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Can someone please enlighten me on the claim that the share of Intel processors is rapidly shrinking? I don't know enough to believe or doubt it. Apple moving

by ksynwa 2y ago

Can someone please enlighten me on the claim that the share of Intel processors is rapidly shrinking? I don't know enough to believe or doubt it. Apple moving to ARM processors seems like an important enough event for something like this to happen. But from cursory reading, I felt that Apple's M processors are so good because of their SoC nature where there are coprocessing units specialised for common tasks. I just thought that something like this could be achieved by Intel with their processors too but it doesn't look like that's the case. I am rambling but I hope someone can shed some light here regardless.

katbyte 2y ago
the apple chips are so much "better" for a bunch of different reasons including the coprocessors but the biggest being the move to the ARM instruction set vs intel's x86 - Intel can not make that change for their main set of processors.
rob74 2y ago
I'm wondering if they mean "Intel" in the "x86" sense or "Intel" as in "CPUs actually built by Intel"? The market share of the latter is probably shrinking faster than the former...
limpbizkitfan 2y ago
Intel’s PC market was partially eaten by Apple’s switch to M1 and even earlier, Chromebooks moving to ARM/RISC. New server farms and clusters now have a CPU and a GPU as opposed to the past where you’d have just Xeons everywhere (a market Intel took from Sun). Intel tried to buoy themselves by purchasing Altera and working on discrete GPUs/AI focused peripherals, but AMD bought Xilinx and had (I believe) far better resources and experience in the GPU segment. Most troubling for Intel, they still invest heavily in and own their fabs. If there’s some protective anti-China tariff (certainly, there will be if China and Taiwan do reunify), perhaps Intel could have a slight advantage with their fab locations??
smaudet 2y ago
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/07/arm-earnings-report-q3-2024-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/07/arm-earnings-report-q3-2024-... https://www.techpowerup.com/322317/amd-hits-highest-ever-x86-cpu-market-share-in-q1-2024-across-desktop-and-server https://www.techpowerup.com/322317/amd-hits-highest-ever-x86... Did a pretty simple search, but these appear to be the trend being referenced. The first marks a clear downward trajectory for Intel (on x86) and upward one for AMD, the second mentions high ship numbers for ARM. I can imagine you can dice those to show that the Intel market share demand is decreasing, at least relative to total market share (which could be increasing). > I just thought that something like this could be achieved by Intel with their processors too but it doesn't look like that's the case. Nope. Intel has an large set of extensions to support with CISC (slow, more complexity) whereas RISC architecture has a small API and hence more leeway to do as they please (fast, less complexity). You could probably strip down the intel CISC architecture to something much simpler/nimbler, but you'd break a ton of existing applications. Or you could go RISC as well, and break even more things... Or like Apple you already don't care and effectively deprecate all the "old" applications (they run on a compatibility layer), and use your expertise and vertical integration to design a system from the ground up...Microsoft and Intel would both have to decide to completely abandon their existing product line and "start over", which they could do, but then they'd also have to work very, very closely with each other (no egos/bosses trying to do things "their" way) to make that work, and probably piss off every other vendor they've ever worked with at the same time.... Which is probably why Microsoft is trying so hard to "just" get ARM working, its far simpler to target a platform with a large and growing base rather than try to work efficiently with Intel...
twobitshifter 2y ago
1) Intel hit a rough patch vs AMD chips for performance/price tradeoffs 2) Apple M Series Chips 3) New Snapdragon ARM chips are poised to do to the rest of laptops what M did to Macs. Once someone has all day battery life they aren’t going back to intel.

by ksynwa 2y ago

katbyte 2y ago

the apple chips are so much "better" for a bunch of different reasons including the coprocessors but the biggest being the move to the ARM instruction set vs intel's x86 - Intel can not make that change for their main set of processors.

rob74 2y ago

I'm wondering if they mean "Intel" in the "x86" sense or "Intel" as in "CPUs actually built by Intel"? The market share of the latter is probably shrinking faster than the former...

limpbizkitfan 2y ago

Intel’s PC market was partially eaten by Apple’s switch to M1 and even earlier, Chromebooks moving to ARM/RISC. New server farms and clusters now have a CPU and a GPU as opposed to the past where you’d have just Xeons everywhere (a market Intel took from Sun). Intel tried to buoy themselves by purchasing Altera and working on discrete GPUs/AI focused peripherals, but AMD bought Xilinx and had (I believe) far better resources and experience in the GPU segment. Most troubling for Intel, they still invest heavily in and own their fabs. If there’s some protective anti-China tariff (certainly, there will be if China and Taiwan do reunify), perhaps Intel could have a slight advantage with their fab locations??

smaudet 2y ago

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/07/arm-earnings-report-q3-2024-.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/07/arm-earnings-report-q3-2024-... https://www.techpowerup.com/322317/amd-hits-highest-ever-x86-cpu-market-share-in-q1-2024-across-desktop-and-server https://www.techpowerup.com/322317/amd-hits-highest-ever-x86... Did a pretty simple search, but these appear to be the trend being referenced. The first marks a clear downward trajectory for Intel (on x86) and upward one for AMD, the second mentions high ship numbers for ARM. I can imagine you can dice those to show that the Intel market share demand is decreasing, at least relative to total market share (which could be increasing). > I just thought that something like this could be achieved by Intel with their processors too but it doesn't look like that's the case. Nope. Intel has an large set of extensions to support with CISC (slow, more complexity) whereas RISC architecture has a small API and hence more leeway to do as they please (fast, less complexity). You could probably strip down the intel CISC architecture to something much simpler/nimbler, but you'd break a ton of existing applications. Or you could go RISC as well, and break even more things... Or like Apple you already don't care and effectively deprecate all the "old" applications (they run on a compatibility layer), and use your expertise and vertical integration to design a system from the ground up...Microsoft and Intel would both have to decide to completely abandon their existing product line and "start over", which they could do, but then they'd also have to work very, very closely with each other (no egos/bosses trying to do things "their" way) to make that work, and probably piss off every other vendor they've ever worked with at the same time.... Which is probably why Microsoft is trying so hard to "just" get ARM working, its far simpler to target a platform with a large and growing base rather than try to work efficiently with Intel...

twobitshifter 2y ago

1) Intel hit a rough patch vs AMD chips for performance/price tradeoffs 2) Apple M Series Chips 3) New Snapdragon ARM chips are poised to do to the rest of laptops what M did to Macs. Once someone has all day battery life they aren’t going back to intel.