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Look to me a significant amount of engineering went into making sure the chip can withstand the amount of power it is drawing. Basically a desperate move by Int

Look to me a significant amount of engineering went into making sure the chip can withstand the amount of power it is drawing. Basically a desperate move by Intel to keep their outdated design from being completely smoked by AMD.

fortran77 3y ago
Intel isn't worried about AMD. They're worried about Arm.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  Intel is getting attacked from all sides. AMD has raised their market share over the last 4-5 years from about 8% to 31% of x86 sales. Intel also saw 5 straight years of market share declines against AMD in the server space - which is by far the most lucrative. And yes, they're also worried about ARM and Nvidia.
- nolok 3y ago
  More than half of Intel's revenue come from desktop and laptop chips, and that's the segment that's being eaten the fastest, and the one doing the eating is AMD. ARM is another threat on the horizon on that front, but it's nothing compared to the beating AMD has been giving them since the Ryzen showed up.
  - aurareturn 3y ago
    It's true. It's hard to see how Intel can catch up to Apple and AMD in the client and server space respectively. However, I still own a substantial amount of Intel stocks because it will be one of the most valuable company in the world if China uses military action against Taiwan. If not, then I still believe Intel will be successful with their IFS strategy because the world is about to enter an era where compute will never be enough and designers want a second supplier next to TSMC.
    - Aromasin 3y ago
      I'm also backing that investment thesis. I don't have hopes for Intel being anything but a budget alternative in terms of their client and datacentre products, but the foundry business is only going to grow as more players join the gold rush that is compute power, and they're going to be the ones selling the picks.
      - Detrytus 3y ago
        Well, give it 1-2 more years and they will leapfrog TSMC with their manufacturing process. 18A is allegedly still on track, and Intel is also getting into foundry business, I can totally imagine NVIDIA switching to Intel for their next-gen GPUs for example. That, combined with worries about China attacking Taiwan makes me bullish on Intel stock.
        aurareturn 3y ago
        I doubt they leap frog TSMC. 18A will come out around the same time as N2. I have more confidence that TSMc’s N2 will perform better and be in far higher volume and yield rate. 20A is sort of Intel’s first foray. 18A is really their serious node. If you think Intel has a chance to leap TSMC, it will come at the 14A node but you have to bet that TSMC is wrong to stay with low NA.
        formerly_proven 3y ago
        Their process strategies lined up at final gen DUV and 1st gen EUV, but are divergent for the future: TSMC isn’t using high NA EUV for the time being and instead focuses on multi-patterning. Intel is instead trying to push high NA EUV into production first. We will see which works out; they can of course also both achieve success in different ways.
        aurareturn 3y ago
        Given the recent history, it’s safer to bet that TSMC knows what they’re doing more. It feels like Intel is risking a lot to try to win back the crown. Hence, I believe in TSMC’s more.
nolok 3y ago
Much better than the time just a few years ago where they tried to show a 28 core 5ghz chip and pretend it was a normal one and got pissed when enthousiast realized they were using insane cooling to get it there. I'm still baffled by that showing years later. Over-engineered, over-cooled chips to reach absurd speed record has been a staple since as far as I remember, like back in the Pentium 2 or before. Why did anyone at Intel think they should hide the sauce, or get pissed when fans got to it, is beyond my comprehension.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  > enthousiast realized they were using insane cooling to get it there. Didn't they use a chiller?
  - nolok 3y ago
    They used a 1700 watt chiller with sub ambient cooling, and a power unit who could pump up to 2000 watts into the CPU. So clearly "record for the show", not "here is what you will buy tomorrow". Which, taken as the usual world record and cool feat of cpu speed would have been perfectly fine and impressive, but they were getting scared of AMD so for some weird reason some idiot in their PR team insisted on pretending from top to bottom that this was a normal chip running on normal condition, and when Asus (I think ?) let fans see how it was achieved Intel gave them less than 30 minutes to give the chip back. This was not a great era for Intel ...
NoPicklez 3y ago
Not at all really. The 9Ghz clock was achieved not through any normal cooling or by efficiency of the chip. These overclocking records have been around for decades but they're in no way shape or form representative of the average of even the top 1% of users. It's impressive purely because it was possible with an off the shelf chip.

fortran77 3y ago

Intel isn't worried about AMD. They're worried about Arm.

arcticbull 3y ago
Intel is getting attacked from all sides. AMD has raised their market share over the last 4-5 years from about 8% to 31% of x86 sales. Intel also saw 5 straight years of market share declines against AMD in the server space - which is by far the most lucrative. And yes, they're also worried about ARM and Nvidia.
nolok 3y ago
More than half of Intel's revenue come from desktop and laptop chips, and that's the segment that's being eaten the fastest, and the one doing the eating is AMD. ARM is another threat on the horizon on that front, but it's nothing compared to the beating AMD has been giving them since the Ryzen showed up.
- aurareturn 3y ago
  It's true. It's hard to see how Intel can catch up to Apple and AMD in the client and server space respectively. However, I still own a substantial amount of Intel stocks because it will be one of the most valuable company in the world if China uses military action against Taiwan. If not, then I still believe Intel will be successful with their IFS strategy because the world is about to enter an era where compute will never be enough and designers want a second supplier next to TSMC.
  - Aromasin 3y ago
    I'm also backing that investment thesis. I don't have hopes for Intel being anything but a budget alternative in terms of their client and datacentre products, but the foundry business is only going to grow as more players join the gold rush that is compute power, and they're going to be the ones selling the picks.
    - Detrytus 3y ago
      Well, give it 1-2 more years and they will leapfrog TSMC with their manufacturing process. 18A is allegedly still on track, and Intel is also getting into foundry business, I can totally imagine NVIDIA switching to Intel for their next-gen GPUs for example. That, combined with worries about China attacking Taiwan makes me bullish on Intel stock.
      - aurareturn 3y ago
        I doubt they leap frog TSMC. 18A will come out around the same time as N2. I have more confidence that TSMc’s N2 will perform better and be in far higher volume and yield rate. 20A is sort of Intel’s first foray. 18A is really their serious node. If you think Intel has a chance to leap TSMC, it will come at the 14A node but you have to bet that TSMC is wrong to stay with low NA.
        formerly_proven 3y ago
        Their process strategies lined up at final gen DUV and 1st gen EUV, but are divergent for the future: TSMC isn’t using high NA EUV for the time being and instead focuses on multi-patterning. Intel is instead trying to push high NA EUV into production first. We will see which works out; they can of course also both achieve success in different ways.
        aurareturn 3y ago
        Given the recent history, it’s safer to bet that TSMC knows what they’re doing more. It feels like Intel is risking a lot to try to win back the crown. Hence, I believe in TSMC’s more.

nolok 3y ago

Much better than the time just a few years ago where they tried to show a 28 core 5ghz chip and pretend it was a normal one and got pissed when enthousiast realized they were using insane cooling to get it there. I'm still baffled by that showing years later. Over-engineered, over-cooled chips to reach absurd speed record has been a staple since as far as I remember, like back in the Pentium 2 or before. Why did anyone at Intel think they should hide the sauce, or get pissed when fans got to it, is beyond my comprehension.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
> enthousiast realized they were using insane cooling to get it there. Didn't they use a chiller?
- nolok 3y ago
  They used a 1700 watt chiller with sub ambient cooling, and a power unit who could pump up to 2000 watts into the CPU. So clearly "record for the show", not "here is what you will buy tomorrow". Which, taken as the usual world record and cool feat of cpu speed would have been perfectly fine and impressive, but they were getting scared of AMD so for some weird reason some idiot in their PR team insisted on pretending from top to bottom that this was a normal chip running on normal condition, and when Asus (I think ?) let fans see how it was achieved Intel gave them less than 30 minutes to give the chip back. This was not a great era for Intel ...

NoPicklez 3y ago

Not at all really. The 9Ghz clock was achieved not through any normal cooling or by efficiency of the chip. These overclocking records have been around for decades but they're in no way shape or form representative of the average of even the top 1% of users. It's impressive purely because it was possible with an off the shelf chip.