AMD Ryzen Gets Delidded - And It Is a Tricky Thing to Do
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Unilythe
So AMD has done it right in a $300 CPU, while Intel hasn't done it right in 4(?) generations of CPU's now. Broadwell-E processors are better, but still not good enough.
I'm more and more baffled how AMD can offer a CPU with this performance for this price with proper build quality like this as well. Is AMD simply selling these first gen Ryzen CPU's at a ridiculous low price to regain market without making a lot of profit, or is Intel really that overpriced?
Maybe a combination of both.
Variac
If all of the capacitor are covered on a silicon layer they would be all shorted together (and everything to GND I suppose).
Maybe you wanted to say silicone.
Neo Cyrus
Intel is really that overpriced. It was a literal monopoly on the high end segment for 11 years. AMD are definitely making a good amount of profit.
As for Intel not soldering their chips, their fans made all the excuses in the world including an article explaining that it would cause micro cracks to the die. Most people completely gobbled that **** up and took it as gospel, believing that the almighty Intel is right yet again. Don't believe those exaggerations, as if micro cracks form spontaneously and instantly the moment you use your CPU and are magically going to kill your CPU. AMD is pretty much proof Intel was lying straight out of their asses again, as usual, as expected.
CPC_RedDawn
Possibly AMD just wanted to drop these CPU's on the market at this price to regain marketshare. I strongly believe this, I reckon they are making very little on each chip sold and even less on the higher versions too as more time would be put into binning them.
Makes sense, drop these chips now at a great price and make a huge impact on the market, which it really has done. Then in a few months drop the 6c/12t CPU's at a good price point so to make more money on them but still not a lot. Then release the 4c/8t CPU's at high clock speeds and low TDP which I believe they will be making the most money on.
It was a great idea by AMD to out source the chipset to a different company as I dont believe they have the infrastructure to create both architecture and chipset at the same time. But hopefully with as successful as this launch has been and the marketshare they will claw back I hope this will change and AMD can pour some of this money into R&D.
Its not really how much money you make, its how much buzz you create. Which increases market share, which creates decent price margins, Which pleases shareholders, Which increases share prices, Which attracts more investors, Which attracts developers, Which means the company has more money at its disposal.
Unilythe
It is true that there are some serious issues with soldering the die to the IHS. of course it's possible, but to do it right is tedious and expensive, because of differing thermal expansion for different materials. Using just one type of metal will definitely damage the die because of the pressure caused by the differing expansions, so the techniques used for soldering requires many different layered and mixed metals, some of which very expensive.
This problem becomes bigger as the dies become smaller, too.
Neo Cyrus
I'm aware. They've long been using different layers for different reasons, probably from the start. That's never been a real issue, it's just something Intel like removing to cut costs on. AMD aren't using indium on their dies for fun, that stuff ain't free.
Edit: How could I forget that part of the reason for using indium is to use gold. The gold probably costs more than the indium. :wanker:
icedman
Good to see solder under the hood again, and I'm surprised they're using a dual die setup like my old q6600 which I delidded really easily using the vice method to practice befor doing my current 3770k.
Kaarme
Intel's CPUs have less transistors than an average GPU. However, GPUs aren't sold alone to consumers, they always come with the whole video card consisting of the GPU, fast memory, regulators, PCB, cooling element and fans, backplate, connectors, in a big box. Yet that whole packet costs the same or less than the Intel CPU with less transistors. Somehow AMD and Nvidia still make profit even out of the mainstream GPUs.
For example, the AMD 380X GPU, Tonga, has 5 billion transistors. Intel i7 6700k has 1.75 billion. A 380X video card with 4GB of memory had a launch price of 229 dollars. The i7 6700k CPU alone had a launch price of 350 dollars (alright, it might come with a 5 dollars cooler, I'm not sure)!
Does this make sense to you? Intel gains incomprehensible profit from every single CPU it sells, especially the more expensive types.
Mufflore
The problem is that AMD couldnt do it right so were forced to compensate with a soldered die lid to get the clock speed up.
If they didnt do this they would fall short of 4GHz which would reduce sales substantially.
They would have had far more variability making the standard base + boost clocks much lower as well.
Variac
I agree that Intel has a high profit, but that's not a proper way to do a comparison and prove it.
Norz
Because no competition....(until now)
schmidtbag
No, it's really just Intel being overpriced and nothing else. When you consider their net income lately seems to average around $11 billion per year, clearly, they price things much higher than they need to.
Also consider this: GPUs tend to have more transistors and more FLOPs than the average CPU and are soldered to a daughterboard along with RAM, and they still end up being cheaper than what Intel offers.
You can also take a look at the Arduino Gallileo, which costs more than the average ARM-based development board while being less than half as powerful.
Denial
The R&D budget for a CPU is like 10x the cost of a GPU because the entire layout is done by hand where as a GPU is almost entirely synthesized.
Does Intel charge a premium on it's 4+ core designs? Yeah - but the market was clearly willing to pay for it and for the vast majority of people, Intel's mainstream with significantly cheaper parts are more than enough.
I don't see the issue with them charging a premium but I am glad that AMD is competing to a degree where that premium is being effected.
Kaarme
Then what is?
I certainly can't see the results of Intel's R&D... So little has changed for so many generations now. They even got stuck at 14nm.
Besides, Intel makes that 10 billion a year profit after expenses, including that R&D, have been deducted already.
PrMinisterGR
Don't confuse extortion due to monopoly, with a healthy market. The market is not willing to pay it, there is just no other choice. A lot of people confuse that and it's quite basic economics. The CPU market is completely distorted and is not functioning properly.
waltc3
Delidding...an ancient process described in some detail by the numerous cave paintings depicting the practice in crude illustrations found deep inside French caves and in sub-oceanic caverns across the globe. It is thought that ancient man with his much reduced cranial capacities deduced that since cpus appeared to have "lids" that those lids could be surgically removed by the skilled artisans of the day. After the untimely deaths of many unfortunate cpus in those dark days, the practice was largely abandoned. CPUs are no longer, to coin the parlance of the day, "circumcised" in such a manner.
Denial
When the competition was somewhat healthy in 2005/2006 both companies sold ~$1000 processors. I also think Intel is somewhat of a difficult pricing position given their mainstream/enthusiast separation. If Intel was selling 6900K for $500, they would be selling the 7700K for like $200. How fast do you think AMD would have evaporated if they did that? The other models, i3/i5 would just get crushed between $50/$150 and completely eliminate any profit margin on them and that's where the majority of Intel's sales are.
Intel is in like 50 bazillion markets. They have like dancing drone algorithms for NFL half time shows. They do VR devices and scan/model entire sporting arenas. Oh and they build a ~$3B fab every few years. That's not to mention that both Nvidia/AMD both sell $1000+ chips.
schmidtbag
And of those 50 bazillion markets, the only ones Intel has any real money in are desktop, laptop, and server CPUs. Most of their other products could easily be made by other companies. In fact, many were - Intel buys out a lot of tech companies. Ironically, most of Intel's other products are likely what AMD would have been making today if it weren't for IBM telling them to share x86. Meanwhile, AMD pretty is pretty much strictly limited to CPUs, GPUs, and chipsets. Most (but certainly not all) of Intel's non-CPU products are reasonably priced. Still expensive, but not to the point where you feel like you're being ripped off.
Remember, even with those $3-billion fabs, they still have nearly 3x that to their disposal every single year. That being said, R&D being 10x more expensive is irrelevant to Intel, especially considering they haven't done a fresh new architecture in almost a decade. Meanwhile, AMD has made 2 fresh new architectures within that amount of time, and, they don't have their own fabs to make them in. So, no excuse there.
favelle75
Being a publicly-traded company, wouldn't this be easy information to figure out in the quarterly reports??
platypus
It's been a long time since a cpu was last laid out by hand.
