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> Will everyone just have to switch to TSMC? Did you read the article ? AMD is going up as a % because a lot of customers are switching to Samsung (and Huawei

> Will everyone just have to switch to TSMC? Did you read the article ? AMD is going up as a % because a lot of customers are switching to Samsung (and Huawei sanctions)

arnaudsm 6y ago
The fact that AMD had the best-performing CPU by a 2x factor for the past 4 years probably plays a role too.
- theferalrobot 6y ago
  That seems at least a bit hyperbolic - AMD has pushed intel a lot in the past four years but it wasn't until the past year or so that they have potentially started outperforming Intel (depending on workload) in what is likely to be a 'who has released more recently' kind of competition for a while. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html Latest benches have AMD and Intel winning in about the same number of tests.
  - dhruvdh 6y ago
    The first graph in this article doesn't include Ryzen 5000 series processors. By their own tests later AMD has top 4 positions for both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads. Intel came out with their Rocket lake line of CPUs after Ryzen 5000 and Rocket lake can't match up. Even before Ryzen 5000, anything that wasn't single-threaded Intel could never beat; and had way worse performance per watt.
    - nightski 6y ago
      Weird, it definitely includes them for me, in all six images and it's exactly like the parent said (some Intel, some AMD). Maybe you are confused because Threadripper is at the top in some above the 5000 series? AMD is killing it with the 5000 series, but it's just barely edging out Intel in these benchmarks. The whole 2x figure was a little absurd.
  - fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
    It’s been true before that the losing architecture can juice their numbers by making big hot chips that use tons of power. Intel is so far behind that this is strategy is hard to continue. They can keep in the conversation by giving you more cores for less dollars, but those are dire straits for the company.
    - mhh__ 6y ago
      Its hard to continue but they have just posted great financials so only need to scrape through to 10 or 7 nm then they will probably go back to stomping AMD. AMD's documentation is poor, software is poor, marketing is also not great (My next computer will be an AMD but I wouldn't bet on them having a run anything like Intel's over the last decade)
  - ses1984 6y ago
    AMD most definitely started outperforming Intel in performance per dollar in the last year forcing Intel to implement huge price cuts to remain competitive.
- m463 6y ago
  Doesn't that correspond to the globalfoundries contracts?
- knz_ 6y ago
  The original Zen architecture released in 2017 was not the best performing CPU on the market by any metric. It wasn't until Zen 2 and Zen 3 that AMD fully caught up.
  - p1necone 6y ago
    If $/perf on multithreaded workloads is your metric then it did beat Intel from what I remember. I believe it took until Zen 2 for the AMD high end to beat the Intel high end in multithreaded perf, and until Zen 3 for AMD to take the single threaded perf crown across the board too.
    - p1necone 6y ago
      It occurs to me now that AMD probably would have taken the multithreaded crown from Intel with Zen 1 if Intel hadn't upped their (consumer socket) high end from 4 to 6 cores in the same year. Although it's hard to say whether that was a direct response to the threat from AMD or not.
garmaine 6y ago
I’m out of the loop. How does Huawei (PRC) sanctions end up negatively affecting TSMC (ROC) sales?
- Macha 6y ago
  TSMC's second largest customer _was_ Huawei. The US sanctions led to TSMC no longer selling to Huawaei.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    I see, that makes sense. Thanks! What a lost opportunity though. Taiwan and USA could have made an exception here on some made up grounds and then back-doored the Huawei silicon. (Not saying they should do this, but that it is something they would do and it’s odd that they didn’t.)
    - lazide 6y ago
      Considering the whole point was somewhat shortsighted pain to China (in that long term this forces China to build a world class chip foundry now), it makes perfect sense. Huawei (and by extension China) is not going to be able to produce as many chips as competitively as others.
      - garmaine 6y ago
        No the point was to protect national security interests by making sure that Huawei devices were not used in our infrastructure so they couldn’t back door us. It was implemented with a heavy-handed “don’t do business of any kind with Huawei” sanctions regime. In retrospect, supplying to Huawei should have been allowed.
        sangnoir 6y ago
        So why pressure other countries to drop Huawei too? The UK and EU countries previously thought Huawei's presence in their 5G infrastructure was a manageable security risk, until the US pressured them. By all means, it appears to be a "starve the beast" campaign to delay or deny China technological primacy in 5th-gen telecoms, and hinder the "China 2025" agenda in general.

> Will everyone just have to switch to TSMC? Did you read the article ? AMD is going up as a % because a lot of customers are switching to Samsung (and Huawei sanctions)

arnaudsm 6y ago

The fact that AMD had the best-performing CPU by a 2x factor for the past 4 years probably plays a role too.

theferalrobot 6y ago
That seems at least a bit hyperbolic - AMD has pushed intel a lot in the past four years but it wasn't until the past year or so that they have potentially started outperforming Intel (depending on workload) in what is likely to be a 'who has released more recently' kind of competition for a while. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html Latest benches have AMD and Intel winning in about the same number of tests.
- dhruvdh 6y ago
  The first graph in this article doesn't include Ryzen 5000 series processors. By their own tests later AMD has top 4 positions for both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads. Intel came out with their Rocket lake line of CPUs after Ryzen 5000 and Rocket lake can't match up. Even before Ryzen 5000, anything that wasn't single-threaded Intel could never beat; and had way worse performance per watt.
  - nightski 6y ago
    Weird, it definitely includes them for me, in all six images and it's exactly like the parent said (some Intel, some AMD). Maybe you are confused because Threadripper is at the top in some above the 5000 series? AMD is killing it with the 5000 series, but it's just barely edging out Intel in these benchmarks. The whole 2x figure was a little absurd.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 6y ago
  It’s been true before that the losing architecture can juice their numbers by making big hot chips that use tons of power. Intel is so far behind that this is strategy is hard to continue. They can keep in the conversation by giving you more cores for less dollars, but those are dire straits for the company.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    Its hard to continue but they have just posted great financials so only need to scrape through to 10 or 7 nm then they will probably go back to stomping AMD. AMD's documentation is poor, software is poor, marketing is also not great (My next computer will be an AMD but I wouldn't bet on them having a run anything like Intel's over the last decade)
- ses1984 6y ago
  AMD most definitely started outperforming Intel in performance per dollar in the last year forcing Intel to implement huge price cuts to remain competitive.
m463 6y ago
Doesn't that correspond to the globalfoundries contracts?
knz_ 6y ago
The original Zen architecture released in 2017 was not the best performing CPU on the market by any metric. It wasn't until Zen 2 and Zen 3 that AMD fully caught up.
- p1necone 6y ago
  If $/perf on multithreaded workloads is your metric then it did beat Intel from what I remember. I believe it took until Zen 2 for the AMD high end to beat the Intel high end in multithreaded perf, and until Zen 3 for AMD to take the single threaded perf crown across the board too.
  - p1necone 6y ago
    It occurs to me now that AMD probably would have taken the multithreaded crown from Intel with Zen 1 if Intel hadn't upped their (consumer socket) high end from 4 to 6 cores in the same year. Although it's hard to say whether that was a direct response to the threat from AMD or not.

garmaine 6y ago

I’m out of the loop. How does Huawei (PRC) sanctions end up negatively affecting TSMC (ROC) sales?

Macha 6y ago
TSMC's second largest customer _was_ Huawei. The US sanctions led to TSMC no longer selling to Huawaei.
- garmaine 6y ago
  I see, that makes sense. Thanks! What a lost opportunity though. Taiwan and USA could have made an exception here on some made up grounds and then back-doored the Huawei silicon. (Not saying they should do this, but that it is something they would do and it’s odd that they didn’t.)
  - lazide 6y ago
    Considering the whole point was somewhat shortsighted pain to China (in that long term this forces China to build a world class chip foundry now), it makes perfect sense. Huawei (and by extension China) is not going to be able to produce as many chips as competitively as others.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      No the point was to protect national security interests by making sure that Huawei devices were not used in our infrastructure so they couldn’t back door us. It was implemented with a heavy-handed “don’t do business of any kind with Huawei” sanctions regime. In retrospect, supplying to Huawei should have been allowed.
      - sangnoir 6y ago
        So why pressure other countries to drop Huawei too? The UK and EU countries previously thought Huawei's presence in their 5G infrastructure was a manageable security risk, until the US pressured them. By all means, it appears to be a "starve the beast" campaign to delay or deny China technological primacy in 5th-gen telecoms, and hinder the "China 2025" agenda in general.