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New AMD EPYC-based Compute Engine family, now in beta

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343 points cvallejo | 2 comments | 18 Feb 20 16:31 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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tempsy ◴[18 Feb 20 18:26 UTC] No.22358654[source]▶
AMD's stock is wild. It was around $2 just a few years ago and has been on a non-stop trend up to almost $60 today.
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sdesol ◴[18 Feb 20 18:53 UTC] No.22358979[source]▶
They really are doing something disruptive. I can't quite remember if this is correct (it has been a while since I last studied business), but in business there is a "blue ocean strategy". The basic premise is, if you can provide a product for half the price, with the twice the value, you will destroy the incumbent.

What AMD is doing is really insane in my opinion. I'm not sure if they are pricing their processors low on purpose and/or if they have found a way to manufacture cheaper and/or Intel was screwing consumers with their pricing since they were so dominate.

No matter what, AMD is able to provide something that is measurably better and significantly cheaper than the incumbent, and if the blue ocean strategy holds, they should become the new incumbent in the near future.

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1. wyxuan ◴[18 Feb 20 19:12 UTC] No.22359223[source]▶
Two problems is production capacity and data center, since AMD is competing against Apple for production by tsmc. on the point about data centers, Amd narrowly got on the train here. Semiconductors are a very cyclical industry and since the end of the business cycle is coming in Amd is in for a rough time. There's room for growth, but arguably the stock is priced in
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2. dragontamer ◴[18 Feb 20 19:39 UTC] No.22359541[source]▶
The opposite.

AMD spent less money on TSMC's research. Apple has been bankrolling TSMC to get the latest and greatest process tech.

AMD reached 7nm not because AMD put the R&D research into it... but because they can ride on the coattails of Apple and TSMC's investments.

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TSMC and Apple simultaneously benefit: TSMC can spread the risk of the 7nm process to more companies. Apple still gets first-dibs on the technology (but they only need ~6months worth of factory time to build all the chips they need).

Its more surprising that Intel managed to stay ahead of TSMC / Apple for so long. The economics are kind of against Intel here. The more people working together on process tech, the more efficient the results get.