Hasta La Gadget!

AMD delivered its financial results for Q3 2012 today, and it’s safe to say that things could have gone a lot better. GAAP revenue came in $1.27 billion, which is a 10% decline from the last quarter and a significant 25% decrease from the same time last year. AMD also posted a GAAP operating loss of $131 million, and a net loss of $157 million, which equates to a loss per share of $0.21.

Non-GAAP revenue for the quarter was at $1.27 billion – the same as GAAP revenue. AMD posted a non-GAAP operating loss of $126 million, compared to a non-GAAP operating income of $146 million for the same quarter a year ago. The company also had a non-GAAP net loss of $150 million and a loss per share of $0.20 – as you can probably imagine, that isn’t good. Both AMD’s Computer Solutions sector and Graphics unit were down sequentially and year-over-year, with Computer Solutions posting an operating loss of $114 million and and AMD’s Graphics segment hitting an operating income of $18 million for the quarter.

AMD blames the poor performance this quarter to a “weaker consumer buying environment” and indeed, we’ve been hearing that PC sales on the decline while smartphone and tablet sales continue to grow. Because of this disappointing quarter, AMD has announced that it will be laying off approximately 15% of its global workforce, and this round of layoffs is expected to be mostly complete before the end of Q4 2012. In addition to laying off those workers, AMD will also be consolidating some of its worksites. Altogether, these restructuring efforts are expected to save the company $20 million in Q4 and $190 million in 2013.

Looking forward, AMD doesn’t expect things to get much better. The company says it expects revenue to decrease a further 9% (plus or minus 4%) in Q4, so things will actually get a bit worse for AMD sequentially. It is, of course, never good to hear that people will be losing their jobs, but at this point, it sounds like those measures are necessary if AMD wants to climb out of this rut.

AMD announces layoffs after disappointing Q3 results is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

AMD‘s recent launch of their new Trinity APUs may soon result in a drastic price drop of the company’s last-gen Llano APU chips. According to DigiTimes, sources familiar with several motherboard manufacturers have mentioned that the entire lineup of AMD’s Llano series will see price cuts, including the A4-3300, which is said to cost only $30 after the price drop.

AMD’s latest APU chips, codenamed Trinity, run off of the company’s new FM2 socket, meaning that if you want to snatch one of these bad boys, you’ll have to upgrade your motherboard as well. However, the upgrade will certainly be worth it, seeing that you can grab the entry-level A4-5300 for just $65. This will get you a 3.4GHz dual-core processor with Radeon HD 7480D integrated graphics.

Along with the AMD’s last-gen A4-3300, it’s said that the other Llano chips will receive a generous price cut as well, including the A4-3400, which is said to be lowered to $35. It’s also rumored that A4-5300 will see a price slash down to $30 sometime next quarter (Q1 2013) in order to compete with Intel’s Pentium series.

If you’ve never played around with an APU before, we highly suggest getting one if you plan on building a budget computer anytime soon. Don’t let the low price fool you either. The last-gen entry level A4-3300 is plenty powerful to play HD content and even a few games on medium settings or so. They make for great processor for HTPCs, and Windows 7 runs really well on them.

AMD rumored to drop prices for APU Llano chips is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

AllThingsD and CNET are reporting that 30 percent of AMD’s workforce could be laid off, though one of several unnamed sources notes the cuts could be as low as 10 percent. If these reports hold true, this would be the second round of layoffs for AMD within a year’s time. The reductions will reportedly affect the firm’s engineering and sales employees, and may be serious enough to cause a paring back of product lines. The silicon giant could potentially reveal its plans as early as next week, which would coincide with the announcement of its third quarter financial results. With the company expecting a ten percent revenue drop in Q3, it looks like the latest figures will continue the trend of less than ideal results.

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Laptops, AMD

AMD could slash up to 30 percent of its workforce according to reports originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD has officially announced its new tablet-specific Z-60 processor, known as Hondo, and it promises rather a lot. In fact, the chip manufacturer claims it will allow you to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on your Windows 8 tablet, at 30 fps on a 1024 x 768 display. Sounds zippy. More »

AMD has revealed its new processor for tablets, the AMD Z-Series APU, intended to take on not only Intel’s Atom but the ARM-based chips found in the majority of slates on sale today. The AMD Z-60 has, with a 4.5W TDP, the lowest power consumption of AMD’s line-up, and is expected to bring its 1GHz dualcore speed to tablets as slim as 10mm with the first models – running Windows 8 – tipped for later this year.

The Z-60 includes Radeon HD 6250 graphics with 80 cores, as well as 1MB of L2 Cache and USB 3.0 support. There’s also support for AMD Start Now, the company’s fast boot/resume system, as well as an HDMI output capable of Full HD, and Microsoft’s DirectX 11.

AMD’s tablet reference design is built around a Z-60 paired with 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 30Whr battery, and running Windows 8. On that sort of setup, the company says it’s seeing up to eight hours of browsing or six hours of playing back a looped 720p H.264 video with the display brightness set to 60 nits.

That’s on the dim side, mind. AMD’s own anecdotal research from back in 2009 found that many people set their displays at more than 2.5x that brightness as a level of minimum comfort, and that 60 nits is roughly equivalent to 20- to 30-percent brightness settings on notebooks tested at the time.

At idle, AMD is supposedly seeing up to 10hrs of runtime. AMD is already shipping the Z-60 to its customers, with tablets running the chip expected later in 2012. No word on what sort of pricing we can expect.

AMD Z-60 APU for skinny Windows 8 tablets revealed is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.