The AMD Execution Thread [2007 - 2017]

Don't know if this has been posted, but the new Dell dimension desktops are now loaded with 2400's and 2600's.

 

I agree with Geo here obviously - ATI is very likely to gain more unit share in desktops in Q3. Now, this might be slightly countered by NVIDIA gaining share in notebooks, but that market isn't enough to compensate. So overall ATI's share should go up too, I'm sure - the question is how much.

Another point that could be quite interesting is revenue share in that period. You would expect AMD to be very strong with OEMs, and NVIDIA to be stronger in the channel; furthermore, even excluding the R600 which will presumably be quite low-volume, ATI's line-up doesn't go as high in terms of pricing. Both of these factors should indicate that NVIDIA's ASPs/unit will remain significantly higher - but once again, the question is how much.

EDIT: If NVIDIA loses share in the entry-level part of the market, I will be very curious to see how they spin that! My guess is that they'll brag about increasing margins instead, heh. Of course, what matters at the end of the day is gross profit, not gross margins, so that'd be kind of a ridiculous claim anyway.

 

Which models exactly, considering Dell has phased out the Dimension brand name.

 

Oh, I would agree that "The NVIDIA Financial Despair & Execution Gloom Thread" would be entirely premature!

 

They haven't phased it out in all countries (for example, dell.de still has one Dimension model). However, in all countries I checked (US, FR, BE, DE) I couldn't find a single RV6xx GPU in any DELL desktop whatsoever. Maybe I'm not looking right, but then I'd love a link/source for the original claim...

 

Optiplex. . . which interestingly enough is their big business box. 740 model is an example.

 

errr... My bad, it's Optiplex, not the dimensions.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2700&Itemid=34

 

Ahh, business desktops. That's interesting - ATI has always been quite strong there though AFAIK. I'll admit not to even be too sure what a GPU is good for there - well, except video of course. So that and price might be ATI's selling point in that market, and it would certainly make it a worthy win for them.

 

Q3 or even Q4 is going to be really intresting IMHO.

Ati has landed on the iMac's, and the upcomming Dell optiplex modals.

Acer has always had a nice relationship with ATi or AMD for that matter. It will be intresting on what happens to Gateways future line up.

 

Geo - I don't dispute that ATI will gain market share. Obviously not having a part for much of Q2 is a problem. I just think that there have been some alarmist articles out there - say by Charlie from the Inq who has an NVIDIA vendetta - they may or may not reflect what is really going on. So to say a major shift may be coming may be extreme.

Q1 and Q2 might have been anomalies, but I am willing to bet that year-over-year in 3Q NVIDIA will have picked up share in the low end.

 

Guess what day today is?

 

What should we expect for an improvement in the graphics division?

Even if revenues doubled, graphics will still likely be eclipsed by the losses of the CPU division.

AMD's gotten back retail share, but with the price cuts and the delay of the 10h family, there isn't much to indicate AMD will make enough to dig out of a $600 million hole.

 

Well presumably, ATI gaining share helps AMD a bit by giving them more bundling power. That is, after all, what the pre-Fusion part of the acquisition was claimed to be all about...

 

But is that trend still in the future?

Optiplex has one variant that uses A64s, and the Apple win has RV6xx chips going where AMD's CPUs cannot follow.

Can we count on an AMD financial turnaround in a 1-2 quarter timeframe based on better bundling?

 

For the entire company? Not hardly. Not when the hole is $600M/quarter deep!

 

What's bundling power if your volumes are low and your costs are high relative to the competition?

Ati can't even play in the Intel integrated market. The retail/consumer portion of the Intel integrated may be worth as much as the total discrete market.

 

One step at a time. You can't climb out of a hole overnight. Even if you did come out with a miracle product.

It would be enough to at least stop the hole from getting bigger.

As for market share not getting them out of the 600 million USD hole, true enough. However, it's a good sign to investors and creditors that the company is heading in the right direction.

If the ATI division manages to do well even with all the negative publicity they've been getting since R600 launched (at least with enthusiasts) then that's quite an accomplishment.

Now if they can at least get competitive with Intel in the consumer market with Barcelona, not necessarily beat them, that would be a good sign also. They are still quite competitive and desirable in the server market due to performance/watt for a full system. While Xeon's based on Core2 are lower power with higher performance, the associated chipset and memory (FB-DIMMs) power requirements are significantly higher than competeing Opteron system, which is where the AMD systems still command the performance/watt crown in many server roles.

Now, if Barcelona can improve upon that... And if it can be competitive with Core2 on the desktop...

A lot of big IFs.

Oh, and WRT ATI winning a lot of OEM deals in business computers. I'd imagine this probably has to do with the lower power consumption and still over-all better (more stable) Vista drivers. There could also be price incentives involved. ATI/AMD has generally shown in the past they are much more willing to lower their margins than Nvidia is.

Regards,
SB

 

Won't you do the usual complain that there was no barcelona in august?

 

Meh, still Q3. Another week and a half isn't so bad, given the 6 month delay Barcy has already experienced.

 

AMD gains more share from Intel in China (on top of what, 66% of desktop share in US?)

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=42185