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>But one issue with current AMD cpu is that you have to buy a desktop GPU even when you are not doing any kind of gaming and such. AMD just aren't selling many

>But one issue with current AMD cpu is that you have to buy a desktop GPU even when you are not doing any kind of gaming and such. AMD just aren't selling many CPUs to business desktop system integrators, partly due to dubious tactics by Intel to keep them out of the market. If you sell most of your CPUs to enthusiasts, it just doesn't make sense to squander die area on a crappy iGPU. Gamers obviously want a fast GPU, but so do most creative professionals - Photoshop is heavily GPU accelerated, as is Premiere and Resolve, not to mention essentially all 3D modelling and CAD packages. Scientific computing is also rapidly moving towards the GPU. GPU performance has a surprisingly large impact on day-to-day responsiveness, because all the major browsers use GPU compositing. The market for fast chips with crappy iGPUs just isn't as big as it used to be, nor is it particularly accessible to AMD. The Athlon and Ryzen APUs make a great deal of sense for the current market, offering a good balance of performance between CPU and GPU. I expect to see 6 and 8 core Ryzen chips with Vega GPU cores as part of the Ryzen 3000 generation, which will further close the gap.

njepa 7y ago
That is probably true, but if I am buying a GPU for hundreds of dollars I don't care as much about the cost of the CPU. I think AMD needs to do something if they want to fulfill the potential of Ryzen. (Removing or minimizing the role of the chipset might be interesting for example).
- jpgvm 7y ago
  Not necessarily. For instance if your target is 1080p gaming you can do that on a budget with an RX 570 or RX 580 + a reasonably priced Ryzen 7 chip. This market isn't at all competitive for Intel because it's price conscious and iGPUs aren't anywhere near up to to task. The only market that doesn't care about CPU price is the market that doesn't care about price at all. i.e people building systems with i9-9900K or X299 platform + RTX 2080 TIs.
  - njepa 7y ago
    I am just not sure it is a super strong market. As far as I can tell those cards have been selling for roughly the same price or more as when they were introduced 2 years ago. A lot of people would just stick with what they got, or get a laptop instead. If the price of GPUs and memory was half of what it is it would make a lot more sense.
- kyriakos 7y ago
  Maybe offer a very cheap add on gpu for office use. Something in the igpu range that would sell for say 50usd. It could be based on one of AMDs older gpus but with support for new display types and ports.
  - dsr_ 7y ago
    Right now, the cheapest "new" video card sold directly by Newegg is a $35 NVidia 210 which was new in 2010. Interestingly, reviews from that time period suggest that it sold for $30 after rebate. It has HDMI, DVI and VGA ports. In the $50 range you can get an R7 350, which promises 4K support (although I suspect that will be at 30Hz) and would certainly be enough to light a monitor with enough oomph to put shadows and transparency effects on your windows.
    - Dylan16807 7y ago
      > In the $50 range you can get an R7 350, which promises 4K support (although I suspect that will be at 30Hz) It supports 4k@60. It looks like everything with a GCN core does, so most 7xxx, most 2xx, and all 3xx.
      - broknbottle 7y ago
        Fine Wine :)
      - makomk 7y ago
        I think the older Radeons only support 4k@60 over DisplayPort though, HDMI support for it is relatively new.
josteink 7y ago
> AMD just aren't selling many CPUs to business desktop system integrators, partly due to dubious tactics by Intel to keep them out of the market. If you sell most of your CPUs to enthusiasts, it just doesn't make sense to squander die area on a crappy iGPU. I'm a developer, and I want fast build times. I don't need a dedicated GPU for that. Right now I'm squandering money and power on a dedicated GPU which is probably idling at 0.0000001% rendering a composited 2D desktop in its sleep.
- apatheticonion 7y ago
  My terminal window has a background blur effect and I like my desktop switching animations to maintain 144fps. Implying devs don't use dedicated graphics cards...
  - copperx 7y ago
    What desktop environment do you use that has buttery smooth 144fps animations? Gnome certainly isn't smooth.
    - josteink 7y ago
      And who can read a terminal at 144fps anyway? I seriously couldn't care less about eye-candy, animations and fps. Then again, I'm an i3/sway-user, so I guess I don't exactly represent the average (Linux) user.
      - cfcosta 7y ago
        No need for animations or anything like that, 144hz also means less input lag and tearing.
- wtallis 7y ago
  If you really need a mountain of CPU power, then your stance toward the GPU should be that you're glad the several Watts it requires aren't being emitted under the same heatsink as the CPU you're relying on, and that it isn't wasting memory bandwidth you could put to better use.
api 7y ago
AMD also wants to get more into servers, supercomputing, AI, and cloud. That's mostly Epyc but Ryzen is fast enough to play there and integrated GPUs dont matter there either.

njepa 7y ago

That is probably true, but if I am buying a GPU for hundreds of dollars I don't care as much about the cost of the CPU. I think AMD needs to do something if they want to fulfill the potential of Ryzen. (Removing or minimizing the role of the chipset might be interesting for example).

jpgvm 7y ago
Not necessarily. For instance if your target is 1080p gaming you can do that on a budget with an RX 570 or RX 580 + a reasonably priced Ryzen 7 chip. This market isn't at all competitive for Intel because it's price conscious and iGPUs aren't anywhere near up to to task. The only market that doesn't care about CPU price is the market that doesn't care about price at all. i.e people building systems with i9-9900K or X299 platform + RTX 2080 TIs.
- njepa 7y ago
  I am just not sure it is a super strong market. As far as I can tell those cards have been selling for roughly the same price or more as when they were introduced 2 years ago. A lot of people would just stick with what they got, or get a laptop instead. If the price of GPUs and memory was half of what it is it would make a lot more sense.
kyriakos 7y ago
Maybe offer a very cheap add on gpu for office use. Something in the igpu range that would sell for say 50usd. It could be based on one of AMDs older gpus but with support for new display types and ports.
- dsr_ 7y ago
  Right now, the cheapest "new" video card sold directly by Newegg is a $35 NVidia 210 which was new in 2010. Interestingly, reviews from that time period suggest that it sold for $30 after rebate. It has HDMI, DVI and VGA ports. In the $50 range you can get an R7 350, which promises 4K support (although I suspect that will be at 30Hz) and would certainly be enough to light a monitor with enough oomph to put shadows and transparency effects on your windows.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    > In the $50 range you can get an R7 350, which promises 4K support (although I suspect that will be at 30Hz) It supports 4k@60. It looks like everything with a GCN core does, so most 7xxx, most 2xx, and all 3xx.
    - broknbottle 7y ago
      Fine Wine :)
    - makomk 7y ago
      I think the older Radeons only support 4k@60 over DisplayPort though, HDMI support for it is relatively new.

josteink 7y ago

> AMD just aren't selling many CPUs to business desktop system integrators, partly due to dubious tactics by Intel to keep them out of the market. If you sell most of your CPUs to enthusiasts, it just doesn't make sense to squander die area on a crappy iGPU. I'm a developer, and I want fast build times. I don't need a dedicated GPU for that. Right now I'm squandering money and power on a dedicated GPU which is probably idling at 0.0000001% rendering a composited 2D desktop in its sleep.

apatheticonion 7y ago
My terminal window has a background blur effect and I like my desktop switching animations to maintain 144fps. Implying devs don't use dedicated graphics cards...
- copperx 7y ago
  What desktop environment do you use that has buttery smooth 144fps animations? Gnome certainly isn't smooth.
  - josteink 7y ago
    And who can read a terminal at 144fps anyway? I seriously couldn't care less about eye-candy, animations and fps. Then again, I'm an i3/sway-user, so I guess I don't exactly represent the average (Linux) user.
    - cfcosta 7y ago
      No need for animations or anything like that, 144hz also means less input lag and tearing.
wtallis 7y ago
If you really need a mountain of CPU power, then your stance toward the GPU should be that you're glad the several Watts it requires aren't being emitted under the same heatsink as the CPU you're relying on, and that it isn't wasting memory bandwidth you could put to better use.

api 7y ago

AMD also wants to get more into servers, supercomputing, AI, and cloud. That's mostly Epyc but Ryzen is fast enough to play there and integrated GPUs dont matter there either.