AMD Restructures to Combine Graphics and Chip Units

By Geoff Duncan Published May 7, 2009

AMD Restructures to Combine Graphics and Chip Units

Struggling chipmaker AMD has been trying all sorts of new business tactics to keep itself afloat after two solid years of losses in its competition with Intel—including spinning off its fabs into GlobalFoundries so, technically, AMD has no manufacturing capability of its own anymore.n Now, the company has announced a major restructuring that combines its chip unit with the remnants of graphics developer ATI in a move to spur development of integrated graphics and computing processors. And as part of the reorganization, the senior VP of AMD’s microprocessor group, Randy Allen, will be leaving the company.

“We are tightening our focus on delivering the winning products and platforms our customers want based on AMD’s industry-leading microprocessor and graphics technologies,” said AMD president and CEO Dirk Meyer, in a statement. “The next generation of innovation in the computing industry will be grounded in the fusion of microprocessor and graphics technologies. With these changes, we are putting the right organization in place to help enable the future of computing.”

Recommended Videos

As part of the reorg, AMD is creating three other operating groups in addition to the combined chip group: one will focus on technology research, one on sales, and one one marketing.

AMD acquired graphic developer ATI Technologies back in 2006; it has since had to repeatedly write down the value of the transaction as the business has failed to live up to AMD’s expectation—AMD also sold off ATI’s mobile graphics technology to Qualcomm early this year.

AMD offered no reason for Randy Allen’s departure.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Computing

AMD just revealed a game-changing feature for your graphics card

AMD is set to reveal a research paper about its technique for neural texture block compression at the Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (EGSR) next week. It sounds like some technobabble, but the idea behind neural compression is pretty simple. AMD says it's using a neural network to compress the massive textures in games, which cuts down on both the download size of a game and its demands on your graphics card.

We've heard about similar tech before. Nvidia introduced a paper on Neural Texture Compression last year, and Intel followed up with a paper of its own that proposed an AI-driven level of detail (LoD) technique that could make models look more realistic from farther away. Nvidia's claims about Neural Texture Compression are particularly impressive, with the paper asserting that the technique can store 16 times the data in the same amount of space as traditional block-based compression.

Computing

We have good news about AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 9000 chips

AMD CEO Lisa Su announcing the new Ryzen 9000 series desktop CPUs.

Earlier this month we saw AMD unveiling its new Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors at Computex 2024. The new desktop processors feature AMD’s next-gen Zen 5 architecture, promising approximately 15% faster performance. During the announcement, AMD said that the new chips will arrive in July 2024, however, online retailer B&H suggests that preorders will only begin at 9 a.m. ET on July 31.

Additionally, we also have (unofficial) pricing information for the upcoming CPUs. According to a report, the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 9950X has been listed on Canada Computers for CAD 839 ($610), which is noticeably lower than the $699 launch price of the Ryzen 9 7950X. Another retailer from the Philippines has listed the entire Ryzen 9000 desktop CPU lineup with the Ryzen 9 9950X priced at 38,000 Pesos ($648), Ryzen 9 9900X at 35,000 Pesos ($597), Ryzen 7 9700X at 24,000 Pesos ($409), and the Ryzen 5 9600X at 18,500 Pesos ($315).

Computing

AMD’s new Ryzen 9000 is slower than its fastest previous-gen chips

AMD presenting performance for Zen 5 CPUs.

AMD recently unveiled its new Ryzen 9000 series of desktop processors based on the new Zen 5 architecture. While these new CPUs bring numerous improvements and advancements, they are not expected to surpass the gaming performance of the previous generation’s Ryzen 7000X3D models, which feature 3D V-Cache technology. While this might come as a surprise to some, it underscores the unique advantages of AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology in gaming scenarios.

The Ryzen 9000 series promises a host of upgrades over the Zen 4 architecture used in the Ryzen 7000 series. These enhancements include better energy efficiency, higher core counts, and architectural refinements aimed at boosting overall performance. The Zen 5 chips are expected to deliver significant gains in multi-threaded workloads and general computing tasks, making them a compelling option for a wide range of users.