Who Controls the User Experience? AMD’s Carrizo Thoroughly Tested
by Ian Cutress on February 4, 2016 8:00 AM ESTThe ‘Who Wants AMD In A Laptop?’ Problem
AnandTech readers and editors have both recognized the concerns that OEMs have when using AMD products. Disregarding specific details of support provided to the device manufacturers, few of them feel the need to develop high end designs around AMD silicon due to both previously poor performance and equally poor end-user sentiment. Unfortunately for AMD, this is a somewhat deep pit to dig themselves out of, and their situation isn't helped by now skeptical OEMs. As a result, even when AMD has new designs ready for release, prominent users and OEMs alike remain reserved until independent or internal confirmation of AMD's latest claims. While the major OEMs, such as Dell, HP, Lenovo and ASUS will happily produce several models to fill the gap and maintain relationships with AMD, none of them will actively market a high-profile AMD based device due to the scope of previous AMD silicon and public expectation. If a mid-to-high end device is put in play, numbers are limited, distribution is narrow and advertising is minimal.
This was perhaps most poignant when discussing Carrizo with other media at the recent Tech Day. Other media expressed concern about the low number of laptops with AMD’s processors, noting that they are few and far between. One website owner even mentioned, anecdotally, that in his forum there is a specific section dedicated to AMD notebook owners or to-be-owners, where they track the latest models and attempt to find where it is in stock. As a result, when the members of that forum were looking for certain devices, they would have to collaborate to purchase and ship them across regional boundaries due to the limited distribution or merely the lack of access, even in North America and Europe.
Meanwhile recent comments about Carrizo from our own readers was quite telling - some associate AMD with bargain basement devices, often fitted with low grade panels at low resolutions/poor color reproducibility or poor industrial design that fails within a couple of years of use due to thermal cycling, battery degradation or device design concerns. This condemnation of previous devices was somewhat universal, to the point where individual end users are noting how few OEMs are even taking up the mantle with AMD products. Searching in a brick and mortar shop shows a similar story - for every 10 or 20 Intel machines, they may only be a single AMD model, and that the model is a low-end budget laptop.
Despite this, OEMs should take care when deciding their future design profile. One comment from the launch of Carrizo was particularly telling - 'I would buy a Dell XPS13-esque machine with this', where the XPS13 is a halo OEM design for Intel’s Broadwell platform that received excellent reviews both for design and aesthetics. The comments on the news of Carrizo, after filtering the obvious fans of both Intel and AMD, were positive based on the information provided by AMD. However a small set of users is never sufficient to trigger OEM interest, especially when the comments of those users are based on unverified performance claims and the lack of independent testing. When an OEM looks into creating a halo type device such as the XPS13, they are reliant on both the processor manufacturer in providing an ample supply of chips with the performance they need, as well as the client market's interest in such a platform at a given price.
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chris471 - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
What do you do with all those split hares? Are they any good barbecued?("Octane splits hares between the Kaveri ...")
Ian Cutress - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Lightly roasted for me :) Edited, thanks!maglito - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Were you able to test 18Gbps HDMI? The ability to drive an external display with 2160p 4:2:2 @ 60Hz? I guess the lack of a 10bit accelerated video decoder almost makes the point moot for future 2160p content though....Otherwise, fantastic article!
MonkeyPaw - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Last time I shopped for a laptop (which was recently), I was considering an A10-based HP with a 1080p screen. The problem I saw was in reviews the battery life was really poor. It looked like HP put a small battery in it, making the thing only worthy as a DTR. I ended up going with a Lenovo with an i3. I guess part of the problem is that there are so many variants of laptops that finding a review of a specific model is impossible, and all you have to go on are things like Amazon or Best Buy ussr reviews, which can be extremely painful to read.Lolimaster - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
HP sometimes release near "nice" AMD laptops but always cripples it with laughable battery capacities, same models intel inside dont get the nerfs.euskalzabe - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
That was a wonderful article that I thoroughly enjoyed reading to start my Friday. Long story short, you perfectly define my laptop buying rationale with "SSD, dual channel memory, 8 hours+ light battery, under 2kg, Full HD IPS panel".That's why I bought an i5 UX305. I wanted an AMD machine because I plain like the company and would like them to succeed to bring more competition to Intel, but I found NOTHING even close to the specs you mentioned. The UX305 fit the description perfectly and cost me $750. It was an immediate purchase for me. If AMD managed the OEM relationship to create such a machine, it would be an insta-buy for me. Also, Zenbooks with Zen APUs oculd be a great marketing strategy :)
Shadowmaster625 - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
AMD is a company that shoots itself in the foot at every opportunity. I am truly perplexed. Their cat cores shouldnt even exist. But not only do those crippled parts exist, they crippled their premium parts by combining the two platforms! WHY? How could they not see that every notebook would be single channel? They wasted the entirety of their ATI purchase, as you can see with the Rocket League results vs Intel. This is a disgrace.AMD needs to realize that it IS AMD who controls the User experience. Look at the Mackbook Air. Look at the Surface Pro. Look at the Playstation 4 and Xbox One. All of these platforms have a set minimum level of performance. Sure they might be more expensive than a $300 atom clunker, but at least the user will not throw the thing out the window after pulling their hair out.
AMD needs to put a floor under their products. 4 cores. 8GB of unified HBM. 512 cores GPU. This is the SoC that they need. Sure they can fuse off a core or whatever to harvest bad dies, but this is the minimum die they should be making. Ideally within 2 years they will move to a 4 core, 16GB HBM, and they will replace one stack of HBM with 128GB of HBF. They need to control the memory bandwidth of their SoC. Take away the ability of the OEMs to cripple performance. Use HBF to take away the ability for OEMs to cripple storage performance also. Do this, and every AMD system will be fast. And it will get design wins.
t.s - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
If you read the article: AMD not crippled their premium parts. It was OEM. If only OEM create mobos that have dual channel mems.xthetenth - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
OEMs shaving pennies is as universal a phenomenon as gravity, and designs should be made as such.t.s - Thursday, February 11, 2016 - link
hence the title, "who controls user experience" :)