This is it. I'm turning in my AMD fanboi badge and gun. I've been screwed with too many times:

- No upgrade for the QuadFX, and I have three of them. Really, it'd have been better to just tell the truth rather than lie about it, AMD. Hey Suzy Pruitt, where the hell is my non-Phenom uprade? Why is ASUS saying that there won't be one, ever?

- No widespread BIOS compatibility for Phenoms, so my AM2 socket machine is end-of-roaded.

- Phenom just generally sucks, it seems.

Now this. Forget it. Intel for me for quite a while. Bye, AMD, it was fun.

AMD makes a statement:

“Our OEM customers are placing more priority on our energy-efficient and triple-core processors, where the volumes and ability to differentiate products take precedence over the more prestigious, but much lower volume, higher performance quad-core products,” AMD concluded.

http://www.semiconductor.net/article/CA6522563.html

AMD is clearly going after the big OEM's first.

I suppose that on the bright side, it means that current batch of Conroe-based units will have a longer product lifespan.

It is because Intel has very little reason to push out Nehalem dynasty into the fray if the upcoming mainstream Penyrn-units can outrun K10s by a healthily margin.

I will always be an AMD fan, I have been since I bought a 486 66mhz cpu in the way back days. AMD will get back on course here shortly they have had times like this before and done just fine. I look at the situation alot like I do sports, sometimes my teams win and sometimes they dont. A good season turns into a dynasty then a few bad years come and you just realize thats they way things are.

Who would have ever thought AMD would challenge Intel in the first place but they did and they beat them for quite a few years. Now its AMDs turn to take their lumps but I can bet you it wont be forever and some of you who are jumping ship will be back.

The TLB error isnt that big of a deal it rarely effects anyone, if some of you are so worried about errors occuring why are you running vista? As my mom has always said "this to shall pass" AMD will be fine and it might even join with IBM...how delicious would that be?

This is just more anecdotal evidence that says AMD's 65nm process is a bust. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the whole TLB errata issue was purposely overblown by AMD so they could buy themselves some time to tweak a little more out of the process so that power issues would hopefully yield higher binned parts in greater quantity. The excuse that customers want low clocked/low powered parts is just smoke and mirrors and excuses. Of course there's a market for higher performing parts, Intel completely owns it, and now AMD is tacitly conceding that market to them since they know they would not be competitive on power in higher clocked parts (140W TDP for the 9900, ouch).

Frankly, focusing on the low-end (high volume) is foolish. They don't yet have the cost model or the economy of scales to generate profit in the low end, they need to raise ASP's and get premium priced products in the market. There's a direct correlation to 2003-04 when their midrange parts started at $300+ with their profitability. When you have to sell your "best" stuff in the bargain bin, you're never going to do well.

I realize this is just pure out and out dreaming on my part, but if they somehow put 939 pins on one of those Phenom processors, I'd gladly take an early stepping (B2?) off their hands. As I'm sure many others would.

#3: I'm sorry to have to say this, but better that you get clued in: you're an idiot.

Yeah, I guess AMD not doing what they said they'd do is all my fault, and I guess I should be just be fine and buy Intel.

Thanks for the constructive comment.

The NVidia/AMD combo used to be de riguer here at TR when I joined...they seemed a solid pair.
Its a shame Intel didn't pick up ATI.They would have had a much better run over the last year or so with Intel's recources behind them.
Add to that NVidia buying AMD and there would have been two powerhouse graphics/processor companies instead of the below par combination we see now with AMD/ATI.

3850 is good. Have a 256 version. It 'jumps' a bit when moving in a big area - probably to load textures, but performance is great. Can't believe I actually lived without AA.

The phenom name is tainted. Move on, AMD.

AMD is conceding the high end quad core market to Intel, which makes sense. To make money, AMD needs to differentiate its products from its competitor. In this case it means going for the low speed low power OEM market. People really shouldn't be surprised by this move as AMD has been forced into it before.

In terms of their tech, AMD is struggling to produce quads with adequate performance. When they try to boost the speed of the K10 memory controller above 2GHz it draws too much power and gets too hot. So if AMD can undervolt their 2.4GHz processors and sell them as energy efficient models, then that's a way of turning their lemons into lemonade.

As others have noted, AMD tried to do too much at one time when they did Barcelona: 65nm, quad core, K10, new power saving circuits, and new MC. As with the ATI merger, it will take time for AMD to digest Barcelona and really get it running.

I'm still an AMD fan, but I know they'll be limping along for a while longer. Hopefully they've directed all their resources at making 45nm a hit.

Just a note - when you click on a persons name, the # of posts appears not to be accurate. I clicked on my own name and it shows one post only.

I've heard that the erratum is limited to virtualization can anyone confirm or deni?

http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/amd_phenom/

"What does all of this have to do with Erratum 298 or the bug it describes? The answer is very simple: Only in situations where hardware virtualization is used and there is heavy load on the CPU can there be a race condition where the wrong TLB data may be written to the L3 cache before being updated in the L2 cache."

if thats the case I'm just going to get a cheap quad core and screw virtualization.

AMD has totally loused up with the Barcelona/Phenom introduction. Not only with the TLB problem itself , but with their directives to the motherboard manufacturers... enable the TLB fix by default AND not allow it to have a bypass switch in the BIOS user-settings. So, how long are we going to wait for motherboards to be shipped with BIOS versions that remove this kludge ?? How long to wait before wholesalers and retailers turn over their stocks of boards with the kludge BIOS? User-updates of a motherboard BIOS is still a risky exercise - especially since it would probably have been completely unnecessary if a user-accesible bypass BIOS setting was available. Of course, assuming that the board manufacturer actually gets around to issuing a BIOS with the TLB-kludge removed....

Compounding this lousy situation is the abysmal compatibility of Phenom quads with existing AM2 motherboards, some of which will end up never having quad-compatible updates... regardless of the TLB problem..., either because of some physical design considerations (e.g: weak power-regulators) or fading BIOS support. See:-

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/12/26/phenom_motherboards/

The ATi diversion of focus and resources has been and expensive and a potentially fatal exercise for AMD. Dave Orton and other past-ATi principals must be laughing all the way to the bank. AMD overpaid at least $1billion for an under-performing company.... and borrowed heavily to do so....

Jeez, they still can't ship their next chip? Heads need to roll.

Well I have been a Intel man for about two years anyway. I use to be AMD all the way. But when Intel had the price war to try to get back at AMD, I went with the cheaper price. So now the new core had came out and Intel on top again. So if times are right again AMD will hit top again. They just need some smarter engineers to come up with something fast and reliable that you don’t have to buy another motherboard to make it work.
O and me as CEO. I would take a pay cut also.

I've added a single sentence to the end of the story to reflect the news about tri-core and EE parts being based on the B2 stepping.

Pooh baby comes to mind. Buy early get screwed.