Who Controls the User Experience? AMD’s Carrizo Thoroughly Tested
by Ian Cutress on February 4, 2016 8:00 AM ESTNegative Feedback Loops: How To Escape the Pit
During my time with AMD, a few things came out as painfully obvious. Everyone seemed enthusiastic, jubilant, and willing to talk to the ends of the earth about the product, the design, the team and the ideas, even with that sense of humbleness and humility. Meetings easily stretched into hours, and there is a great positive vibe among the employees that they have good products to use and good people to hold on to. There was little pomp and show, and no-one seemed overly worried about AMD’s recent financial news or exploits, such as the sale and lease-back of property or the movement in and out of key personnel.
Everyone was excited to be in the moment, and one person who exemplified this was Raja Koduri, who heads up the Radeon Technologies Group (RTG). I wasn’t scheduled to meet with Raja during my trip, as APUs/laptops and graphics are different departments internally, but it was by sheer coincidence that he was in town for a couple of days while I was, and I bumped into him in my hotel. We shared an uber into the office, and I talked his ear off about AMD, the perception and the future. If I had my head screwed on I might have recorded the conversation, but it was clear in Raja’s responses that AMD is always looking ahead. While we are worrying about reviewing 2015 products, 2016 is almost done and engineers are working on 2017’s lineup and the march is set. Next generation parts, new process nodes, the whole lot – everyone seems to be excited to be designing new technology. It could be argued that every company is like this, but given AMD’s recent financial news I did not expect my conversations to be so buoyant, active, and everyone seemed to be happy to put in long hours where needed. The only thing they really wanted is more people – with more people they could do more things.
Having positivity, hope, and genuinely dedicated employees is one thing. Having the right product that sells is another, and more often than not it comes down to a single individual making one or two critical decisions that can affect a product line, a launch, or the perception of the company. One could postulate that the main goal for any company is to stay afloat, to keep the bank balance in the black (which provides a return for shareholders and increases the value of the company). This can be done in a number of ways, but typically it comes down to revenue, profit and margins. To put it another way, a company needs sales, efficiency and repeat business, which creates a positive feedback loop.
Specifically talking about AMD, AMD’s goal is to sell more products. This could be through diversification or innovation, but selling more at a higher efficiency keeps the company going. If users like the product, they keep buying the next one, and the next one. A user (consumer or enterprise) needs to buy a device from an OEM, and an OEM has the same goal – sales and efficiency. So they want both the cheapest option that will get the biggest margin. AMD needs to keep the OEMs happy as well, so they keep buying their products.
So Consider This
| Stage 1 | AMD has had two mobile platforms for several years. If we pick the last generation – Kaveri and Beema, these were two different platforms, using two different core sets, two different chipsets and two different designs. Kaveri and Beema addressed different markets, with a small intersection. |
| Stage 2 | A major OEM says designing two different platforms is expensive, meaning designing AMD systems is expensive. The OEM wants AMD to simplify costs to help their bottom line, and doing so would maintain a healthy relationship. This would allow OEMs to make one design for one chassis, and adjust the APU/firmware as needed without much effort and no need to design two motherboards, two sets of power delivery, and so on. |
| Stage 3 | AMD does this with Carrizo and Carrizo-L. The APUs are pin compatible, with Carrizo-L using Puma+ cores but limited in terms of TDP, memory bandwidth (single channel) and ultimately aims for lower cost. Carrizo can use dual channel, has the new Excavator cores and is the current high end mobile part. |
| Stage 4 | OEM creates one design, but ends up with Carrizo platforms that are physically limited by the Carrizo-L limitations. But it saves money, which is what their customers want. OEM builds a few products (some end up Carrizo only, some Carrizo-L only, but all limited by Carrizo-L). AMD saves extra work for the OEMs, OEMs increase margins. |
| Stage 5 | User buys product at the new low shiny price, but due to some of the cutbacks has a bad experience. The system is slow, and not performing as well. Perhaps the power delivery system isn’t suited for such a high TDP, or the chassis design causes throttling, or the low price means a TN panel with a mechanical drive. The low price may also be due to pre-installed bloatware subsidizing the material cost. |
| Stage 6 | Users do not like to be told they have spent their hard earned money on a bad device, and associate the bad experience with either the OEM, whose logo is on the device, or the CPU/APU manufacturer, whose sticker is next to the wrist pad. |
| Stage 7 | Either no resale to that user, or they attempt a different configuration, or they are stuck with a budget/contract that requires them to stay on the path. With any wiggle room, or when advising others who have budget, they advise against the anecdotal bad experience. |
If we had a poll system for our articles I would stick one in here – who is at fault? Is it AMD for simplifying the design, causing high end products to be put in cheaper designed platforms? Is it the OEM, asking for an easier solution to design, or for trying to gain sales in a race to the bottom? Or is it the end user for asking for a lower price, not willing to pay for that $30 upgrade, or being price constrained in the first place?
Perhaps this is a silly question, and no-one is at fault. This is sometimes how the race-to-the-bottom, or how a value proposition, works. In this scenario, it generates a negative feedback loop, one that can be notoriously difficult to get out of.
What Solutions are there?
| Solution 1 | Make a product that blows the competition out of the water. For the current climate in processors, semiconductors, software, architecture (x86), knowledge and application, as well as physics in lithography nodes, it becomes pretty much impossible without a fundamental paradigm change, and even then something like HBM (High Bandwidth Memory on AMD’s Fiji GPUs) required many years of research and collaboration with specific partners. If we consider the monitor space, the race-to-bottom on 1080p flat screen panels went on for 10 years, with monitors over 1080p being very expensive. Then a combination of cheap 2560x1440 Korean panels flooded the market, with three new disruptive technologies (G-Sync, FreeSync, 4K) hot on the heels. |
| Solution 2 | AMD makes their budget and mainstream platforms require different designs, similar to pre-Carrizo. This would mean OEMs have to have two design teams, but it would almost guarantee a minimum level of performance based on the platform you have. The obvious downside is that the OEMs would not like it, even though they already do it with other semiconductor firms and very few laptop lines are similar, so they’re making a few dozen already. The issue is that OEMs want to be efficient with the money and time, and AMD doesn’t want to lose the major contracts it has. |
| Solution 3 | OEMs fight against bad configurations. Unfortunately this is very difficult. Sales and requests from distributors govern future trends, so if a country requires 40% of notebooks to be under $400, then that is what the OEM will make. OEMs also have separate deals with IC manufacturers – perhaps they can save $0.01 per design by using a lower grade audio NIC that 95% of users won’t notice, or DRAM company XYZ is a long term partner so the OEM doesn’t want to disturb that partnership. Ultimately if a user wants 1TB of space and a 17-inch device but only has $400, it will end up with a mechanical hard-drive and a low quality 1366x768 screen. |
| Solution 4 | Distributors stock only certain models with quality controls. While noble, that won’t happen any time soon, because another distributor will just take the business. |
| Solution 5a | Distributors need to stock more models, or variants with better components (WiFi, screen). Again, this is difficult because distributors don’t want to sit on stock that might not sell, or deal with 450 variants of the same machine. The only people that can do this are the big OEMs that sell direct to customers. But if you’ve ever navigated HP’s website, trying to configure the exact system is a bit of a nightmare. Dell does this better than most big OEMs, but the options are still fairly limited. |
| Solution 5b | Distributors need to stock more models. If more people see the products on shelves, then arguably it would be part of the mind set when it comes time to buy. This has issues, aside from idle stock, but also many companies pay for space in brick-and-mortar stores, and advertising can be expensive. It’s hard to force a big marketing and distribution campaign without money. |
| Solution 6 | Users have to make informed decisions. That’s what places like AnandTech are for, so cutting through the FUD and presenting it in the best way is what we aim to do. But again, while we wish more people would read our analysis, most users end up getting advice from ‘the family friend that knows about computers’, or they are simply fighting budget constraints. |
| Solution 7 | The Killer App. Similar to solution one, but find a way that your product has the next must-have idea and still have a good user experience, e.g. a must-have app that greatly benefits from HSA. |
| Solution 8 | Deal with what affects user experience. Is it just about the quality of the components? Some of the devices we tested in this piece came with pre-installed bloatware, some of it scanning the hard drive so much that the CPU was being used and never allowed to idle. This bloatware is added because companies like Norton, or even Intel’s McAfee (even on an AMD system) pay the OEM to have their software preinstalled. So the OEM can save $0.02 per unit, increase margins, but it forces that negative feedback loop in a big way. |
Some companies in the past have dealt with contra-revenue, selling processors at below cost or with deals on multiple parts when purchased together. Very few companies, typically ones with large market shares in other areas, have access to this. Some members of the industry also see it as not fighting fair, compared to actually just pricing the parts lower in the first place.
Unfortunately, no matter how much positivity AMD has, that negative feedback loop is hard to get out of. It is not one person’s fault, and every solution is a double-edged sword that requires one part of the chain to take the hit – either AMD, the OEMs or the buyers. Chances are it won’t ever be the last two, which puts AMD in a precarious position of either trying to define their position at the risk of angering their partners, or continuing down an uncertain road.
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alexruiz - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Ian,What specific model of the Elitebook 745 G3 did you test?
You listed the QHD screen (2560 x 1440 IPS) but you also wrote that it came in at just under $700. Is this correct? The one that you received for $700 included the QHD screen?
Thanks
Anonymous Blowhard - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
The link on the page goes to the T3L35UT#ABA, which is a 1080p screen. I'm guessing the spreadsheet and/or pricing is incorrect somehow.Ian Cutress - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
I remember being told it was 700, though I may have misheard and perhaps they were speaking GBP. But AB is right, the larger screen is 1080p and more expensive.The HP website is surprising though - the UX on the website is crazy to find a product that isn't the latest and greatest. It is very difficult to find anything and you seem to pay a premium for speccing out a custom Elitebook. Trying to spec out the one I was given came to $1900 from a $1620 base, which clearly isn't right because the high end 'buy now' model was about $1120 with similar specifications.
http://goo.gl/5spQls
Anonymous Blowhard - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
GBP certainly makes a lot more sense. The base USD$750 model on HP's site has an A8-8600B, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD. If you want to find a Carrizo system with an "awful user experience" there it is.Custom-building an HP business system from their site is also expensive for no reason other than "because we said so." They really want you to buy the mass-manufactured SmartBuy models, although you may have better luck with a custom unit (read: "reasonable pricing") if you buy from a 3rd-party reseller.
I would like to see some GPU benchmarks with a second stick of RAM added to the 745 G3 though. Single-channel memory gives integrated graphics the Tonya Harding treatment.
Intel999 - Sunday, February 7, 2016 - link
Another review of Carrizo in the HP 745 G3 showed a 30% improvement in gaming when the second stick of RAM was installed. It went from woefully behind Intel to just ahead of them after sufficient RAM was provided.It is remarkable that any OEM would damage their own reputation by putting out crap that is obviously intended to funnel sales to Intel.
Imagine an OEM putting out a model, let's call it HP100, and offering it with identical specs with the only difference being a Carrizo CPU vs. an I5 from Intel. Few if any, would notice a difference in performance in the real world, not talking benchmarks.
The OEM would have a $100 savings on the Carrizo version if not more. If they were to sell it for $50 less than the Intel version they would sell more and that extra $50 profit on the AMD machine would more than offset the "rebates" they are getting from Intel. So they could have a higher profit margin at a lower price point. Afterall, with all the Intel marketing you'd still have plenty of people opting for the Intel version with it's lower profit margin. Just not as many and overtime you could approach Intel and point out that you make more money off AMD machines and who knows, maybe for the first time in recent history the OEM would control how their company is run and Intel would say "I guess we can cut our price by $25" and then you would be making the same profit on both Intel and AMD machines since, of course, the OEM wouldn't pass that $25 to the customer.
They could still offer junk machines at lower price points. Fill em up with Celerons or whatever they wanted attached to HDDs, 4GB of RAM, and crap screens.
Surely, no OEM is still following the old Intel rebate plan that allowed Intel to determine the market share that the OEM is allowed to give AMD. Or, are they?
Lolimaster - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
I hate HP store with all my might, back in the day I got better experience donwloading from japanese p2p's not knowing japanese and just using a simple guide.keeepcool - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Please, just dont let Toshiba make laptops, just DON'T.Sorry for the word, but Toshiba is a shit brand that deserves to die. All their laptops have cooling solutions that are badly designed from the start, and the they cut all the corners and go for paper thin 4mm heatpipes on top of deformed and pitted 1.5mm cooper plates that make poor contact with the dies, the fans are thin, the thermal paste is worse than toothpaste, just stop allowing them to disgrace AMD name.
HP is also guilty of this, after the disgrace that where the dv6 models almost no one in Portugal and a lot other countries ever want a laptop with AMD cpu or gpu, because DV6's are just know for being litteral toasters that crash and burned, yes part of that was due to lack of maintenance, but still, it left a very sour taste regard AMD/ATI equiped laptops.
Today only people with low monetary margins will go for an AMD laptop, because they are the cheapest ones, and even then HP and Toshibas just manage to make toasters out of 7 and 15Watts TDP, its like they actually spend time engineering them to became so hot with so little TDP's...
tipoo - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
50.27 Wh, 3 cell Li-Po design, rated to 10.25 hours. Out of a 3.3GHz AMD APU.You know, HP, somehow, I don't believe you.
bluevaping - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Nice article. And I get the point of the article about OEM's and AMD. I mostly agree with Shadowmaster 625. But it would have been nice to see a dual channel memory test. The Elitebook supports it. Slap in the extra ram and test it. And try dual channel 1866 Ram too.tipoo - Friday, February 5, 2016 - link
Shame the Lenovo doesn't support dual graphics - any reason why, or will this be updated in drivers? Especially as the integrated one has the same number of SPs as the dedicated, it could add a lot to the power equation.