What if AMD went under?

AMD is currently in $2billion worth of debt iirc. If they did go under, or even if they just pulled out of the cpu market to focus on the gpu market (they are doing considerably better with their gpus than with their cpus), what would the market be like? Just Intel (or nVidia) having a monopoly, charging whatever they want? Progress stagnating? Can we count on people wanting more and faster or maybe software improvements needing more power to constantly drive improvements even with a monopoly situation? For example, nVidia would need to continue to improve their gpus even without AMD around because games are still getting harder and harder to run. At least Intel's 2011 line would still need improvements every so often for content creators and the like.

 

Overall, I think it would be a really bad thing for AMD to disappear, and I wish they had more market share in the cpu department (though they would need competitive cpus for that to happen, and right now, they don't really have that for a lot of Intel's offerings).

What do you guys think? Should we pray to the hardware gods that AMD stays competitive or just be indifferent towards it?

 

P.s. I am not saying that I think they will go under. They seem to be stable. I am just wondering about worst case scenarios here.

Could be bought out by a number of current companies and what looks promosing in their server side could hold them up even more. We can only wait until 2016 when AMD/Intel will bring out their new architectures. Either AMD will be greatly competative or they can release sub intel performing parts. Who knows maybe Intel will not be able to bring forth their archetecture. No guarantee of success in either company.

It would hurt. In the days past they have represented a bang for the buck. Now, I am worry. They are so far behind. I am an amd guy for all these years. I honestly cant even recommend an amd platform now unless its a reallly small budget.

I will quite literally stop being able to build good PCs if AMD goes under. I built an FX-6300 based server that cost 1/3 of what a similarly capable Intel system would've cost. AMD is NEEDED in this market.

agreed

 

I loved the six core. So much fun, in the geek sense.

I named my daughter after AMD and she is a smart cookie.  They need to stay around so she can be CEO of the company or something like that one day.

If AMD were to Go under Intel would probably never innovate ever again. Most of the Innovation that Intel has done over the years was in some way shape or form a response to Something AMD has done first.

I don't think that'll happen for now, AMD's current CPU line up performs good enough for PC users that just want to game and do standard PC tasks - internet browsing, Photoshop and other sorts of CPU intensive workloads that the AMD CPUs can do in a decent amount of time. What AMD needs to do is reduce prices on the current CPU line up, to a point where even the entry level users can afford an AMD 8 core processor - if that happens, I might have to buy an AMD based back up PC.

as an FX6350 owner AMD gave me my first real rig. Fantastic chip for the cost.

The OP stated that AMD is doing much better with GPU's than with CPU's, but that's definitely not the case!

AMD is doing well with two things: specialties and console-APU's. They aren't doing all that well with either CPU's or GPU's, and it is to be expected that they will be reducing the profits from their console business also.

Yesterday, they've announced reducing the staff by another 7 %, BUT, a lot of the people that stop working for AMD, don't change jobs. They continue to work for GF or ASIC. AMD is being hollowed out for years, it's nothing but a liability box and a US marketing affiliate. The core of the operations hasn't been in the US for years. The development center for AMD CPU's in Germany, Dresden, for instance, was closed, but not really, it's still there, except it says GF on the building, not AMD.

The thing with AMD is, that the non-US owners want to contain AMD as a US brand with all of the problems related to the US way of doing business. Do not forget that ASIC, the owners of AMD and GF, are three things: Arabs, a country, and filthy rich.

They don't care about dividend per share, they are a freaking government of a country, that doesn't even have an income tax system because it's not necessary...(!)... and they don't agree with certain principles of US trade and way of doing business, and like to distance themselves from it. So AMD has 2 billion in debt... did you also check where it has that debt, and who owns the creditors?

Don't worry about AMD, in two years time, it will be but a brandname and a sales antenna for the North-American market, and that's exactly how the owners have planned it.

Technology wise, ASIC isn't doing that bad at all. The company is - like many other companies - just moving out of the US...

What I meant was that AMD has more market share than nVidia in gpus. It has less market share than Intel in cpus. It would make sense for them to stop putting out new cpus (anyone notice that the FX series hasn't really been updated in years?) and focus more on the gpus. Those are the only two markets that I am talking about becuase those are the only two markets (that I know of) where AMD is the difference between competition and a monopoly (sure Intel has the "gpu market share", but I am not really counting them here as AMD is the only competition for nVidia in gpus).

 

That is what I am getting at. Potential monopolies and a lack of competition.

Honestly I doubt AMD is stupid enough to stop doing the FX chips all together. But who knows, maybe they really think we'll all drink the APU koolaid...I only like APUs in certain cases. The FX chips are actually really great for small business servers and things since they're powerful for virtualization but dirt cheap compared to Intel. If they stop making the FX chips I will just die. I only like APUs in laptops, the FX chips are great for everything else under the shining sun. if SOMEBODY (looking at you ASUS) had enough sense to make a dual socket AM3+ board you could have a dual socket 8 core server for less than $1000. NOBODY can argue with a dual socket 8 core 4ghz server for <$1000. What it comes down to is that AMD is going to have to start listening to what people want. We really should all get together and tweet at them or something to get their attention and show them that, no, they are not allowed to discontinue the FX line :P

If AMD were on the verge of going under someone would buy them up. But if they some how went under it would be bad news for all as both Intel and Nvidia would become a monopoly.

AMD is probably doing fine with their Radeons and APUs + the fact that their technology is a large part of the current consoles. But if they were to somehow die, good lord that would be terrible news for the consumers.

Compared to, say Nvidia, AMD is fairly open (freesync vs gsync) and we need open source/"open'ish' source.

As long as amd don't sell their IP then they have plenty of value, even as a corpse for the vultures to pickover

can you imagine sony buying them? (bad news for MS :D)

Can you imagine microsoft buying them? (bad news for Sony :D)

How about apple, arm, oracle?

Their gcn graphics ip would give all of these companies a competitive edge.

My concern isnt that amd may go under, my concern is that the right company buys them up.

Apple wouldn't be interested - AMD is neither shit nor overpriced so it wouldn't fit the Apple business model

If I had a spare couple of grand I would definitely buy some shares around now

AMD have had problems for years, ever since they decided not to compete with Intel in the performance arena it's been getting worse.  Intel own the laptop space and most of the high end desktop space, the low power space is being eaten up by ARM and Atom (seriously has anyone seen a single Jaguar powered general computing device?).  APU is a great idea but it's hamstrung by poor CPU performance and a memory configuration that just isn't there for graphical processing.

They really need to re-focus on the high end market and let the gains there filter down through the rest of their line up, Intel has done nothing but gain from it for years now.  Without them in the market place I'm afraid we'll return to 90's level price skull fuckery from Intel and Nvidia (although ARM may help to keep Intel under control).

I miss the Athlon XP era AMD...

AMD is good for budget builds, but I get kinda sick that that is pretty much their use. I am hoping that they DO come out with a good monster of a CPU which can give the current gen Intels a run. It is good and all, especially if your doing your first build, but they REALLY need an enthusiast CPU that I could cream over. I've always found AMD to be the cooler company (Not sure why, no Intel hate) but they really need to stop being shit on