3 ms·

Intel has been hitting all (or enough of) the right notes for about 30 years. In our industry (perhaps everywhere) we have a constant tension between optimising

by spockz 2y ago

Intel has been hitting all (or enough of) the right notes for about 30 years. In our industry (perhaps everywhere) we have a constant tension between optimising in the current direction and do the same thing but better (CPU general, x86 specifically) and trying another approach. This has to be managed while the world around you changes requiring you to pivot into perhaps a completely different direction. CPUs are still relevant. And x86 can still provide a lot of value and iterate forward. AMD has spent 20 years getting to the front. It is the short term vision that is killing Intel. AI accelerators are going to be useful and valuable until the point they are commoditised just like CPU. Until then someone (Nvidia) will gain a lot of profit. They used this money to buy their way into the datacenter with companies like mellanox. Nvidia will be on top for a while. And then the cycle continues and we will see a new company on top.

BeefWellington 2y ago
In terms of performance, AMD spent around 10 getting to the front, 2-3 in front, then another 10 getting back in front. However until the introduction of Ryzen (and really EPYC) AMD hadn't been able to make substantial inroads into the market. Laptops using AMD CPUs are at their most available and they're still lucky to be 20% of any given manufacturer's SKUs. Intel has an opportunity to reclaim some of those areas with their more power efficient chips, but both they and AMD are facing more competition from non-x86 manufacturers than ever, and that competition is likely only to grow. Apple's CPUs seemed to be a product of engineering without concern for backwards compatibility, e.g.: analyze current software, make the CPU do those things well. I wonder what Intel could produce if they came at a new line of processors with the same mindset, though that would require engineers to be in charge of the company again.
- tw04 2y ago
  The last time they did that we ended up with Itanium.
  - Pet_Ant 2y ago
    Itanium was designed to be diferente for difference sake to build a most using patents to prevent competition/commoditization with a pinch of the second-system effect thrown in. What is needed is a sober look and re-engineering.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Which we would be using today if AMD didn't torpedo Intel with AMD64.

by spockz 2y ago

BeefWellington 2y ago

In terms of performance, AMD spent around 10 getting to the front, 2-3 in front, then another 10 getting back in front. However until the introduction of Ryzen (and really EPYC) AMD hadn't been able to make substantial inroads into the market. Laptops using AMD CPUs are at their most available and they're still lucky to be 20% of any given manufacturer's SKUs. Intel has an opportunity to reclaim some of those areas with their more power efficient chips, but both they and AMD are facing more competition from non-x86 manufacturers than ever, and that competition is likely only to grow. Apple's CPUs seemed to be a product of engineering without concern for backwards compatibility, e.g.: analyze current software, make the CPU do those things well. I wonder what Intel could produce if they came at a new line of processors with the same mindset, though that would require engineers to be in charge of the company again.

tw04 2y ago
The last time they did that we ended up with Itanium.
- Pet_Ant 2y ago
  Itanium was designed to be diferente for difference sake to build a most using patents to prevent competition/commoditization with a pinch of the second-system effect thrown in. What is needed is a sober look and re-engineering.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Which we would be using today if AMD didn't torpedo Intel with AMD64.