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What does "start leading" even mean? Every CPU launch, AMD is ahead and the Intel beats them or Intel is ahead and then AMD beats them. There is no leading here

What does "start leading" even mean? Every CPU launch, AMD is ahead and the Intel beats them or Intel is ahead and then AMD beats them. There is no leading here. There are only wins for people who want CPUs that keep getting faster, cooler, require fewer watts to run, and overall improve generation upon generation.

SuperShibe 3y ago
And meanwhile they're both getting cucked by Apple because the Intel/AMD brand monoliths are too heavy to make any groundbreaking/architectural changes now.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- evilduck 3y ago
  AMD's Zen 4 chips are competing with Apple's M2 on performance and at least closing the gap on efficiency. Intel's Alder Lake is losing on efficiency but is still trading blows for performance. I am generally a fan of Apple but the M2 was just a modest iteration of the M1, it's not a groundbreaking architectural change either. Even the Pro/Max/Ultra die multiplication strategy is unlikely to continue competing much longer, the latest M2 Ultra is losing to AMD and Intel in some aspects right out of the gate.
  - Atotalnoob 3y ago
    In most aspects. The m2 chip is more power efficient, but it can't compete against Intel and amd
    - evilduck 3y ago
      I don't know about that either, based on Tom's Hardware review of the M2 Ultra it is still pretty competitive and well rounded. Intel beats Apple at most specs but the margin is too small to say Apple "can't compete", especially for a company that didn't even have a desktop CPU three years ago.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    M2 is still quite far ahead in user-interactive tasks like browser and JVM, as shown by actual user experience in battery life. Cinebench isn't exactly the only efficiency test and Anandtech shows AMD still trailing far behind on the SPEC2017 suite (a variety of real-world applications). In desktops (Mac Studio etc) where you can run unlimited watts, yeah Apple doesn't do as well there, but the efficiency is still amazing. And in the laptops, the actual user experience shows the cinebench numbers aren't capturing something.
    - augustl 3y ago
      I'm not sure if I even trust Intel/Windows at this point. The m1 macs are just so much snappier in absolutely every way imaginable than my old 11th gen Dell. My old PC would some times take minutes (!) to fully wake up from sleep, the battery drained in a couple of hours when coding, and it was sluggish the whole time compared to plugged in performance. I plan to see if I can borrow someone's 13th gen PC and use it for a week and see how it compares. I'm not able to find any reviews that covers the user experience on and off wall power.
      - fennecfoxy 3y ago
        "My old PC" Well of course a newer laptop of going to be "snappier" lmao. "My new car is faster and more fuel efficient than my old car"
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        evilduck 3y ago
        11th gen Intel isn't some ancient PC, it released in 2021, before the M1 that user compared it to. Don't be disingenuous.
        fennecfoxy 3y ago
        Aha, it's still a perfectly cromulent point. _every_ device starts off fast, phones laptops, whatever. I've had quite a few MBs and they all slow down after a while, needing an overhaul/refresh in the same way that windows machines, phones etc do. Get that red memory pressure and kernel desperately swapping pages in & out, woooo. Perhaps things are different with >16GB machines with the SSD mostly empty.
- fennecfoxy 3y ago
  By Apple? Or by ARM? There's a reason it's an "ARM" processor & not an "Apple" one, even though yes, Apple did contribute a lot of their own design to their specific chip. Unfortunately, Apple took the shortcut of gaining performance by having memory/SB/NB/kitchen sink all together on the same die, which is very...not scalable. It's a good way to be "top in class" for the class your in, but it comes with a ceiling; you can't hit the higher levels because where competitors can use the whole die for processor, Apple are stuck using only part of the die, the rest being used for memory/controllers, etc. Absolutely stellar architecture for laptops for sure, but not so great for desktops/servers, imo.
  - foldr 3y ago
    > where competitors can use the whole die for processor, Apple are stuck using only part of the die, the rest being used for memory/controllers, etc. The memory isn’t on the same die in the M-series chips.
  - davedx 3y ago
    It's an Apple M2.
wtallis 3y ago
It's only been perennial leapfrogging for the past several years, when AMD has been doing well with their Zen processors and Intel has been on a recovery path from their 10nm failures. But before that, there were a few stretches of several years each where Intel was solidly in the lead and AMD was always an also-ran. Intel couldn't have retained their dominant market share for decades without having those long periods of undisputed technical leadership to solidify their lead.
- justinclift 3y ago
  > Intel couldn't have retained their dominant market share for decades without having those long periods of undisputed technical leadership ... That kind of misses where Intel pulled all kinds of illegal business tactics to have AMD excluded from manufacturers, etc.
- TheBigSalad 3y ago
  But people are pining for the "good old days" where Intel sucked, but AMD sucked more. Now these two companies are competitive and innovating. This is how it's supposed to be.
- TheRealPomax 3y ago
  Sounds like someone either wasn't around for, or forgot about, both the Athlon era (when folks were just as likely to have an Intel as they were AMD), as well as the 486 days, where folks were just as likely to have an Intel as they were a Cyrix (thanks, Quake, for ruining that party). It's not "only the past few years", it's "we're back to healthy competition" after a period of basically illegal business practices breaking the market.
- JMUGLEX 3y ago
  @wtallis I have a question unrelated to this thread, but if you have a way to contact you privately it's about an article you wrote in 2017. Thanks

SuperShibe 3y ago

And meanwhile they're both getting cucked by Apple because the Intel/AMD brand monoliths are too heavy to make any groundbreaking/architectural changes now.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
evilduck 3y ago
AMD's Zen 4 chips are competing with Apple's M2 on performance and at least closing the gap on efficiency. Intel's Alder Lake is losing on efficiency but is still trading blows for performance. I am generally a fan of Apple but the M2 was just a modest iteration of the M1, it's not a groundbreaking architectural change either. Even the Pro/Max/Ultra die multiplication strategy is unlikely to continue competing much longer, the latest M2 Ultra is losing to AMD and Intel in some aspects right out of the gate.
- Atotalnoob 3y ago
  In most aspects. The m2 chip is more power efficient, but it can't compete against Intel and amd
  - evilduck 3y ago
    I don't know about that either, based on Tom's Hardware review of the M2 Ultra it is still pretty competitive and well rounded. Intel beats Apple at most specs but the margin is too small to say Apple "can't compete", especially for a company that didn't even have a desktop CPU three years ago.
- paulmd 3y ago
  M2 is still quite far ahead in user-interactive tasks like browser and JVM, as shown by actual user experience in battery life. Cinebench isn't exactly the only efficiency test and Anandtech shows AMD still trailing far behind on the SPEC2017 suite (a variety of real-world applications). In desktops (Mac Studio etc) where you can run unlimited watts, yeah Apple doesn't do as well there, but the efficiency is still amazing. And in the laptops, the actual user experience shows the cinebench numbers aren't capturing something.
  - augustl 3y ago
    I'm not sure if I even trust Intel/Windows at this point. The m1 macs are just so much snappier in absolutely every way imaginable than my old 11th gen Dell. My old PC would some times take minutes (!) to fully wake up from sleep, the battery drained in a couple of hours when coding, and it was sluggish the whole time compared to plugged in performance. I plan to see if I can borrow someone's 13th gen PC and use it for a week and see how it compares. I'm not able to find any reviews that covers the user experience on and off wall power.
    - fennecfoxy 3y ago
      "My old PC" Well of course a newer laptop of going to be "snappier" lmao. "My new car is faster and more fuel efficient than my old car"
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - evilduck 3y ago
        11th gen Intel isn't some ancient PC, it released in 2021, before the M1 that user compared it to. Don't be disingenuous.
        fennecfoxy 3y ago
        Aha, it's still a perfectly cromulent point. _every_ device starts off fast, phones laptops, whatever. I've had quite a few MBs and they all slow down after a while, needing an overhaul/refresh in the same way that windows machines, phones etc do. Get that red memory pressure and kernel desperately swapping pages in & out, woooo. Perhaps things are different with >16GB machines with the SSD mostly empty.
fennecfoxy 3y ago
By Apple? Or by ARM? There's a reason it's an "ARM" processor & not an "Apple" one, even though yes, Apple did contribute a lot of their own design to their specific chip. Unfortunately, Apple took the shortcut of gaining performance by having memory/SB/NB/kitchen sink all together on the same die, which is very...not scalable. It's a good way to be "top in class" for the class your in, but it comes with a ceiling; you can't hit the higher levels because where competitors can use the whole die for processor, Apple are stuck using only part of the die, the rest being used for memory/controllers, etc. Absolutely stellar architecture for laptops for sure, but not so great for desktops/servers, imo.
- foldr 3y ago
  > where competitors can use the whole die for processor, Apple are stuck using only part of the die, the rest being used for memory/controllers, etc. The memory isn’t on the same die in the M-series chips.
- davedx 3y ago
  It's an Apple M2.

wtallis 3y ago

It's only been perennial leapfrogging for the past several years, when AMD has been doing well with their Zen processors and Intel has been on a recovery path from their 10nm failures. But before that, there were a few stretches of several years each where Intel was solidly in the lead and AMD was always an also-ran. Intel couldn't have retained their dominant market share for decades without having those long periods of undisputed technical leadership to solidify their lead.

justinclift 3y ago
> Intel couldn't have retained their dominant market share for decades without having those long periods of undisputed technical leadership ... That kind of misses where Intel pulled all kinds of illegal business tactics to have AMD excluded from manufacturers, etc.
TheBigSalad 3y ago
But people are pining for the "good old days" where Intel sucked, but AMD sucked more. Now these two companies are competitive and innovating. This is how it's supposed to be.
TheRealPomax 3y ago
Sounds like someone either wasn't around for, or forgot about, both the Athlon era (when folks were just as likely to have an Intel as they were AMD), as well as the 486 days, where folks were just as likely to have an Intel as they were a Cyrix (thanks, Quake, for ruining that party). It's not "only the past few years", it's "we're back to healthy competition" after a period of basically illegal business practices breaking the market.
JMUGLEX 3y ago
@wtallis I have a question unrelated to this thread, but if you have a way to contact you privately it's about an article you wrote in 2017. Thanks