AMD CEO Lisa Su discusses supply problems and the future of CPUs

[Irata]

To clarify this questions, yes in the case of the 5600x and the 5800x I agree that there is enough of those SKUs around.

But this numbers are not showing the reality of the other 2 SKUs that were released: the 5900x and the 5950x Those go from rare and very briefly available still after months from the official release to being fully unavailable for weeks upon weeks at the time.

So to clarify these kinds of questions, I can concede the 2 lower SKUs for Ryzen 5000 are somewhat decent. But this is not true of the other SKU.

Also none of you guys are even acknowledging how utterly non-existent is the 6800 and 6800xt I'd be surprised if it's even 1% of the parts ever made available at retail when compared to the 5600x. It just doesn't exists outside of reviewer hands period.

So, looking at Mindfactory‘s December sales figures, they sold 1,320 5950x and 1,080 5900x. Sounds pretty decent for rather expensive high end CPU.

They actually sold more 5900x or 5950x than any Intel CPU that month and this includes the dirt cheap 10400F.

As for the 6x00 series cards, right now all models are available at that retailer - unlike the RTX 3080 and below.

Looking at the numbers, they have sold 620 RX 6900 and 345 RTX 3090 which is odd considering nVidia‘s 80% dGPU market share, the fact that the 3090 was released about 2 1/2 months before the 6900XT and we‘re pretending that only AMD has supply issues.

Again, it‘s just one retailer in one market but still.

 

[neeyik]

Looking at the numbers, they have sold 620 RX 6900 and 345 RTX 3090 which is odd considering nVidia‘s 80% dGPU market share, the fact that the 3090 was released about 2 1/2 months before the 6900XT and we‘re pretending that only AMD has supply issues.

If those figures were just for December, I suspect the inflated prices for the 3090 are to blame - cheapest one on their site is currently 1749 euros. The RX 6900 XT launched on the 8th of December, and was probably initially at 1000 euros, which would have helped sales if the current 3090's price was around that level last month.

 

[Irata]

If those figures were just for December, I suspect the inflated prices for the 3090 are to blame - cheapest one on their site is currently 1749 euros. The RX 6900 XT launched on the 8th of December, and was probably initially at 1000 euros, which would have helped sales if the current 3090's price was around that level last month.

Their best selling RX 6900XT was added on Dec. 31st but I doubt they had any of them at MSRP unlike Ryzen 5000 which were sold at MSRP on the release day.
I do not know if they had any reference design cards as none are listed at the moment, so if they did those are not included in the total sales number I quoted.

Prices aren‘t low either - € 1,249- 1,379 which is actually in line with the official MSRP difference of 500 to the 3090.

 

[silversea]

This techy businesswoman is doing what she does best, she is Chumming the water giving us little fishies a taste of what's to come.

 

[Rayneofpayne]

I don't think there is anything wrong with showing off technology that consumers can't actually buy. The real problem is consumer expectations not aligning with reality.

The world effectively shut down for a few months last year. That causes tons of problems. Now we must deal with them. If not being able to spend $500 on a GPU or CPU until six months from now is a major issue for you, reevaluate your priorities.

It kind of is a problem when it's part of your livelihood or is used to supplement your income. It's because the world shut down it becomes even more of a problem as scalpers are supplementing their income by trying to rip people off and causing further problems, entertainment is part of life as well.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

My local microcenter gets amd cpus on a fairly consistent basis.

Last Tuesday they actually got in roughly:
6 - 5600x
20-25 - 5800x
20-25 - 5900x
A few RX 6800/XT
About 20 RTX 3070
About a dozen RTX 3080
6 RTX 3090

The RX GPUs and 3070/3080 were all sold within the first 20 minutes. 3090 were last to go. 5600x sold out right away and in about 45 minutes when I finally got in, I picked up one of the last two 5900x.

When I checked their website yesterday morning they had about 20 - 5800x and 10 - 5900x. The website showed no stock about 90 minutes later when I checked again.

When I was at the store, the rep helping me said this was the largest shipment of GPUs he'd seen since the launch of the 3080s and 3070s. Usually they get a half dozen here and there. He said AMD CPUs come in fairly regularly, they just don't stay on the shelves long.

 

[defaultluser]

that's only one retailer and it looks like the 5000 series is in the ~9-11,000 units a month range. If you want to extrapolate those numbers to amount of other retailers selling AMD 5000 series CPUs you're looking at hundreds of thousands of units sold a month.

Shipping hund

reds of thousands of CPUs a month IS NOT a paper launch.

Precisely.

Also, I'm pretty sure covids19 delayed Zen 3 a few months (early launch rumors were August time-frame). instead, WE GOT Filler PARTS WITH THE xtx INVASION!,

Unfortunately, delaying Zen 3 mean you have to deal with the same launch rush you had over the summer for Zen 2, combined with Black Friday Retail Armageddon, you're looking at double the normal release demand!

Expect demand to be sated around April.

 

[ilovelinux]

The title is 50% supply problems and there is like literally one line about it in the article (that adds no information). Come on, this is inching towards clickbaitiness...

 

[texasrattler]

I didn't say thousands, I said hundreds of thousands. The only people complaining about the shortages are the people who can't get them, there are likely well over a million happy customers(for reasons I explained in my post).
correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the 5900x and 5950x used their chiplet design.

Again, a million sold dont equal a million customers got one. It only means a mean got sold. Most by bots and scalpers.
With 8 billion ppl in the world, a million of one popular device is nothing. Most will complain when you can't even order one or find it in a store. Thats just reality.

 

[Puiu]

Delay the products. It's a simple as that: just stop announcing products and stop releasing products until you can meet demand. This doesn't means stopping building up your supplies to get ready. We know it's going slowly, that it can't be helped and that it will take 6 months.

The part that wasn't necessary was Lisa calling and hosting a keynote to talk about new products she is well aware will not be able to deliver, at all in some cases.

You see what she is doing here, is merely producing a tiny amount of samples for press coverage, because she wants press outlets to keep talking about her products, constantly, even whens he knows nobody will be able to buy them for months.

She decided on a timeline. That timeline was affected by Covid related constrains to her supply chain and unprecedented demand, both things at the same time. But she HAS NOT ALTERED HER TIMELINE. She is not only paying for keynotes and press to talk about non-existing products, she continues to do so after admitting this is the case: She wants publicity for non-existent products.

She does not care this is greatly devaluing the value of press outlets by disrupting the social contract with the readers and viewers and generating great mistrust and possibly a large consequence in viewership and loyalty. She does not care about anybody on the press: she see's the press and the bad faith their incur as expendable. She even sees the bad faith of dissatisfied end users as also expendable.

She is calculating that as long as she comes out on top of intel in 6 months, it doesn't matter how many paper launches she promotes, how many key managers she allows to FLAT OUT LIE about launches and mock the competition for doing what she is well aware she was going to do in a few weeks. Her attitude is "Just defeat the competition, customers do not matter as long as we have the best product eventually, they'll be forced to buy it"

Altering the "timeline" was already done. You just forgot about it. The products already launched later than what normally should have happened. late Q4 2020 is a late launch date. Your entire argument falls apart knowing this. There is a limit to how much they can delay things.

And for comparison, I can find some AMD GPUs in stock in a few online stores where I live (albeit at inflated prices). NVIDIA just doesn't exist even though they launched earlier than AMD. A friend of mine managed to snag a 3070 in early december by sheer luck (there were 1 or 2 in stock ).

This is in no way an excuse, but considering the global situation, you are currently kinda exaggerating. Demand will eventually cool off in a few months and stocks will return to normal. We've been through the same thing in the last mining craze and that one didn't have COVID on top of it.

 

[yRaz]

Again, a million sold dont equal a million customers got one. It only means a mean got sold. Most by bots and scalpers.
With 8 billion ppl in the world, a million of one popular device is nothing. Most will complain when you can't even order one or find it in a store. Thats just reality.

A million sold also doesn't mean a million sold to scalpers. At the time of writing there are "only" 328 5600x CPUs on eBay

Call that a thousand to make the math easy, what is that as a percentage of CPUs sold out of 1 million?

 

[texasrattler]

A million sold also doesn't mean a million sold to scalpers. At the time of writing there are "only" 328 5600x CPUs on eBay

Call that a thousand to make the math easy, what is that as a percentage of CPUs sold out of 1 million?

I said most not all. A lot of AMD, nvidia, xbox and playstation were bought up buy bots n scalpers. There dozens of stories of this happening. Only small percentage of actual customers bought these products at launch.
Reality is, there are thousands if not millions of people who want the products but they cant be found. While playstation may have sold millions of units, millions of people still want one and the device still not found in most stores. Even with millions sold, it could still be considered a paper launch since it couldnt be found. Even more so since Sony had said they had 10 million units which they clearly did not sell that many at launch but they did hold some back for Black Friday/Thanksgiving and a lil for Xmas. Still they hadnt sold 10 m units. Japan at one point only reported just over 200k units sold.

 

[Irata]

Even with millions sold, it could still be considered a paper launch since it couldnt be found.

Seriously ? There are several articles stating the the PS5 was the best selling console ever at launch.

Sales figures I could find were 3.4 Million for the PS5 and 1.8 Million for the XBox Series S/X in the fist four weeks.

PS5 vs Xbox Series X|S vs Switch Launch Sales Comparison Through Week 4

This weekly mini-series compares the aligned launch sales of the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. It [...]

www.vgchartz.com

Is that less than the demand ? Absolutely. Does that qualify as a paper launch ? I'd sasy no, but you do you.

 

[punctualturn]

This goes in line with what I was saying: Obviously production doesn't stop and ramping up production is a predictable response to their success and expansion of their market share.

But as I said on another article, she is completely disregarding botched consumer launches here for another 6 months: She has a road map and she will stick to it come hell and high water and the peasants can wait 6 months to actually get their hands on the products at reasonable prices.

To her, the fight against intel and Nvidia as almost entirely theoretical discussions of advantages and disadvantages in the press is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than actually ensuring products are only released once the increased demand can be met or can be at least a little bit mitigated.

This is a strategy to show her board and investors AMD is strong and ready to continuously battle their opponents relentlessly. Consumers are just assumed to be of secondary, little consequence with a "They should wait, what are they gonna do? We're the best" attitude.

Yes AMD is successful and "producing" the almost undisputedly best products around. But they've turned the "pro consumer" attitude that kept them half way alive during the pre-ryzen, Bulldozer years and have basically decided this is a fight they can win entirely with white paper articles and favorable press coverage, not actual consumer products being delivered.

Disgusting.

Wait, are you living under a rock or something?

There is a worldwide pandemic, that is affecting every single supply chain.

By consequence, many goods are constrained.

Then its the fact everyone and their mother are hammering TSMC for their wafers.

Some people....

 

[punctualturn]

That woman is making my portfolio Great again... sexiest babe in tech.

Show some respect, pleb.

She is Our Holy Lady Dr. Lisa Su!

 

[mongeese]

Again, a million sold dont equal a million customers got one. It only means a mean got sold. Most by bots and scalpers.
With 8 billion ppl in the world, a million of one popular device is nothing. Most will complain when you can't even order one or find it in a store. Thats just reality.

People say this a lot, and you're right - a lot of product is being brought by bots and scalpers. But isn't true that they're people too? Scalpers are reselling the processors and bots are probably purchasing them on behalf of someone who's become impatient. As far as I'm concerned, if the processors going to bots and scalpers are either being used or resold, then they're real sales.

 

[yeeeeman]

Delay the products. It's a simple as that: just stop announcing products and stop releasing products until you can meet demand. This doesn't means stopping building up your supplies to get ready. We know it's going slowly, that it can't be helped and that it will take 6 months.

The part that wasn't necessary was Lisa calling and hosting a keynote to talk about new products she is well aware will not be able to deliver, at all in some cases.

You see what she is doing here, is merely producing a tiny amount of samples for press coverage, because she wants press outlets to keep talking about her products, constantly, even whens he knows nobody will be able to buy them for months.

She decided on a timeline. That timeline was affected by Covid related constrains to her supply chain and unprecedented demand, both things at the same time. But she HAS NOT ALTERED HER TIMELINE. She is not only paying for keynotes and press to talk about non-existing products, she continues to do so after admitting this is the case: She wants publicity for non-existent products.

She does not care this is greatly devaluing the value of press outlets by disrupting the social contract with the readers and viewers and generating great mistrust and possibly a large consequence in viewership and loyalty. She does not care about anybody on the press: she see's the press and the bad faith their incur as expendable. She even sees the bad faith of dissatisfied end users as also expendable.

She is calculating that as long as she comes out on top of intel in 6 months, it doesn't matter how many paper launches she promotes, how many key managers she allows to FLAT OUT LIE about launches and mock the competition for doing what she is well aware she was going to do in a few weeks. Her attitude is "Just defeat the competition, customers do not matter as long as we have the best product eventually, they'll be forced to buy it"

Compromise man is the name of the game.
If she would have done what you say, that is delay the launch of Zen 3 desktop CPUs, you would come here and cry that AMD is selling Zen 3 EPYCs but the desktop market is left behind.
Now that we actually got Zen 3 on time, you cry that she has launched it with insufficient avail.
TBH, from a business perspective, you need to keep on moving and create hype. Those that think otherwise about AMD and Lisa especially are probably 5 year olds that believe in fairies. Lisa is a good engineer, an excellent CEO, I give you that, but she has to sell the stuff, she has to market the crap out of Zen, RDNA, Vega, whatever, because the ultimate goal is money.
As for these supply constraints, they had them in the past, before COVID. They seem to be quite cautious when it comes to anticipating demand and that should change in time, but from a financial pov it makes sense to be cautious since investing a lot more than needed in something is a very bad decision. Just look at intel...they have their own fabs and own chain and still it took them 2-3 years to ramp up the production levels to the point where they are sufficient for the demand.

 

[Aranarth]

Once again, understand that keeping tons of stuff on storage is expensive and so it's not an option. Period.

Think of it like you're selling apples.
You pick what is ripe and selling it immediately.
You don't wait until the entire field is picked, if you have 2 bushels of apples ready to be eaten or cooked you sell them! Plus having things for sale even if you don't have much is its own form of advertising. Someone stop by, buy an apple, and it is DELICIOUS, they will likely come back to buy more. Now if you do wait until the entire orchard is picked, some will be over ripe, some will be rotten, and some will still be under-ripe.

 

[Dimitriid]

Compromise man is the name of the game.
If she would have done what you say, that is delay the launch of Zen 3 desktop CPUs, you would come here and cry that AMD is selling Zen 3 EPYCs but the desktop market is left behind.

Nope, it just depends on how far back you go with your announcements. Lisa is committing to a roadmap several years in advance and probably thought she only needed to pressure their teams to accomplish it and completely failed to consider "Zen 3 will not be ready within the timeline because of a global pandemic"

While I agree that many consumers would probably not be understanding or forgiving of said admission, nobody forced her to commit to a grand strategy and take on the risk of incurring into situations beyond her control.

I can agree on one thing, it is actually all about compromise. But the compromise isn't between Good and Bad releases. It's a compromise between showing off for investors and delivering to consumers.

What we know is that without the grand strategy, nobody would have been expecting Zen 3 chips in 2020 or even 2021. But she keeps bring up the roadmap to show how much they've adhered to it every chance she gets. This has been very useful to rebuild some of the trust they've lost with bulldozer but again, you risks are too high and this is only one of the many, many outcomes that could possibly disrupt her overall Zen strategy through the years: She could lose volume at the forges, the forges themselves could incur major setbacks in development ala intel, there's natural disasters, there's just unpredictability overall.

But if you gamble with hype and customer expectations, then yes you deserve the criticism: She knew the risks.

 

[Dimitriid]

Think of it like you're selling apples.
You pick what is ripe and selling it immediately.
You don't wait until the entire field is picked, if you have 2 bushels of apples ready to be eaten or cooked you sell them! Plus having things for sale even if you don't have much is its own form of advertising. Someone stop by, buy an apple, and it is DELICIOUS, they will likely come back to buy more. Now if you do wait until the entire orchard is picked, some will be over ripe, some will be rotten, and some will still be under-ripe.

That's probably the worst analogy I've heard so far: There is no expiration date on a processor and you only need to be about as good as your competitor and AMD has been shown to be WAY PAST intel since Zen 1 was released: Yes they didn't have the IPC strength to compete one to one but their process and development was so efficient everybody could tell that even for single core task they were going to at the very least catch up to intel easily.

So in this case AMD could absolutely just sit on inventory for a long time since intel has had to completely change their strategy just to attempt to stay within reach of Zen and hasn't been doing a very good job at it. Since Zen 2 Lisa could have guessed she didn't need to absolutely launch Zen 3 on 2020 because guess what? Intel didn't even responded with anything significant at all in 2020.

It all comes to not just wanting to satisfy customers and deliver a good product but the priority being burying intel. Yes it worked: changing CEO is a huge indicator they've conceded Lisa won 3 battles already, but as I said above this isn't about consumers, this is about just going after investors and share holders first and customers just getting whatever she deems appropriate, whenever she deems appropriate without any regards to customer satisfaction or needs.

 

[punctualturn]

We get it bro, nothing will pass your approval.

perhaps, check with your boy Jensen and be happy with whatever he shoves your way.

 

[Makste]

Nope, it just depends on how far back you go with your announcements. Lisa is committing to a roadmap several years in advance and probably thought she only needed to pressure their teams to accomplish it and completely failed to consider "Zen 3 will not be ready within the timeline because of a global pandemic"

While I agree that many consumers would probably not be understanding or forgiving of said admission, nobody forced her to commit to a grand strategy and take on the risk of incurring into situations beyond her control.

I can agree on one thing, it is actually all about compromise. But the compromise isn't between Good and Bad releases. It's a compromise between showing off for investors and delivering to consumers.

What we know is that without the grand strategy, nobody would have been expecting Zen 3 chips in 2020 or even 2021. But she keeps bring up the roadmap to show how much they've adhered to it every chance she gets. This has been very useful to rebuild some of the trust they've lost with bulldozer but again, you risks are too high and this is only one of the many, many outcomes that could possibly disrupt her overall Zen strategy through the years: She could lose volume at the forges, the forges themselves could incur major setbacks in development ala intel, there's natural disasters, there's just unpredictability overall.

But if you gamble with hype and customer expectations, then yes you deserve the criticism: She knew the risks.

It is too bad that you haven't gotten your hands on the AMD products you want yet. AMD cannot be blamed for the high demand it is facing currently. Putting this aside, innovation must continue. The production issue is left to the TSMC. Releasing new & highly efficient products, before demand for the previous products is met, is all okay. I think you are just disappointed that you will not be able to experience the current "hot cake" before something presumably better is released.

To summarize, all businesses are like this, case in point, writers can release a new edition to a book, before you're able to get your hands on the previous edition.

It is not so hard to understand this.

 

[Makste]

It all comes to not just wanting to satisfy customers and deliver a good product but the priority being burying intel. Yes it worked: changing CEO is a huge indicator they've conceded Lisa won 3 battles already, but as I said above this isn't about consumers, this is about just going after investors and share holders first and customers just getting whatever she deems appropriate, whenever she deems appropriate without any regards to customer satisfaction or needs.

I don't get your analogy at all.
1. How is AMD not delivering a good product and thus, not satisfying customer needs?
In the "meeting supply" department sure, but those who get the products, are satisfied.

2. Lisa Su doesn't mention, "burying Intel," as one of her major goals, let alone going after investors and share holders, that is your own analogy and assumption. She clearly stated, in a nutshell, that she is all about high performance products in the desktop, mobile and server segments with x86.
And that for the supply issue, construction of equipment and facilities are underway.

And all these above, have the customer at heart and in mind because whatever she points out is for your benefit as a consumer regardless of the supply issues. Either way, she has to keep improving and releasing better versions of the product, inorder to keep her presence in the market ie. Mind share.

 

[Dimitriid]

I don't get your analogy at all.
1. How is AMD not delivering a good product and thus, not satisfying customer needs?
In the "meeting supply" department sure, but those who get the products, are satisfied.

Well, the product is barely being delivered. 5600x and 5800x it's sort of ok in some places but still widely unavailable. 5900x and 5950x are just all but unobtainable.

Supply is not merely waved away by saying "sure" this I've been saying for all of this thread.

2. Lisa Su doesn't mention, "burying Intel," as one of her major goals, let alone going after investors and share holders, that is your own analogy and assumption. She clearly stated, in a nutshell, that she is all about high performance products in the desktop, mobile and server segments with x86.
And that for the supply issue, construction of equipment and facilities are underway.

I'm extrapolating from her actions and strategy. You might think I'm wrong and extrapolating incorrectly and that's fine. I just happen to disagree because I think that the fact that intel actually is getting buried speaks for itself, but of course I might be way off, no way of knowing.

 

[Joey Rakas]

Well, the product is barely being delivered. 5600x and 5800x it's sort of ok in some places but still widely unavailable. 5900x and 5950x are just all but unobtainable.

Supply is not merely waved away by saying "sure" this I've been saying for all of this thread.



I'm extrapolating from her actions and strategy. You might think I'm wrong and extrapolating incorrectly and that's fine. I just happen to disagree because I think that the fact that intel actually is getting buried speaks for itself, but of course I might be way off, no way of knowing.

Followed these comments. A lot of good perspectives, and Dimitriid you're right AMD needs to be able to increase production, but the reality of it man, is that we don't live in a perfect world. and right now there is a lot of messed up problems worldwide. Problems that are effecting companies like AMD. Recall that AMD is just recovering from the stone age we know as "Bulldozer" and they simply don't have the production levels that Intel or Nvidia have by any means. In her industry she MUST make a competitive product to stay alive, otherwise.......well "Bulldozer" will happen all over again. And after all she did say "AMD have invested in the construction of new equipment and facilities" which means she is making a full attempt(even during world events)to improve production, all while staying ahead of the curve. It's about all a person can do in the attempt to make everyone happy Sorry we can't all live in your perfect little bubble.