Over breakfast this morning, I was chatting to Ian McNaughton, AMD’s robust senior product manager. Now, before tongues start wagging, I should explain that, right now, I, along with a few other members of the British technology press, am down in the south of France for a first look at a new AMD technology. (I can’t tell you about it just yet, but rest assured you’ll know the very second the embargo lifts.) Since this event has seen both journos and hosts tumbled together in the same hotel, it’s fairly inevitable we’ll bump into one another from time to time.

It’s not every day one gets to chat with senior AMD staff – especially not while they’re in such an agreeably bleary and docile state – so I took the opportunity to voice a personal opinion. I observed (perhaps a little bluntly) that it was all well and good AMD announcing new technologies for the future, but perhaps it ought also to think about promoting one of the strongest bits of technology it already has in the marketplace, viz. its Phenom X3 and X4 processors.

I know – because I’ve painstakingly tested them – that, in terms of bang per buck, the new Phenoms are very strong mid- and upper-range processors. The older models may have been lacklustre, but these are a whole different matter, putting Intel to shame at several price points. Yet they’ve entered into mass production without any fanfare, without even a whisper – hell, without so much as a press release.

So I asked Ian what the hell AMD is playing at. (All right, I didn’t put it quite like that, but I think he detected my exasperation.) After investing however many millions in bringing the Phenom up to speed, why aren’t they shouting its renaissance from the rooftops?

“The TLB bug hit us hard,” was his slightly cryptic response, referring to the notorious erratum that hobbled the performance of the original Phenoms by up to 20%.

Was he saying that the underperforming chips had had such a disastrous impact on the company’s fortunes that there was now no money to publicise the new ones? We all know AMD’s finances haven’t been in great shape lately, but from where I was sitting – in the restaurant of a four-star seafront hotel on the Côte d’Azur – it looked like the company was still able to rustle up a bit of budget when it wanted to.

It turned out he wasn’t suggesting they couldn’t afford to promote it. The problem, he felt, was public perception. “You know the bug’s gone,” he said. “And I know it’s gone. But the consumer…” He shrugged.

And that was it. This was a senior AMD product manager effectively admitting that the company considers the Phenom brand too tarnished to be worth promoting.

AMD’s reluctance to blow its own trumpet is understandable. After a disastrous 2007, in which the company’s promises repeatedly blew up in its face, it was appropriate for AMD to enter a period of self-reflection, to swallow its pride and to engage in some serious expectation management. Such was the mood as my interlocutor came in, along with Jon Carvill, as hands-on brand manager for the UK back in March, and since then the company has made a commendable stab at leaving its old ways behind. Products like the Radeon HD 3870 X2 and the Phenom X3 have appeared sooner than expected, surprising us with their power and affordability, while the company has scrupulously held back on grandiose claims and self-congratulation.

But there’s a difference between humility and self-flagellation. AMD has got so much into the habit of talking itself down that it seems to have started believing its own expectation-lowering rhetoric. Yes, the TLB bug was a big embarrassment, and thanks to it, the word “Phenom” does attract a certain ridicule among those in the know. But the company’s apparent defeatism makes no sense whatsoever.

For one thing, of the hundreds of thousands of people buying desktop PCs every year, how many have ever even heard of the TLB bug? It’s got to be an absolutely minuscule proportion. There’s a huge market out there with no preconceptions of the Phenom whom AMD could surely reach – if they’d only try.

And even if people have heard of the TLB bug, so what? New, improved versions of things come along all the time. Look at the Intel Celeron – when the first models, with no L2 cache, came out, they were universally panned. But the next generation, with its 128KB L2 cache, was happily accepted into the mainstream. Consumers don’t care about pedigrees, they want to know what’s the best chip for them right now.

And, of course, it’s my job – and that of all of us here at PC Pro – to help our readers determine that. Right now, AMD’s processor line-up is a good one, and we’re happy to recommend it. But it’s very easy to imagine Intel coming back with a new processor that knocks the Phenom off our A List. And when that happens, it seems AMD plans simply to take it on the chin.

Technology-wise, AMD has some great products, and there are more interesting ideas in the pipeline. But it seems the TLB bug really did hit hard, damaging not just AMD’s finances but also its self-confidence. To turn its fortunes around in the face of the Goliath Intel, the company needs to be out there selling the new Phenoms’ strengths to the mass market – but right now it lacks the cojones to do so. It’s time for AMD to forgive itself for past failures and get back in the game in earnest – before it’s too late.