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APUs didn't take off except in low-end-ish notebooks and low-end desktop computers not because the idea is bad, or the graphics performance was poor (it wasn't)

by dom0 10y ago

APUs didn't take off except in low-end-ish notebooks and low-end desktop computers not because the idea is bad, or the graphics performance was poor (it wasn't), but because the CPU part was subpar. The gaming consoles show how well the concept works, although, sadly for AMD, these deals may be high volume but don't have high margins. AMD dedicated graphics have only minor issues imho, they're very competitive with nVidias offerings. But in the professional and compute segments they fail to take off, because nVidia established the popular, proprietary CUDA standard there. I don't think there's a (major) technical reason why AMD has much less market share there.

gsnedders 10y ago
> The gaming consoles show how well the concept works, although, sadly for AMD, these deals may be high volume but don't have high margins. They're likely fairly consistent income, however, even if the margins are relatively slim. For a company in AMD's state, constant income no matter how small is likely a good thing.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Always good to have economic mass, market presence. I have no data, but I could see a guy owning an AMD based game console thinking about other AMD products for its PC.
  - theandrewbailey 10y ago
    The problem with that is unless that guy figures out what's inside his console, he would never realize that an established PC vendor was providing key parts inside. I've never had a game console, but I don't remember seeing AMD stickers on consoles or their packaging.
- hvidgaard 10y ago
  In large, it pays for fabrication facilities and some R&D. While it may not be ideal, it's not bad either.
usrusr 10y ago
One problem with APUs is that they make it so difficult to rank offerings by performance. A convenient benchmark blend is a reasonably useful approximation of actual utility for conventional general purpose CPUs. But when GPU becomes part of the mix, you get a lot more uncertainty if you do not investigate the details. For an entry level system, where APUs are at home, few people are willing to invest that much effort into their buying decision. AMD marketing tried to put GPU performance in the spotlight. The unfortunate effect was that a moderately informed consumer then had the choice between a somewhat predictable level of graphics performance paired with whatever CPU that came with it if buying AMD, versus a somewhat predictable level of CPU performance paired with whatever GPU that came with it if buying Intel. In most market segments, uncertainty about graphics performance has much less impact on buying decisions than uncertainty about general purpose compute. The (involuntarily, given their portfolio) focus of AMD's marketing on the graphics part of their APUs made it close to impossible to successfully communicate value-for-money advantages in their price range (assuming they had it).

by dom0 10y ago

gsnedders 10y ago

> The gaming consoles show how well the concept works, although, sadly for AMD, these deals may be high volume but don't have high margins. They're likely fairly consistent income, however, even if the margins are relatively slim. For a company in AMD's state, constant income no matter how small is likely a good thing.

agumonkey 10y ago
Always good to have economic mass, market presence. I have no data, but I could see a guy owning an AMD based game console thinking about other AMD products for its PC.
- theandrewbailey 10y ago
  The problem with that is unless that guy figures out what's inside his console, he would never realize that an established PC vendor was providing key parts inside. I've never had a game console, but I don't remember seeing AMD stickers on consoles or their packaging.
hvidgaard 10y ago
In large, it pays for fabrication facilities and some R&D. While it may not be ideal, it's not bad either.

usrusr 10y ago

One problem with APUs is that they make it so difficult to rank offerings by performance. A convenient benchmark blend is a reasonably useful approximation of actual utility for conventional general purpose CPUs. But when GPU becomes part of the mix, you get a lot more uncertainty if you do not investigate the details. For an entry level system, where APUs are at home, few people are willing to invest that much effort into their buying decision. AMD marketing tried to put GPU performance in the spotlight. The unfortunate effect was that a moderately informed consumer then had the choice between a somewhat predictable level of graphics performance paired with whatever CPU that came with it if buying AMD, versus a somewhat predictable level of CPU performance paired with whatever GPU that came with it if buying Intel. In most market segments, uncertainty about graphics performance has much less impact on buying decisions than uncertainty about general purpose compute. The (involuntarily, given their portfolio) focus of AMD's marketing on the graphics part of their APUs made it close to impossible to successfully communicate value-for-money advantages in their price range (assuming they had it).