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"fix"? What is there to fix? AMD has been simultaneously fighting Intel and Nvidia, two MUCH larger companies, and it's been winning the fight against Intel for

"fix"? What is there to fix? AMD has been simultaneously fighting Intel and Nvidia, two MUCH larger companies, and it's been winning the fight against Intel for close to a decade now. It's certainly not Lisa Su's fault that the clowns over at Intel got stuck on variations of 14nm (with clever marketing names like 14nm+++++) for nearly a decade, but credit certainly is hers for introducing Zen and putting AMD back on top of the x86 market. With the new x870(e) motherboards and Granite Ridge chips right around the corner, effortlessly destroying the pyrotechnic processing units known as Raptor Lake, it's honestly a miracle to me that Intel's stock price is still as high as it is. Guess wall street still loves those billions of forcefully confiscated taxpayer dollars being doled out by Uncle Sam to a graying dinosaur like Intel who couldn't even compete without those handouts... the quality of their marketplace offerings certainly isn't what's keeping that valuation up!

philistine 2y ago
I’m also bullish on Intel, but clearly not as much as you. Intel is transitioning right now. x86 is never going to reclaim the crown of most important architecture, so Intel is trying its best to become a foundry for all the fabless customers out there. It’s going to take a long while, but right now they’re the best company to compete with TSMC in ten years. If Apple uses their foundries next decade, you’ll know Intel is back on top.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > x86 is never going to reclaim the crown of most important architecture To be clear, I assume you are including 32-bit and 64-bit, e.g., x86-64. I am surprised by this comment. To me, x86 won the architecture battle because of Linux (and less Microsoft Windows). Nothing is so cheap to deploy and maintain as a Linux server that runs x86-64 procs. Yes, I know you can buy single board computers, but x86 wins in the triangulation of dollars-watts-performance. If you disagree, what do you think is the most important architecture today?
  - philistine 2y ago
    ARM. Every second that passes, for each person that is born that will use a computer, at least two people who will never use a computer is born. Those two people will own a phone though, and that phone will have an ARM chip. As time goes on, more and more ARM chips will take roles traditionally taken by x86-64. Hell, ARM is already the best-selling architecture. Laws of scale will dictate that investments in x86-64 will fail to keep pace with ARM. Apple Silicon is already showing a small fragment of that effect. The chips are incredibly competitive, and for what Apple has chosen to focus on (perf-per-watt), unbeatable. ARM investments by other companies are catching up to Apple, and x86-64 does not make enough money to reverse that trend.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      There's a small hitch. Unless China is allowed to directly pilfer ARM IP, they're going to pull off a RISC-V (or homegrown ISA) transition at the drop of a hat. And if American phone manufacturers are intent on diversifying, they very well might too; there's little forcing you to use ARM as your RISC ISA on Android or iOS. Competitive ARM cores don't grow on trees, and the licensing fee does't make it very attractive to compete unless you have a de-facto ISA license like Apple or Nvidia. And both of those companies have dabbled in RISC-V too. The intent to usurp ARM's throne has been clear ever since Nvidia was blocked from outright buying it in it's entirety. Look at it this way; Apple can design their own cores whether they use ARM or RISC-V, and control the software from top to bottom either way. Nvidia's already shipping RISC-V microcontrollers to cut down on manufacturing margins, and without better options the rest of the world might follow. ARM's dominance is only possible if better RISC options don't exist; and for anyone that's not ARM the idea of IP serfdom sounds awful.
seabird 2y ago
This site is full of people with the west coast VC-driven-tech bizarro world blinders on. If AMD just keeps at what they've been doing well (matching or beating Intel processors) instead of chasing after the latest buzzword grift bubble, they're doomed in the eyes of people with that mindset.
- throwway120385 2y ago
  AMD needs to expand the user base of their GPUs away from gaming and desktop graphics. Buying an AI company that is using their stack for compute is a really good way of learning how to do that. It's essentially now an in-house team to dogfood all of your brand new products and tell your other engineering teams what they're doing wrong. In my mind it's not about AI per se, but about using the hot use case for GPU to drive meaningful change in your software stack. There are tons and tons and tons of GPGPU users out there who aren't training LLMs but who need a high-quality compute stack.
- mandevil 2y ago
  I think AMD's concern is that x86 might not be much of a market in 10 years. Between Apple, Amazon Graviton, and Nvidia Grace Hopper's ARM CPU we are seeing a sustained successful attack on x86 the likes of which we haven't seen... ever? Sustained and successful non-x86 Desktops, servers, and next-gen datacenter platforms, where does that leave AMD? (Intel has a little more diversification because of it's foundry opportunities, but is in the same boat.)
light_hue_1 2y ago
> "fix"? What is there to fix? AMD has been simultaneously fighting Intel and Nvidia, two MUCH larger companies, and it's been winning the fight against Intel for close to a decade now. There's everything to fix. AMD is sitting on a gold mine and is squandering massive amounts of money every month that they don't just get their shitty software stack in order. AMD could be as rich as NVIDIA. Instead, Lisa Su for some insane reason refuses to build even the most mediocre ML-capable libraries for their GPUs. If I could ask anyone in the ML world at the moment what the heck they're thinking, it would be her. Nothing makes sense about AMDs actions for years on this topic. If I was the board, I'd be talking about her exit for wasting such an opportunity.
- latchkey 2y ago
  > Instead, Lisa Su for some insane reason refuses to build even the most mediocre ML-capable libraries for their GPUs. Spending $665m on a company that builds AI tooling, is a refusal?
  - lostmsu 2y ago
    Considering people mostly bitch about AMD driver bugs and their GPU computing-related SDKs, I don't think buying a high-level AI sweat shop is going to fix their issues. I am not even sure if in the entire Silo AI you could find 5 people who understand AMD GPU assembly code and can effectively debug generated kernels. They'd get more value offering $500k+ comp to a few people from https://handmadecities.com/ https://handmadecities.com/
    - latchkey 2y ago
      > I don't think buying a high-level AI sweat shop is going to fix their issues... They'd get more value... It is a wonder why you aren't the CEO.
      - lostmsu 2y ago
        That's all right: she is 20 or so years older, I'm still on track to get there.

philistine 2y ago

I’m also bullish on Intel, but clearly not as much as you. Intel is transitioning right now. x86 is never going to reclaim the crown of most important architecture, so Intel is trying its best to become a foundry for all the fabless customers out there. It’s going to take a long while, but right now they’re the best company to compete with TSMC in ten years. If Apple uses their foundries next decade, you’ll know Intel is back on top.

throwaway2037 2y ago
> x86 is never going to reclaim the crown of most important architecture To be clear, I assume you are including 32-bit and 64-bit, e.g., x86-64. I am surprised by this comment. To me, x86 won the architecture battle because of Linux (and less Microsoft Windows). Nothing is so cheap to deploy and maintain as a Linux server that runs x86-64 procs. Yes, I know you can buy single board computers, but x86 wins in the triangulation of dollars-watts-performance. If you disagree, what do you think is the most important architecture today?
- philistine 2y ago
  ARM. Every second that passes, for each person that is born that will use a computer, at least two people who will never use a computer is born. Those two people will own a phone though, and that phone will have an ARM chip. As time goes on, more and more ARM chips will take roles traditionally taken by x86-64. Hell, ARM is already the best-selling architecture. Laws of scale will dictate that investments in x86-64 will fail to keep pace with ARM. Apple Silicon is already showing a small fragment of that effect. The chips are incredibly competitive, and for what Apple has chosen to focus on (perf-per-watt), unbeatable. ARM investments by other companies are catching up to Apple, and x86-64 does not make enough money to reverse that trend.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    There's a small hitch. Unless China is allowed to directly pilfer ARM IP, they're going to pull off a RISC-V (or homegrown ISA) transition at the drop of a hat. And if American phone manufacturers are intent on diversifying, they very well might too; there's little forcing you to use ARM as your RISC ISA on Android or iOS. Competitive ARM cores don't grow on trees, and the licensing fee does't make it very attractive to compete unless you have a de-facto ISA license like Apple or Nvidia. And both of those companies have dabbled in RISC-V too. The intent to usurp ARM's throne has been clear ever since Nvidia was blocked from outright buying it in it's entirety. Look at it this way; Apple can design their own cores whether they use ARM or RISC-V, and control the software from top to bottom either way. Nvidia's already shipping RISC-V microcontrollers to cut down on manufacturing margins, and without better options the rest of the world might follow. ARM's dominance is only possible if better RISC options don't exist; and for anyone that's not ARM the idea of IP serfdom sounds awful.

seabird 2y ago

This site is full of people with the west coast VC-driven-tech bizarro world blinders on. If AMD just keeps at what they've been doing well (matching or beating Intel processors) instead of chasing after the latest buzzword grift bubble, they're doomed in the eyes of people with that mindset.

throwway120385 2y ago
AMD needs to expand the user base of their GPUs away from gaming and desktop graphics. Buying an AI company that is using their stack for compute is a really good way of learning how to do that. It's essentially now an in-house team to dogfood all of your brand new products and tell your other engineering teams what they're doing wrong. In my mind it's not about AI per se, but about using the hot use case for GPU to drive meaningful change in your software stack. There are tons and tons and tons of GPGPU users out there who aren't training LLMs but who need a high-quality compute stack.
mandevil 2y ago
I think AMD's concern is that x86 might not be much of a market in 10 years. Between Apple, Amazon Graviton, and Nvidia Grace Hopper's ARM CPU we are seeing a sustained successful attack on x86 the likes of which we haven't seen... ever? Sustained and successful non-x86 Desktops, servers, and next-gen datacenter platforms, where does that leave AMD? (Intel has a little more diversification because of it's foundry opportunities, but is in the same boat.)

light_hue_1 2y ago

> "fix"? What is there to fix? AMD has been simultaneously fighting Intel and Nvidia, two MUCH larger companies, and it's been winning the fight against Intel for close to a decade now. There's everything to fix. AMD is sitting on a gold mine and is squandering massive amounts of money every month that they don't just get their shitty software stack in order. AMD could be as rich as NVIDIA. Instead, Lisa Su for some insane reason refuses to build even the most mediocre ML-capable libraries for their GPUs. If I could ask anyone in the ML world at the moment what the heck they're thinking, it would be her. Nothing makes sense about AMDs actions for years on this topic. If I was the board, I'd be talking about her exit for wasting such an opportunity.

latchkey 2y ago
> Instead, Lisa Su for some insane reason refuses to build even the most mediocre ML-capable libraries for their GPUs. Spending $665m on a company that builds AI tooling, is a refusal?
- lostmsu 2y ago
  Considering people mostly bitch about AMD driver bugs and their GPU computing-related SDKs, I don't think buying a high-level AI sweat shop is going to fix their issues. I am not even sure if in the entire Silo AI you could find 5 people who understand AMD GPU assembly code and can effectively debug generated kernels. They'd get more value offering $500k+ comp to a few people from https://handmadecities.com/ https://handmadecities.com/
  - latchkey 2y ago
    > I don't think buying a high-level AI sweat shop is going to fix their issues... They'd get more value... It is a wonder why you aren't the CEO.
    - lostmsu 2y ago
      That's all right: she is 20 or so years older, I'm still on track to get there.