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  • Calin - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I remember it as "Department of Redundancy Department"...
    Good job for AMD, but 4k content... when will we see an AMD laptop with 4k display?
  • JarredWalton - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Carrizo will also exist for desktops, and it can be used with external displays. I do agree that I'll be very surprised if anyone ships a 4K AMD laptop, though. It's basically a problem that AMD is viewed as the budget APU option, and as soon as an OEM goes "budget" in one core element, everything else quickly follows in a race to the bottom.
  • yankeeDDL - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    It's a real pity that there aren't better laptops with AMD's APUs.
    I bought myself a Lenovo Z50 for casual gaming, and IMHO it's a HUGE value for $450.
    With "normal" settings it swallows anything I throw at it, and it handles everything else with ease.
    I wish it had a 1080p screen, but gaming at native resolution is OK and 1080p is probably too much for Kaveri.
    It's a matter of perception, I suppose: my opinion is that for home users AMD's APUs are far more versatile than Intel's.
    Unless one uses the PC/laptop only for office work (where efficiency may make a difference), or for hard-core gaming (where a discrete GPU is needed), I, personally, find AMD's APUs a better choice. More cost effective, and capable of handling light gaming *and* accelerating a lot of apps thanks to the much more powerful GPUs.
    Just my 2 cents.
  • eanazag - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    AMD needs to white box a reference laptop for all the manufacturers that rebadge already. They need to get out of the total budget machine mentality, at least somewherein the market.
  • yankeeDDL - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I am not sure that the problem is AMD. Or at least not only AMD. Only too often I read reviews that bash AMD and prais Intel. Which from a purely technical point of view, is correct: Core architecture is overall "better" than the Buldozer-derived cores.
    But does it matter? I use 8+hrs every day a Core i3 laptop for work. Moving to the Z50 was completely transparent for me: the bottleneck is, by far, the HD (mechanical in both laptops) so the CPU is so powerful that becomes "irrelevant" for all home/office users which use their PC for email, browsing, preparing documents ...
    The GPU, on the other hand, accelerates photo and video editing (which are become relatively common things to do) as well as Flash-based games (also very popular these days).
    So -I think- the vast majority of non-professional/enthusiast users would be better off with an AMD-based PC but they just don't know it, because everywhere they read they see that Intel's CPUs are faster and more efficient, which is true, but just as a BMW is faster and more efficient than a Ford (generally speaking), it is also much more expensive and because of that, it doesn't mean that a BMW is the right car for everyone.
  • azazel1024 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Except the Ford that is similar, probably is actually more efficient as a measure of miles per gallon (maybe not in HP/lb-ft per liter of engine displacement) than the BMW.

    Efficiency does matter. People often care about battery life, and Intel generally seems to be better than AMD in most cases, which means you have either a lighter laptop, or one with better battery life, or both. AMD's sub-20w TDP mobile line of processors are EXTREMELY anemic for CPU performance and generally aren't as powerful on the GPU side either, than Intel's processors in that TDP range. Which means Intel has the best of everything, except maybe price tag.

    Move in to a higher TDP range over 20w in mobile and AMD pulls a clear iGPU win, but generally their CPU performance is still a stinker, but it probably doesn't matter to the average user as they are at good enough (I've used an AMD laptop with a "dual core" single module processor, it was an A6-7000 in it. I thought I had fallen unconcious and woken up in 2008. The performance was really just painful and it wasn't down to the mechanical drive in the thing. Things were just noticably slower than even my tablet generally is (Asus T100) and compared to my couple of year old i5-3317u based laptop...well I choose to find it comical rather than tragic.

    Now some of the dual module or quad module mobile chips, especially ones with decent clock speeds in combination with that, it might be a different story, but then you still have CPU performance that is often punching with a low voltage Intel mobile chip, but at standard voltage CPU power consumptions, even if the graphics are better (to be clear, on the better chips. AMDs 15-17w line up has below the GPU performance of Intels current 15w line up (and I am not including the upcoming Broadwell in that comparison)).
  • yankeeDDL - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link

    azazel1024, BMW series 3 does 32/45MPG (city/highway) vs 29/40 of a Ford Focus, with the BMW being much more powerful.
    But we're splitting hair: I think the point I was trying to make is clear enough for who wants to understand.

    Regarding the battery life, you seem to have missed the part about non-professionals. Does anyone who is not traveling really care about having 6 vs 8 hrs of battery life?
    If I am using the laptop at home, or I want to bring it to a friend's house, does it really matter?
    No, it doesn't.
    Also, the A6-7400K costs $65: at that price point you need to compare its performance with some low-end Celeron, not with a core i5 which are all above $200.
  • Alexvrb - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link

    You're comparing the turbodiesel model BMW at $40K+ to a much cheaper naturally aspirated gasoline model Focus. Further diesel fuel is typically more expensive than the 87 octane gasoline the Focus burns. The gasoline model 3 series is turbocharged so it has decent pep to economy ratio but it's a bit fat so it loses on fuel economy. So... yeah. This doesn't change your point but as a car guy I had to mention it.
  • yankeeDDL - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Put another way: for $159 I can buy a A10 7850K (http://goo.gl/ZdOx5m) or a Core i3 4370 (http://goo.gl/ea5hjZ). The Core i3 is "only" better at single-threaded tasks. For everything else, there's no comparison (http://goo.gl/mfYEeH)
  • silverblue - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Your comparison link proves nothing except for two things - 1) AMD's iGPU performance is superior, and 2) Intel's dGPU performance is superior.
  • yankeeDDL - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Actually that's exactly what I wanted to show. Again, provided that the dGPU is needed only for gamers, AMD's offering is compelling and with the A10 7850K priced at least $30~40 less than core i5 it makes a difference on a $400 budget which should fit the vast majority of non-professional/gamers.
  • MikeMurphy - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    You don't need a 4K display to have the need to decode 4K content.
  • Spirall - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Jarred, I'm glad to hear Carrizo will also have a desktop version (hopefully FM2+ socket). There're rumors it would not and with Excavator arquitecture it may be usefull to even crossfire (FM2+ boards are quite sheap locally). Thanks!
  • goop666666 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    LOL, all you geniuses should be paying more attention: "Next Generation GCN" isn't redundant.
  • REAVER117 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    How is "Next Generation Graphics Core Next" not redundant?
  • goop666666 - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link

    Same way next next week is not redundant.
  • Nincomp - Saturday, January 31, 2015 - link

    True, but "Next Generation Graphics Core Next" is still fun to say.
    [Note: Off-topic ramble following]
    I attended a University that had constructed a "New South Quadrangle." Eventually, of course, more housing was needed and "New, New South Quad" was built. Deep down I giggled every time I stated that I lived in "New New." Some spoil-sports have since renamed the buildings.

    ... and what about houses made in the "Contemporary Style" that was fashionable in the 1960's and 1970's ( http://home.wikia.com/wiki/Contemporary_style ) . That old giggle returns when I hear a real-estate agent say something along the lines of : "This is one of those old-fashioned contemporary-houses."

    -- sorry... I have to end here, my nurse is telling me that it is time for my medication...
  • watzupken - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I believe this is good if they used it in a small sized HTPC assuming they are able to do 60 fps with the appropriate display port.

    Actually the laptop does not need to have a 4K display, but rather connected to a 4K monitor or TV.
  • ET - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Question is when they're planning to release desktop Carrizo. I really hope it arrives and is significantly better than Kaveri in terms of 3D performance, and then I'll stick it in an HTPC.
  • JarredWalton - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Q2/Q3 is what AMD said, and they wouldn't be more specific than that. Even if it launches in Q3, we should still see Carrizo laptops by the holiday shopping spree, so that's probably what they're aiming for.
  • mikato - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I can see this tech eventually getting into Roku, FireTV, AppleTV, etc eventually so they can serve up 4K and extend their advantage over the Smart TV (less)functionality that comes with TVs. Makes total sense. They are ARM now though so not sure how that would shake out. But AMD does ARM too, aha. I hope they are making a product for this segment!
  • phoenix_rizzen - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Android supports x86, even 64-bit x86. All that's missing are graphics drivers from AMD (although not too much would need to be done to adapt the current OSS ati driver or the fglrx driver).

    With that, you could have an AMD APU-based HTPC running Android and compete quite successfully with the current gen Roku, FireTV, etc.
  • Alexvrb - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link

    If I have an AMD APU and my goal is an HTPC... why the HECK would I run Android on it??

    Why not Linux or Windows? So much better, more flexible, more features, more/latest media playback software. Windows/Nix version of VLC for example, far better than Android version and stays cutting edge.
  • Alexvrb - Saturday, January 10, 2015 - link

    I hate smart TVs. If I spend good money on a TV, I plan to keep it for a good while. I'd rather upgrade the cheap box attached to it (old Roku to latest Roku 3, for example) to get the latest improvements in speed/features. If Smart TVs had some kind of a standardized removable/upgradeable board I would be down with that, but that will never happen.
  • Aries1470 - Sunday, January 11, 2015 - link

    Alexvrb, never say never. There was a brief moment, in design, that a screen driver was to be permanent, but the CPU and ancillary audio with memory was to be modulated. It didn't float due to "forced obsolescence". They would not not be making as much $$ and also then would have to plan for how many "generations" they would support it, similar to Intel's strategy of the lasst 10 years, of where designs last for about 2 years max... then the software support, like codec support, websites that change format etc, how long will each model last for, and how do you factor in the price range?

    The only argument would be less landfill, but then, t.v. companies would need to change their way of marketing and selling. It will make it much harder for stores to start selling all the hardware boxes for older products, of which will just be a mess, unless they make the modules "compatible" with such and such range models of which your average joe does not want to know about or get involved. It is ok for the techies but you will need to train a huge amount of personnel in stores and then educate the purchaser etc, while currently, they just send a sofware update to keep you up to date with website support and codec's...

    I am not saying it will not happen, but it needs a huge grass roots push, like a project on kickstarter etc, while saying something like "reduce landfill" waste, don't throw out your t.v., just the 'brains behind it'...

    Ok, enough ranting now.
  • BlueBlazer - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link

    Intel actually has ARM-based products in secret! Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYBJYT656C0
  • piroroadkill - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Another interesting AMD mobile chip that will only end up in the shittiest of laptops.

    For some reason you never see nice laptops you might actually want to buy with AMD inside.
  • ET - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I do think that the Thinkpad X1x0e laptops are nice, the main problem with them is the low end AMD chips. I have an X120e (E-350) and it's just too underpowered. I really hope that Carrizo being pin-compatible with Carrizo-L will mean that Lenovo releases an X150e which has both as options, and not just the low end one. I might upgrade to one in that case.
  • Samus - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I had an HP DM1z and X120e over the years, and although they are underpowered for intense tasks like Hyper-V and gaming, they run Windows 7/8 quite well and the battery life is excellent with an extended battery (I got 8 hours from a 9-cell in the X120e)

    The problem with Brazos wasn't that it was underpowered, it's just what the OP said, it only appeared in crappy budget laptops. If you go back 15 years, clearly inferior chips of the day like Transmetta Crusoe and even more recently Intel Atom's appeared in higher end machines, all with terrible, often unusable performance.

    A Brazos E350 with an SSD and 4GB of RAM makes, even today, a usable machine, and the chip is 5 years old. It won't win any records with an ~850 CPU Mark score, but that's on par with an entry-level Core 2.

    Hopefully Carrizo will get the opportunity to shine in at lease mid-range hardware, perhaps models with backlit keyboards and decent screens (something Brazos never got)
  • Starnight - Saturday, May 30, 2015 - link

    I bought a HP DM1z for my niece, replaced stock 2x2GB RAM with 2x4GB. Didn't replace HDD with SSD though. It plays 1080p videos from YouTube perfectly. Flash games and social networks make no problems. In facts I'm amazed at how a cheap dual-core AMD handles web browsing and MS Office. With SSD it would be even more usable I guess.
    So while Core i7 would make a drastic difference in video editing etc, I see no point in it for a young girl because she doesn't use Adobe of Sony software.
    The fact that stupid OEMs put E-350/E-450 in 17'' models doesn't mean AMD meant those CPUs for such scenarios.
    For an HTPC I got A8-6500T (TDP 45W) with just 2.1 GHZ clockspeed, and with 8GB RAM it's beautiful.
  • yeeeeman - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    They need to really accelerate the development. Also, good Kaveri equipped notebooks are still hard to find. It would've been better if they skipped Kaveri entirely and launched Carrizo earlier, meaning a winter 2014, because the jump from richland to kaveri wasn't enough. Just my 2 cents as someone before me said.
  • yankeeDDL - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    The jump from Richland to Kaveri was massive in terms of power consumption!
  • akamateau - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    This is Deja Vu all over again. Last year AMD presented us with Project Discovery Tablet. If AMD sold it on their website I would have bought one. After nVidia is selling Shield on it's website.

    This tablet by all benchmark evidence was a cutting edge performer and well received by the media. What was AMD's reponse? They killed it. No DIscovery Tablet and ZERO Mullins A10-6700T APU's sold.

    So now we are suppossed to get excited by another rconsumer product that AMD will never sell? I am just sick and tired of getting excited by anything that AMD markeing says.

    Since AMD will never sell this to the consumer why are we wasting our time?

    Intel will never allow the OEM's to buy Carrizo or place them into 4k displays either. The objective when maintaining a monopoly is to deny your competition fair access to markets. ANd Intel is doing quite well as an x86 monopolist.

    How many Mullins APU's have made it into Tablets?

    Jarred Walton why do you bother even writing this piece. AMD is wasting our time.

    If AMD sells this on their website the sign me up I'm all in. If not then they should stop wasting all of our time.

    Intel will never allow this laptop to hit the store shelves.

    And I lay this failure right in the lap of Colette Laforce; Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer .

    Colette needs to start doing her job.
  • TiGr1982 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I totally agree with you regarding Mullins, but it won't be that bad with Carrizo APUs; no doubt, there will be some on the market, as it was the case with their "big" Llano, Trinity/Richland and Kaveri APUs; just not so much, but a few models and configs from HP, Lenovo, Asus and Acer will take place and be available to buy for the people interested. For example, I bought AMD Llano-based ASUS laptop myself back in Feb 2012, and my friends bought AMD Trinity-based Acer laptop later that year; so it's not that bad at all :)
  • ppi - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Mullins was killed by Intel, because Intel was basically subsidizing 100% of Bay Trail price, in order to get in tablet designs - but there Intel's competition was Qualcom, Mediatek and Rockchip.
  • kallogan - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    release it already ! i'm bored
  • Ancalagon44 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    AMD, how about Beema and Mullins laptops that we can actually buy? That would be nice. Or a Beema/Mullins tablet? Or a Beema/Mullins mini PC?

    It is nearly a year after they were released, and only a handful of Beema/Mullins computers are available for purchase.
  • TiGr1982 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Just wait just half a year, and you'll be able to choose from three Carrizo laptops. Or maybe even four!...
    Jokes aside, as is already said above, last 4 years AMD APUs are taking place in poor budgetary laptops in 90% of the cases, and this situation repeats itself over and over again each year.
    It's a closed loop, in a sense - if they don't have enough money to widely interact with laptop OEMs, then their chips are put in a small amount of budgetary laptops, usually with crappy outdated TN panels and poor slowest sluggish HDDs; as a result, they earn little money and again don't have the oomph to push OEMs for better laptops with their chips next year. I see it like that (sort of when VIA CPUs were in laptops in mid 2000s, but not that bad at all, of course), so I don't expect things to change much in the future. The only segment where AMD offers up to high end products inclusively, is the discrete GPU segment; the rest of AMD consumer products are all budgetary, unfortunately, and AMD suffers economically from this "budgetarity".
  • Ancalagon44 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    You know if there were budget Mullins/Beema laptops available, that would be something, but there aren't even those. Mullins and Beema do not exist in the 10-13.3 inch form factor. Period. Even if they were only in low quality 11 inch laptops, that would be something, but there is simply nothing!

    At this point, AMD should be negotiating it's hardest to get their CPUs into laptops. What is the point of Carrizo if no customers can buy them?
  • TiGr1982 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Well, as I said above in my previous post above in this thread, I believe it won't be so terrible with Carrizo, as with Beema/Mullins - there certainly will be Carrizo-based notebooks on the market (as was the case with Llano, Trinity/Richland and Kaveri before), but one probably won't have a lot of Carrizo choices for any given region of the world.
    Anyway, Carrizo, having just 2 CPU modules (4 threads), may be only competitive with Intel dual core offerings such as just announced Broadwell-U, but since AMD has no 4-module APUs, Intel's top performance real quad core 8-thread laptop CPUs (like Core i7-4702HQ and so on) will remain untouched, and continue to live in the league of their own.
  • TiGr1982 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    By the way, more generally, if I'm not mistaken, Carrizo and Carrizo-L seem to be the only APUs to be released in 2015 (no other x86 AMD CPUs.APUs this year), so, until 2016, no new x86 stuff from AMD besides Carrizo(-L). Pretty boring for the consumers and enthusiasts concerned.
  • silverblue - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    AMD released Steamroller and Puma+ APUs in 2014. They're releasing Excavator and re-engineered Puma+ APUs this year. Same story, and even Intel doesn't generally release more product lines than that per year. In any case, AMD can't really release more x86 products or accelerate releases; Intel's policy of throwing Atom at OEMs for a loss will be hurting AMD.

    If we look away from x86, AMD have their first ARM-based Opteron launching as well.
  • Ancalagon44 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    But Carrizo does not compete in the same segment. I don't want a Kaveri and I don't want a Carrizo. I want to be able to buy an 11 inch laptop that contains a low power, low cost APU that AMD "released" nearly a year ago.

    If they could not get Beema and Mullins into laptops, why would things with Carrizo be different, and even if they were, why would I care?

    It looks like AMD has rehired a lot of good talent and they are making a lot of good products that they can be proud of. It's just that, you know, I might want to buy some of them, and apparently AMD does not want that to happen.

    Ever seen the South Park episode with the Underpants Gnomes?
    Step 1: Design APU
    Step 2: ????
    Step 3: Profit

    Hey AMD, what is Step 2?
  • 4KHomePage - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-insta...

    Seriously? There's nearly 100 notebook configurations with the Beema A8 alone.

    Take your horse hockey somewhere else.
  • superunknown98 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I looked through the list a bit and only saw one 10 to 14in laptop. A Hp 13.3 inch convertible. It was $600. I would bite around the $300 to 350 mark. But otherwise not much choice in the small laptop range.
  • 4KHomePage - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Intel can afford to not make money anymore. They are practically reversing their margins to block AMD out of market. The sad part is that AMD has no ground to stand-on in declaring a monopoly suit against Intel.

    Intel is pretty much daring AMD to try and take them to court, because they're prepared to quash them and gain a new precedent.
    AMD can't cry monopoly and mean it when they're pivoting out of x86 as their primary market.
    They made a pretty bold(stupid) move when divesting their tech into ARM ISA.

    Intel can make an argument in court that x86 is no longer the most inundating ISA (Thanks to smartphones, tablets, ARM, and mobile ISA's for Android) in the tech market, and by them exclusively holding the x86 market, they are not holding a monopoly.

    They have a lot of supporting evidence to point to, (x86 no longer being the most popular ISA in tech, AMD divesting and pivoting out of x86 market themselves anyway) and if Intel won that court battle, Intel could turn around and permanently remove AMD from x86, with no one to stop them.
  • Nagorak - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    I don't think the argument you are presenting is very strong. ARM may control the tablet/phone markets, but for PCs the vast, vast majority are still X86. Even Chromebooks run on X86, and WinRT severely failed to catch on.

    X86 basically means the PC market, and if Intel had a monopoly there it wouldn't stand. ARM has been around in things like set top boxes forever, so if that argument were going to fly, Intel could have made it years ago.
  • silverblue - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    ...leaving AMD to yank x86-64 from underneath Intel's feet? I think it'd be harder than you might imagine for Intel to do such a thing.
  • tipoo - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    Aren't all DX11 GPUs with systems being upgraded to Windows 10 going to support DX12? So really, AMD said nothing here about NGGCN.
  • jb14 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    If AMD could somehow wrangle a design win, say the new Dell xps 13 and drop the base unit price by maybe $200 with the ssd most folk may not notice a difference (excluding maybe a shorter battery life and maybe a higher RPM fan?) Why can't AMD just commission someone like ASUS to design a system? Margins?
  • Frumious1 - Thursday, January 8, 2015 - link

    When you're talking about a premium laptop like the XPS 13 that Dell will sell for $1500, Dell has no real interest in dropping the price lower as they're charging for a premium experience. If they could save $200 on the costs, would they really pass that on to the end user? But then if performance is also worse in a variety of applications, or power use is higher, then there's no incentive to design the device in the first place.

    Let's say the BoM for the new XPS 13 is around half the price ($750), and with Broadwell-U it's certainly not going to be too slow in anything other than gaming and maybe not even that. What would the BoM costs be if Dell switched to Kaveri or in the future, Carrizo? $650 maybe, but then there's more work to be done since Dell already has a huge catalog of Intel experience to draw on, meaning properly optimizing power and other aspects for AMD laptops would likely cost them more man hours. Note that if they had a large selection of AMD-based products, e.g. like HP, it's easier to build from that, but Dell doesn't.

    Now, if we just double the BoM and it's $1300 vs. $1500, maybe a few people would be interested, but I would bet heavily that anyone willing to spend $1300 on a premium laptop would also be willing to pay $200 more since it's only a 15% increase in total cost, assuming the end product is perceived as being better (e.g. more battery life, performance, reliability, etc.)

    In other words, there are financial, political, technical, and social reasons that AMD has to overcome to make headway into the laptop market. What they're mostly offering is a financial incentive, with a bit of a technical incentive. For most OEMs, it's not enough to want to target anything more than budget AMD laptops. Even if AMD outright paid for (subsidized) the creation and release of a high quality laptop, all that would really give them is one design win. It could end up being a great laptop, but AMD can't keep subsidizing the sales of their laptops indefinitely. And Intel can always answer in kind.

    Basically, you need a laptop that can stand on its own two feet if you're going up against Intel. Because Intel can always subsidize more if they want to. And really, despite the AMD fanboys saying otherwise, I have not seen any laptops with AMD APUs that are really any more compelling than Intel alternatives. This whole APUs having better GPUs talk is rubbish, as the only reason I continue to find for having a good GPU is gaming. And now H.265 decoding, apparently, which most of us have tried to do... never.
  • Lcs - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link

    yes yes AMD needs to have some TV commercial so people won't be brain Horst every time they walk to work Best Buy or our office repo because I've been around before the first thing it would look at is the Intel in the guys don't tell him crap so what I do if I'm there I'll explain it to thats what needs to be done than I am to be much better than it is now I'm still am a handyman and always will be
  • akamateau - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link

    In Project Discovery AMD had a mature design. All of the media was impressed and coments were made to Lisa Su AMD's Global Opertions Executive at the time and her comment was the Tablet would NOT be available.

    AMD had a real opportunity here to bring their own AMD branded Tablet to market fresh off the heels of stellar reviews and she bungled it.

    9 months later AMD reports an earnigs short fall of $47 million dollars and their stock tanks and Lisa Su announces lay-offs of about 700 folks.

    I can not help but wonder just what a few hundred thousand Tablets could have done to the AMD bottom line?

    Walmart has 11,000 stores. A deal with Walmart to accept 10 units per store per quarter @ $500 per unit generates $55MILLION in revenue per quarter. So maybe not Walmart, take a page from nVidia Shield and sell direct to the consumer from the website.

    Just do SOMETHING.
  • JarredWalton - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link

    11000 stores at 10 laptops each for $500 is $55 million gross. If the laptop costs $350 each to manufacture (and making 110K laptops would be quite a lot for most laptops!), and Walmart has to have their margins as well, AMD would be lucky to earn $50 per laptop sold. That would be $5.5 million in revenue, and that's only assuming you actually move product.
  • Anthonykarrl - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link

    AMD suck, eversince. So what's the point comparing their new iGPU with intel's iGPU? Does anyone really care about it? Well maybe i think to non-enthusiast and non geek to computer stuff. My point is that the known market of the two companies is the processor not the GPU. Well, AMD tried to suck the gpu technologies into there processor but hey, we are talking about processor performance, efficiency and productivity to may account on saving money and time.
  • BehindEnemyLines - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link

    People care because of AMD major push for HSA where a workload can be accelerated with the unity of CPU+GPU working together. Windows 10 HSA is obviously designed with this in mind. Look at AMD having native hardware support for H.265 while Intel won't have this until Skylake.
  • BlueBlazer - Sunday, January 25, 2015 - link

    Intel already added hardware H.265 to Broadwell and Haswell also. See http://techreport.com/news/27677/new-intel-igp-dri...

    There's also the optimized H.265 decoders for Intel Atom. See https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2014/05/19/...
  • BehindEnemyLines - Friday, January 9, 2015 - link

    HSA enabled hardwar and software is a beast. http://wccftech.com/amd-kaveri-i54670k-benchmarks-...
  • medi01 - Tuesday, January 13, 2015 - link

    Intel GPUs suck, eversince.
    What's the point comparing AMDs excellent APUs to Intel's crappy iGPUs?
  • Anthonykarrl - Wednesday, January 14, 2015 - link

    I got baffled abit with this arguement. if you are geeky kind in tech, you would prefer to have your laptop with discreet GPU. I wouldn't mind about APU unless you are kind of a low budget side because of it's two in one feature. Okay yes, it show's a good side when it comes to it's iGPU. But what about the power of it's processor? Does it compete with the intel's core i series?

    And yes, i would agree more with intel's iGPU suck. but clearly, processing capabilities of core i series is far more, i mean a big gap when it comes to efficiency and speed.
  • kl71 - Sunday, January 11, 2015 - link

    This is kind of an interesting read. I doubt they have a HW decoder for h.265 video. The spec for h.265 is still evolving.

    Possibly they may have finally got around to including a h.264 HW decoder on the dice that can decode 4k video in hardware, both intel and NVidia have had this capability for years. There newer APU's are very good and they do indeed deliver 4k video REZ to a display. But there is a huge difference between delivering 4k video to a monitor and actually decoding 4K video in HW.

    Key to this APU from AMD is how good that radeon core is.

    Waiting to see.

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