AMD Could Regain 30% of Global Desktop CPU Market Share in 4Q18

[cageymaru]

Digitimes is reporting that industry sources are convinced that AMD could rebound to a 30% market share in the 4Q18. This turnaround is based upon help from TSMC and Intel's inability to ship 10nm processors. Speculation is that AMD will switch to TSMC's 7nm process for all GPU's, server and PC processors. AMD's share of the desktop market has increased to 20% in the 3Q18 and manufacturers have ramped up production of devices fitted with AMD processors and shipments of AMD products. It is expected that this will increase to 30% in 4Q18. In addition to this news, AMD is expected to capture 5% of the global x86 server platform market by the end of 2018.

The sources said that AMD has drastically changed its foundry strategy, loosening ties with Globalfoundries and contracting TSMC to fabricate its GPUs, server and PC processors on 7nm process. Desktop and motherboard vendors including Asustek Computer, Micro-Star International (MSI), Gigabyte Technology and ASRock have ramped up production and shipments of devices fitted with AMD processors, driving up the chipmaker's share of the desktop processor market to over 20% in the third quarter. The company is very likely to see the figure further rebound to the level of 30% again.

 

[goodcooper]

slot me firmly into the "i'll see it when i believe it" category

 

[NeoNemesis]

This is what happened when a company becomes overly comfortable in their monopoly and pulls money from R&D to focus on maximizing profit and then gets blindsided by a new product or entrant in the market.

 

[Rahh]

I wish the best for AMD and hope they continue to grow. I would love to see them dethrone Intel for chips. I don't think they'll ever beat NVidia on graphics cards but they still have their place there also for a cheaper card with comparative performance. I do think they have an opportunity to really gain market in the chip business as Intel just keep flopping as of late.

I really think AMD should run some marketing / commercials also as it would really gain them more attention from the mass. IS there even any AMD commercials that have broadcast on television?

 

[dgz]

Could be the usual pump and dump. No way they could take 30% of any* market within 2018.

* come at me

edit: strike that. They could totally sell 30% of something in Q4 alone. though. Maybe that's what the article says. I don't know, I didn't read it. Don't want to get my hopes up

 

[alamox]

how many wafers can AMD produce in TSMC ? certainly not enough to seriously damage intel in both pro and desktop + all the chips they make for consoles, soon we will be back to vega and fury availability, but this time on all AMD portfolio, unless AMD focuses on zen2 only.
anyway i just don't see them producing so many chips to really make a dent.

 

[Twisted Kidney]

It would require a sort of a perfect storm, great production numbers from AMD and more problems for Intel. I don't know, it sounds at least possible but it also sounds like a long shot.

 

[Riccochet]

When you have Cisco and HPE pushing AMD products it's not hard to imagine at all.

 

[LostMF1]

it almost feels like Intel is intentionally steering away from 10nm because there's been no real competition, especially in the x86 market. The demand for their 14nm parts is insane right now and showing no sign of slowing down. I guess we'll see what happens but it would be great to see AMD contend in all categories and get some real competition going.

 

[jardows]

30% isn't that big a jump from 20%, and considering that AMD is quickly gaining traction, I don't doubt it.

I wish the best for AMD and hope they continue to grow. I would love to see them dethrone Intel for chips. I don't think they'll ever beat NVidia on graphics cards

But two or three years ago, wouldn't the same be said of their CPU business? No chance of gaining any significant market share vs. Intel? Same thing could happen, and is just as, if more likely, due to AMD's very competetive position in the mid-range and lower product segment, and the outstanding integrated GPU currently being shipped.

 

[arnemetis]

Last year my server got an upgrade to a 1700x, last month my gf's pc got upgraded to a 2600. When I built my pc in December I went with an 8700k because I need high single thread performance for work. I really hope AMD keeps making progress and gains more ground, competition is a good thing.

 

[SmokeRngs]

it almost feels like Intel is intentionally steering away from 10nm because there's been no real competition, especially in the x86 market. The demand for their 14nm parts is insane right now and showing no sign of slowing down. I guess we'll see what happens but it would be great to see AMD contend in all categories and get some real competition going.

Intel is in deep shit because of the failure of the 10nm process. Plans were made years ago to transition certain products to 10nm which would free up capacity for other products to move to different process nodes as well. That has not happened. 10nm has been a nightmare for Intel as it has been delayed over and over. Multi-year plans have been destroyed due to this issue and it is causing Intel capacity issues. I have no doubt certain products have been moved to smaller nodes over time in anticipation of moves to 10nm for the CPU business. Intel simply can't put out the proper volume of chips due to these mishaps. Add into that all the vulnerabilities the current CPUs have and it's a perfect shitstorm for Intel and the perfect time for AMD to make major strides forward.

I assure you, Intel is not staying away from 10nm by design but by necessity. 10nm isn't working for Intel and so Intel has to find other ways to keep things going which isn't working out nearly as well.

 

[goodcooper]

does vmotion work between AMD and intel cpus yet?

AMD is notoriously weak in the datacenter, and some of the reasons for that are out of their control

 

[Riccochet]

does vmotion work between AMD and intel cpus yet?

AMD is notoriously weak in the datacenter, and some of the reasons for that are out of their control

AFAIK yes, vMotion does work between Intel and AMD EPYC. The new EPYC CPU's are no slouch. You get similar thread performance to Intel's current Xeon's and higher core density at lower cost. When I say current Xeon's I'm talking about the ones you can currently buy, not the smoke and mirrors bullshit they're promoting that hasn't hit the market yet.

Cisco and HPE are heavily investing in EPYC products.

 

[Pieter3dnow]

how many wafers can AMD produce in TSMC ? certainly not enough to seriously damage intel in both pro and desktop + all the chips they make for consoles, soon we will be back to vega and fury availability, but this time on all AMD portfolio, unless AMD focuses on zen2 only.
anyway i just don't see them producing so many chips to really make a dent.

Not everything is using 7nm. For consoles going 7nm might be to expensive. Usually they want a process where the yields are really high.

 

[Brian_B]

30% PC sales I could believe.

I think that's a very different thing than market share though.

 

[alamox]

Not everything is using 7nm. For consoles going 7nm might be to expensive. Usually they want a process where the yields are really high.

ps4/xbone are 16nm from TSMC, new ps5 is 7nm from TSMC, then you add navi/vega , zen/epyc, apu, they just wont have enough wafer allocated, my guess zen and epyc will get most wafers, ps4, apple and pro segment will get vega/navi, then desktop gpus and apus will be relegated to a very small number of wafers, we will barely see these products on market.

 

[Foobario]

This is referring to "desktop" share. So 30% is not a pie in the sky prediction.

Considering that AMD has had over 50% of Amazon, Newegg and other global online retailers sales for two quarters, all this prediction is saying is that OEMs will have to incorporate more Ryzens in their desktop builds due to Intel's self inflicted capacity constraints. The drop off in Intel based machines combined with an uptick in AMD based machines makes this a logical assumption.

Thank you Apple for tricking Intel into using up their 14nm capacity on your ultra low margin modems at the expense of Intel's 50%+ margin desktop sales.

The bad decisions and poor execution on Intel's part are almost comical.

 

[Foobario]

ps4/xbone are 16nm from TSMC, new ps5 is 7nm from TSMC, then you add navi/vega , zen/epyc, apu, they just wont have enough wafer allocated, my guess zen and epyc will get most wafers, ps4, apple and pro segment will get vega/navi, then desktop gpus and apus will be relegated to a very small number of wafers, we will barely see these products on market.

TSMC has another fab coming online in the near future. Qualcomm's loss of 35 million plus modems a year frees up a lot of wafers at TSMC while bringing Intel's fabs to their knees as we are seeing now. Smartphone sales have peaked too. Not to mention console chips are falling and will continue to fall until the refresh in 2020.

TSMC will not be as capacity strained as you think. By 2020 Samsung will be a seasoned active player at 7nm too so they may already be talking with AMD to be a second source provider.

Only AMD and TSMC know what kind of wafer commitments have been agreed upon. We shall all see how this plays out.

 

[DracoDan]

does vmotion work between AMD and intel cpus yet?

Nope, and it's extremely unlikely to ever happen either.

 

[Nobu]

TSMC has another fab coming online in the near future. Qualcomm's loss of 35 million plus modems a year frees up a lot of wafers at TSMC while bringing Intel's fabs to their knees as we are seeing now. Smartphone sales have peaked too. Not to mention console chips are falling and will continue to fall until the refresh in 2020.

TSMC will not be as capacity strained as you think. By 2020 Samsung will be a seasoned active player at 7nm too so they may already be talking with AMD to be a second source provider.

Only AMD and TSMC know what kind of wafer commitments have been agreed upon. We shall all see how this plays out.

On that note, their (AMD's) october earnings call will be quite interesting...though I guess these kinds of details will be more likely announced via other venues. I'm looking forward to it, either way.

 

[Riccochet]

Nope, and it's extremely unlikely to ever happen either.

Not sure what you're talking about but it does work. VM needs to be powered down though. Power down, migrate, power on.

 

[goodcooper]

Not sure what you're talking about but it does work. VM needs to be powered down though. Power down, migrate, power on.

that's not vmotion... basically this will force big clusters to be all AMD or all intel...

if AMD keeps the lead for long enough and intel falters for long enough, it could become an option, but right now compared to the intel offerings, there are very few AMD products out there to make this feasible

 

[{NG}Fidel]

Where are those guys who always say this will never happen?

 

[DooKey]

Where are those guys who always say this will never happen?

They're still right because it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Stimpy88]

AMD, when you have got that 30%, can you turn your attention to the dumpster fire that is your GPU business please?

You need to take it to nGreedia, they are pure bastards that need sorting.

 

[{NG}Fidel]

They're still right because it hasn't happened yet.

You have like a year or so of that logic before the obvious becomes your reality as well.

 

[cjcox]

This would be a true feat... and Intel would definitely come at them with everything they have if true.

I sort of wish these sort of prognostications would not be written.. but rather, we'd wake up one day to a real stat that says "AMD now has 30% of the desktop market".

 

[N4CR]

slot me firmly into the "i'll see it when i believe it" category

You people said that before Ryzen and look what happened. AMD in the past though, yeah, you were justified.
These days it seems like they finally got their shit sorted without Raja and with Lisa.

 

[Rauelius]

Let your engineering department run your technology company = success
Let your marketing department run your technology company = failure

 

[Uvaman2]

Well, they are apparently refreshing the 500 series gpu... So that might make excellent price performance point for them. I think it will be more good news for them .
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/amd-rx-600-rumors/

 

[goodcooper]

You people said that before Ryzen and look what happened. AMD in the past though, yeah, you were justified.
These days it seems like they finally got their shit sorted without Raja and with Lisa.

i never said anything before Ryzen, so i don't know what you're talking about

i'm also not anti-AMD and certainly not pro-Intel, i am just knowledgable enough to know just how entrenched the industry is in intel...

not only that, but this is specifically about Desktop, which is pretty inconsequential these days...

i just don't see any premium offering from any manufacturer of an AMD based machine...

which is sad really, i'd love to buy one

 

[R_Type]

It would require a sort of a perfect storm, great production numbers from AMD and more problems for Intel. I don't know, it sounds at least possible but it also sounds like a long shot.

It's a pretty perfect storm right *now* isn't it

 

[DooKey]

You have like a year or so of that logic before the obvious becomes your reality as well.

Maybe so. Won't hurt my feelings a bit. I have nothing against AMD at all. The more competition the better as far as I'm concerned. I hope 7nm Ryzen is great so I can update my 2700X system.

 

[DooKey]

Snip

These days it seems like they finally got their shit sorted without Raja and with Lisa.

That's all we can hope for.

 

[Burticus]

does vmotion work between AMD and intel cpus yet?

Nah.

Hell at my work we have a hard enough time getting vmotion to work between different VM hardware levels and architectures from the same vendor. EVC "works" (mostly) but you have to stay in the same arch family, set to the lowest common denominator. That means you *potentially* lose out on new hardware features and efficiency, because you're forcing it to work on a lower level compatibility matrix.

Now.... could VMware figure out a way to make it work? Yeah maybe. Also could I be a Chinese jet pilot? Also, maybe.

All that being said, you could have different hardware "datacenters" and keep stuff segregated (that's what my company does... walled gardens). I mean who does cross cluster/datacenter migrations on any kind of real frequency anyway.

If AMD wanted to make a real impact in the VM world, they would devise a firmware/software layer that emulates Intel arch. I don't know what kind of legal hell that would be though.

AFAIK yes, vMotion does work between Intel and AMD EPYC.

You cannot vmotion between different hardware archs. You can power down and cold migrate, then the OS can figure out the right drivers etc and should mostly work. But that's not vmotion. Vmotion by definition is hot and no downtime. The level of caring depends completely on your business model and needs. My work clients pay for 99% uptime and flip shit if stuff goes down even for just a few minutes if it's not a planned event.

 

[Ocellaris]

If AMD pulls off a switch to mainstream 7nm CPUs before Intel, I can see them making huge gains over Intel which can’t even pull off 10nm right now.