2016 is going to be an important year for AMD. Following on from the somewhat luke-warm reception to its Fury X high end GPU and a further contraction of its marker share in the add-in GPU market, AMD is in dire straights. Fortunately, next year it has a new CPU architecture to release, something that almost always gives the company behind it a nice leg up, at least in the short term.
Of course AMD's last big CPU reveal, Bulldozer, didn't exactly go to plan. When it was revealed back in late 2011, it was praised for its multi-core support, but fell down when it came to single core performance, which was much more important back then. However AMD tells us that Zen will be a big improvement over what came before, and will even have a large double digit performance increase from its on-board GPU, perhaps making it a great option for onboard graphics sporting laptops and desktops.
However really, we're all hoping the performance is great enough that it can take a swing at Intel's mid-to-high-end i5 and i7 CPUs, because if that's the case, there's not only more of an option for consumers, but Intel will need to respond and whenever it's done that in the past, it's come back with a home run.
Still, if that doesn't happen, if AMD releases a dud product that few are interested in, AMD could look for a merger to save it. One suggestion being touted by the likes of Zdnet is Apple.
Although some may consider it sacrilege for a company like Apple to pick up one of the PC world's longest standing firms, Apple is incredibly cash rich and could buy up AMD without breaking a sweat.
It could also then leverage those CPUs with decent on board graphics for its smartphones, MacBooks and continue to sell to console manufacturers. The big thing though, is it could give AMD the financial backing it needs for R&D to really compete with Intel on performance again.
Wouldn't that be neat?
