Anandtech's poll that never was, regarding who controls Carrizo's User Experience

[Deleted member 13524]

The article in question (great read BTW):
http://anandtech.com/show/10000/who-controls-user-experience-amd-carrizo-thoroughly-tested-x4

And the poll in question:

If we had a poll system for our articles I would stick one in here – who is at fault? Is it AMD for simplifying the design, causing high end products to be put in cheaper designed platforms? Is it the OEM, asking for an easier solution to design, or for trying to gain sales in a race to the bottom? Or is it the end user for asking for a lower price, not willing to pay for that $30 upgrade, or being price constrained in the first place?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

BTW, I'm just going to shamelessly paste what I wrote in that article's comments:

As for the "poll" about who's to blame, IMHO it is:

1 - AMD for letting OEMs place Carrizo in designs with terrible panels and single-channel solutions. It's just not good for the brand. "You can't put a Carrizo with single-channel cheap RAM because that's not how it was designed. You want to build bottom-of-the-barrel laptop? We have Carrizo-L for you."
I'm pretty sure Intel has this conversation regarding Core M and Atom/Pentium/Celeron solutions. I know AMD is in a worse solution to negotiate, but downplaying Carrizo like this isn't good for anyone but Intel.
In the end, what AMD needs is a guy who can properly sell their product. Someone who convince the OEMs that good SoCs need to be paired with decent everything-else.
$500 is plenty for a 12/13" IPS/VA screen (even if it's 720/800p), 128GB SSD and 4+4GB DDR3L. Why not pull a Microsoft's Surface and build a decent SKU for that price range so that other OEMs can follow? Contract one OEM to make the device they envisioned, sell it and see all others following suit.

2 - OEMs for apparently not having this ONE guy who calls the shots and knows that selling a crappy system automatically means losing customers. And this ONE other guy (or the same) for not knowing that constantly favoring Intel with their solutions is bound to make the whole company's life miserable if Intel's only competitor kicks the bucket. The consumer isn't meant to know these things, but the OEMs certainly are.
It's 2016. We're way past the age of tricking the customer to buy a terrible user experience through big numbers (like "1TB drive woot"). He/She will feel like the money just wasn't and next time will buy a mac.
Want a $300-400 price point? Get a Carrizo-L with a 128GB SSD and a 720p IPS panel. Want $500-700 Price point? Get a Carrizo with dual-channel, 256GB SSD and 900p/1080p IPS screen.

 

[Alexko]

I really don't think AMD is in a position to tell OEMs anything they don't want to hear. If they want to buy something from AMD, whatever it is and whatever they intend to do with it, AMD's only reasonable answer at this point is "great, thanks!".

Things might be different with Zen, and perhaps AMD will have to introduce a new brand with it to distance Zen from their current lineup's image, but that's a different story.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I really don't think AMD is in a position to tell OEMs anything they don't want to hear. If they want to buy something from AMD, whatever it is and whatever they intend to do with it, AMD's only reasonable answer at this point is "great, thanks!".

If the OEMs think they're entitled to that position then there's a lot of collective stupidity IMO. They need AMD as much as AMD needs them, otherwise they risk having to pay $300 for the next 80mm^2 Atoms and $500 for the next lower binned Core i3.

 

[silent_guy]

They need AMD as much as AMD needs them, ...

I think that's the part where most people would disagree.

OEMs think that the sales volume for a high-end Carrizo product wouldn't warrant the expense of making one.

It's pointless to push on a string.

 

[zed]

otherwise they risk having to pay $300 for the next 80mm^2 Atoms

or spend < $30 for a fanless ARM chip

 

[Deleted member 13524]

or spend < $30 for a fanless ARM chip

And why haven't they then?
Good luck getting Windows with legacy support running on that...

 

[swaaye]

HP tried Slatebook. One model was 14". ASUS has those Transformer netbooks. Etc. The problem is Android sucks as a computer and the OEM has to develop OS updates themselves which is involved.

 

[lanek]

HP tried Slatebook. I'm sure there are more. The problem is Android sucks as a computer.

Every mobile OS suck for computer ... They are not done for that.. they are good for smartphones, and tablet for media and internet browsing, but too much limited for computer.

 

[swaaye]

Every mobile OS suck for computer ... They are not done for that.. they are good for smartphones, and tablet for media and internet browsing, but too much limited for computer.

I think the OEMs were banking on Android being desirable because it's familiar.

 

[Alexko]

And why haven't they then?
Good luck getting Windows with legacy support running on that...

These things take time. Single-threaded performance on ARM cores remains a little low, and the software stack remains a little thin, but Chromebooks are selling very well, apparently:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/npd-chromebooks-outsell-windows-laptops/

My guess is that if you own a Chromebook are you're looking to upgrade to a newer one, you don't care too much whether its CPU is based on x86-64 or ARMv8 as long as it performs well.

Obviously, some people are going to need support for legacy x86 software and as long as that remains true, they'll stick to PCs.

 

[swaaye]

I feel like I should get a Chromebook to try out. How has the long term support for them been? Do they get OS updates?

 

[CarstenS]

If the OEMs think they're entitled to that position then there's a lot of collective stupidity IMO. They need AMD as much as AMD needs them, otherwise they risk having to pay $300 for the next 80mm^2 Atoms and $500 for the next lower binned Core i3.

As much as i hate being the devil's advocate, but: Why would they? If OEM A has no option other than choosing intel, so has OEM B. If Intel chooses to charge them an arm and a leg even for entry level chips, they will add that pricing to their MSRPs. If volume goes down, Intel might adjust their pricing. if it hurts too much. If not, market rules.

 

[Razor1]

yep in a saturated mature market even when a monopoly exists there is still an equalization of supply and demand vs. price.

Granted competition is always better as it will drive prices down. But there is always a limit to pricing structures in both a monopoly and duopoly.

 

[swaaye]

Also, I don't understand why this is a new topic. AMD has been in this situation since about 2007.

 

[RedVi]

I think some of the problem lies with marketing traditions and continued focus. With PC's the CPU has been at the forefront of marketing information for decades. The fact is that for the majority of users now it just isn't all that important anymore. Unless they have productivity uses where the program actually brings up a loading screen that isn't tied to a)hard drive speed or b) internet speed then most modern CPU's will be good enough for the majority of users.

What matters for general every day performance? That the PC has a half-decent SSD and enough RAM.

What makes a better user experience outside of performance? A decent screen and input devices, battery life and hardware that is efficient and sufficiently portable for the users needs.

Outside of slightly improved efficiency there should be no need for a general user to go with Intel if an AMD option were offered in an device that was otherwise specced identically. The reality though is that this is how it has been marketed for decades; if you want performance get the best processor intel is offering. The new reality should be: either pay $700 for a laptop with an i7 and slow HDD or pay the same for an i3/AMD with an SSD. Most consumers wouldn't see a smaller hard drive as an upgrade because of how they are marketed currently.

I recently upgraded an i7 Sandybridge laptop for a colleague that had 4GB RAM from a 750GB HDD to a 250GB SSD and turned the old HDD into an external USB3 HDD. Night and day difference just with the SSD. I understand that this laptop is from another era, but it's still indicative of what most are buying today and what the market generally offers. Unless you're doing video transcoding or 3D rendering, forgo the i7 and spend the money saved on an SSD. Yet when trying to shop for laptops for people this option is very rare, and places like dell's webstore offer no actual hardware customisation these days (at least in my country).

To me the problem is that laptops are still advertised with the CPU up front and centre. Surely Intel still have a large sway on this, compunded with tradition persevering from a time when it actually mattered a lot more. I'd like to see a switch in focus to advertising SSD's as the major selling point, along with screen and input devices, but while Intel are in some of those markets, they don't have a monopoly on them. So why would they, with their unquestionable power over the retail and OEM PC market ever shift the focus from what they can make the most money from?

 

[I.S.T.]

Doing some research, and there doesn't seem to be much data about the Excavator core in Carrizo... What are the changes outside of the Power/Heat related stuff? The power/heat stuff is easy to find info on.

 

[xpea]

well missing an important answer in the poll: AMD for offering slowdozer since ages
If the green team has a potent x86 core, the situation will be a bit different. When their fastest product can barely match the slowest i3, don't be surprised of the consequence...

 

[Exophase]

Doing some research, and there doesn't seem to be much data about the Excavator core in Carrizo... What are the changes outside of the Power/Heat related stuff? The power/heat stuff is easy to find info on.

As far as I can find AMD hasn't said a lot, maybe because they haven't really done a lot. There's some information here:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9319/...leap-of-efficiency-and-architecture-updates/4

The biggest change is the increase to 32KB L1 dcache + 8 way set associativity (but the L2 cache has been halved)

 

[I.S.T.]

Why would they reduce the L2 size? Die size/transistor count reasons?