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It's a shame. AMD always just seems to be a little behind the next big thing. With the exception of the K8 they've just been in perpetual catch-up mode. They fi

by jsz0 16y ago

It's a shame. AMD always just seems to be a little behind the next big thing. With the exception of the K8 they've just been in perpetual catch-up mode. They finally have a pretty good mobile x86 platform when the rest of the industry seems to have decided ultra-low-power ARM is the way to go. They developed a pretty good high end server platform then the industry realized virtualization can save a ton of money on hardware. Poor AMD.

spitfire 16y ago
K7. I remember when motherboard makers were shipping wares in unmarked cardboard boxes like you got porn from behind the counter. (In a brown paper baggie). AMD absolutely throttled Intel in 1999 with the K7 and later Athlons.
- yuhong 16y ago
  "I remember when motherboard makers were shipping wares in unmarked cardboard boxes like you got porn from behind the counter. " Ah, the beginning of Intel's antitrust troubles.
- srean 16y ago
  Those chips ran hot. I remember 40 degree celcius (104 F) summers with no AC, when I would compile the 2.4 version of linux kernel on my PC with its case removed. Those heat conducting pastes solved the problem eventually.
  - johnyzee 16y ago
    I once watched a brand new K7 burn before my eyes. I had just installed it and wanted to power it up briefly before securing the heat sink and cooler. I had done this many times with Intel chips. Well, the AMD took exactly two seconds to go up in smoke and this broke college student was out a couple of hundred dollars.
    - bradleyland 16y ago
      No offense, but that's about the worst thing you can do to a modern processor. The only reason the Intel didn't go up in smoke was because of proper on-die thermal protection. You still should never boot a modern processor without the heat sink in place. The temperature will almost instantly exceed the thermal design limits of the materials. AMD's only poor decision was not to provide good thermal protection in their CPUs. Running the processor without a heat sink was your own poor decision.
  - bradleyland 16y ago
    All chips of that generation ran hot. The clock speed arms race assured it. The AMD chips of similar generations generally ran cooler than the Pentium chips because AMD was squeezing more power out of fewer clock cycles, and therefore lower clock rates/power/heat dissipation/etc.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
dhbanes 16y ago
Let's not forget the Thunderbird, a fantastic AMD success. Also, AMD is not going out of business... might be a little too soon for you to start delivering the eulogy.
rdtsc 16y ago
Why is it a shame? Maybe it is for the better? Maybe they need someone more aggressive to push the company forward again instead of trying to play catch-up. > They developed a pretty good high end server platform then the industry realized virtualization can save a ton of money on hardware. Poor AMD. There is still need for actual hardware on which to run all those VMs. One cannot just dump a 1000 loaded VMs on a quad core Xeon server and expect them to work as if there are 1000 real dual core machine. Sometimes VMs save on hardware but sometime just the cost of centralizing and simplifying the management of various legacy OSes and applications in a smaller (but not necessarily cheaper hardware-wise) data-center is a good strategy. So I imagine there will still be a good market for servers. Yes they have to compete with ARMs on other end of the spectrum and that's a problem, and I am still not sure if buying ATI was that great of an investment.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Assuming virtualization makes physical servers more efficient, it should actually increase the demand for physical servers according to Jevons paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    Exactly, we just spent about $10K on a bunch of 6 core i7 machines to serve as VM hosts. Once we had the machines we quickly found enough VMs to fill them up -- VMs we didn't plan on having before getting all this hardware. And that was a clearly a couple of thousand dollars in Intel's pocket.
uriel 16y ago
While in recent times this might be true, I seem to recall AMD also beat Intel to 1Ghz, and I was not paying that much attention at the time, but I think they came with multi-core cpus around the same time if not a bit earlier than Intel. Fusion also seems to be slightly ahead of the curve, but I follow all this stuff less and less so I'm not that familiar with the details of how exactly it compares to SandiBridge.
- kingkilr 16y ago
  AMD had intel flat beat on multi-core for a long while.
  - srean 16y ago
    See my comment on the parent post about downvote. I couldnt reply to you earlier as HN disables posting to downvotes for a while, I think.
- srean 16y ago
  This is for kingkilr, I accidentally downvoted you. Damn, my sloppy clumsy fingers. Really sorry. Could anyone upvote him to compensate please. And erm could pg increase the gap between the up and down arrows. Was also going to comment that AMD beat Intel to the 64bit instraction set and it was Intel who had to play ctachup.
- commandar 16y ago
  >I think they came with multi-core cpus around the same time if not a bit earlier than Intel. My recollection is that Intel made it to the consumer market first, but did so in a kind of hacky manner. The original Pentium D was actually two dies on a single package, whereas the Athlon X2 was a multicore package with coherent cache from the start. I believe AMD did beat Intel to the server market, but this is all from memory, so I can't say for certain.
- ErrantX 16y ago
  For a long time AMD were the "indie" manufacturer in the microprocessor world - and prior to about '06 had vastly superior chips. I hung out on a forum dedicated to hardware at about that time, and the paradigm shift that Intel's Core 2 chip caused was insane. Within literally weeks AMD was old news and Intel was king (this was after a couple of years of outright dislike of Intel as the "big corporate"). AMD beat Intel to 1GHz, X64(proper) and Multi-core(proper). But Intel produced a brilliant and quality line of chips in Core 2, which has left AMD basically floundering for nearly 4 years now. I think that's fine. In a few years, with luck, AMD will produce a killer chip that leaves Intel scrabbling. Such competition is good :)
rabidsnail 16y ago
AMD64 isn't called AMD64 because it was designed by Intel.
- wtallis 16y ago
  Do you (or the people voting you up) realize that the K8 processor mentioned was exactly the first AMD64 processor? Your comment seems quite redundant.
microarchitect 16y ago
> AMD always just seems to be a little behind the next big thing. Not really. They were the first to vectorize - with 3DNow! They were the first x86 with the on-chip memory controllers on the Opteron, which Intel were able to copy only 5 odd years later with Nehalem. They were the first to 1 GHz. They were the first (by a small margin, but still first) to build a CPU+GPU chip. They're also going to be first to build an x86 with an FMAC instruction with Bulldozer. These are just a few things off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure I could come up with a few more given some time. The real problems AMD has are (1) Intel has way too much money because of which they can afford to screw up royally like they did with the P4 and now Larrabee and still not suffer any serious consequences and (2) Intel has always been ahead of them in the technology scaling game.
- wtallis 16y ago
  MMX came before 3dNow!, so you would have to qualify that as shipping the first vector floating-point extension to x86.
  - microarchitect 16y ago
    You're right. The other good thing about 3dNow was that it was the first attempt at cleaning up Intel's x87 mess.
- mrb 16y ago
  Good list of "firsts", even though you forgot some: first to implement x86-64/AMD64 which Intel copied 2-3 years later, first to implement inter-processor links (HyperTransport), first to ship 12+-core processors (Opteron 6100 series). As an underdog, a company has no choice but to be the first to implement many features in order to even remotely hope to stay alive. Even then, it's often not sufficient because there may be a lot of inertia, so a small technical advantage may not be enough to convince customers from switching from the market leader to the underdog.
kragen 16y ago
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but AMD's GPUs have been almost neck-and-neck with NVIDIA's for quite a number of years, since before they were AMD's --- although in the last couple of years AMD's have fallen behind quite a bit. I have the impression that Intel's GPUs are dramatically inferior.
- chowmeined 16y ago
  With the Radeon 5000 family of GPUs AMD really did well for themselves. Nvidia didn't have an answer for that until they delivered Fermi 6 months later. And what you say about Intel's GPUs is true, they are pretty much useless for any sort of advanced 3d graphics.
- Symmetry 16y ago
  While NVidia has had the most powerful single chip for the last while, AMD has had the most powerful board and until the last half year or so generally beat NVidia on performance/price to. Before the 4000 series NVidia had the lead, and before that I hadn't been paying attention. One area NVidia has held the lead in for the last few years in GPGPU, but thats a pretty small market.

by jsz0 16y ago

spitfire 16y ago

K7. I remember when motherboard makers were shipping wares in unmarked cardboard boxes like you got porn from behind the counter. (In a brown paper baggie). AMD absolutely throttled Intel in 1999 with the K7 and later Athlons.

yuhong 16y ago
"I remember when motherboard makers were shipping wares in unmarked cardboard boxes like you got porn from behind the counter. " Ah, the beginning of Intel's antitrust troubles.
srean 16y ago
Those chips ran hot. I remember 40 degree celcius (104 F) summers with no AC, when I would compile the 2.4 version of linux kernel on my PC with its case removed. Those heat conducting pastes solved the problem eventually.
- johnyzee 16y ago
  I once watched a brand new K7 burn before my eyes. I had just installed it and wanted to power it up briefly before securing the heat sink and cooler. I had done this many times with Intel chips. Well, the AMD took exactly two seconds to go up in smoke and this broke college student was out a couple of hundred dollars.
  - bradleyland 16y ago
    No offense, but that's about the worst thing you can do to a modern processor. The only reason the Intel didn't go up in smoke was because of proper on-die thermal protection. You still should never boot a modern processor without the heat sink in place. The temperature will almost instantly exceed the thermal design limits of the materials. AMD's only poor decision was not to provide good thermal protection in their CPUs. Running the processor without a heat sink was your own poor decision.
- bradleyland 16y ago
  All chips of that generation ran hot. The clock speed arms race assured it. The AMD chips of similar generations generally ran cooler than the Pentium chips because AMD was squeezing more power out of fewer clock cycles, and therefore lower clock rates/power/heat dissipation/etc.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

dhbanes 16y ago

Let's not forget the Thunderbird, a fantastic AMD success. Also, AMD is not going out of business... might be a little too soon for you to start delivering the eulogy.

rdtsc 16y ago

Why is it a shame? Maybe it is for the better? Maybe they need someone more aggressive to push the company forward again instead of trying to play catch-up. > They developed a pretty good high end server platform then the industry realized virtualization can save a ton of money on hardware. Poor AMD. There is still need for actual hardware on which to run all those VMs. One cannot just dump a 1000 loaded VMs on a quad core Xeon server and expect them to work as if there are 1000 real dual core machine. Sometimes VMs save on hardware but sometime just the cost of centralizing and simplifying the management of various legacy OSes and applications in a smaller (but not necessarily cheaper hardware-wise) data-center is a good strategy. So I imagine there will still be a good market for servers. Yes they have to compete with ARMs on other end of the spectrum and that's a problem, and I am still not sure if buying ATI was that great of an investment.

philwelch 16y ago
Assuming virtualization makes physical servers more efficient, it should actually increase the demand for physical servers according to Jevons paradox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- rdtsc 16y ago
  Exactly, we just spent about $10K on a bunch of 6 core i7 machines to serve as VM hosts. Once we had the machines we quickly found enough VMs to fill them up -- VMs we didn't plan on having before getting all this hardware. And that was a clearly a couple of thousand dollars in Intel's pocket.

uriel 16y ago

While in recent times this might be true, I seem to recall AMD also beat Intel to 1Ghz, and I was not paying that much attention at the time, but I think they came with multi-core cpus around the same time if not a bit earlier than Intel. Fusion also seems to be slightly ahead of the curve, but I follow all this stuff less and less so I'm not that familiar with the details of how exactly it compares to SandiBridge.

kingkilr 16y ago
AMD had intel flat beat on multi-core for a long while.
- srean 16y ago
  See my comment on the parent post about downvote. I couldnt reply to you earlier as HN disables posting to downvotes for a while, I think.
srean 16y ago
This is for kingkilr, I accidentally downvoted you. Damn, my sloppy clumsy fingers. Really sorry. Could anyone upvote him to compensate please. And erm could pg increase the gap between the up and down arrows. Was also going to comment that AMD beat Intel to the 64bit instraction set and it was Intel who had to play ctachup.
commandar 16y ago
>I think they came with multi-core cpus around the same time if not a bit earlier than Intel. My recollection is that Intel made it to the consumer market first, but did so in a kind of hacky manner. The original Pentium D was actually two dies on a single package, whereas the Athlon X2 was a multicore package with coherent cache from the start. I believe AMD did beat Intel to the server market, but this is all from memory, so I can't say for certain.
ErrantX 16y ago
For a long time AMD were the "indie" manufacturer in the microprocessor world - and prior to about '06 had vastly superior chips. I hung out on a forum dedicated to hardware at about that time, and the paradigm shift that Intel's Core 2 chip caused was insane. Within literally weeks AMD was old news and Intel was king (this was after a couple of years of outright dislike of Intel as the "big corporate"). AMD beat Intel to 1GHz, X64(proper) and Multi-core(proper). But Intel produced a brilliant and quality line of chips in Core 2, which has left AMD basically floundering for nearly 4 years now. I think that's fine. In a few years, with luck, AMD will produce a killer chip that leaves Intel scrabbling. Such competition is good :)

rabidsnail 16y ago

AMD64 isn't called AMD64 because it was designed by Intel.

wtallis 16y ago
Do you (or the people voting you up) realize that the K8 processor mentioned was exactly the first AMD64 processor? Your comment seems quite redundant.

microarchitect 16y ago

> AMD always just seems to be a little behind the next big thing. Not really. They were the first to vectorize - with 3DNow! They were the first x86 with the on-chip memory controllers on the Opteron, which Intel were able to copy only 5 odd years later with Nehalem. They were the first to 1 GHz. They were the first (by a small margin, but still first) to build a CPU+GPU chip. They're also going to be first to build an x86 with an FMAC instruction with Bulldozer. These are just a few things off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure I could come up with a few more given some time. The real problems AMD has are (1) Intel has way too much money because of which they can afford to screw up royally like they did with the P4 and now Larrabee and still not suffer any serious consequences and (2) Intel has always been ahead of them in the technology scaling game.

wtallis 16y ago
MMX came before 3dNow!, so you would have to qualify that as shipping the first vector floating-point extension to x86.
- microarchitect 16y ago
  You're right. The other good thing about 3dNow was that it was the first attempt at cleaning up Intel's x87 mess.
mrb 16y ago
Good list of "firsts", even though you forgot some: first to implement x86-64/AMD64 which Intel copied 2-3 years later, first to implement inter-processor links (HyperTransport), first to ship 12+-core processors (Opteron 6100 series). As an underdog, a company has no choice but to be the first to implement many features in order to even remotely hope to stay alive. Even then, it's often not sufficient because there may be a lot of inertia, so a small technical advantage may not be enough to convince customers from switching from the market leader to the underdog.

kragen 16y ago

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but AMD's GPUs have been almost neck-and-neck with NVIDIA's for quite a number of years, since before they were AMD's --- although in the last couple of years AMD's have fallen behind quite a bit. I have the impression that Intel's GPUs are dramatically inferior.

chowmeined 16y ago
With the Radeon 5000 family of GPUs AMD really did well for themselves. Nvidia didn't have an answer for that until they delivered Fermi 6 months later. And what you say about Intel's GPUs is true, they are pretty much useless for any sort of advanced 3d graphics.
Symmetry 16y ago
While NVidia has had the most powerful single chip for the last while, AMD has had the most powerful board and until the last half year or so generally beat NVidia on performance/price to. Before the 4000 series NVidia had the lead, and before that I hadn't been paying attention. One area NVidia has held the lead in for the last few years in GPGPU, but thats a pretty small market.