Is AMD Abandoning Discrete Desktop Processors?

As a major fan of AMD, I make an effort to be aware of all news updates regarding that company, but, in recent articles, AMD has not made any mention of a successor CPU to their Vishera line of processors, based off their "piledriver" microarchitecture. They have mentioned new GPU's and APU's in their announcements, but not new CPU's, and I am displeased by that news, or lack thereof.

I understand that AMD wishes to focus on their APU's, which combine the architecture of a CPU and GPU, and that some of their APU's are excellent processors, but APU's are not yet as powerful as are dedicated CPU's, so I do hope that AMD is not completely abandoning those units. Their "piledriver" line was an improvement over the "bulldozer" line, and if the "steamroller" CPU's were to improve by the same margin, they may be serious rivals to Intel's best processors, which would be good for AMD, and the CPU market overall. I do not wish to AMD to concede the market for high-performance desktop processors to Intel, but this situation is highly uncertain at the present time.

What does everyone else say? Do you believe that AMD is abandoning discrete desktop processors, or are they merely being extremely secretive about any future products of theirs?

I don't unfortunately have an answer to your question, but I can't see the APUs being all that useful in terms of server CPUs. It certainly wouldn't be a selling feature for the company I work for when compared to an Intel Xeon. Most of the time we go with AMD-based servers, it's due to the higher core count for software that allocates resources based on number of cores. I forget the price comparison per core off the top of my head but the AMDs were way ahead in that regard. Adding in GPU architecture would likely result in a trade-off in die area for CPU cores, which would make them less enticing for our servers. Whether or not they maintain a separate architecture line for servers vs. desktops I don't know, but it would make sense to offer a desktop CPU only as long as they have a server CPU only in my opinion.

I Honestly don't care if Intels processors are faster, i'm not paying an extra hundred or more for a 4% performance gain, or bragging rights.

Gonna necro this one. That's how I roll.

So, most of a year later, AMD has some nice-looking 8-core offerings and not-quite-cutting-edge chipset support ... and not a lot else. Well, they've got killa graphics cards, of course, which are supposed to be system-independant. (Me, I'm not entirely convinced that AMD cards are designed to work as well when paired with non-AMD mobo/proc platforms - but I have no proof and all the benchmarks I've seen seem both inconclusive and vaguely biased one way or another.)

I looks like the top-tier Intel products, in the meantime, have nudged that "+4%" edge closer to around +25%. Albeit, when proc and mobo/chipset (and *ahem* full "GEN3" PCIe 3.0 support) are all considered, the comparative pricing seems to be something like almost 3 times more for a complete system - and that's just the top-end mobo/proc/RAM combo, without graphics or drives or PSU or chassis or keyboard or any cool bling. Intel version ~$1850, AMD version ~$675, assuming same amount of fastest RAM. If you actually stock the top-tier Intel board up to max capacities and performance (which exceed the AMD product's limits), it looks more like $3000.

(I speak of Canadian $. Primarily at NCIX and Newegg, lol, sadly, that is also how I roll.)

I think the problem with the price differences between AMD and Intel aren't as far apart as it may seem. Sometimes you can get an Intel CPU that outperforms AMD's for a few bucks more or even less. If you take a look at this chart:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

The top 38 processors are Intel and you don't see the first AMD until number 39 which is the AMD FX-9590. The 9590 produced a benchmark of 10,265 points, and according to this retails for 369.00. On this same chart you can get the i7-4770K which benchmarks at 10,284 points for $309, and better yet you can get the i7-4790K which benchmarks at 11,385 points for 339.99. Both of the Intel processors out perform the AMD and cost less. Granted these are synthetic benchmarks and when it comes to prices, I am not sure if those are averages, MSRP or what. So I went to Microcenters website to compare...

http://www.microcenter.com/product/4...oxed_Processor

279.99

http://www.microcenter.com/product/4...oxed_Processor

279.99

Same price.. so even if your paying the same amount. Would you buy the one that scored higher or just go for the brand name?

Seems like a lot of people just compare number of Cores and GHz and don't pay much attention to benchmarks and comparative performances.

Just my .02

EDIT: I checked out Newegg.. and it looks like that might be where they are getting their pricing.
The i7-4790K is 339.99 and the FX9590 is 369.99.. However at Newegg.ca the i7-4790K is 359.99 and the FX9590 is 334.99 or you can get a liquid cooled version for 449.99.

You are correct, sir OVR.

My observations were based on top-tier extreme best-possible offerings, not on approximately equivalent offerings. AMD seems to have given up on the leapfrog race, they've given Intel a head start of years on cutting-edge products. It's not just about the proc block, Intel's top processors are meant to be matched with their top chipsets which have capabilities and performance far superior to AMD's less aggressively developed counterparts. You would think the mobo makers would've used these years to drive their prices down a bit, but instead they've largely chosen to keep adding more hardening, features, and addon support chips, so mobo prices have steadily creeped upwards instead. The gap in maximum-best-pure-uber performance is wide (indeed, AMD cannot approach it), albeit the price gap is far wider and Intel's high-end stuff (AMD's toppest-end stuff) is only a little bit more $ costly.

FWIW, I would love to get the latest/greatest Intel setup to nerd out with, but I would likely "only" get the latest/greatest AMD version instead. Bang-for-the-buck is just too hard to ignore until both brands reach some sort of parity again.

Also right, sir, in observing what people look for when buying tech. We are nerds, we like specs and benchmarks and we painstakingly overanalyze the most esoteric technotrivia in the quest for perfect computing (or perfect modding) platforms. But most people see the big GHz and pretty screen and decent price tag, and they're sold. Or they see the brand they believe is better (I mean, c'mon, they're still selling Macs, lol). Or they reason that you get exactly what you pay for, so they overspend on the "best" system their wads of cash can possibly procure.

This thread has been inactive for a long time, but I shall revive it so say that AMD has not abandoned discrete CPU's, since their new Zen architecture shall feature both APU's and dedicated CPU's, a decision that pleases me very greatly. Hopefully, this new architecture can give serious competition to Intel, since that company has, in my mind, grown complacent without having had any real challenge to its supremacy in recent years.

AMD has shifted it's emphasis. They offer a fair selection of desktop and laptop processors and can still be found in many new off-the-shelf systems. They've just abandoned the extreme-tier top-end segment where they can't really compete vs the technological (and financial) dominance of Intel and NVidia. AMD doesn't push aggressively into the smallest, fastest, densest, and costliest new manufacturing nodes, they don't adopt the latest-greatest new tech - they stay a step or two behind the leaders and they deliberately manufacture a compromise between performance vs price. As a technophile I cringe at hearing words like "low-cost", "value-engineered", "tradeoffs", and "compromises" applied to my gadgets ... until I see that the AMD option can often deliver over 75% of the performance at much less than half the cost.

If you want ultra-enthusiast highest-performance stuff then AMD's GPUs, APUs, CPUs, and chipsets are a weak choice. Even their fastest FX CPU parts don't live up advertised speeds. But if you want the most bang-for-the-buck performance computing within a budget then AMD's products are hard to beat, a top-end FX9590/990FX/R9 or A10/A88X/R9 system can give a Z97/i7-4790K/GTX980 system some serious competition for half the price.

I am not sure but may be the answer is yes. AMD is abandoning discrete desktop processor.

Not sure exactly why, but all the CGI tech talk in the special features for the last dozen DVDs I've watched mentions the same HP servers packed with Opterons. For movies dated last decade, for movies dated last week. Always Opterons, every time, never Xeons.

Perhaps AMD just has a niche in the film industry, it's a trusted brand or a small circle of big-budget producers are AMD fanboys, or all the artsy CGI folk learned on AMD or something, I dunno. I would think that what's under the hood wouldn't be as important as how fast the machine runs and how much it costs. Maybe AMD offers way more attractive bang for the buck. Maybe more attractive support. I realize it's a niche market, but customers like Disney and Pixar and Lucasfilm are not petty cash, lol.

I'm guessing that licensing and core counts play a factor in those areas, in addition to performance. If your cost is per CPU, AMD allows you to get a lot more cores if you have a multithreaded application (or lots of VMs) so I know we've purchased a few Opteron-based servers for that reason. I'm not in the CGI industry so I can't say for sure though.