The worst part is that AMD and Nvidia have noticed that and their only answer is card designs made for miners... that miners won't ever buy!

And the reason for that is that those cards have no display connectors, which means that miners can't resell them once they've done their job, so miners will still purchase the regular cards any day.

Well, we will see if they can tape out their designs this year yet. As I mentioned to JEMC, I just don't think they can, because somewhere, somehow, there will surely be delays. Even Intel and Samsung have their setbacks and end up not matching up to their roadmaps, AMD and Global Foundries even more so. Even Zen was late by +-6 months, after all, same with Vega 10, and that's on a somewhat mature process, not one which still is mostly on paper.

The price rises don't actually increase profit margins for nVidia or AMD either. It's completely on the board manufacturers, importers and retailers side that see the extra dollar signs.
nVidia and AMD just win on increased volume sales.

So the bitcoin cards are there to try and fill that gap.

Just because Zen was late, doesn't mean Zen+ will be. Seperate teams.

We don't know if Zen+ will be using Global Foundries 7nm anyway. It might continue to use Samsungs 14nm Finfet at Global Foundries or might not use either and use a 12nm process, if Global Foundries tools it up appropriately.

Chances are we will see chips drop before tax time next year. And there is a plethora of reasons for that.
One is to get in-on the OEM upgrade cycle.

It takes more than just the transistor technology itself to drive high frequencies, the logic and physical chip design matters too ... 

Nah, I imagine AMD will only start with peanuts as I think Zen is only originally intended to get customers to trust AMD ... 

I honestly hope Zen 2 doesn't share the same socket as that limits microarchitecture improvements ... (AVX-512, TSX, PCIE 4.0, and IPC)

Plus this, GF will start mass producing chips on wafers with 7nm transistor technology by 2H 2018 so the original Zen will be history by next year so no need for AMD to invest anymore than they have now. AMD and GF should focus on getting high supply for Zen 2 to push large volume sales for the next holiday ... 

AMD's golden years weren't with K7 or Zen, AMD's golden years were with the K8 and most likely Zen 2 since they mark the first time that AMD had truly competitive offerings compared to the competition, if not then superior! 

Intel dual cores are also subpar for the fact that it doesn't even support AVX/AVX2 ... (consoles do support AVX and Intel fusing off AVX from dual cores is another generation of missed opportunities)  

That's not what I heard ... 

AMD has a WSA with GF until 2020 so it's almost certain that the next AMD CPUs, APUs, and GPUs will be manufactured by GF ... 

Plus what AMD is getting out of from GF isn't all that bad when they can look forward to the next shrink in the near future and then make the switch to Samsung as their main manufacturer since they have clear plans for 5nm and below ... (I think Samsung is the only one that can truly compete with Intel soon on an even playing ground in terms of transistor technology)

I don't see the problem with miners. Sure, they're driving up prices and causing supply issues but that's not really their fault or anyone's for that matter. The bubble will burst soon enough. It's the same nonsense as being mad at scalpers.

I read that same thing years ago when prices of AMD's R9 290 ans similar cards went up because of miners, and yet the bubble has yet to explode.

Well that was Bitcoin and Bitcoin has stabilized. All of the new miners are mining some obscure currencies in the hope they will take off as much as Bitcoin, which they won't. Hence a true bubble.

Yeah, a bubble you don't know if it's about to burst or if it will keep growing several more months or years because there always seems to be something else to mine.

I'm aware.

Even a few percentage points of marketshare can still result in millions of revenue.
And when AMD posts loss after loss every quarter. (January 2017 they had a -29 million dollar loss) any slice of marketshare gain is a good thing.

You can retain socket compatability but upgrade the chipset to take advantage of newer features. Which is what AMD has historically done.

AM3+ being the crappy scenario where AMD neglected the platform for years.

Sockets should only be replaced if there is a need for it. And IMHO Intel replaces sockets way to often.

That's provided Global Foundries is actually on time with it's 7nm technology. (Likely using a 14nm FEOL or BEOL.)

Besides. early 2018 is when "Risk Production" of 7nm begins. Who knows if delays will arise.

Disagree. K7 was part of AMD's "Golden Era".

We got Thunderbird, Morgan, Spitfire, Palomino, Thoroughbred, Barton, Thorton CPU's in the Athlon, Duron, Athlon XP lineup.
AMD pushed it's advantage with K8.

Before Intel moved the L2 cache-on die with Coppermine, AMD had a big CPU advantage, then when AMD did the same, AMD was ahead in the performance stakes.
Then after Coppermine we got Tualatin and Willamatte which really didn't reach the same heights as K7... AMD retained it's advantage untill Intel dropped Northwood and AMD's K7 seemed to stagnate as it couldn't scale in clocks well enough. (And is when AMD introduced it's PR rating.)

Duron smashed the Celeron at pretty much every step.

I concur.
AVX and Quad-Cores should be the minimum requirement for all CPU lineups in 2017 IMHO. Hell. My grandmother has a 6-core processor and she only uses Facebook.

I never stated/insinuated that chips wouldn't be manufactured by Global Foundries. Have you forgotten that Global Foundries 14nm process is licensed from Samsung?

Samsung is still years behind Intel. The "nm" has turned into a marketing term that fabs are flaunting.

Seems Anandtech isn't privvy to all the details this time around.
Global Foundries is tooling a few fabs up for "12nm". Granted it has a few caveats.

https://www.globalfoundries.com/news-events/press-releases/globalfoundries-extends-fdxtm-roadmap-12nm-fd-soi-technology

I do assume there will be an improved Zen on 14 nm next year, with improved memory compatibility and higher clock speeds. Since their 7 nm architecture has been renamed Zen 2, AMD might choose to call this improved design Zen+. But I don't think AMD has the money to redesign their chips intended for 7 nm back to 14 nm, like Nvidia did with Maxwell. As for 12 nm... it seems even less likely since it's a node without Finfets, that would probably be even harder to redesign their Zen chips around. It will be worth the wait for the 7 nm node even if it is months late, the front end of line is bound to be much denser than Intel's 14 nm. It will be close to Intel's 10 nm than GloFo's 14 nm was to Intel's 14 nm.