In 2006, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which was then competing closely with Intel in the processor market, acquired ATI Technologies, which on its own was also going head to head with Nvidia in the GPU sector, for $5.4 billion. And while the acquisition helped AMD create the "Fusion" generation of chips, which gave birth to the APU, the company lost its foundries and ability to fabricate chips the following year. Since then, AMD has outsourced chip fabrication, putting the company at a significant disadvantage against Intel.
AMD stocks have continually dropped in value and took a deep plunge in 2014. Now, in 2015, AMD, as a whole, is valued at just a little above $1.5 billion, a quarter of what it paid for ATI. The fabless chip manufacturer got dominated by both Intel and Nvidia in the processor and graphics card markets, respectively.
Based on reports from IDC and Mercury, both research firms show that in the third quarter of last year, Intel has more than 98 percent of the market share for server processors, 90 to 93 percent for notebook processors and at most 83 percent for desktop processors. The same goes for its enthusiast GPU market. It was reported that three out of four gamers have an Nvidia graphics card.
Putting aside the recession, AMD's bet on the APU has not paid out well for the company since an $80 discrete graphics card coupled with a decent CPU was shown to produce more frames per second than the available APU then. AMD's other processors, like the Vishera FX series, were also a flop. Although they offered comparable performance to the i5 and i7 generation of their release, Intel systems have proven to be faster and consumed less power. In fact, in a comparison of the i5-3570k and the FX 8350 done by Tek Syndicate, the technology-oriented YouTube channel concluded that the 8350 consumes so much power that 3570k will make up for the price difference in less than three years.
Considering the flops in its processor releases in previous years, AMD has avoided directly competing with Intel in the server and desktop processor markets. Instead, shifted its focus on releasing ARM and mobile chips, which now powers the consoles and mobile devices.
If there's any silver lining to all of this, it would be AMD's has had latest success, of sorts, with its GPU line. The Fury X and HBM were warmly welcomed by the market since it can go head to head with Nvidia's current flagship GPUs, the 980Ti and the Titan X - even beating both Nvidia graphics cards in some benchmarks. The coming of DX12-based games during the holidays can also spell good news for the Fury X if it can live up to the predictions and significantly outdo the competing Nvidia cards in terms of performance.
AMD will also have a good advantage over Nvidia in the coming years since it has first dibs on HBM2 due to its partnership with SK Hynix. Note that Nvidia, earlier this year, has announced that its graphics card releases for 2016 will incorporate HBM2. With AMD securing priority access, however, it can setback the Nvidia release dates and create a window for AMD to monopolize the graphics card market.
In line with this, AMD has just reorganized the company infrastructure and has announced the creation of the "Radeon Technologies Group," which is basically the reconstitution of ATI Technologies. This segregation will give AMD's GPU arm more autonomy and focus in responding to the coming of the AR/VR storm.
