AMD's Next Big Plan for 2018 is Going To Tip The Scales

AMD this year might have dropped the bucket for the GPU market, but that's like the tip of the iceberg compared to how much they've shook Intel regarding desktop, mobile and server CPUs. Ryzen changed everything and some of you of course already can feel shifting tides that is in affect. 2018 is a bigger step-up and there are 3 major product series that AMD is going to release worldwide and hopefully at much wider range of markets than before. Their stock might have tumbled below 12 USD per share, but they're prepping for a bigger battle. You AMD was done with Vega, Ryzen and Adrenalin driver updates? the best is yet to come:




Ryzen 2000 Series - Ryzen was a big step ahead for AMD, but unfortunately it lagged behind Intel reigning crown in single core performances. I mean that is very essential for browsers, expensive graphics cards like 1080 and mostly other apps that depend on faster core performance rather than multiple core throughput. Ryzen+ architecture remedies that problem. In fact, the only key difference from AMD's new Ryzen series will be the fabrication. Of course 12nm from 14nm is not a complete die shrink, but this helps AMD alleviate the issues of clockspeed thresholds as well as lowering power draw and thermals. In the future, they're promising this to follow Intel's "tick-tock" release models.


As specified above in the roadmap, AMD's Ryzen+ AKA Pinnacle Ridge will be a complimentary improvement from previous Zen based CPUs. But later on, what came next after rumors and speculations were these leaks, which specifies that AMD has managed to push beyond 5Ghz in a 12 core CPU! they're already taunting Intel's Coffee Lake series of 6 Core CPUs. I wish most of this were true, they already got the upperhand. Why not overdo the killing blow? But I think while AMD is focusing on this, they also need to focus their energy on the mobile market. With or without APUs, AMD needs to grab that market share Intel stole from them years ago and I believe now is the time better than ever was. As for servers, well let's just say they're slowly reaching out in that market and in due time will hold a bigger market share than they had for the last 2 decades. With Ryzen 2 on the horizon, AMD's also releasing a new series of motherboards all the while maintaining backwards compatibility to their first Ryzen socket chipsets (you're reading this Intel?)




AMD Navi - So Vega was a total washout. I mean it's difficult to pinpoint the problems regarding Vega's presence in the market. Availability issues, big price hikes, big power draw and of course it's not always more powerful than its competitors GPUs being among a few. Worst was it took months for board partners to release their own AIB version of Vega 64 and 56. So our next step will be Navi and apparently AMD is getting eager to release this fast as possible. In fact, AMD is willing to release this on high-end and mid-range corners of the market. The bigger changes that Navi will feature over Vega is complete die shrink. Going from 14nm to 7nm, that is a huge leap for clockspeed overhead and power efficiency, seemingly they've asked TSMC to manufacture the silicon chipsets instead of GlobalFoundries. Now most of the talk regarding Navi so far are rumors and there are yet to have found concrete hints regarding Navi's architecture. Hopefully they release mid tier cards as well, replacing the current AMD Radeon 500 series cards. While AMD has lamented that they will bring A.I programming as a prime feature for the next architecture, they could also make some key improvements on new features available on Vega already. The latter might be a big speculation but I would love for AMD to bring their first 7nm based chipset in the market and changing the ball game against higher power draw and lower clockspeed thresholds. I still believe Vega could have beaten any card had it managed to go beyond 1.7Ghz including a 1080 Ti. Release date speculated to be around 2H 2018, but after Vega's release we were told it was going to be release in August. In due time, hopefully in CES next year January we find out, am eager to see and having my money saved up for the during of the waiting period before getting Navi.




Intel team up with AMD - So Intel and AMD like secretly hated each other for years, laying down lawsuits one after the other. While Intel was also being investigated by the EU commission regarding anti-competitive practices, all the while they were still making buttloads of cash from all corners of the industry. Especially their server markets, till well Nvidia crashed the party and started stealing their thunder with Nvidia's server based GPUs. This in turn have Intel made some kind of a temporary jagged alliance with AMD. Using their embedded SoC(system on a chip) design to put in HBM memory alongside both AMD's GPU and Intel's CPU. Thus the Kaby-Lake G series were born(use google translate on this page). Even though the leak I shared is rough considering memory speed is a bit slower and we have nothing to fully guarantee that its Vega instead of Polaris. Intel has decided to mobilize their dominance on the notebook gaming market of which Nvidia has a vast consumer base on with AMD's help. I still can't figure out why Raja quit AMD and joined Intel while this was going on, sure does look like it's conspicuously linked to some other agendas from AMD themselves. This is big for both notebooks and mini-PCs, yeah not so much for us big guys with our enthusiast PCs(or budget PCs at this point) but competition is paramount, especially against a company like Nvidia whom just released a 3000 USD GPU, just like they did Titan Z more than 3 years ago. I have known plenty of people on my end owning laptop with Nvidia GPUs instead of the other party, so capturing the market share benefits both company. In due time, I think this is going to change everything when they start releasing embedded SoCs much powerful GPUs with faster memory, goodbye expensive 1060s in gaming laptops.


AMD Navi's has speculations up in the air and nothing fully concrete to give us regarding how fast it'll be or what their line-up is, I've heard rumors about Vega 11 based GPUs coming to retails but no announcement regarding it has been made so far. As of now writing this, Ryzen+ is already on production and slated for March 2018 release. Kaby-Lake G series will be coming soon, although its TBD. Further details will probably be revealed in CES next year and maybe E3 considering Intel wants bigger promotion for the series. I want AMD to succeed where they've faltered for the last decade, thanks to poor management and direction from CEOs of the past like Rori Reed and Hector Ruiz after Jerry Sander who was the benevolent co-founder of AMD during its inception. Lisa Su is finally getting things right, after 5 years in the position she has made incredible strides. But I want Radeon Technologies Group to succeed as well, Nvidia is growing to be a far bigger company than they could match up against and the monopoly they have on the market is leaving a bad odor of poor innovations. Especially since Nvidia GPUs haven't made vast performance uplift in each series like they used to after Kepler. Most of my faith on AMD is instilled on just the Kaby-Lake G series and Ryzen 2000 series next year, these products will make a huge blip on the radar of PC market, Navi though I just wish I could believe like I did with Vega but my disappointment afterwards has left me exhausted and so I've decided to play on with a bigger skepticism than ever before but hopefully 2018 changes my mind.