends, including foundry, memory and fabless companies.

Just to bring everyone up to speed, let's look at the 45nm situation.
Intel last month started cranking out processors made on a 45nm process that use the high-k metal gate technology. This makes Intel the first major chipmaker to replace the silicon used to insulate transistor gates with hafnium and a pair of still undisclosed metals. As a result, Intel can produce smaller, more energy-efficient products.
IBM won't start pumping out the hafnium-based parts until next year when its 45nm manufacturing process takes hold. At that point, only IBM and partner AMD will be able to take advantage.
Source: RegHardware


Share with their friends?!?!? What a joke. They are going to let the members of their consortium (who have helped pay to develop the technology) have access to it.

So next year, IBM and AMD will begin to close the current process gap that Intel has enjoyed. I figure that puts Intel with about a 1 year time to market advantage over IBM since that great new process will require months to ramp.

AMD and IBM have joined forces to make something Intel announced six months ago: high-k metal gate transistor technology for their jointly developed 45nm process.
Intel does have the edge with its Halfnium-Oxide based insulator whereas the AMD-IBM combo will continue to use strained silicon technology.
Their 45nm process is highlighted to have a lower current leakage and higher capacitance of transistors, for a lower power usage and improved performance.
Interestingly it's only planned for second generation 45nm and the first generation 32nm technology processes. Therefore, it seems like AMD's Shanghai core - its first 45nm core, coming next year - will still use traditional manufacturing technologies...
Source: Bit-Tech


Some poor writing here. I have no idea what the frame of reference is, or whether or not the author is talking about strain or high k-metal gate.

The 10-metal-level process will use copper interconnects, porous low-k-dielectric films, embedded strained silicon and advanced annealing. It is unlikely that AMD will use metal gates and high-k dielectrics at 45nm, but it will deploy immersion lithography at that node for the first time.
AMD is collaborating on the 45nm technology with longtime partner IBM Corp. In 2005, the companies announced they would extend their joint process development work until 2011, covering the 32nm and 22nm process generations.
AMD claims to be closing the process gap with Intel.


Perhaps in terms of feature size (and only perhaps), but certainly not in terms of performance. Anyone seen any 3.0 GHz 65nm AMD products? Anyone?

In December, AMD rolled out its first 65nm microprocessors and announced plans to introduce 45nm chips in mid-2008. "That will put us ahead of just about everyone," said Nick Kepler, VP of logic technology development at AMD...

Assuming of course that "everyone" doesn't include your only competitor in the CPU space of course.

For the critical layers at its 90nm and 65nm nodes, AMD has used dry 193nm lithography scanners from its main tool vendor, ASML Holding NV. But at 45nm, AMD will take the plunge into immersion scanners. The company will use ASML's TwinScan XT:1700Fi, a 193nm immersion tool with a numerical aperture of 1.2. That scanner will boost the depth of focus and provide a 40 percent gain in resolution, Kepler said...
At 45nm, AMD will use an IBM film that will have porous features and a k-value of 2.4. "Our films parallel the offerings from Applied Materials in k-value, but with better mechanical properties," said John Pellerin, director of logic technology development at AMD, adding that the films "do run on Applied's tooling."


Is it only me, or is this claim lacking any substance? I don't see any numbers telling me how much this magic high k film helps their process. The claim is that gain is in mechanical properties and matches current k-values. Presumably this helps yields. I don't expect raw numbers, but a percentage improvement might give me something to be impressed by. Otherwise, it's just marketing fluff.

Another key for AMD is to scale its embedded SiGe technology to the 45nm node. The strained SiGe technology is key in an effort to boost mobility, and reduce power consumption and leakage in next-generation designs.
Source: EETimes Asia


This is misleading. Strain doesn't reduce leakage. Gate dimensions and materials reduce leakage. Strain reduces the amount of voltage you need to apply to the circuit. The effect is that less current leaks, but only because you apply less voltage. As pointed out earlier as you move to smaller features, strain buys you less and less.

All of this was supposed to prove that IBM/AMD's process tech is on par with Intels. Since almost every point listed above lacks any substantive detail it just reads like marketing fluff to me. Let's have some numbers so we can make some comparisons.

My conclusion is that I need to spend more time speaking to technically inept journalists. Then I can look bright too!!

Anonymous said...

Intheknow - thanks for the warning. Check out the wording of this quote carefully...

'For example, the performance of an SRAM cell shows improvements of approximately 15 per cent due to this enhanced process capability, without resorting to more costly double-exposure techniques.
Source: Physorg'

the 'without resorting to double exposure'...indicates the 15% is compared to single exposure dry litho. So this is a sneaky way of saying it is no better than double exposure and hoping people misread this into thinking 15% better.

Also I have done cost models on double vs immersion... double is CHEAPER than immersion at this moment! The immersion tools are roughly 2X the capital cost and they run slower so while you theoretically need 2X the tools for double exposure it is actually less than 2X (how much less depends on a multitude of variables) oh and the tools are 0.5X....

So ~1.8X * 0.5X = dry litho less than 1X, if you can do the simple math. In the worst case scenario immersion is cost neutral, in normal everyday circles it is more expensive! I guess if AMD and IBM keep saying it is more expensive enough, they may think people will start to believe it.!

Anonymous said...

As for the PMOS and NMOS "data" (I use that term liberally) - you were tricked as they wanted you to be! They got you!

Look at the wording the performance is compare to UNSTRAINED devices, not to 65nm devices, which already have a lot of the strain improvements in them.

So the 80% is actually FAR, FAR less if you are looking for an 65nm to 45nm comparison - you won't see this data because as JJ eloquently pointed out strain has diminishing returns with decreasing geometries, and this # would look nowhere near as impressive than comparing to a UNSTRAINED (effectively a 90nm device for AMD or a 130nm device for Intel)

And the reason it wasn't presented at IEDM, is because the authors would be LAUGHED OUT OF THE CONFERENCE, as the people attending that meeting are scientists and not gullible press who can be tricked by words! Actually in all likelihood the abstract would have been rejected!

Anonymous said...

"Is it only me, or is this claim lacking any substance? I don't see any numbers telling me how much this magic high k film helps their process."

I think you mean low K - this is for the backend which you want to drive to as low a K value as possible (as opposed to the transistor where you want to go high K) It does lack substance - again painting half the story in hopes that it will be misinterperted. The bulk ILD film K value is only half the story for interconnect - what is more and more key is the etch stop layer and it's required thickness. In the past it was SiN which has a K value near 7; so even though it is very thin compared to the bulk ILD, it increases the effective K value of the backend significantly. As time goes on people are focusing almost as much on lower K etch stop layers in addition to the ultralow K ILD films.

So what is CONVENIENTLY missing is any mention of the effective K value (combined K when you consider both the etch stop layer and bulk ILD film) - this is the value that really matters from a performance point of view. If for example the use of an exotic low K film requires a novel etch stop layer or a thicker one, you can quickly wipe out all or some of the gains of the bulk film.

My GUESS (as their is no data) is that the effective K is better but not nearly as significant as the bulk ILD k value reduction so IBM chooses to announce the more eye catching (and less useful) number. I don't believe a word of IBM's ILD data after the spin-on low K (SiLK) 'breakthrough' fiasco. They announced data early on short loops (not fully process flow) and the process FAILED when they tried to build a 7 or 8 metal layer device (I forget how many metal layers there were at the time)

InTheKnow said...

As for the PMOS and NMOS "data" (I use that term liberally) - you were tricked as they wanted you to be! They got you!

Actually I did pick that up (though I admit it did take me a couple of times through the gobeldy-goop:) ). That's why I wrote this.

I'm also wondering what Intel's third generation strain technology provides at 45nm compared to transistors with no strain. (emphasis added)

Though you did confirm my suspicion that the reason they weren't touting this at IEDM was because it wasn't the earth shaking development they wanted you to think it is. Thanks!

InTheKnow said...

I think you mean low K

You are correct. My mistake. Thanks for the correction.

Anonymous said...

"The claim is that gain is in mechanical properties and matches current k-values. Presumably this helps yields"

Actually not really yields - the mechanical strength of the ILD's is critical when moving to low K's as they are generally 'softer' (lower hardness value). Early on this lead to HUGE issues in the C4 and packaging area as you would get crack propagation when doing simple things like cutting the after into die. This is more of a catastrophic fail then yield per se.

Also the harder the film the fewer tricks you need to play in a lot of areas - there are a lot of upstream and downstream things done in the process flow due to hardness issues (for example with softer films your process window for chemical mechanical polish, CMP, is a lot smaller)

It is rather amusing because hardness is what doomed IBM's SiLK 'breakthrough' many years ago - the film just couldn't hold up mechanically!

Anonymous said...

"AMD claims to be closing the process gap with Intel.

ITK - Perhaps in terms of feature size (and only perhaps)"

Actually not EVEN PERHAPS in terms of feature size. The gap on 65nm was ~ 1 year.... the gap on 45nm (even with AMD as intheknow mentions astutely at a lower performance) will continue to be approximately a year.

Again AMD is playing with words - "introduction" mid-2008 and 'ramping' H1'08 is being compared to Intel SELLING ACTUAL 45nm product in November.

If we plug in the Intel equivalents, Intel started 'ramping' 45nm (from a fab equipment perspective) in H1'07, they were shipping it to OEMS in Sept/Oct, they started production for the Nov chip sales in the mid-2007 timeframe... the only difference is Intel doesn't need to manipulate the press to make things sound better as they are the leaders.

Recall Barcelona was'introduced' (via press release) at the end of June with product planned to be available in Sept (before the K01 snafus). That's a 2 month gap between 'introduction' and product available for purchase.

So compare Intel's Nov'07 with the time you will be able to BUY AMD 45nm PRODUCT (not 'shipped', 'sampled', 'introduced', or 'ramped'). The product will not be available for purchase until H2'08. So AMD has managed to maintain the timing gap, but has fallen behind on performance.

Orthogonal said...

The bulk ILD film K value is only half the story for interconnect

It's also worth mentioning (Which I think already has, but can't remember for sure) that just because you lower the ILD K value, you aren't necessarily gaining anything. The purpose of the low K ILD value is to reduce the C between the metal layers and thus reduce transmission delays. However, this only become a limiter if the front end (Transistor switching speed), is fast enough that the RC delays become a bottleneck. You can essentially think of this as a freeway with a speed limit of 75 MPH, but the cars happen to only be capable of driving 25 MPH so who cares if you if the speed limit is faster.

In all likelyhood there is something gained in the backend or it wouldn't be worth IBM's time to develop the Ultra-low K solution, but as can be seen, Intel's current low K ILD is obviously good enough since chips are clocking well beyond 4Ghz without much problem.

Anonymous said...

"I'm also wondering what Intel's third generation strain technology provides at 45nm compared to transistors with no strain."

Honestly it really doesn't matter (which is why you don't see Intel boasting on it) - it's about how much better it is than the previous generation. I don't see Ford comparing their current cars to Model T's....

Also changing the gate oxide and the various front end integration changes for the replacement gate flow, and perhaps changes to the liners may also impact the data a bit.

As a bit of an educated guess, without knowing how much Ge IBM is putting into the embedded SiGe, the PMOS impact on the first gen should be about 40% (or greater if they pushed the Ge content aggressively)... now throw in the OTHER NUMEROUS strain techniques that IBM/AMD boasted about on 65nm and the actual change from 65nm to 45nm is rather modest on PMOS (and even less on NMOS!), probably in the 20-30% range (which is not all that great as NMOS is likely even smaller).

Hence the comparison to unstrained device which shows a big # and has the wow factor for the technically illiterate press, as opposed to a comparison to the previous gen which would be a rather modest #....and folks may say 'that's it'?

Perhaps AMD should adopt this PR technique to other areas and compare the K10 IPC to say K6?

Anonymous said...

Orthogonal - you are only considering the speed side of the equation though your analysis is dead on in this respect.

However by lowering the "C" you are less susceptible to cross talk or coupling this enables you to scale the features (as you need to for the smaller node) but you also may potentially be able to get away with larger metal lines while still maintaining sufficient ILD separation (this is especially more important when you get to some of the middle ILD layers where the length of the runs are more significant).

Wider (or deeper) lines would mean a lower resistance of the interconnect path and therefore help out a bit on the power side. I'm not sure how substantial this resistance is compared to some of the resistances closer to the transistor (contact, salicides, channel, etc...) though.

The fundamental problem with the all of the articles is it is typical IBM academic nonsense - a bunch of claims that cannot be distilled down into bottom line performance - they seem more interested in the academic details... it is also looking at each aspect in a relative vacuum and does not consider the integrated performance - I must have missed the publications that explained the actual performance gain between the 65nm and 45nm technologies.

Anonymous said...

That azmount guy on amdzone is such a tool. Everything is spintel this spintel that with him. he thinks somehow by disparaging the competition and calling anyone who disagrees with him a troll will make his points more valid.

The fact that he gets free reign and admin support from ghost on amdzone pretty much explains why half the subforums are dead there and there are only about 15 active regular posters left.

Unknown said...

That azmount guy on amdzone is such a tool.

Now he's on Scientia's blog claiming that Nehalem is based on Netburst!

InTheKnow said...

Honestly it really doesn't matter (which is why you don't see Intel boasting on it) - it's about how much better it is than the previous generation. I don't see Ford comparing their current cars to Model T's....

You have a valid point. However, since the only numbers I have for IBM's work are a comparison of the latest car to a model T, I wonder how Intel's numbers would compare against the same reference. At least that way we could get an apples to apples comparison and see who really is ahead, and by how much.

Ho Ho said...

People at amdzone are pure comedians. They found that on one site Phenom does really good in some UT3 benchmark and said it was thanks to better scaling of Phenom in multithreaded workloads. On that very same performance graph you can see dualcores getting into hairsplit distance of the quads. That says quite a bit about how well the game can use quadcores.

Next, they find another benchmark where Phenom does well in Crysis but they don't say a word about another graph of UT3 on that page where fastest Phenom is 11% slower than slowest Core2 quad.


The Bioshock benchmark is quite odd one where QX6850 is slower than Q6600


Double standards FTW!

Tonus said...

I hope you don't expect that kind of spamming garbage to work here. Sharikou doesn't mind letting people spam his comments section, but I expect that Rob will make sure his blog doesn't get ruined by that junk.

Khorgano said...

Yes, delete that crap, we don't want any of it here. I hope Robo doesn't have to turn on comment moderation to prevent this kind of crap, but it seems as this blog gets more popular, we're going to see these kinds of shenanigans.

InTheKnow said...

Roborat64. I know your policy on deleting posts and agree with it. But posts like the one above make me wonder if you can't create some sort of spam page to at least move that kind of wasted space to. Having to scroll through it is an annoyance to say the least.

I can only assume the poster is easily amused.

Anonymous said...

I love how assmount makes hi case for "Cheap gaming system" lol.

I don't even know where to start about his latest thread on FUDZone.

He think it's a fair comparison even though the 8800gt will rape the 3850 on all levels lol.

he provides good laughs, I commend him for that.

Anonymous said...

(Doc, find that guys IP address and do a number on it will ya!)

In more relevant news, two, 2 no less (!), industry ANAL-ISTS have given INTC a thumbs up for 2008! This is a 180 degree contradiction to those IDIOTS at Morgan Stanley and BOA. For the life of me I’ll never, ever, get these guy’s.

Further, xbit-labs has a review on Wolfdales. The way I see it, AMD will need to cut prices to remain competitive with these new low priced bad boys.

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article. aspx?Feed=AP&Date=20080107&ID=8002869&
Symbol=INTC


http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles
/cpu/display/intel-wolfdale.html


SPARKS

Anonymous said...

"The way I see it, AMD will need to cut prices to remain competitive with these new low priced bad boys."

It looks like the 'low end' Wolfdale will match or exceed any current AMD dual core - as I think this is ~$160, the AMD ceiling just got lowered unless they get some K10 dual cores out and they are much better than expected... this may help explain why AMD did not bother attempting higher clocked K8 dual cores on 65nm? The binsplits must be ugly and if everything AMD sells is going into such a small price window on desktop, why bother trying to squeeze a bin or two?

If you sell everything in the desktop realm under $150, there probably is no reason trying to eke out marginal performance, which likely will be expensive for AMD. Anyone wanting the additional performance will just step up to a 'low end' 45nm chip (or 65nm Intel chip for that matter).

What was SCARY about the XBIT review was the ability to OC the E8500 to 3.66GHz WITHOUT INCREASING Vcore! It's one thing to OC by increasing Vcore (which they got to 4.4GHz), but to do it without it, really says there is plenty of headroom in the process. It also shows me that these are not cherrypicked parts that can barely hit bins. Barring a binary issue in the yield (like an issue which would dramatically drop a part multiple bins), it does look like the 45nm manufacturing process has a fair amount of margin in it and is reasonably healthy.

What would have made the review even better would have been to see how much the Vcore could have been lowered while still maintaining the stock clockspeed. I currently undervolt and OC (~10%) a 65nm part with no issue, it looks like at least the 8500 might even be better at this.

Anonymous said...

Correction on my last post, that was not Morgan Stanley, it was a J.P. Morgan downgrade. Doesn’t mater, they have much too lose as their involvement with AMD is now historic. They have systematically lowered (downgraded) INTC share price in alternating lockstep, whenever it hits new highs.


“What would have made the review even better would have been to see how much the Vcore could have been lowered while still maintaining the stock clockspeed.”


Sounds like you should do some research on a more personal level! Clock till ya rock! Can AMD sell anything to make money now, and in the foreseeable future?

“really says there is plenty of headroom in the process”

This is in line with Orthogonal’s comment above:

“Intel's current low K ILD is obviously good enough since chips are clocking well beyond 4 GHz without much problem.”

Good enough!?!? Did I say sandbagging last month?

Some one above mentioned INTC backing off on AMD to “keep them crippled”. I don’t think so. These things are just begging for the mid to low end. They are going for AMD’s jugular, triple cripples. Shang hide, fusion, whatever.

INTC keeps smelling that blood in the water-----------Bite!


Leap ahead, is an understatement, it more like step on.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

“And although Intel has found an excuse – an alleged problem in the upcoming processors caused by EMI in 1333MHz front side bus when these CPUs are used in hypothetical mainboards with 4-layer PCB design – it doesn’t sound convincing at all.”

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/intel-wolfdale.html

So much for that--- FUD. Did I say sandbagging last month?

I said it was all bullshit.

Giant, we're just gonna have to wait for the Home Coming Queen, natural beauty, QX9770, just a bit longer, it seems.-------(sigh). Ah, the mania for the extremists.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

Speaking of tools, I see that baronmatrix is now posting at AMDZone.

According to his post, he "I needed a rest from all the AMD bashing that's all over IT sites right now."

I think he's not going to rest anytime soon until AMD restructures.

Baroness post at AMDZone

Sorry, I had to post this.

Anonymous said...

'300mm should provide much needed cost savings....' he takes 2X the die area, subtract 25% as delta between K10 65nm quad and 90nm K8 200mm and comes up with 75% better costwise (and then takes it down to 65% to account for yield).

Putting the yield bit aside...this sounds quite reasonable, but as usual, you have novices who know nothing about manufacturing coming to a conclusion they WANT/NEED to reach.

So what's wrong with the above? Simple you get ~2X the die per wafer on 300mm, but the cost per wafer is not the same (thus you don't get 1/2 the die cost)! The starting wafers cost more (esp SOI), the capital equipment costs more when you normalize per wafer, you use more consumables/chemicals per wafer (of course all of these things work out to be better on a per die basis but they are not identical per wafer!)

So the 2X is actually closer to ~40-50% better per cm2 of Si, now take the 25% bigger die, a potential yield hit from both the 65nm process AND the bigger die and suddenly K10 quad on 65nm,300mm wafer is not that much better K8 dual on 90nm, 200mm wafer.

I would post on the zone but I would likely be censored for posting actual facts (I think the concept of using facts would confuse folks there). Plus if all of the AMD fanboy ignorance is constrained to that site there will be a lot less misinformation around the web... so to the poster above - let them live in their own little world and in ignorance...

I heard folks making major predictions on cost going from 90nm, 200mm wafer to 65nm, 300mm wafer... some follks were estimating ~4X... you just have to chuckle to yourself, attempt to explain the facts once and if they refuse to listen, well try to sell them some tinfoil hats!

Tonus said...

Wolfdale review at X-bit Labs

Intel is starting off with 45nm duallies, and the $163 Core 2 Duo E8200, a 2.66Ghz CPU, outperforms the Athlon 64 X2 6400+ (currently at $160-190 at NewEgg) in every benchmark they ran. It also runs at lower temperatures and far lower wattages under load.

And that is the slowest of the three.

Quad-core is where the industry is headed, but dual-core will remain a big seller for most of 2008 IMO. Intel seems poised to take control of that market and force AMD into further price cuts this year.

Anonymous said...

"65-watt energy efficient Phenom coming"
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5023&Itemid=1

Yes that's a 1.8GHz Phenom! You know, because customers are DEMANDING energy efficiency and don't want to have to worry about that pesky performance thing. Conveniently based on the B2 stepping (TLB bug), this looks to be a dump of underperforming chips, yet somehow won't be available until late Q1 if Fudzilla is to be believed.

Any guesses on the price of this sucker? I hear it will be able to OC to at least 2.2 or 2.4GHz, of course that would raise the TDP to that of the 2.2's and 2.3's AMD tried to release last quarter.

Oh they might be the same and just undervolted so they can be sold under the guise of 'energy efficiency'? I'd be stunned!

It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic...

Anonymous said...

Although this also comes from Fudzilla, it seems to be straight reporting. In any event, read how Dirk and company are spinning radical cost cutting measures in 2008. This is even more pathetic than the above. First, selling the un-sellable junk, and now cutting the R+D necessary to fix the junk. This tells me no mater what they do or how they do it, this thing is seriously busted. I guess the law of diminishing returns applies when throwing good money after bad, on a broken product, and a failed architecture.

How right you all were on the SOI issue during 2007, and now into 2008.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=5014&Itemid=1

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

Sparks the Fudzilla link you quoted is genuine and has been reported by 'real' press

http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage_c_online.php?leftnm=10&bKeyFlag=IN&autono=32163

AMD's strategy is clear - even with IBM's fab club they will have a difficult time keeping up with Intel on process technology for several very key reasons:

1) The motives of all the members are not the same (timelines may be different, performance targets may not be perfectly aligned

2) The other members of the club are competing with INtel to a much lesser extent and do not have the same schedule motivation as AMD

3) They don't have the money to pour into R&D - while you need smart people, eventually you have to process lots of wafers, buy research tools, collaborate externally (usually via funding) to make breakthroughs.

Much like AMD's opposition to 450mm, it appears AMD's strategy is to slow things down so the gap doesn't widen.

I do love some of Dirk Meyer's quotes:

'Dirk also cited the hand-held devices, which are becoming entertainment-centric from mere voice-centric devices till recently, as another big opportunity for the industry. "A third of all hand-held devices in use are already media-centric'

Really!?!? Hmmm... perhaps a cheap, low power solution like, I don't know say Silverthorn, would be useful?

'the industry needs to innovate easy ways that would bring down the R&D expenditure'

Good luck with that! I'm sure there are hundreds of easy ways to control R&D costs - it's not like people haven't been trying to do this for years! And personally I would prefer to innovate difficult ways to bring down R%D architecture.

Anonymous said...

Tisk, tisk, ya got ya ILD’s your stain technologies, your SiO’s, edge patterning, and your etc’s. Etches of every kind, chemical ion properties, catalytic reactions, atomic interactions, masking, time critical annealing, multi level atomic layering, various deposition technologies, Christ my head is spinning.

With all this microscopic rocket science and all it’s critically small and very sensitive interrelated variables and materials, does Dork really think this shit is gonna get easier as time passes with each subsequent generation!?!?!. WTF!

Hell, I’m a know nothing from Podunk, but I’ll tell you one thing, if you ain’t got the money, and invariably, the talent (read: people), who can actually bring these technologies together, with a successfully mass producible cutting edge product, you can count your time in this industry with an egg timer and step aside. AMD, with this statement, has.

From where I sit, looking at it from a long term, 25 some odd year perspective, there are too many ‘also ran’ companies who failed simply because innovative solutions never materialized on the CPU/GPU front. The list is endless.

The evidence is clear. Dorks comments are one of denial and symptomatic of a company whose innovations were never really ground breaking or truly innovative, hence, their given name the, ‘imitator’. Their role in the industry as major players was decided and in the now historic year 2007.

They stuck out on their own with their much hyped “revolutionary” process and “elegant” architecture. They jumped into the deep end and it was either sink or swim. The world bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

It has now become painfully clear, with this statement of technological capitulation, they have failed and their new role in the industry has been defined, by a lead corporate/technological officer.

Conversely, Intel Corporation, leading the way, far past human neural tissue densities, I believe, is well on its way to the great new frontier. A.I., this will happen. They are now in a position to lead the way.

The road is clear and its destination undeniable. Love it or hate it, if Intel and Microsoft stay focused we will get there, as my little paperclip friend ‘Clipit’ in the upper right hand corner of my screen blinks at me, scratching his paperclip head, wondering what will be I typing next.

SPARKS

Anonymous said...

Anybody catch the latest Q&A with Phil Hester (AMD) on amdzone.com?

Lots of amusing items in there. Here's two:

"How would you manage the pricing pression that intel can apply with their 45nm products?

I think you should aske them what type of yields are they having with 45nm. If they answer you that yields are good, then why aren't they releasing all their offerings in this technology? (Note: during the interview, intel announced 16 new 45nm products)."

Whoops. Looks like the Death Star is fully operational after all.

"What type of frequencies do you expect from Phenom in 65nm?

Let's not talk about specific frequencies. The question that we should make is: how much work does a processor performs in each clock cycle?
A processor that runs at 2.5GHz may perform much faster than one that runs at 5GHz if the first one performs more than double of instructions for each clock cycle. We do expect to have the leadership in performance."

Thanks for the P4 history lesson.

Check out this forum item for some good times. It's also fun to see how all of Hester's spin is eaten up without question over there.

InTheKnow said...

'Dirk also cited the hand-held devices, which are becoming entertainment-centric from mere voice-centric devices till recently, as another big opportunity for the industry. "A third of all hand-held devices in use are already media-centric'

Really!?!? Hmmm... perhaps a cheap, low power solution like, I don't know say Silverthorn, would be useful?


I think that AMD intended to use their forthcoming "Bobcat" processor to fill this niche. This was announced at the same time as Bulldozer. Though I haven't heard anything about this processor since. My suspicion is that it has been pushed just like bulldozer.

Being at least a year behind Silverthorne I thought it was going to be too late to the party to begin with. If it has indeed been pushed, it will have an uphill battle against Intel in the UMPC/MID space because, despite claims to the contrary, the GEODE/ATI CE products don't seem to be making any headway in this space.

And how cheap is cheap?

Let's take a very crude first approximation. Assume we can get 400 yielding Penryn die off of a wafer (this is probably low).

Each of these will sell for ~$180.

Intel's margins are around 50%. Note I'm including chipsets, flash, and other low margin products here so actual processor margin should be quite a bit higher.

So it is costing around $180*50% margins*400 chips/wafer = $36000 to manufacture a wafer.

Silverthorne is estimated to have around 2500 die per wafer. If we yield say 80% we will get 2000 die.

$36000 per wafer/2000 die = $18 per yielding die.

Intel can sell these things for ~$36 and maintain 50% margins.

Please keep in mind this is a very crude estimate, but it illustrates the point. Silverthorne is not out of the ballpark on a cost basis with a comparable ARM solution.

InTheKnow said...

I think you should aske them what type of yields are they having with 45nm. If they answer you that yields are good, then why aren't they releasing all their offerings in this technology? (Note: during the interview, intel announced 16 new 45nm products)."

This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Intel is still below 50% of planned 45nm capacity of course. The only rational explanation is that yields are poor. Surely even a rabid Intel fanboy can see that. ;P (sarcasm intended)

Anonymous said...

http://www.amdzone.com/amdzone/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=27&func=view&id=134921&catid=52

The hypocrite of them all spoke again outcrying unfair benches...
Maybe he should do some research of his one, then maybe he'll notice that AMD does not officially support 1066.
Also AMD system enjoys the DDR2-800 with 4-4-4 timings more than the 1066 at 5-5-5 timing...it's been shown over and over that the K8 loves tighter timings.

Then Nazi Ghost calls Intel scared? lol is this joke?
Intel is not scared, it's just driving AMD into the ground and doing a good job too. AMD shares are $5.75!!!!!!!!
Scared my ass, if anything, it's AMD running to the hill.

AMD's fastest Dual core is beaten by Intel's SLOWEST penryn and he thinks Intel is scared LOL.

Anonymous said...

I meant to say the AMD 6400+ does not officially support 1066 DDR2

Anonymous said...

The only rational explanation is that yields are poor.

I'm glad you've finally figured this out. After all, Abinstein expalined on his blog why Intel's yields are half that of AMD's yields! :-P

I read the Phil Hester interview, this is quite hilarious.

we believe that the technological gap is only 4 months.

(Referring to process technology)

Are you expecting greater performance than Yorkfield at the same frequency?

In an apples to apples comparison, yes.


How does this work? We've all seen dozens of reviews showing that AMD needs a 2.6GHz Phenom 9900 to match the performance of Intel's slowest Q6600 2.4GHz Kentsfield quad core. Yorkfield is just expanding on that lead by another 5 -> 10% on average.

AMD at $5.53 and dropping. I hope Penix hasn't lost too much cash, he did after all suggest everyone should refinance their homes and invest it all in AMD!

Anonymous said...

"So it is costing around $180*50% margins*400 chips/wafer = $36000 to manufacture a wafer."

This is off by a factor of 10... typical costs to process a 300mm wafer is $3000-4000, you then have to add in packaging and assembly.

10X error is a bit beyond crude. You can't simply back out the cost like that and you don't know GOOD DIE per wafer count, also ASP's are not $180.

I do agree Silverthorn is inline with some of the alternate solutions but take ~$3500 / ~2000 per wafer and then consider packaging and assembly/test costs become a more significant % of the overall costs.

Either way unit production cost should be in the $10 or less range, so Intel should make some money off of these even in that competitive pricing environment.

Anonymous said...

"Hester said that AMD is making progress on Fusion, the code-name for a chip that combines an AMD microprocessor with an ATI graphics core. That chip is scheduled for launch in 2009. He also said that AMD is on schedule to come out with its 45-nanometer manufacturing process in 2009 as well."

Last sentence...45nm ON SCHEDULE for 2009?!? (full link below)

So 'closing the gap' (which was 1 year on 65nm) apparently means 14+ months! That is, if we assume 2009 means January, if of course we use the 'AMD' 2009 calendar, it is more likely March-ish.

What did I tell you guys?!?!? 'ramping H1'08' = putting equipment in, 'production' mid-2008 = sampling and STARTING production. I must admit even I appear to be wrong - I assumed production mid-2008 meant actual product for sale in Q4'08.

The error of my ways? Well I thought mid-2008 production meant Jun/Jul, add 4 months and you are in the Oct-ish timeframe. Little did I know AMD apparently meant the K10 type of mid-200X (which apparently means Sept)... add 4 months to that and you are at the beginning of the next year.

I'm sure AMD will point out that they never said they would sell product sooner and that the press just misinterpreted their statement. It's called PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY.

Full article:
http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/takahashi/2008/01/08/ces-live-deans-tuesday-experiencemeeting-with-amds-phil-hester/

Anonymous said...

Don’t look now boys and girls, AMD is TANKING. Currently down to $5.53, this is not good. AMD’s shareholders are bailing.

What’s more relevant, however, INTC is up 49 cents on the day despite the current market downturn. This could be a dead cat bounce, however, as we are entering a bear market. That said, I believe when looking at these two taken together, I suspect leaked 4Q financials may have hit the street early, on the inside first, of course. Frankly, I don’t see where AMD can make any kind of significant rebound as the whole sector rose, while it left them behind.

SPARKS

http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?symbol=INTC


http://moneycentral.msn.com/msn/stock_quote?Symbol=amd

InTheKnow said...

This is off by a factor of 10... typical costs to process a 300mm wafer is $3000-4000, you then have to add in packaging and assembly.

I'll admit that the cost looked obscenely high to me as well, but since the final cost estimate wasn't too outrageous, I figured most of the errors came out in the wash.

I did fail to take extra packaging and test costs into account. That is a good point and will be a lot more significant going forward as I'm sure Intel will continue to shrink these things to get the costs down.

Anonymous said...

"I did fail to take extra packaging and test costs into account."

The $3000-4000 is BEFORE assembly costs... it is Si plus fab processing (typically through C4). The assembly/packaging costs (typically quoted per die) are not as significant, though they become more significant the more die you have per wafer, as the per die cost comes down (i.e for Silverthorn assembly/pakacging will represent a more signifcant % of the overall unit production costs).

It is very difficult to do a 'tops down' cost analysis as most variables (yield, margin, dpw) can have a high degree of error if you don't have inside information.

Anonymous said...

"Perhaps AMD should stop spending time and energy trying to sue others and blaming others for their failures."

I tend to agree with the current set of problems. AMD and/or governments has the right to pursue this for potential past transgressions, but clearly the 'monopoly' is not the cause of the AMD's current problems. I think AMD's mgmt conveniently intermixes these hoping folks may not realize this distinction.

My question is this though... is the EU looking for recent stuff (within the last 2 years say) or older stuff? And what exactly is the SPECIFIC damage done to the EU? I can see AMD trying to make a claim (if anything is proved) but what about the EU? If rebates or whatever is deemed anticompetitive then I can see how this impacted AMD, but if the prices that consumers were paying were still low and competitive (like they are now), how exactly is the EU consumer injured? These are not European companies. Does the EU fine companies who sell clothes in the EU that are done by labor at ridiculously low salaries?

This, to me, in disingenuous. If the argument is that consumers got hurt then I eagerly wait to see if the EU distributes checks to all those who purchased a computer in that time period they allege (should they actually levy a fine). Somehow though, I don't think we will see that (call me a cynic).

We all know that Intel fans are the biggest cock suckers of them all and just as long as we get what we want everyone else can go fuck themselves.

If the issue is that AMD was injured, than AMD (NOT THE EU) should be the ones pursuing this as they are doing in the US.

Anonymous said...

But as a self-anointed authority on all things semi-conductor related, he can't be educated. What a waste of a mind.

Guess what I can up with after all the hype, spin and horseshit? Those IDIOTS who bought into this bag of crap have to explain to their shareholders and bosses WHY THEY BOUGHT THE “SCRAPY LITTLE COMPANY” AND SOLD INTEL SHORT!

As an Intel employee it has been fun to watch things from the sidelines, even over at Scientia's blog, however, the quality of dialogue is vastly superior here. (some may accuse me of bias, but that's ok :) )

I'm impressed by the knowledge and experience many of the posters here have shown. Many of the assumptions and educated guesses of Intel's process and operations are strikingly spot on, while some may be a tad off ;)

Please keep up the good work and I'll comment from time-to-time from an insider's point of view.

Lest anyone be confused by the drivel posted by Scientia regarding Intel's "destruction" of 45nm chips here ...

whatever Semiconductor for Dummies book Scientia might be reading at the moment, it must be really old.

If they raised their standard to INTC's, AMD's Cripple Cores would be trash.

despite Dementia's assumption that D1d = development fab = low volume, D1d is roughly the size (capcity-wise) of AMD's F36!

But in Scientia's little world apparently schedule is the onlu thing that matters who cares if the wheels are falling off and the process engine is sputtering...

Scientia's thoughts on D1d chips are laughable as many posters are pointing out...

"This suggests that Intel's bulk production quality lags its initial production quality by a full year"

Scientia hitting the bottle!

It is simply astounding how little knowledge Scientia has in this area.

As for Abinstein - the guy is a joke...

Keep up the good work ROBO!

Dementia's have indicated the ridiculous of his assertions about Intel destroying their early 45nm production because it was inferior to 65nm. He thought this because he misinterperted a statement by Otellini as he lacks any sort of financial background, yet somehow felt qualified and compelled to draw an absurd (and wrong) statement as it was a potentially negative data point (of course it has been shown not to be the case) for Intel.

Funny when things are shown to be wrong at it doesn't change his preconceived conclusion (that he tries to fit the data to), he will update his blog. It remains to seen if he will update this misinformation as well?!?

As it is the only thing propping up his absurd "45nm is not in as great a shape as those Intel fanboys think" assertion, it is probably unlikely he will correct it. (Unless of course he can twist/spin some other data to once again fit his predetermined conclusions).

I HAD little respect for him, I now have ZERO respect for him. We all make mistakes, but a man with INTEGRITY will stand up and own up to them. A WISE man also will know his limitations and not try to draw absurd conclusions on data/statements he knows very little about. (And then in Dementia's case then use his own IGNORANCE as an excuse for them misinterpertation!)

I think it is clear to all now that Scientia has neither integrity or wisdom. (But the blog still makes for good entertainment due to the absurd reasoning and argument skills!)

We need some fresh meat. I am bored of Christian Howel and Abinstein.

You missed the most important point Dementia had on DTX - it will allow lower costs in the budget area....

you talking about someone that rhymes with dementia?

scheming scientia
idle fella
closet fanboy
baked a half ploy
blame it on dementia

In fact Dementia, Abinidiot, et al made a big deal of this saying how great it was and that AMD would not be going back to effectively one fab during the conversion. Now he is saying the exact opposite decision is the right one, because it is easier operationally, blah, blah, blah, never set foot in a fab so I'll spout out more words to make it seem like I'm an expert on this...organizational complexity....blah blah blah...

The truth is whenever AMD changes a decision it is OBVIOUSLY the right thing to do and Scientia obviously has the right argument behind it!?!

So, was does this show Dementia and Company? Ya don’t need a super long, phallic pipeline to get super clocks! All ya need is the best people and chip company IN THE WORLD!

hahahaha lmfao@scientia

Roborat, don't you know that the Crysis benchmark was compiled to favor Intel and cripple AMD? What are you thinking, man? ;P

LOL anonymous poster, thanks for posting Scientia's oh so accurate 'predictions'! :D

45nm doesn't appear to be as poor as Scientia attempted to suggest through his ridiculous analysis that Intel was throwing away inferior 45nm parts (due to his lack of financial knowlegde)

I do hate to sound like a broken record (like some of those AMD fanboys

PHENOM IS SIMPLY FRAGGED TO PIECES BY EXISTING INTEL CPUS.

SUPERPI 1M scores:

This isn't even counting Yorkfield, which will report even better scores!

RV670 PRE-FRAGGED BY 8800 GT:

In other news, AMD renamed the SPIDER platform to SNAIL platform. This reflects the snail pace that the PHENOM CPU and RV670 graphics cards run at!

It is quite plain to see that Intel is holding back considering the new 45nm processors can clearly clock up to 4Ghz on air and much much higher with a little effort yet Intel refuses to release any processors officially clocked over 3.16 Ghz.

F**k’en A Bubba!

Well, here it is folks. The Pheromone C2D killer, the one that was going to destroy Clovertown by 40%, will be launched @ 2.3GHz. B.F.D. !!!

Further, In The Know, Doc, GURU, and so many others on this site, your analysis and predictions have been 100% correct. All commentary ranging back for one year has been formally substantiated and postulated with clairvoyant precision.

Let me see if I can crawl into the mind of the great Dementia

It's funny he has become like a politician - he understates everything about AMD's roadmap so he can say they met/exceeded it and he intentionally overestimates Intel's roadmap so he can say they are behind or late.

Wow - there is just so much misiformation in Scientia's latest blog it is getting ridiculous

Looks to me like Scientia is just making excuses on why AMD is behind (now that he finally seems to accept that they are behind). I guess an extremely ignorant Intel fanboy could claim that AMD should be much further ahead as they have 4 companies working together as opposed to Intel doing it on it's own. That of course would be just as stupid as Dementia's people and spending arguments.

I would sign up for an account and post on his blog but would he really listen? (That's a rhetorical question - the answer is rather clear) Folks here should feel free to post the links I attached if they'd like! I would enjoy trying to see him wriggle out of his completely ignorant OPC comments!

Not a frick'en genius - its just compared to Dementia, I appear to be one. But then again when it comes to Si technology, my dog would also seem like a frick'en genius compared to scientia!

I just get upset when people pose as experts (under the guise of a blog), don't provide any support to backup their ridiculous statements and then refuse to acknowledge a counter point of view.

I'll say it again - Scientia has concluded in his own mind that AMD is "close" or "equivalent" or "not too far behind" Intel on process technology - he thus tries to make all data FIT that conclusion (rather than looking at the data first and trying to form a conclusion). As a scientist, this is amusing to me as it goes against everything a real scientist or engineer would do. You don't start with a pre-formed conclusion and then try to dig up data to support it and at the same time exclude data that disproves it.

I still find a surprising amount of entertainment in just watching him try to adapt concepts and topics he clearly doesn't understand (like OPC, SRAM cell size, RDR) into a support structure for his ridiculous assertions. It's almost amusing as his 'followers' writing great blog, as they also have no clue what some of the things Scientia is mentioning.

For Scientia to dismiss it,with obviously no technical background on what RDR is, means, and how it is used....is absurd. Not quite as absurd as his talking about SRAM cell size and gate length to suggest that it is not RDR giving Intel an edge, but absurd none the less. But still less absurd the his stubborn use of a technology node launch date and a comparison of clockspeeds on 2 different microarchitectures as the key metric to judge how far ahead/behind folks are on process technology. This is just so simplistic it is beyond funny - but then again what really could you expect given Scientia's limited background on Si processing?

And one of the reasons I think AMD fans/employees don't post here is they know the unfounded crap that they tend to spew will not be taken as gospel without a challenge and a request for supporting informartion.

Good one! But, I have the real truth here. Some of AMD's engineers were working late one night to fix these bugs and needed to stop for dinner. Hector Ruiz previously agreed that the company would pay for chinese food, since the engineers had to work such late shifts. But since the company is in serious financial trouble they couldn't afford to have the food delivered. The engineers had to take fifteen minutes of valuable time to collect the food. Since they lost these fifteen minutes they decided that these critical bugs just weren't worth fixing, so they decided to wait until 45nm to fix them!

and as usual, Scientia has hard time undertsand this, especially when thing paint possitively on intel's side.

Wow the misinformation on Scientia's blog just continues to mushroom, here's another comment (not from Scientia)

Where's that abinstein douchebag? Looks to be hiding from the Penryn massacre.

Let's motivate George Ou to write an article calling out AMD on this lapse.

This is beyond ridiculous. Even beyond beyond ridculous is Dementia still holding the faith.

I'm so confused, do I believe digitimes or Scientia's blog - Scientia has such a well documented background in manufacturing and technology (second only to Sharikou of course), I have to believe everything he writes even though he doesn't provide any facts to support it.

Where have abinstein and baronhowell now that Intel's Penryn performance numbers have been outed?

Chicken shits.

AMDZone has gone the way of the dodo. I guess the owner wanted to prevent mass suicides due to Penryn.

Scientia will try his unique brand of spin and censorship and claim that he does not have AMD bias.

Chicken shits.

Come on folks, be nice, you all need to remember this.

Scientia is never wrong, but on occasion, reality has failed to meet his expectations.

Shockingly enough it appears Scientia is wrong AGAIN and actually had no support behind his statements other than his typical EMPIRICAL observatiosn ("genererally speaking a chip will come out in production 6 months after demo"). This is what happpens when you lack knowledge of what is going on and try to form conlcusion on empirical observations.

I'm sure Scientia will spin this someway positive for AMD, soem possible explanations/FUD:

Don't forget, the lower the yields are for the quad-core, the higher the yields are for the tri-core.

By correlation,
AMD's delay of their tri-core can only mean one thing: they are having excellent yields on their quad-cores!

See, win-win situation again for AMD.

Scientia's used to eating crow. He's so consistently worng that i'm beginning to automatically assume everytime that the exact opposite happens to everything he predicts. i've seen more wrong predictions than in a psychic's convention.

For Scientia to say Prescott was poor therefor RDR's must have been after this is just plain ignorant."

ROTFLMAO -- Bravo!!!! But you must admit, Scientia's ramblings on such technical things makes for a great deal of humor.

"Does he really believe the stuff he says? Does he really think people will believe this crap?"

Unfortunately, he does think he is an authority on the subject, and he states with such conviction that he convinces the ranks of AMDzone that he is some sort of God. So yes, many believe his antics.

"I understand some mistakes as he doesn't work in the area but some of the things he says are just so, well frankly, stupid that he must know they are not right?"

I don't think he does (know his rubbish is not right).... it is kinda sad really.

"I read it sometimes for a laugh and one thread had Sci reasoning that the triple core was delayed because yields on the quad core were so good. then there were comments like "good point, most people would have missed that.., etc." Absolutely hilarious."

I recall seeing that too (though don't recall if it was Sci) and nearly blowing the soda I was drinking through my nose I laughed so hard.

Stone cold killer my ass! ROFL

Where is that retard abinstein now? Is he hiding under Scientia?

abinstein, how do you like getting your ass kicked?

Blabbermouth.

"how can even the Scientia's/Abinstein continue to be AMD fans and look themselves in the mirror everyday?"

fans ---> short for fanatical --> fanatical is not generally associated with logic and reason.

Fans appear rationale when things are going well (the same can be said about Intel fans too), however it is when things are not going well the tiger finally shows its stripes.

It's at that point where things become desparate and you have blogs like "K10: A Good start" (Oh this was meant to be serious!?!?) or a blog on process technology when the author has nary a clue of what Si is.

I like this blog as there are a lot of educated people who comment, nothing is taken as gospel. It would be nice to get some more AMD point of views, but given the folks I see on the other blog sites, I think they understand that they will not get away with unsubstantiated marketing and PR fluff without being challenged for facts/supporting links (which is why I suspect they don't post here).

"I think they understand that they will not get away with unsubstantiated marketing and PR fluff without being challenged for facts/supporting links (which is why I suspect they don't post here)."

Oh, yeah, plus, they WILL get eaten alive with actual working experience, facts and supporting links.