Some Thoughts on the Impact of AMD's Layoffs on the Future of AMD GPUs
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 4, 2011 8:18 PM ESTHere's something I'm concerned about. AMD's Carrell Killebrew, part of yesterday's announced layoffs, was a Director of Product Planning for AMD's GPU division. His job, at least as he explained it to me so many times in the past, was to figure out what the next 3 - 5 years of AMD GPUs were going to look like. He's still technically with AMD today, although that will change in the not too distant future.
Carrell is a dedicated guy, he works hard and generally seems to know the right move for AMD in the GPU space. His track record as of late is a good one. The verdict isn't out on AMD's 28nm GPUs, but the last three years of AMD GPU releases have been excellent. They've been competitive and well executed.
When reducing workforce to cut costs, you don't go after your product planners - unless their vision and your vision don't line up. We all know what Carrell wanted for the future of AMD GPUs (as I wrote before, he wanted to deliver a first generation "Holodeck" by 2016), but what does AMD's new CEO want that conflicts with this goal?
Carrell's vision saw the continued growth of the high-end GPU. On November 9th we're supposed to hear more about Rory Read's new strategy for AMD. I am concerned that it may conflict with Carrell's vision. Maybe I'm reading too much into all of this. What do you all think?
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fdfsxcvdcfdh - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
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Shinobisan - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
I hate to say it, as the proud ownder of a 6950 2GB card... but I don't need it anymore.No one will.
The PC is dying.
Windows 8 will use the Metro style interface. Big solid blocks of video crap.
Windows 8 will NOT require any extra computing power.
In fact, it will require LESS.
The game industry is pissing on PCs - giving us console port crap like Crysis 2.
Why bother? Really?
Let's all just go out and by an iPhone and play angry birds and farmville.
Pull up the old rocker, get a hound dog, and stop innovation.
Everyone is working so hard to kill off the PC.
We have no voice.
Wreckage - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
AMD never really seemed to have interest in high end graphics. It seems they have just been riding out a left over ATI design plan (which usually extends 3-5 years). The posted road map and firing of Killebrew confirm this.Glibous - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
I disagree...I think AMD was really banking on the high end discrete GPU market since that's where they can make the most profit...but since the AMD/ATI merger they had to split resources and just could not keep up with Nvidia in the High end market. It was a simple and hard choice, sell for a lower cost or lose substantial market share to Nvidia.I think AMD re-evaluated their approach when they saw the performance of the 8800GTX and realized it's too hard to compete in that space. It's sad that AMD is pretty much fighting a war on two fronts. Intel for CPU and Nvidia for GPU. It's AMD's innovation thats going to keep them in the industry as a strong competitor.
shin0bi272 - Tuesday, November 8, 2011 - link
sounds more to me like the new CEO is just cleaning house of all the "top brass" and could possibly have cut his own company off at the knees. I mean the new ceo used to work for lenovo... aka IBM's now defunct (and sold to a chinese corporation) desktop and laptop division. So you really shouldnt expect a lot of common sense and/or advancement from someone in that position.chrcoluk - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
It does indeed seem the pc is on deaths door, as microsoft, mozilla, amd etc. all seem to be focusing on portable devices now. This is something that appeared to happen suddenly as if they all suddenly changed direction on a whim.I agree its bad for gaming as certian games like starcraft would be aweful on a console, and in addition I use my pc for media, movies, encoding. etc. It has multipl hdd's for tons of storage and so forth, a tiny laptop or tablet or whatever wouldnt cut it, to me they just toys, a novelty.
Even the server market is going the same way as cloud computing is the new fad, which means the hope of enterprise hardware been developed to save the day is also dwindling.
Windows 8 is aweful, but of course I am using it with a mouse etc. whilst its primarily designed for touchscreen portable devices and the pc will be an afterthought secondary use for it. The new xbox interface will be primarily designed for kinect and as such using the gamepad wont be too good to use on it also. Also the browsers IE and firefox with the removal of gui toolbars, buttons etc. whilst not too useful on a pc is all been done to make them better for small mobile screens.
One thing people forget tho is office workers, call centres etc. I cant see companies suddenly migrating to tablets etc. however these companies tend to rarely upgrade and usually use outdated low end stuff anyway.
mbryans - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
Simplify the market into three segments. Maintain high-end GPU market for enthusiasts and gamers, making competitive mainstream GPU for HTPC / desktop, and create an integrated CPU + GPU for mobile / tablet.If AMD can not compete with Intel's processor speed, leave the high-end CPU market, and create just the integrated GPU + CPU and energy saving for personal home server. This is not end of the PC, but evolution of PCs into the early era of cloud computing.