A year after calling out AMD's product launch failures, we're revisiting the same 12 mistakes to see if 2025 AMD has finally learned how to get pricing, performance, and features right.
Keeping Score: Has AMD Stopped Screwing Up?
- Thread starter Scorpus
- Start date
Meanwhile, despite the 'blunders' you enumerate, AMD managed to hector semiconductor behemoth Intel into irrelevance.
They are extremely efficient with their R&D dollars. I can forgive them a bit about their marketing shortcomings.
They are extremely efficient with their R&D dollars. I can forgive them a bit about their marketing shortcomings.
Short version:
Intel: Still screwing up, they need to put their fabs to work or they're doomed. Nova Lake set to still use TSMC and external customers are still lacking. They're in a really bad spot.
NVIDIA: Literally the worlds most valuable company and for now companies and governments are still throwing billions at AI.
--
Financial speculation purely from my own gut feeling:
Intel: Should be valued far higher than it is, sure they're not TSMC but they are second best (Samsung is further behind). They have fabs, they have CPUs that really aren't that much worse and if they started using their own fabs they must be able to compete on price at least with what TSMC is charging.
They need to pivot imo and pump out volume from their own fabs for their own products. All their problems seem to be due to mismanagement, I could see them make a massive resurgence if they restructured properly. They definitely shouldn't be valued as low as they are.
NVIDIA: Is set to massively drop in value at some point. The massive hit their stock took just by some vague announcements about DeepSeek shows it imo. The hyperscalers (Google, Amazon, Microsoft etc) already got their own CPUs designs, how long until one of them either starts using a homegrown design for internal use? Or alternatively gets tired of paying NVIDIA and instead injects billions into AMD so AMD can secure production at scale (and a few millions into maturing ZLUDA just a tiny bit more).
imo: AMDs Set to slowly grow, Intel is either going to go bust (or artificially kept alive by the US government) or make a big resurgence. NVIDIA is going to go boom in a bad way at some point and cost a lot of investors a lot of money (but they also made tons, so don't feel bad).
calvinblanes
Posts: 47 +36
The alternative is way worst. AMD has been the best budget option these last 20 years... I'm not a fan but certanly I'm greatful for paying what I can for something that is actually worth it.
torvuswalds
Posts: 122 +254
Oh look, AMD is just as guilty as everyone else. Of doing the same thing everyone else does..shocker.
Rudyduu
Posts: 1,052 +890
AMD didn't manage Intel's slip into irrelevance that was all Intel's work, however, AMD doesn't manufacture their own CPU's they just design them. AMD sold their foundry years ago. Intel still has to manufacture their own CPU's which seems to be more difficult than designing alone.
Totally disagreed wth #12. AMD makes Driver feature, some crappy VAC trash bans everyone using it. Then those players get unbanned, ie VAC worked like trash once again. And somehow when VAC sucks again that is AMD fault 
Blame either stupid players or VAC.
Blame either stupid players or VAC.
Emu81
Posts: 24 +21
AMD pushed Intel onto their backfoot with the launch of the first Zen CPU and has been dealing blows against Intel with each and every launch since then.
That said, Intel's foundry woes are self-inflicted. They tried to bite off far more than they could chew with their 10nm process which delayed it by several years while TSMC and Samsung ran into issues with smaller incremental improvements on their less advanced 10nm process but because they were not trying to advance as far in a single node it delayed them less. While Intel was still stuffing around trying to get their 10nm leap done TSMC and Samsung soldiered on ahead which gave them a fairly significant lead. It is the old "slow and steady wins the race".
The big question is whether Intel can stay viable as a corporation or if they will need government support to stay alive as a essential industry for the USA.
He will never...
- Intel is now a laughing stock of the CPU world, but no similar article...
- Robert Hallock "Good Enough" was fine but Frank Azor "8GB is fine for 1080p" started a crusade...
- Nvidia 5000 series is a joke, but let`s recommend a 12GB GPU over a 16GB GPU at 1440p...
- Nvidia is having driver problems with Blackwell,, but not a single article yet on that from Tims...
SMH...
More accurately AMD managed to compete reasonably while Intel self destructed. AMD deserves credit for the gamble on chiplets, but Intel did the lion's share of the work destroying itself.
Why? Do you know how simple marketing is compared to R&D of advanced CPU and GPUs?
Why would you forgive Skippy the wonderclown in marketing undermining world-class engineering? (To be fair some of the issues are middle to upper management strategy guiding the marketing people)
CapNemo72
Posts: 114 +177
OK Tim.
I will wait until you do the same article about Intel and Nvidia.
By the way, I bought 7900 XTX on its launch, it was at least 30% cheaper than RTX 4080 but was on par in raster, and for me at least,had more VRAM that I could load better AI models. Very, very solid card.
Because of my work, I am getting new GPUs as they come to test them for our VR applications (not games). So I had 4080 too (gave it to colleague since), now have 5090 as main and 5070Ti in another test machine.
Telling you, for the money, 7900 XTX is super solid card.
It lucks in ray tracing, important for me (not real time RT cases) hence 5090 as a main GPU. But great card. From the beginning.
I will wait until you do the same article about Intel and Nvidia.
By the way, I bought 7900 XTX on its launch, it was at least 30% cheaper than RTX 4080 but was on par in raster, and for me at least,had more VRAM that I could load better AI models. Very, very solid card.
Because of my work, I am getting new GPUs as they come to test them for our VR applications (not games). So I had 4080 too (gave it to colleague since), now have 5090 as main and 5070Ti in another test machine.
Telling you, for the money, 7900 XTX is super solid card.
It lucks in ray tracing, important for me (not real time RT cases) hence 5090 as a main GPU. But great card. From the beginning.
hahahanoobs
Posts: 5,789 +3,515
And what happened when AMD attempted 7nm?
hahahanoobs
Posts: 5,789 +3,515
So efficient that high end Instinct and Radeon GPUs are allowed to hang back and Ryzen is allowed to rely on V-cache while vanilla Zen 4 and 5 parts are on par with Intel going back to 12th gen? Outside of V-cache and 13th and 14th gen degradation, Intel is right there with AMD. Basically where AMD has been for years, but it's different when it's Intel in 2nd place? You couldn't care less if they survive? No more government money for an american company that still has their fabs and possibly a couple years away from competing head-to-head? What happened to competition benefitting the consumer? Or is that only when AMD has its head underwater?
Intel struggled with 10nm and eventually produced chips using Intel 4 and 3 after that.
What happened to AMD's fabs when they hit 7nm, hmm?
They released Zen2, Zen3 and various GPUs using 7nm.
You just forgot that Intel 13. and 14. "parity" with AMD comes at cost of huge power consumption and reliability issues.
AMD has no 7nm fabs.
LimyG
Posts: 587 +252
Yeah they have improved. But that improvement means it now operating mostly satisfactory.
I hope they will build on this.
Intel: Self inflicted. Nothing to do with AMD.
NV: Awful drivers, high prices and GPU power distribution issues. But still they are the most popular choice for the regular customer for GPUs.
AMD will need, I guess, 2 more gens, possibly only one of really good new launch products (re: gpu - cpu is impressive.) with most of the twelve points in the article strongly adhered too. Can they do it next gen, and then again for GPU?? mmmm. One can but hope.
I hope they will build on this.
Intel: Self inflicted. Nothing to do with AMD.
NV: Awful drivers, high prices and GPU power distribution issues. But still they are the most popular choice for the regular customer for GPUs.
AMD will need, I guess, 2 more gens, possibly only one of really good new launch products (re: gpu - cpu is impressive.) with most of the twelve points in the article strongly adhered too. Can they do it next gen, and then again for GPU?? mmmm. One can but hope.
hahahanoobs
Posts: 5,789 +3,515
All of those AMD blunders clearly lie with the upper management - so I'd be curious to know who was running those groups at the time, how long were they there before the blunders, and are they still there now or have they moved on (and where are they now).
While true that the buck stops with Su, my hope is that this is a series of lessons they don't have to learn the hard way again.
While true that the buck stops with Su, my hope is that this is a series of lessons they don't have to learn the hard way again.
Personally, while I think the 90 series have some significant improvements both in the hardware and in the software, I still think they have priced them too high especially when MSRP almost never matches the true price. As a consequence they haven't sold nearly enough to make a real dent in NVidia's monopoly. This is especially sad when you look at how poor Nvidia's GPU's have been for the last 4 years. So I'd say they have actually learned very little and remain on the fringe on PC GPU's.
The Intel AMD wars between tech community rages on as ever. Ive been in this industry for 25 years now and I can honestly say that AMD are doing better than I can ever remember. Even better than the Athlon64 days if you ask me.
But alas I fear it wont last long. Intel are a sleeping giant with way more resources. I presume its only a matter of time before they get their **** together.
To those of you emotionally attached to AMD, and I refer to mr HardReset here. Make the most of this whilst you can!
But alas I fear it wont last long. Intel are a sleeping giant with way more resources. I presume its only a matter of time before they get their **** together.
To those of you emotionally attached to AMD, and I refer to mr HardReset here. Make the most of this whilst you can!
LimyG
Posts: 587 +252
Yes, they say history repeats itself. I hope it doesn't and AMD defy the odds, but TBH, long term, I think I agree with you.
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