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AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

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Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#711

Post by zer00eyz »

pyrale wrote: post #529
zer00eyz wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If something happens to Taiwan, This isn't really a workable argument any more. As examples: https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-quartz-hurricane-5... https://archive.is/sM16Y The global supply chain is now so deeply interwoven that a large geopolitical disruption is nearly impossible. It took explosives for the EU to curtail its Russian natural gas use. And there is still stiff trade with Russia today (not a…

> It took explosives for the EU to curtail its Russian natural gas use. Assuming you refer to NS2 blowup, it was unused when it got sabotaged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage

NS1 was hit at the same time as well.

NS2 had not been activated and NS1 was undergoing work at the time.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#713

Post by leptons »

etempleton wrote: post #663
leptons wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a die-hard Intel customer, and recommended to everyone that asked me what to but, to buy Intel. That has changed. Now it's price/performance that matters more than brand. Intel also had a few missteps that made the brand lose a bit of its luster. My most recent computer is AMD Ryzen based, but we just bought an Intel-based Dell for my partner because the price/performance was better than comparable AMD m…

I do have repeated, annoying instability with my Ryzen 5900X desktop. I find AMD to have a much narrower setup window in terms of memory speed, timing, etc. and that is before any kind of overclocking. And the motherboard / bios firmware situation always seems a bit more sketchy for AMD. Maybe it is just bad luck on my end, but I have not had those issues with Intel in the past or currently.

It's bad luck on your end. I have 3 AMD-based "desktops", never had a single problem with any of them. I just throw whatever memory in and it just works. These are being used more as servers than desktops, with large RAID arrays, HBA cards, tape drives, etc. They're consumer-level systems - Ryzen 7 5700G, Ryzen 5 2600, Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#714

Post by leptons »

vkazanov wrote: post #650
leptons wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sounds weird"??? Not really sure what you mean by that. Both our Intel and AMD computers are doing great. Nothing "weird" about it. No problems at all. YMMV.

What i mean is that it's relatively hard to find an intel laptop that would be meaningfully faster than an amd one. For a while Intel was surviving on quality software but even this moat is drying out.

The Dell Intel-based laptop has an Intel Core i9-13900HX @ 55W TDP. 24 cores, 32 threads, scores 43,067 on passmark. The AMD laptop I got has AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS @ 54W TDP, which scores 28,632 on passmark and I paid about the same price for it as the Dell about one year earlier, around $1200. At the time we bought the Dell, it was faster than comparable AMD based laptops in the same price range, and that was surprising to me too, but that's what happened. Trust me, I searched for the best deal, but the Dell being on sale at the time made it the best choice in terms of speed and features.

FWIW, Apple M4 Max 16 Core scores 43,818 on passmark and runs at 90 Watts TDP, so Intel certainly is competing on speed, as well as TDP.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#715

Post by leptons »

hypercube33 wrote: post #458
leptons wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to be a die-hard Intel customer, and recommended to everyone that asked me what to but, to buy Intel. That has changed. Now it's price/performance that matters more than brand. Intel also had a few missteps that made the brand lose a bit of its luster. My most recent computer is AMD Ryzen based, but we just bought an Intel-based Dell for my partner because the price/performance was better than comparable AMD m…

If you're comparing laptop to desktop keep in mind a lot of those top out at 5 to 45w (gaming) and desktop chips are 45-65w to 300w (threadripper) and have a lot more cooling behind them. it's almost apples to oranges in most cases.

Not sure why you're trying to techsplain any of this to me. I never conflated desktop with laptop, not sure how you got that out of my comment.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#716

Post by Mainan_Tagonist »

api wrote: post #677
alberth wrote: post #667

A lot of people misunderstand why companies outsource to Asia. It’s not just about cost—it’s actually more so about manufacturing expertise. Asia has a massive pool of highly skilled manufacturing talent, and that kind of deep expertise is something the U.S. is quickly forgetting. So my question is: with TSMC building a fab in the U.S., are Americans actually getting retrained in real manufacturing skills? Or are the…

Was the US ever a major manufacturer of even pre-IC solid state electronics? I was born in 1978 and was really into Heathkits and breadboard projects and stuff when I was a child and early teen. My dad was (and still is) an analog electronic engineer and gave me lots of surplus oscilloscopes and frequency counters and other coolness too. I distinctly remember often seeing "Made in Korea," "Made in Japan," "Made in Ta…

Chip War by Chris Miller is a good read: https://www.amazon.com/Chip-War-Worlds-Critical-Technology/d...

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#717

Post by SR2Z »

EliRivers wrote: post #706
threetonesun wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference in manufacturing between operators (the ones pushing the buttons), and plant engineers and designers. Assuming the process has been designed and built correctly, the button pushers can push buttons, and identify when not to push the buttons, and that's fine. The US has plenty of manufacturing operations much more complicated than building CPUs, so of course we can do it. Manufacturing experti…

The US has plenty of manufacturing operations much more complicated than building CPUs It's my understanding that this is not the case. That CPU (and similar) manufacturing is considered one of the most complex processes humanity has ever developed. What are these plenty of manufacturing operations that are more complicated?

It really depends on which part of the process you focus on. CPU manufacturing is highly automated and not particularly logistically complex. You're correct that the machines used are just about the most sophisticated things ever built by human hands, but once they're installed and configured the process is fairly straightforward.

Compare this to, say, building a car. Much less automation, much simpler end product.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#718

Post by Henchman21 »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #705
Henchman21 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will settle for a Butlerian Jihad to destroy the "thinking machines"

So we can all be forced into a feudal caste system and become mortally dependent on eugenically-bred drugged-up subcastes?

The survival of the species demands it.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#719

Post by joe_the_user »

benreesman wrote: post #611
joe_the_user wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been doing the exact right thing for the shareholders: squeezing the living shit out of an asset (x86/64) for decades while cutting anything interesting or competitive to the bone to give shareholders more money. I would quibble with the exact right thing phrases but otherwise agree. Intel indeed followed a formula which is intended to and often does produce massive return for some time frame. The formula is…

There are orhanized ways to wind down a business unit or even a whole business and convert the salvagable assets into shareholder value, these range from corp dev / M&A activity all the way through bankrupcy and bondholder seniority. And in the days when fraud or "fraud-adjacent" behavior carried serious costs? When violating the social contract around pensions and severance and stuff had real reputational costs that…

Don't think I'm using duty in any sense other than the sense than that the corporate raiders have set-up a situation where management feels forced to engage in the program of gutting they outline. All of this is part of the gutting of the US of course.

By betting that Gordon Gecko had enough fans to make the arb work. "Gutting" a company slowely and painfully is in a bucket I'll call "fraud adjacent": usually not outright illegal (lotta "gray" work, gray edge), clearly not what society wants or intended

Sure, but if society doesn't intend this, society has to f---ing do something. Clearly it's not.

IE: if the only legal obligation of management is promoting maximum legally possible valuation over time, "squeezing" still makes sense if there's enough money to be had. The only way to change this is forcing the issue in some fashion or other.

Re: AMD CEO sees chips from TSMC's US plant costing 5%-20% more

#720

Post by fc417fc802 »

fellowmartian wrote: post #620
fc417fc802 wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means that the US is continually producing far more potential food than we actually use. That constitutes a form of food security. What it gets used for instead - be that animal feed, chemical feedstock, fertilizer, etc - is largely irrelevant. Are you certain there's no strategic reserve? If not there probably ought to be. Seems like a rather cheap form of insurance in the bigger picture.

The argument you’re making works just as well for any other crop. Productive land is the asset and the security, not the corn itself. In fact, growing the damn corn everywhere degrades the soil. We might as well grow wheat, rice, legumes, etc. Besides path-dependence there’s little reason for corn dominance.

Agreed that it's the active land use, not a specific crop, that matters from a food security perspective.

Disagreed otherwise though. Soil degradation is due to people cutting corners to save money. Rice requires significantly more water. Wheat and oats don't have the same shelf life. Legumes are likely comparable but how do they stack up against corn for things like animal feed and chemical feedstock?

The reality is that corn is an extremely practical crop regardless of its lack of political popularity of late.

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