back to article AMD CEO Su: We like GPU crypto-miners but gamers are first priority

AMD CEO Lisa Su was in ebullient form on Wednesday when her company reported better-than-expected growth in the first quarter of 2018, and forecast a strong year for the chip design firm. "This is our third straight quarter of revenue growth," she told financial analysts on a conference call. "Our strong first quarter …

  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Can I see some b*** motherboards

    So where do we buy all that stuff?

    When I search for motherboards, especially mITX form factor I still have a choice of Intel, Intel or Intel with the Intel P.O.S. IGP graphics.

    I would like to do a refresh around the house, however there is nothing to be bought - neither mITX boards, nor small "shuttle style" all in-ones you can bolt on to the back of a VESA monitor.

    Nowdays - crickets...

    So if they are actually ramping revenue where the hell it is coming from? It is definitely not the retail/component channel - that is nearly empty at present.

    1. david bates

      Re: Can I see some b*** motherboards

      Amazon has AMD miniITX mobos - I just bought one with a Trinity chip to replace the crappy Atom one that lost its ethernet port and couldn't sustain an ethernet USB connection without locking up.

    2. HamsterNet

      Re: Can I see some b*** motherboards

      What you on about,

      Ryzen ITX has been out for ages, both b350 and X370 chipsets, I have the rather nice Asrock X370 gaming - to which I have been very nicely surprised at how far Asrock has come, certainly has the best bios I have ever seen on it, runs a 1600x at 4GHz 16gb 3200mhz RAM just dandy.

      They are for sale on Overclockers, Scan, Ebuyer, CCLonline and lots more. Have you heard of Google, apparently you can find stuff with it?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Re: Can I see some b*** motherboards

      There's little little website called Amazon.

      Bit of a new comer, otherwise there's this other local website called eBay.

      Not sure if available in your region.

    4. phuzz Silver badge

      Re: Can I see some b*** motherboards

      "Intel with the Intel P.O.S. IGP graphics"

      Intel are now using AMD Vega graphics in some of their chips. For example.

  2. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Good for AMD, good for all of us

    Glad to see AMD raking it in and provisioning for the future.

    We all need a strong competitor to Intel, so as to keep everyone on their toes and prices fair.

    And we need AMD to be able to push out a new architecture every now and then, to keep innovation from being dicatated by a single company.

    AMD was first to have a Ghz processor, and that pushed Intel hard at the time. We need AMD to renew the experience in some way.

    So good on AMD. Keep going.

    1. Dave K

      Re: Good for AMD, good for all of us

      Fully agree. Intel have rested on their laurels a bit too much lately, good competition means better performance and lower prices, so is a win-win situation regardless of whether you buy Intel or AMD.

      Personally I moved back to an AMD Ryzen system late last year after replacing my ageing Core i5. Been very happy indeed with the system so far, Ryzen is a very nice chip!

  3. David Webb

    That may cause price and revenue wobbles because some gamers will snap up the cheap secondhand cards

    That's actually not an issue, demand far outstrips supply so we're in the weird position where second hand cards are selling for more than MSRP. The actual issue is because demand is so high (because of miners) cards are selling for way over their MSRP.

    1. MJB7

      Re: "demand far outstrips supply"

      Yes, everything in the garden is rosy **at the moment** (for vendors). However, there will come a time when the cost of the electricity to mine coins is worth less than the mined coins. At this point, rational miners will stop using their GPU rigs and sell them.

      The real problem for the likes of AMD is that this point probably won't be reached gradually depending on exactly how much each miner is paying for electricity; it is much more likely to occur because of a crash in the alt-coin market. Then all of the miners will go bust, and all the administrators will be trying to sell their GPUs as quickly as possible (before the other administrators do the same and depress the price further), and the price of GPUs will drop through the floor. I can't wait.

      What makes it worse is that it doesn't *much* matter if AMD have concentrated on selling to gamers; if the market is flooded with cheap secondhand nVidia boards, AMD sales will still crash (there are some AMD loyalist who would never touch nVidia - but not enough).

      1. TrumpSlurp the Troll
        Angel

        Re: "demand far outstrips supply"

        From your lips to $Deity's ears.

        The cost of even the lowest order graphics cards is ridiculous at the moment. Not helped by the inflated cost of RAM at the moment.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "demand far outstrips supply"

        At this point, rational miners will stop using their GPU rigs and sell them.

        Given the dubious longevity of any intensively used GPU, who in their right mind would want an ex-mining unit? I agree with your forecast of a crash, and owners looking to sell, I'm simply unconvinced that there would be much demand from gamers. Maybe a few AI companies and big modelling simulators would want to hoover them up, treating them as short life assets anyway, but even then, what's the size of the mining firms, and how "standardised" would the secondhand kit be?

        For gamers, the pace of innovation and model refresh in GPUs means that the administrators would be picking up the pieces trying to sell models that would be a year or more out of date. With brand new GPU prices likely to reset by around 30% without the mining market, where's the value case for buying an out of date, heavily used GPU with no warranty?

        For me, the big thing is that AMD need to be careful to make sure they don't build expensive capacity and a fat overhead base purely on the mining and blockchain bandwagon, given that it could all end so suddenly.

        1. Gordon 10

          Re: "demand far outstrips supply"

          Also the timing of the crash will heavily influence GPU's reaching the market in a torrent or a (comparative trickle) - if most miners have moved to ASICs and FPGA's before the crash happens there will only be a small impact on the GPU market.

          Also correction/addendum to the original post - the actual driver is not the cost of electricity but the cost per coin per watt. IE if more efficient mining hardware keeps the cost per coin per watt dropping ahead any long term downward fluctuations in the coin price everyone stays happy.

          1. David Webb

            Re: "demand far outstrips supply"

            Cost of electricity is taken into account by miners, at least the big ones, they will try to set up their farms in areas with dirt cheap electricity (i.e. Iceland) where the cost of power is rather low.

            Can't remember if it was this site or another (probably this one) but someone mentioned a town or city which because of it's location has really cheap electricity up to a specific amount, it then goes through the roof, miners set up there and gobble up the cheap electricity. I think the article was about a town banning miners? Can't quite recall.

            The situation with cards though is really silly, miners have gone out and bought a metric shit load (not imperial) of cards, they thrash the hell out of them and because of current pricing can then sell the cards on for more than they paid for them in the first place. I think it's more expensive to by my current card which is a few years old than it was to buy it when it was new.

            1. Charles 9

              Re: "demand far outstrips supply"

              I think El Reg itself covered something of the like. It was in China. People were bypassing meters to snap up cheap or free power.

  4. Frenchie Lad

    Grammar

    "Su also said that the first company's first 7nm FinFET chips will be shipping this year,"

    It would be nice to see some professional proof reading before publishing. This is the second error in such a short article and I find it hard to believe that Su said first when referring presumably to AMD or was it Intel she was referring to?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Grammar

      It would be nice to see some professional proof reading before publishing.

      There's nothing to stop you setting up your own tech wbesite that's free to readers, has a small but loyal community, but is differentiated on the professional proof reading that you'll be paying for.

      1. croky

        Re: Grammar

        Gotta love the every time fallacious "If you don't like it, do it yourself" argument lol. Pure demagoguery that just hinders every kind of criticism ...

    2. Gordon 10
      Headmaster

      Re: Grammar

      There is a correction button for Grammar pedants. If you were motivated enough to post about you could have been motivated enough to use it.

    3. DNTP

      Re: Grammar

      Please correct the run-on sentence that concludes your comment, by dividing it into two sentences or structuring it with appropriate punctuation. The esteemed company found on these forums shouldn't have to whether such shabby commentating.

      1. jonathan keith

        Re: Grammar

        Psst... in this case it's "weather".

        1. DNTP

          Re: whether/weather

          that's the joke...

  5. Nimby
    FAIL

    Our first priority is to gamers

    What a nice sentiment. It's a shame that it means absolutely nothing.

    "that’s through OEM and system integrators and key e-tailers"

    And where exactly does Su seem to think that the miners shop at?

    And what exactly is AMD doing to keep prices reasonable for gamers?

    I generally applaud AMD, but we all know at the end of the day the money is what matters, not the hand that gave it up. Which is as business should be. But don't lie about it; just admit it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Our first priority is to gamers

      And what exactly is AMD doing to keep prices reasonable for gamers?

      Speaking as a causal gamer, hopefully nothing. AMD have been through some very lean times, the consequences of which have been Intel growing even more complacent. The only way AMD will survive and choose to reinvest in new products is by making a good healthy profit.

      As gamers we just have to accept that somebody else has come up with a use for GPUs, and that's tilted the market in favour of the manufacturers.

  6. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Coat

    Lisa Su

    It was hard to recognize her outside of the Formula 1 paddock...

  7. Excellentsword

    What's the AMD equivalent of a 1080 Ti and does it cost less than bloody EIGHT HUNDRED POUNDS?!

  8. Oh Homer
    WTF?

    "cheap secondhand cards"?

    Where?

    Take a look on eBay. Second hand GPU prices are actually higher than retail.

    The second hand GPU market is absolutely insane.

    1. Sgt_Oddball

      Re: "cheap secondhand cards"?

      Yep... I can sell my 1060 for £40 more than I paid for it easy.... just wouldn't put much hope in finding a replacement for good money anytime soon.

  9. JDX Gold badge

    Is a mining rig still worthwhile?

    I'm curious about BitCoins and mining but only cursorily so and there's so much nonsense and so many scams out there. Reputable Reg friends, is it in any way worthwhile to buy a PC and stick it in the cellar 24/7 other than for heating my house slightly?

    1. Charles 9

      Re: Is a mining rig still worthwhile?

      Well, certainly not for Bitcoin. That's entirely the realm of ASIC farms these days. Plus the overhead's a killer. Many other e-currencies also tend to get dominated quickly by mining farms as well unless you get in very early. If you want my advice, I wouldn't jump in without testing the waters, so to speak.

    2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

      Re: Is a mining rig still worthwhile?

      Given that all such mining is basically a pyramid scam, I feel bound to point out that if you have to ask such a question then you are probably coming too late to the party.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like