4 ms·
Yea, this is how I feel too. I've been hoping that Intel would turn itself around, but Intel has failed at its roadmap over the past few years. Intel canceled 2
by mdasen 11mo ago
Yea, this is how I feel too. I've been hoping that Intel would turn itself around, but Intel has failed at its roadmap over the past few years. Intel canceled 20A and 18A is delayed. It had looked like Intel would leapfrog TSMC, but that didn't come to fruition.
I hope that Intel does well in the future. It's better for us all if more than one company can push the boundaries on fabrication.
I also remember the days when the shoe was on the other foot. Motorola or IBM was going to put out a processor that would decimate Intel - it was always a year away. Meanwhile, Intel kept pushing the P6 architecture (Pentium Pro to Pentium 3) and then NetBurst (Pentium 4) and then Core. Apple keeps improving its M-series processors and single-core speed is up 80% since the M1 and 25% faster than the fastest desktop processor from AMD and 31% faster than the fastest desktop processor from Intel.
I'd love for Panther Lake to be amazing. It will put pressure on Apple to offer better performance for my dollar. Some of performance is how much CPU a company is willing to give me at a price point and what margins they'll accept. If an amazing Panther Lake pushes Apple to offer more cores at a cheaper price, that's a win for Apple users. If an amazing Panther Lake pushes Apple to offer 2nm processors quicker (at higher cost to them), that's a win for Apple users.
But I'm also skeptical of Intel. They kept promising 10nm for years and failed. They've done a bit better lately, but they've also stumbled a lot and they're way behind their roadmap. What kind of volume will we see for Panther Lake? What prices? It's hard to compare a hopeful product to something that actually exists today. Part of it isn't just whether Intel can make 18A chips, but how fast can they produce them. If most of Intel's laptop, desktop, and server processors in 2026 aren't 18A, then it isn't the same win. And before someone says "Apple is just a niche manufacturer," they aren't anymore. Apple is making CPUs for every iPhone in addition to Macs so it has to be able to get CPUs manufactured at a very high scale - around the same scale as the Intel's CPU market.
I hope Intel can do wonderfully, but given how much Intel has overpromised and underdelivered, I'm definitely not taking their word for it.