After CPU architect Jim Keller left AMD recently, Phil Rogers has now also left and joined up with Nvidia. According to the article on fudzilla his defection to Nvidia was kept under wraps, I wonder why.
Our IRC channel always turns quite colourful whenever AMD is mentioned, as I know they have a lot of fans in the Linux community for their open source work, but it's an important topic. If AMD is indeed a sinking ship then I can imagine both Intel and Nvidia taking advantage of it in a bad way for us (think higher prices). We really don't need a 100% Nvidia monopoly for desktop graphics or Intel for CPU's.
AMD seem to be going through a pretty rough time at the moment, and with their new Zen CPU's not due until 2016 they could be in for a rougher ride yet. I'm looking forward to seeing what Zen brings to the table, as it's about time AMD focused on performance rather than cores. I seriously hope Zen is a game changer for AMD, since Bulldozer didn't turn out all that well as much as it was hyped originally.
It is my firm belief that Intel + Nvidia is currently the way to go if you want the most performance out of games, but maybe Zen will change this up. Who knows, maybe AMD will compete fully with Nvidia when Vulkan is released.
What are your thoughts? Here's to hoping their Zen CPU line will bring them back into a nicer light, and they don't have too many more respected staff leaving. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Actually I'm not sure this is really news, if it was any other company this wouldn't be news, Humble bundle lays off 25% (or whatever the number was) of it's workforce, now that's gaming news, especially for Linux users. I'm sick of sites making a big deal of Jim Keller joining then leaving AMD when the first time around it barely had a single article or the fact the M$ or samsung lay of hundreds of workers and ... and... crickets.. keep your standards higher than phoronix Liam please.
Editorial: (used for comedic effect)
Just the other day was reading the news about Nvidia losing it's main patent troll extortion case, great company you guys buy from. If you think just ditching M$ makes you a better person time to think again. AMD is the only choice for those who value freedom in computing (for dedicated graphics) however I fear you most of you guys are just bitter Windows users and not Linux users to begin with.
Editorial: (used for comedic effect)
Just the other day was reading the news about Nvidia losing it's main patent troll extortion case, great company you guys buy from. If you think just ditching M$ makes you a better person time to think again. AMD is the only choice for those who value freedom in computing (for dedicated graphics) however I fear you most of you guys are just bitter Windows users and not Linux users to begin with.
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Quoting: XenonQuoting: mr-egg[...]They haven’t made a good CPU line since the Phenom II, when was that ? 2008 - 2009 [...]Are the AMD CPUs really that bad?
I run an 5800k APU and a dedicated nvidia card ( its just how the build evolved ) and the CPU is 'ok' but you start doing tasks that require any serious compute; CPU limited games like the source engine (sigh.. the ones I play the most ) or bulk file conversion like FLAC to mp3 ( which I use for transferring my audio from the PC to the car ) then your taking a hit using AMD vs Intel. There are many performance charts out there confirming this. A typical bulk job for me converting my FLAC library to mp3 can take about 1.20 - 1.56 min for the album and I have more often than not decided a few mins before leaving the house to do a quick album conversion as I want to keep listening to it in the car .. well add a few albums for the road and your last minute copy turns into you being late, because after conversion there is the copying/transferring to the memory stick / phone. When I looked up at some results for a decent Intel CPU on the same software its about 23 seconds per album ! Samewise the single core performance on source engine games ( wont matter with Vulkan ) takes a hit, if I over clock my CPU another 200mhz per core I can get another 10 - 20 fps from Counter strike, on the Intel CPU I would be worrying less about CPU bottlenecks.
So yes, real world it does effect my tasks running an AMD CPU and my room would heat up too much on one of the monster TDP 8 core AMD CPU's vs the power sipping Intel alternative.
That said, if magically everyone drops OpenGL and goes Vulkan the CPU performance will matter much less, more so as people move to 1440p / 4k.
Last edited by on 15 October 2015 at 8:46 am UTC
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Quoting: mr-eggSo yes, real world it does effect my tasks running an AMD CPU and my room would heat up too much on one of the monster TDP 8 core AMD CPU's vs the power sipping Intel alternative.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBeeGHozSY0
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I've been an Intel/NVidia buyer for years now, mainly due to the reason that at that time, AMD basically only had proprietary drivers as NVidia back then (and NVidias were better), and I always enjoyed Intels openness.
Since the development of the open source drivers and opening up of documentation by AMD, I'm having a good look at AMD, but still see a general decline by developers. NVidia still has the best (proprietary) driver around, Intel is pretty good for working, but the performance does not hit it for gaming. Intel drivers are undergoing huge changes and restructuring as well, and will do so for some time to come (they're switching to atomic, so are fully rewriting core and drivers, and have some kind of ... "middleware" which holds old-code and new-code together which results in [a lot] of ugly hacks).
I'd love to buy a AMD next time I buy a computer, but hands down, I'm not certain that AMD will be a comparable choice to NVidia with their proprietary drivers by then. But they're welcome to surprise me.
Since the development of the open source drivers and opening up of documentation by AMD, I'm having a good look at AMD, but still see a general decline by developers. NVidia still has the best (proprietary) driver around, Intel is pretty good for working, but the performance does not hit it for gaming. Intel drivers are undergoing huge changes and restructuring as well, and will do so for some time to come (they're switching to atomic, so are fully rewriting core and drivers, and have some kind of ... "middleware" which holds old-code and new-code together which results in [a lot] of ugly hacks).
I'd love to buy a AMD next time I buy a computer, but hands down, I'm not certain that AMD will be a comparable choice to NVidia with their proprietary drivers by then. But they're welcome to surprise me.
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Mountain Man Oct 15, 2015
Yes, it's AMD's fault that mr-egg is late for work. It couldn't have anything to do with his time-management skills. What a terrible company.
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Comandante Ñoñardo Oct 16, 2015
As a former AMD user, the actual status of that company makes me sad..
Remember the good old day when AMD used to make CPU's with hidden cores? Those were the AMD days!
But nobody can live off past glories... I have to move on.
If they release a new AMD socket with 4 channels DDR4, they can fight against the Intel 2011v3, but nooo; today We have those dual channel APU's and those power inefficient Bulldozer's and Vishera's (I have an FX 6300).
There are only TWO good APU's that I would like to have in my hands and they are not available for the desktop users, because they are console exclusives..
You see. I purchased a LEGIT copy Windows 7 OEM pro 64bit SP1 (it cost me about 200 U$D here in Argentina) for a gaming PC dedicated to those games I have that will never be ported to Linux (like my EA origin games and Uplay games). Windows 7 pro OEM has a DRM that binds the licence to the mobo.. well.. I can not tie a LEGAL license of Windows 7 to an obsolete technology like the AM3+ or FM2.. I need to tie that license to a more or less "future-proof" mobo, like my actual Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5, powered by an i5 4690k (but I will purchase an i7 4790K in the next days)
By the way, the machine with the Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5, the i5 4690k and a Zotac GTX 960 2GB eats no more than 230VA from the wall using a generic "500" PSU... I have unexpected resets in the machine powered by the FX 6300 with the same memory modules, same PSU and same video card...
Remember the good old day when AMD used to make CPU's with hidden cores? Those were the AMD days!
But nobody can live off past glories... I have to move on.
If they release a new AMD socket with 4 channels DDR4, they can fight against the Intel 2011v3, but nooo; today We have those dual channel APU's and those power inefficient Bulldozer's and Vishera's (I have an FX 6300).
There are only TWO good APU's that I would like to have in my hands and they are not available for the desktop users, because they are console exclusives..
You see. I purchased a LEGIT copy Windows 7 OEM pro 64bit SP1 (it cost me about 200 U$D here in Argentina) for a gaming PC dedicated to those games I have that will never be ported to Linux (like my EA origin games and Uplay games). Windows 7 pro OEM has a DRM that binds the licence to the mobo.. well.. I can not tie a LEGAL license of Windows 7 to an obsolete technology like the AM3+ or FM2.. I need to tie that license to a more or less "future-proof" mobo, like my actual Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5, powered by an i5 4690k (but I will purchase an i7 4790K in the next days)
By the way, the machine with the Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 5, the i5 4690k and a Zotac GTX 960 2GB eats no more than 230VA from the wall using a generic "500" PSU... I have unexpected resets in the machine powered by the FX 6300 with the same memory modules, same PSU and same video card...
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