AMD still negative and INTC +0.70.

nice

gb

Why the +$0.50 bump in intel this morning on significant volume?

gb

IDF schedule of sessions show lots of Haswell topics, as expected.

https://intel.activeevents.com/sf12/scheduler/catalog.do

gb

Gaming: CPUs matter afterall:

http://games.slashdot.org/story/12/08/23/2151214/cpus-do-affect-gaming-performance-after-all

gb

Perhaps IDF will have info.

gb

Intel invests in Nikon

http://www.semiconportal.com/en/archive/news/news-flash/120808-nikon-intel-lithography.html

gb

Next year will be very interesting as Haswell pushes Ivy processors down the stack and the ARM v Intel competition heats up. All the while Xeon continues to gain server share.

I've seen no indication that AMD has a viable response likely to any of the above. Could be the beginning of a string of "parenthetical" quarterly earnings.

gb

I'm not a programmer but my takeaway is that insistance on the Metro startup and interface is signaling a deeper change coming in Windows. Either something related to major internal design changes or perhaps a change in the business model akin to what appears to be happening in Surface.

BWDIK

gb

Anyone calculated book value on AMD recently? With no glofo funnies remaining on books, no fabs to account for and I think no real-estate holdings it should be pretty easy. Would need to discount inventory and receivables. I think liabilities should be pretty transparent.

Not sure if they are still carrying and goodwill.

gb

gb

I think if it gets much lower there could be a possibility of a buyout, merger or similar.

I know there are perceptions of IP issues with that and I have no concrete insight on what those terms are. Lots of speculation there.

Perhaps that what is keeping the stock around this price.

gb

I find it interesting and amusing that the various analysts mentioning how cheap AMD is now all fail to mention it could get "cheaper."

gb

My guess is RR is perceived as a rather unwelcome change by those who have come from an engineering background. Combined with the challenge of competing on a two front war (vs. Intel and vs. ARMy) and the uncertainty of any possible alternative path chosen by RR it's got to make for a very unhappy place.

gb

AMD debt offering.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/amd-announces-private-offering-300-115600591.html

Looks like they decided to roll out rather than use up cash. Not surprising given that they're in a two front war.

gb

And then there are those that have already said that they have millions of lines of Fortran that will never run on nVidia. Those codes will have to get the best performance they can from compilers and associated libraries. For them XeonPhi seems like a good choice.

gb

IIRC the business manager in charge of the Oracle DB said Oracle on Itanium was a quite good business. Amazing that the siren song of Sun HW acquisition suddenly made it "not good business"...much to his surprise.

gb

Get your 780 out of the closet for comparison.



gb

But of course!!

gb

Perhaps AMD should change the nomenclature from APU to just PU.*

gb

*PU tm gb

and the amount shipped into "x86 competitive" markets is a teensy weensy portion of that 2B.

not that east would point that out...

gb

I'm guessing the will show it off at IDF and have a bunch of tools/libs/classes offered on it.

If history is a guide they will have at least one early adopter coming in and singing its praises.

We'll probably see more of Intel Phi as well in actual prototype systems running code with a couple of early adopters there as well.

gb

I wonder if/when AMD will implement Transactional Syncronization Extensions?

That ship has likely sailed...

gb

Haswell per wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture)

Confirmed new features
Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (AVX2) instruction set, also called Haswell New Instructions (includes gather, bit manipulation, and FMA3 support).[8]
New sockets — LGA 1150 for desktops and rPGA947 & BGA1364 for the mobile market.[9]
Intel Transactional Synchronization Extensions (TSX).[10]
Graphics support in hardware for Direct3D 11.1 and OpenGL 3.2.[11]
DDR4 for the enterprise/server variant (Haswell-EX).[12]

[edit] Expected features
32 nm PCH.[13]
A new cache design.
Support for Thunderbolt technology.[14]
There will be three versions of the integrated GPU: GT1, GT2, and GT3. According to vr-zone, the fastest version (GT3) will have 20 execution units (EU).[15] Another source, SemiAccurate, however says that the GT3 will have 40 EUs[16] with an accompanying 64MB cache on an interposer.[17] An additional source, AnandTech, agrees that GT3 will have 40EUs, but makes no mention of an interposer. [18] Haswell's predecessor, Ivy Bridge, has a maximum of 16 EUs.
New advanced power-saving system.
Base clock (BClk) increase to 133 MHz.[citation needed]
128 bytes cache line.[citation needed]
Execution trace cache will be included L2 caching design.[citation needed]
Fully integrated voltage regulator, thereby moving another component from the motherboard onto the CPU.[19]
37, 47, 57W TDP mobile processors.[6]
35, 45, 55, 65, 77 and ~100W+ (high-end) TDP desktop processors.[6]
15W TDP processors for the Ultrabook platform (multi-chip package like Westmere).[6]


gb

IDF SF 2012 Sept 11-13.

gb

I don't know what Haswell CPU tweaks were planned but I believe the graphics was due for another disproportionate lift.

gb

Looks like the selling isn't over: down 4% on 1.7M shares at 945am.

ADV is 17M shares.

gb

Chart readers or entrail readers...

gb

For every seller there's a buyer but at this point in time who is taking the risk on AMD shares? Last Friday there was 3x ADV on 13% down. What sort of person/org would take such a large risk considering Intel and the ARMy as competitors? The falling knife admonition comes to mind...

Are buyers speculating on an organic comeback or a takeover?

gb

I agree with Tench/WBMW about the need to be more aggressive. There's cost and opportunity cost involved in further pursuit of the highend. They should just kill any further development of Dozer for servers and desktops and get on with whatever they think the future is.

Although the cost of messing with Dozer may have a positive return it has no future in the face of tick-tock. Intel process tech and integrated with arch teams have seen to that.

I'm not sure where AMD's future lies but the opportunity cost of spending on a dead end is "priceless."

gb

Self inflicted?

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/07/20/amd-street-debates-how-much-is-self-inflicted/?mod=yahoobarrons

gb

With a close at $4.23, down 13% on 3x avg volume, looks like RR's action plan didn't sit well with some. I wonder if the coming weeks will bring more selling as shareholders digest the news.

gb

Still not clear to me how they are containing expenses. Salaries, travel, no more janitorial staff, bring your own pencils?

How are they going to incent their channel? Attaboys or buckos-gigundo? Will their employees hitchhike to get to the dealers to tell them the exciting Yawno story?

gb

Cognitive dissonance.

gb

From Barrons:

Citigroup’s Glen Yeung, who has a Buy rating on the shares, has just about the least enthusiastic buy recommendation you could have this morning, writing, “While the PC environment is undoubtedly weak, AMD’s results underscore mis-execution by the company yet again. In 1H11, AMD changed management, 2H11 they had a yield problem, and now in 1H12 they mis-executed in the channel. These missteps have made us wrong on the shares.”

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2012/07/20/this-morning-cheers-for-microsofts-muscle-even-bulls-mad-at-amd/?mod=yahoobarrons

AMD=Lucy, Citi=Charlie Brown?

gb

I read somewhere that AMD's typical Q3 is 14% up sequentially. Intel is forecasting up seasonally (+6%) in Q3. AMD forecast of 1% +/-3pts means a rather large share loss or spending like drunken sailors to move Llano inventory. Given that RR said they wouldn't pursue "bad business" and their CFO suggested that they would maintain their GM it's hard to understand how any of this makes sense.

Seems like a round of layoffs or paycuts coming as an expense control.

Plus there is an August debt payment coming due which their CFO insisted would come from cash rather than refi.

gb

Given the competitive situation I'd say their guidance is optimistic.

gb

AMD's call was interesting in the number of standins, second stringers and folks I never heard of getting into the call queue.

gb

I think there were a total of three attempts to get clarity and none was received. They are apparently swimming in Llano and since they screwed the channel on Llano last year no one in the channel will touch it now. Brown bananas...

I suspect the channel is selling SB based products like popcorn. And given the cost advantage Intel has on these products AMD is going have to decide whether to sell Llano at a loss or just grind them up.

gb

So did anyone understand RR's LLano explanation to HM's question?
Pure babblespeak as far as I can tell.

gb

Any mention of IBM micro or whatever they're called now?

gb