In 2015, why would anyone have believed AMD could catch up to Intel? Let's not forget that the Bulldozer/Excavator days are not that long ago, and those chips w

In 2015, why would anyone have believed AMD could catch up to Intel? Let's not forget that the Bulldozer/Excavator days are not that long ago, and those chips were even less competitive in 2011-2016 than Intel's current offerings are in 2024. I think we can confidently say that bigger architectural gaps have been closed before. Comparing Intel to other fabs, it's uglier, sure. The Krzanich years were characterized by over-promising and under-delivering, and Intel isn't far enough removed from that period for trust to be rebuilt. That said, they have shrunk the process gap over the last couple years, even if the gap isn't entirely closed. Given the firehose of government money being directed at domestic manufacturing right now, I assume Intel is doing fine on the "shitloads of money" front. I don't think Intel is a favorite to be the world's process leader by 2025, but it's reasonable to think they could get close. I don't think the doom-and-gloom perspective is well-founded at all.