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Regarding 3): most benchmarks I've seen quote 2-7% difference in IPC to Intel. I wouldn't call that low/mid-range. Am I misunderstanding something?

by sambe 9y ago

ferongr 9y ago
Clocks matter too.
fgonzag 9y ago
10% IPC advantage compounded with up to 20% higher clock speeds in top of the line Desktop CPUs (when OCed at least)
- sambe 9y ago
  I don't think OC is a fair baseline to qualitatively distinguish between CPU classes (at least low/mid vs high-end). OC is surely a large factor in purchasing decisions for a subset of high-end users, but not all.
  - fgonzag 9y ago
    I was talking max OC on R7 (4.0 - 4.1) vs max OC (5.0-5.1) on i7-7th gen though. Which is a good indicator of the max clocks each platform can get.
coldtea 9y ago
From the parent: "Even if it could match Intel's performance it could never match Intel's brand".
- dahauns 9y ago
  Not with that attitude. (i.e. argued that way this would be more like "setting up for failure" on AMDs part.)
  - saas_co_de 9y ago
    Brand perceptions can definitely change but the reality right now is that for the past 5 years AMD has been shipping non-competitive parts and has had zero premium design wins and very little money spent on advertising. For the average consumer, every high end system they have seen in recent memory is Intel, and every ad they have seen is Intel, and if they have seen AMD at all it has always been positioned as a budget product. That is going to take a long time for AMD to turn around assuming they can sustain performance parity with Intel. That is also why AMD is focused on servers and semi-custom where they are selling to technical people who are evaluating based on price/performance and not based on brand perception.
    - dahauns 9y ago
      Yeah, I know...it's just in light of this argument the timing seems strange. AMD are on the brink of offering products that for the first time since forever at least has potential to build up their brand vs Intel, to actually have a significant differentiator that they can market. It seems really harsh to kill that before it even begins. But yeah, it could actually be a sign that AMD knows it couldn't go the whole nine yards in this game anyway.
    - myrandomcomment 9y ago
      I am pretty sure the current PS4 and Xbox count as premium design wins for AMD.
      - nerpderp83 9y ago
        And consumers don't say, I want the same processor as the Xbox.
        wolfgke 9y ago
        > And consumers don't say, I want the same processor as the Xbox. XBox One's processor is from a pre-Ryzen generation, so this should not be a concern. :-)
saas_co_de 9y ago
Brand is more important than benchmarks for most buyers and even if AMD chips were better Intel would still be the premium brand.
- zanny 9y ago
  Are people actually looking to buy a computer for an Intel CPU? I have honestly never met anyone that said "I need my computer to be Intel Inside™ ". They just say they want fast / modern / able to do X task and 99% of people have no idea what a CPU even is.
  - bsznjyewgd 9y ago
    My dad went to Best Buy to replace his 10+ year old laptop last year. He actually said he wanted Intel instead of AMD because he heard AMD processors were very slow. I had to tell him the Intel N-whatever and Celerons were also very slow so that he'd stick with one of the i-whatevers.
    - StudentStuff 9y ago
      Basically anything they sell him will be faster than his current laptop. Many of the low power i series aren't actually much better than a celeron, but they're very common in new laptops. CPUs aren't the bottleneck though, disk I/O and I/O in general are where most "slowness" issues are promulgated from.
  - kobeya 9y ago
    I work in heavily optimized compute, and it does matter there. We write assembly that is supported by one architecture only (for now), and frontier Intel chips are easier to come by. So our code runs on Intel’s processor extensions a generation or two before AMD, and that represents a high switching cost. But this is server compute stuff which this news doesn’t seem to be about.
  - rdlecler1 9y ago
    Agree — that seems like a very 2003 idea. The whole Intel Inside doesn’t have the cache it used to.

Regarding 3): most benchmarks I've seen quote 2-7% difference in IPC to Intel. I wouldn't call that low/mid-range. Am I misunderstanding something?

by sambe 9y ago

Regarding 3): most benchmarks I've seen quote 2-7% difference in IPC to Intel. I wouldn't call that low/mid-range. Am I misunderstanding something?

ferongr 9y ago

Clocks matter too.

fgonzag 9y ago

10% IPC advantage compounded with up to 20% higher clock speeds in top of the line Desktop CPUs (when OCed at least)

sambe 9y ago
I don't think OC is a fair baseline to qualitatively distinguish between CPU classes (at least low/mid vs high-end). OC is surely a large factor in purchasing decisions for a subset of high-end users, but not all.
- fgonzag 9y ago
  I was talking max OC on R7 (4.0 - 4.1) vs max OC (5.0-5.1) on i7-7th gen though. Which is a good indicator of the max clocks each platform can get.

coldtea 9y ago

From the parent: "Even if it could match Intel's performance it could never match Intel's brand".

dahauns 9y ago
Not with that attitude. (i.e. argued that way this would be more like "setting up for failure" on AMDs part.)
- saas_co_de 9y ago
  Brand perceptions can definitely change but the reality right now is that for the past 5 years AMD has been shipping non-competitive parts and has had zero premium design wins and very little money spent on advertising. For the average consumer, every high end system they have seen in recent memory is Intel, and every ad they have seen is Intel, and if they have seen AMD at all it has always been positioned as a budget product. That is going to take a long time for AMD to turn around assuming they can sustain performance parity with Intel. That is also why AMD is focused on servers and semi-custom where they are selling to technical people who are evaluating based on price/performance and not based on brand perception.
  - dahauns 9y ago
    Yeah, I know...it's just in light of this argument the timing seems strange. AMD are on the brink of offering products that for the first time since forever at least has potential to build up their brand vs Intel, to actually have a significant differentiator that they can market. It seems really harsh to kill that before it even begins. But yeah, it could actually be a sign that AMD knows it couldn't go the whole nine yards in this game anyway.
  - myrandomcomment 9y ago
    I am pretty sure the current PS4 and Xbox count as premium design wins for AMD.
    - nerpderp83 9y ago
      And consumers don't say, I want the same processor as the Xbox.
      - wolfgke 9y ago
        > And consumers don't say, I want the same processor as the Xbox. XBox One's processor is from a pre-Ryzen generation, so this should not be a concern. :-)

saas_co_de 9y ago

Brand is more important than benchmarks for most buyers and even if AMD chips were better Intel would still be the premium brand.

zanny 9y ago
Are people actually looking to buy a computer for an Intel CPU? I have honestly never met anyone that said "I need my computer to be Intel Inside™ ". They just say they want fast / modern / able to do X task and 99% of people have no idea what a CPU even is.
- bsznjyewgd 9y ago
  My dad went to Best Buy to replace his 10+ year old laptop last year. He actually said he wanted Intel instead of AMD because he heard AMD processors were very slow. I had to tell him the Intel N-whatever and Celerons were also very slow so that he'd stick with one of the i-whatevers.
  - StudentStuff 9y ago
    Basically anything they sell him will be faster than his current laptop. Many of the low power i series aren't actually much better than a celeron, but they're very common in new laptops. CPUs aren't the bottleneck though, disk I/O and I/O in general are where most "slowness" issues are promulgated from.
- kobeya 9y ago
  I work in heavily optimized compute, and it does matter there. We write assembly that is supported by one architecture only (for now), and frontier Intel chips are easier to come by. So our code runs on Intel’s processor extensions a generation or two before AMD, and that represents a high switching cost. But this is server compute stuff which this news doesn’t seem to be about.
- rdlecler1 9y ago
  Agree — that seems like a very 2003 idea. The whole Intel Inside doesn’t have the cache it used to.