AMD - langfristig ein Kauf ?? o. T.

Intel has shipped a million quad-core Xeons

Sumner says

By INQUIRER newsdesk: Freitag 29 Juni 2007, 16:43
CHIP-MAKING INTEL reckons it has flogged more than a million quad-core Xeon 5300 chips since their intoduction back in November 2006,

"We have shipped more than one million so far," Danny Cheung, a spokesIntel in Singapore told Singapore resident Sumner Lemon. "The millionth quad-core Xeon chip was shipped earlier this month," he said, apparently.

The quad-core Xeon 5300 (Clovertown) costs a few bob. Still, Intel had to pull something out of the bag as wee rival AMD had been doing pretty well in the server space up until then with the still daftly-named Opteron.

If only the upstart could have delivered its quad-core part as hoped. µ

uk.theinquirer.net/?article=40687

Home Dual core Athlon X2 selling good      
Written by Fuad Abazovic    
Monday, 02 July 2007  

Cheap machines


Bosnian computer retailers have confirmed that they are still selling a lot of Sempron single core and X2 dual core AMD processors.

They use them for the cheapest machines available and with such a processor and an integrated Asrock board they can sell them for 499 Bosnian Marks + VAT (about €250), not bad for a complete PC with a 19 inch CRT.

The same source has confirmed that for just around €300 he can offer the same machine with a slightly better Asrock board with PCIe slot and everything integrated and an Athlon X2. Core 2 Duo is still far away from this price.

Home Intel prepares for price drops      
Written by Fuad Abazovic    
Monday, 02 July 2007  



July 22nd  


Intel is preparing to introduce the E6x50 and Q6x50 series this month and it also plans to drop the prices of the exsisting CPUs. The oop of the range 3GHz E6850 with FSB 1333 will only cost $266 at launch, while the cheapest of the Quad cores, the Q6600 will drop to the same $266 mark.

The next price drop, at least the next big one, is planned for the September 2nd when some products are going to become cheaper.

It is no coincidence, as Intel counts on a strong Q3 to make the Barcelona launch a bit more difficult with the new cheaper prices.

Barcelona should arrive in late September or October and we confirmed this by listening to Vice President of Marketing at AMD, Mr Ed Fisher stating these time frames.

... obwohl ohnehin aus den Links ersichtlich:

Quelle: http://www.golem.de/0707/53304.html

1. Es sind Schätzungen, also Hochrechnungen, die AMD veröffentlicht hat. Selbst www.heise.de hat in eine News Mitteillung Zweifel daran geäußert.

2. AMD bringt vorerst maximal Cpus mit 2,1 Ghz

3. Die 2,6 Ghz CPU gibt es frühestens ab Novemver 2007, und zwar für Server. Desktop CPUs kommen erst 1/2008

4. Ab 1/2008 bringt Intel die Penryns, mit 3,3 Ghz.

5. Ob ein 2,6er AMD mit einem 3,3er Penryn mithalten kann, ziehe ich jetzt mal in Zweifel. Dass sind immerhin 700 Mhz Unterschied!

6. Ab 2008 kommen ohnehin neue Nehalems.

Home
AMD promises to stop lying about Barcelona Print E-mail
Written by Peter Scott  
Friday, 06 July 2007 08:38

Site upgrade promised

Chipmaker AMD has promised to take down two marketing slides from its website that show a dubious comparison between its upcoming quad core Barcelona processor and Intel's Xeon quad core chips.

The figures are based on benchmarks for floating point and integer calculations and show AMD beats its rival by 25 per cent on integral and 60 per cent on floating point calculations.

However the Intel data is old and AMD's benchmarks are based on estimates for a chip that is much faster than the 2.0GHz model that will start shipping in August. Intel also has a 3.0 Ghz machine coming out.

AMD earlier this year denounced Intel for publishing skewed benchmark results.
A spokesperson for AMD said that it was working to remove the information from its website. He (AMD Spokesman) admitted that it was not an accurate reflection of the highest performance of Intel processors.

www.fudzilla.com/...ion=com_content&task=view&id=1805&Itemid=1

Ziff man calls DAAMIT on Barcelona numbers

'Blatantly deceptive' benchmarketeering

By Wily Ferret: Donnerstag 05 Juli 2007, 09:41
A SENIOR ANALYST for the Spliff Davis empire has called DAAMIT's benchmarking practices "blatantly deceptive" and has blasted the firm for having " no intention of behaving honestly or ethically."

George Ou is the Technical Director for ZDNet, which puts him at the top of the techie tree in the old Bill Ziff empire. He makes his claims after checking out AMD-presented benchmarks for the forthcoming Barcelona launch. In those benchmarks, AMD claims a 20% clock-for-clock advantage over Intel's Xeons.

However, the benchmarks clearly leave out faster-performing Intel parts and base their numbers on 2.6GHz Barcelona chips, a performance grade that won't even be released upon initial launch - the fastest Barcelona will launch at 2.0GHz in September, Ou says, meaning that "AMD is deliberately leaving out Intel’s best scores, leaving out Intel’s best products that shipped months ago, and putting in theoretical Barcelona scores for products that don’t even have a ship date."

This is just the latest controversy for AMD which has been no stranger to criticism in the first half of '07. The firm has spectacularly failed to execute on every major product launch across the board, bringing slow products to the table late and earning the ire of journalists and punters alike.

The Barcelona launch, much-hyped and oft-delayed, doesn't look like it will buck this trend, if Ou's thoughts are anything to go by. He concludes that "Barcelona will not be the Intel quad-core killer that AMD has been promising for most of this year and it won’t even be close." Time to start dumping that AMD stock? $40 looks an awfully long way away. µ

uk.theinquirer.net/?article=40792

Gartner decides Barcelona has "issues"

Sages fly off the blocks like Carl Lewis on steroids

By INQUIRER newsdesk: Donnerstag 05 Juli 2007, 15:34
PAWING THROUGH THE FIGURES so far available on AMD's quad-core Barcelona processors, perceptive analysts at Gartner have finally come to a conclusion.

The chip-making firm must have a few "issues" pronounced the sages from their lofty perches, blinking lustily through the half-light in search of carrion.

"AMD's performance estimates are based on a leisurely 2GHz clock speed, which is lower than expected and suggests room for significant gains," Gartner analysts Martin Reynolds, John Enck and Stephen Kleynhans hooted as one.

"The low clock speed leads us to believe that AMD has had implementation issues with the design," the mystics entoned. Rubbing their crystal balls, they suggested such "issues" would be overcome by the doughty chip firm in time.

"The lower than expected clock speed means that AMD will not recover processor performance leadership against Intel's current products," they said. Probably after reading the INQ weeks back.

"Opteron and Xeon performance will be close," they hooted. "Given that the pin-compatible Barcelona parts can be retrofitted into recent Opteron-based servers, high-performance computing users may begin retrofitting existing systems," their tea leaves foretold.

"Barcelona will keep AMD in the game, but the company must match Intel's current pace of innovation to avoid being repositioned as a cut-price product," the owlish ones blathered, in an attempt to sound like they knew a thing or two before falling from their perch.

uk.theinquirer.net/?article=40805

Capital, Growth Fund of America own 21 per cent of AMD

SEC filing shows

By INQUIRER staff: Dienstag 10 Juli 2007, 15:03
AN SEC FILING shows that Capital Research and Management has 16.3 per cent of AMD's 555,871,330 shares, while the Growth Fund of America owns 5.8 per cent of those shares.

As you can read here

uk.theinquirer.net/?article=40899

www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2488/...28307000770/edgamd.txt

amd wird intel absägen.

Die ganze Nicht-nur-Analysten-Welt rechnet, dass spätestens im Herbst auf AMD Liquiditätsprobleme zukommen könnten ... und die ziehen plötzlich einen "Hasen aus dem Hut".

AMD ist also doch noch jederzeit für (positive?) Überraschungen gut:


[... Sorry, ich merk grad, ich hab mich in der Größen-Ordnung verlesen - nicht 7,5 Mrd, sondern Mio Dollar - sind ja doch nur Peanuts für AMD ...]

---------------------------------------------
Quelle: Quelle: News (c) finanzen.net.

Transmeta: AMD gibt strategisches Investment bekannt, Aktie +35 Prozent
06.07.07 14:31
Sunnyvale (aktiencheck.de AG) - Die amerikanische Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) (ISIN US0079031078/ WKN 863186) hat sich an dem Wettbewerber Transmeta Corp. (ISIN US89376R1095/ WKN 564775) beteiligt.


Wie aus einer am Freitag veröffentlichten Pressemitteilung hervorgeht, hat AMD insgesamt 7,5 Mio. Dollar als strategische Investition an dem auf die Herstellung moderner energieeffizienter Mikrochips spezialisierten Konzern getätigt. Im Gegenzug erhält AMD eine nicht näher bezeichnete Beteiligung in Vorzugsaktien von Transmeta, hieß es weiter.

Die Aktie von Transmeta gewinnt vorbörslich aktuell 38,57 Prozent auf 0,97 Dollar, während die Anteilsscheine von AMD zuletzt bei 14,19 Dollar notierten. (06.07.2007/ac/n/a)

... sondern das geschriebene auch noch richtig interpretieren (analysieren) kann, ist noch besser dran!
[Als Replik auf Deine (arrogante?) Überschrift #209: Wer genau liest, ist im Vorteil!]

zu 1: Bei Intel haben in der Vergangenheit schon immer Schätzungen von Prototypen (also noch nicht serienproduzierte, auf den Markt geworfene CPUs) zum Marketingkonzept gehört. AMD ist also in dieser Hinsicht (rein marketingmäßig) nachgezogen.

zu 2, 3, 4, 5: angebliche CPU-Taktungs-Nachteile - als CPU-Experten ist Dir sicher nicht verborgen geblieben, dass sich 2,1 GHz-AMD nicht so ganz einfach mit 3,3 GHz-Intel vergleichen lassen; ich geb Dir als Beispiel die ganz andere FSB-Bus/Controller-Architektur zu bedenken. (Das war aber auch in der Vergangenheit schon mit den verschiedenen Architektur-Konzepten der beiden Konkurrenten so ähnlich.)

Unabhängig von dieser überflüssigen GHz-Diskussion: Ich sehe mittelfristig auch sehr gute Chancen für Intel, aber mindestens ebensolche auch für AMD.  

Zu 1)

Dass ist so nicht richtig. Intel hatte schon im Januar letzten Jahres 1 Core 2 Duo Benchmarks. Nicht nur Schätzungen; Benchmarks eines laufenden Systems!

zu 2, 3, 4, 5):
Ist mir klar, dass man einen 2,6 Ghz Prozessor von AMD nicht mit einem 2,6er von Intel vergleichen kann. Aber AMD vergleicht nunmal einen 2,6er Barcelona mit einem 2,6er Core 2 Duo und schätz, dass Barcelona bis zu 40 % schneller ist. Penryn Quad Cores mit bis zu 3,3 Ghz (30 % höhere Taktrate, 30 % mehr Cache) sollten da doch ganz gut mithalten können, denkst du nicht.

zum Rest:
Gute Chancen bei Intel schließen gute Chancen bei AMD grundsätzlich aus und umgekehrt.  

@dottore
Ich weiß nicht, wie Du drauf kommst, dass ich angefressen sei. Weil ich
GEFRAGT ("arrogant?") habe, ob Deine Überschrift #209 "Wer genau liest, ist im Vorteil" arrogant gemeint sei? Also ich kann Dir versichern, dass ich mich von solchen kleinen Sticheleien bestimmt nicht anfressen lasse. Ich hoffe, Du hast das Fragezeichen hinter "arrogant" bemerkt ... (Wir sind beide sachlich und fachkundig genug, um feststellen zu können, dass wir gegenseitige Sticheleien eigentlich nicht nötig haben.)

== zu 1: Ich zitiere mich selbst (#217): "Bei Intel haben in der Vergangenheit schon immer Schätzungen von Prototypen ... zum Marketingkonzept gehört."
Hier eine Kurzauswahl an Links, die belegen, dass schon seit langem (vermehrt Intel-CPUs betreffend) "estimated benchmarks" durchaus üblich sind/waren:  

- apcmag.com/4013/intel_quad_core_benchmarked
 (29.09.2006) "Intel had done the legwork, and printed a form containing
 the estimated benchmarks for both systems"

- www.spec.org/hpc2002/docs/install_guide_unix.txt
 (01.12.2002) estimated benchmarks for 1000 MHz Itanium2

- www.byte.com/art/9504/sec7/art1.htm
 (April 1995) "Intel's estimated benchmarks peg the P6 at about ..."

== Was die GHz-Diskussion betrifft, sind wir uns ja doch offensichtlich einig, dass sich x GHz AMD nicht mit y GHz Intel vergleichen lassen. Ich hab u.a. auf Deine Bemerkung in #209/5 reagiert: "Das(s) sind immerhin 700 Mhz Unterschied!"

== Dass sich die Kurse der beiden Prozessor-Hersteller in der Vergangenheit durchaus nicht vice versa komplementär entwickelt haben, zeigt der Vergleichschart der beiden über 10 Jahre gesehen - ich hab übrigens die Kursentwicklung von BEIDEN in der Vergangenheit genutzt zu Gewinnmitnahmen - die Welt besteht ja auch (Gott-sei-Dank) nicht nur aus konträren Intel- und AMD-Fanboys:  

Ich hatte mir ja ein Probe-System mit einem brandneuen Athlon X2 (2300 MHz, neuer Brisbane-Kern, 65 nm) gebaut. Der hat dank HyperTransport - einem 128-bit breiten Speicherbus (nicht zu verwechseln mit Intels Hyperthreading)  - , in der Tat einen besseren Speicherdurchsatz als mein Vergleichssystem mit Intel Core2Duo (beide auf 2,5 GHz übertaktet, so dass GHz-Vorteile der CPU entfallen). Der X2 kam bei meinen Tests mit SiSoftware Sandra auf 6800 Mbit/sec, der Core-2 Duo erreichte (bei 2,5 GHz) nur 6200.

Der schnellere Speicherdurchsatz - die Trumpfkarte von AMDs Athlon 64- und -X2 Serie, die ohne Northbridge auskommt, da der Speichercontroller in den Prozessor verlegt wurde - nützt aber nichts, wenn die Effizienz bei der Befehlsverarbeitung schlechter ist. Gerade da hat Intel bei der Core-2-Duo-Serie Großes geleistet: Viele Befehle, deren Abarbeitung bei den Pentium-4 mehrere Taktzyklen beanspruchte, werden bei den Core2Duos nun "auf einen Schlag" (in einem Takt) abgearbeitet. Hier ist Intel auch den Athlon 64 bzw. X2 deutlich voraus.

Fazit:

1. Es bringt nichts, sich auf "GHz-Hype" einzulassen.

2. Es bringt nichts, sich auf "Speicherdurchsatz-Hype" einzulassen.

3. Was zählt ist das, was bei Benchmarks unten rauskommt. Und da sind die Core2Duos momentan noch konkurrenzlos.

Falls AMDs Barcelona tatsächlich dank besserer Befehlsverarbeitungs-Effizienz um 20 % schneller [-> # 212] sein sollte als gleich hoch getaktete Xeons (die neuerdings auf Core2Duo basieren), dann: Hut ab. Auf Schätzungen würde ich da aber nicht allzu viel geben.

Home AMD to seek additional financing today      
Written by Fuad Abazovic    
Monday, 16 July 2007 12:02  



Exclusive: AMD feels the cash crunch

AMD will hold a special shareholder meeting on Monday the 16th at 10 AM eastern time and according to our well informed sources, one of the topics on the agenda is raising additional financing to maintain stable operations, as the company is going through a cash crunch.

Since selling a substantial part of AMD's tangible assets, like fabs in Germany, may negatively impact the company's debt holders, one of the financing alternatives is issuing additional equity. The reason is quite simple and obvious, AMD needs more cash and it needs it now.

AMD might get into serious trouble as the company is again going to post a larger than expected loss and that if it doesn't raise more cash, it might actually go out of business as soon as the end of the year.

This is by far the most difficult year for AMD and all eyes are on Barcelona as this can be the biggest success or the failure of AMD.

The situation resembles that of ATI four years ago, when RADEON 9700 pulled the company out of financial crisis. We all keep our fingers crossed for AMD right now, as the company has good people and good technology, but the timing and financial situation keeps the company on the edge.  

www.fudzilla.com/...ion=com_content&task=view&id=1959&Itemid=1

Home Intel FSB 1333 competes with itself      
Written by Fuad Abazovic    
Tuesday, 17 July 2007 07:56  

Faster than Intel C2D and C2Q

Intel is up for a tough game. It is competing with itself and its older products. As AMD has lost the performance battle already in 2006, in 2007 Intel competes with its previous Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad products and recently announced FSB 1333 CPUs are not making its life easier.

Obviously in some scenarios FSB 1333 Core 2 Duo and the single Core 2 Quad will beat the previous FSB 1066 and Intel will hurt its FSB 1066 sales, but it will pick up with FSB 1333 product sales.

End users can not be happier as in Europe a 3GHz Core 2 Duo E6850 with FSB 1333 costs between €250 and €270 and this will be enough for most users. Only a few extreme users will go for the €999 priced Q6850 quad core with the same FSB, but this will cost you almost four times more.

Intel is getting into a tough time convincing end users that quad core really matters, we can say it does, but not for everyday tasks, but it can speed up your rendering and movie decoding tremendously, but not your Firefox + Excel combination.

One thing is certain, Intel is ready for Barcelona, Agena and Agena Phenomenal FX.

www.fudzilla.com/...ion=com_content&task=view&id=1975&Itemid=1

Home AMD lost a lot of Motorola mobile orders      
Written by Fuad Abazovic    
Tuesday, 17 July 2007 07:34  

As Motolora is losing high end

Motorola just cannot ride on the back of the Razr phone anymore and I think Motorola finally realized that. That is why they canceled a lot of high end orders with DAAMIT, as it simply could not sell that many Razr handsets and other similar high end phones.

This resulted in a decrease in orders by as much as 50 per cent and the AMD consumer division which is responsible for mobile chip sales is going to have much lower profits than it expected.

The trouble of the digital consumer division business is that every nine months you either win or lose out on new designs and if your primary customer is weak, you get weak sales as well.

We already wrote that Motorola predicts Q2 losses and its most popular Razr phone as well as the V3i have ATI chips inside. So when Motorola phone sales are down, AMD mobile phones chip sales bleed as well.


www.fudzilla.com/...ion=com_content&task=view&id=1972&Itemid=1

AMD to lose more than expected, 540 to $570 million      
Written by Fuad Abazovic    
Monday, 16 July 2007 12:40  

Exclusive: AMD Q2 preliminary numbers out

After Computex we told the world that AMD is about to lose about 600 million in Q2 and I guess we were not far off. According to our massive investigation and numerous industry sources included we managed to get very close number to the one that AMD plans to release this month. AMD is expected to post between 540 to $570 which is higher than expected loss.

Later today at 10:00 a.m. ET AMD plans to talk to investors and will probably mention that the company will lose more than expected. Our team estimates that AMD made $1.4 billion in overall sales and they made better sales from a previous quarter as the whole industry grew and prices dropped even further.

However, the company is going through a cash crisis. Like in Q1, even though the loss will net just over half a billion, the net decrease in cash will be more dramatic.

We closely analyzed company's financial trends and talked to partners, competitors and other industry players and estimate a change in its cash position to be in the range of 800 million or more. AMD will announce a loss of 540-570 million which is very close to our original 600 million estimates. No one has expected such deep loss in the second quarter when Vista and many brand new PCs went on sales.

We also looked at the company's revenue flows by department. In our opinion, Dave Orton's departure at the end of this month is in no way related to his business unit's financial performance. Graphics division of AMD did better than expected in Q1 and will be on track in Q2.

www.fudzilla.com/...ion=com_content&task=view&id=1960&Itemid=1

www.heise.de

Intel plant angeblich 40-Watt-Server-Doppelkerne mit mehr als 3 GHz  

Wenn jetzt publik gewordene Auszüge aus einer internen Roadmap zutreffen, dann plant Intel Dual-Core-Xeons für Server, die bei 3,16 GHz Taktfrequenz mit lediglich 40 Watt Leistungsaufnahme (TDP) auskommen sollen. 50-Watt-Vierkerne sollen immerhin 2,66 GHz erreichen; zurzeit gibt es von Intel Quad-Core-Xeons mit 50 Watt bis maximal 1,86 GHz und 40-Watt-Doppelkerne bis 2,33 GHz. Anzeige