News Intel 2Q24 Financial Results

[maddie]

If by "better for world peace", you mean "in the peaceful aftermath of another world war", then I understand. Intel not failing would potentially allow for WW3 to not happen. Thats the point.

For a normal world, then maybe, yes.The opposite in a MAD world. World War = we all die (mostly). Not good for dynastic fortunes.

 

[Hitman928]

Intel stock being down 28% this morning is wild. I can’t imagine Gelsinger lasts much longer if they can’t show some signs of actual turn around soon.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Debt has increased to over $48B.

Time for them to start a donation website. They can even save money by going the GoFundMe route!

If AMD can do it with a decade+ of garbage, Intel can do it.

Not without proper leadership they can't. Remember they ousted Jim Keller who was trying to HELP them. Those egotistic power-grubbing idiots should have kneeled before Keller since he was the one who motivated AMD to create the Zen architecture. He himself said that most AMD engineers had lost hope that they could ever create a competitive architecture again after the string of failures starting from Bulldozer debut. With Keller's guidance, AMD's resurgence happened. Same people. Different leadership. Unbelievable execution.

they are paying for uncautious decisions like abandonning the memory and SSD markets among others.

I agree. They should've move those fabs to cheaper countries like Vietnam or Philippines instead of shuttering down the whole operation and losing ALL possibilities of making anything from them. A PC or laptop with Intel CPU, Intel Optane, Intel SSD and Intel dGPU. There was a good chance of working out bundle deals with OEMs and capitalizing on their "Intel Inside" branding. These idiots had everything but couldn't figure out the best way to make money from their great technologies. Heck, they could've made a deal with South Korea for a fab there for Optane and NAND and their government would've subsidized it heavily as it would've meant more jobs for Koreans.

It appears that there were yield/throughput issues on Meteor Lake, negatively impacting gross margins. When you have to get the product to your customers, and you have wafers to burn, you run it hot. I heard from OEMs that they needed more MTL, but it wasn't bone dry. You have to run hot lots in that case, or else your customers will be impacted. I didn't have this one on my dance card.

I hated Meteor Lake from the first time I laid eyes on its benchmarks. Intel deciding to go all in on this dud of an SoC and not anticipating how much of a financial burden it would be for them, wow, great financial decision makers at Intel. Fire that moron of a CFO of theirs!

AMD has now basically matched Intel's DC revenue ($2.8B for AMD vs $3B for Intel). Next quarter, AMD will probably surpass Intel in DC revenue for the first time ever.

Intel would have to perform TERRIBLY in DC for AMD to surpass them. If that happens, Intel will be hanging by a thread then.

Hopefully they bring back Raja Koduri to turn the ship around.

Yes, they just gotta get a few more billions into debt for his rosy plans and another 5 years of the Koduri hype train

 

[igor_kavinski]

There is a good chance that this post will be deleted but most of the RPL fiasco is thanks to Intel being the IDC parent. They need to let that cancer go and cut it out ASAP if they want to survive.

I think @adroc_thurston will agree.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Waow.
It really is over, huh.

 

[maddie]

If needed, HUBRIS on Intel's tombstone will be sufficient. Ruiz at AMD was the same.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Only way Pat gets to save himself now is to declare he will take annual $1 salary for the rest of his CEO career at Intel.

 

[AcrosTinus]

Time for them to start a donation website. They can even save money by going the GoFundMe route!



Not without proper leadership they can't. Remember they ousted Jim Keller who was trying to HELP them. Those egotistic power-grubbing idiots should have kneeled before Keller since he was the one who motivated AMD to create the Zen architecture. He himself said that most AMD engineers had lost hope that they could ever create a competitive architecture again after the string of failures starting from Bulldozer debut. With Keller's guidance, AMD's resurgence happened. Same people. Different leadership. Unbelievable execution.



I agree. They should've move those fabs to cheaper countries like Vietnam or Philippines instead of shuttering down the whole operation and losing ALL possibilities of making anything from them. A PC or laptop with Intel CPU, Intel Optane, Intel SSD and Intel dGPU. There was a good chance of working out bundle deals with OEMs and capitalizing on their "Intel Inside" branding. These idiots had everything but couldn't figure out the best way to make money from their great technologies. Heck, they could've made a deal with South Korea for a fab there for Optane and NAND and their government would've subsidized it heavily as it would've meant more jobs for Koreans.



I hated Meteor Lake from the first time I laid eyes on its benchmarks. Intel deciding to go all in on this dud of an SoC and not anticipating how much of a financial burden it would be for them, wow, great financial decision makers at Intel. Fire that moron of a CFO of theirs!



Intel would have to perform TERRIBLY in DC for AMD to surpass them. If that happens, Intel will be hanging by a thread then.



Yes, they just gotta get a few more billions into debt for his rosy plans and another 5 years of the Koduri hype train

I still think it is possible. Maybe even Pat has to go in order to push things into the right gear. Pat was hailed and since his return I have been losing money on Intel hmm.... This also just might be the result of healthy competition. Intel could only balloon into this slow whale due to AMD providing no competition. With the market heating up on all sides, Intel cannot survive in it's current state.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel could only balloon into this slow whale due to AMD providing no competition.

Sorry but that is a hilarious statement. Competition from AMD is what prompted Intel to land themselves into the Raptor Lake cesspool. Without competition, they would have done a +100 or +200 MHz Alder Lake Refresh and called it a day.

 

[AcrosTinus]

Sorry but that is a hilarious statement. Competition from AMD is what prompted Intel to land themselves into the Raptor Lake cesspool. Without competition, they would have done a +100 or +200 MHz Alder Lake Refresh and called it a day.

Intel could sleep and do whatever it liked for at least a decade+. This was due to AMD providing no competition. Headcounts could balloon and their reactivity went down. This is how I explain the current Raptor Lake disaster. They were caught with their pants down and had to throw something together quick...
NEVER forget AMDs decade of shame... I still remember my failing Phenom and Phenom II.

 

[ErichZannMusician]

AMD's QoQ revenue growth change since 2017 till date has ballooned due to releasing a good product (Zen 3) coincident with the pandemic in full effect. Now, it is as stagnant as ever:

DC launches superimposed on historical qoq revenue change % data:



Desktop launches superimposed on historical qoq revenue change % data:



Intel's on the other hand was stagnant right up to the pandemic, then collapsed, and has now recovered to pre-pandemic levels -

DC launches superimposed on historical qoq revenue change % data:



Desktop launches superimposed on historical qoq revenue change % data:



It is way too early to sound the death knell for Intel, because among the US semiconductor companies the only ones whose growth hasn't come from ballooning P/E ratios are Intel and Micron.

AI is imploding soon. This week's market movement is proof of that.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel could sleep and do whatever it liked for at least a decade+. This was due to AMD providing no competition. Headcounts could balloon and their reactivity went down. This is how I explain the current Raptor Lake disaster. They were caught with their pants down and had to throw something together quick...

So Intel's current fiasco is due to AMD's Bulldozer failures???

Now THAT'S quite a stretch!

From 2017's Zen launch, Intel had more than 7 years to get their act together. Is it still AMD's fault that they laughed Zen off, then made fun of Epyc as a glued together CPU, all the while AMD just gained and gained DC marketshare?

 

[MoistOintment]

I still think it is possible. Maybe even Pat has to go in order to push things into the right gear. Pat was hailed and since his return I have been losing money on Intel hmm.... This also just might be the result of healthy competition. Intel could only balloon into this slow whale due to AMD providing no competition. With the market heating up on all sides, Intel cannot survive in it's current state.

Hypothetically, if Pat was hired to "save Intel", and the way to save Intel was to open up their fabs and catch up in R&D after years of stagnation, wouldn't that necessitate massive amounts of CAPEX and NRE? Wouldn't that lead to their current situation?

Realistically, I don't see what he could have done differently, and why short-term shareholder value should take precedent here. If his vision is correct, there was never going to be any turn around before 18A. 18A was always his metric as the turning point. Intel could reduce R&D by $4B/year to return to profitability, and they'd still be matching the combined R&D expenses of TSMC, AMD, and Nvidia.

What would you have done differently in his position if you were dealt the terrible hand he was? Sapphire Rapids disaster predates him. 10nm debacle predates him. Entering the GPU market so late predates him.


The only moves I see him having are cutting expenses, fixing fabs, opening fabs to get the volume needed for profitability, and this will ensure the long term success of Intel even if that means they will be in a rough situation for the 2020's. It's not his fault his predecessors delayed EUV and focused on stock buybacks.

 

[AcrosTinus]

So Intel's current fiasco is due to AMD's Bulldozer failures???

Now THAT'S quite a stretch!

From 2017's Zen launch, Intel had more than 7 years to get their act together. Is it still AMD's fault that they laughed Zen off, then made fun of Epyc as a glued together CPU, all the while AMD just gained and gained DC marketshare?

Intel's current fiasco is due to having no competition and getting lazy.
It is all Intel's fault but in all monopolies, products turn into shiiiiii with no competition.
This is just a fact, they got lazy they had no competition and were slow to react to market changes.

Intel failing is caused by bad leadership and slow reactivity IMHO.
I am not blaming AMD but a company does not start investing into bleeding edge tech with no competition, but then again with better leadership they would have had better foresight (AMD, ARM, NVidia, Apple deal).

So again, not AMD's fault just how the cookie crumbles for a market leader that does not get with the times.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Now, it is as stagnant as ever:

Because embedded cratered. Next.

AI is imploding soon. This week's market movement is proof of that.

Good? Capex goes back to CPU aka buy piles of Turin-Dense. Next.

wouldn't that necessitate massive amounts of CAPEX and NRE?

Yes.

Wouldn't that lead to their current situation?

OH YES.

Realistically, I don't see what he could have done differently, and why short-term shareholder value should take precedent here. If his vision is correct, there was never going to be any turn around before 18A. 18A was always his metric as the turning point. Intel could reduce R&D by $4B/year to return to profitability, and they'd still be matching the combined R&D expenses of TSMC, AMD, and Nvidia.

I assume the intention was Intel finding additional high margin revenue streams in non-core markets, like networking or ML accelerators.

Intel's current fiasco is due to having no competition and getting lazy.

No, it's bold bets misfiring.
Real men have fabs! turns out fabs are very expensive.

 

[AcrosTinus]

Hypothetically, if Pat was hired to "save Intel", and the way to save Intel was to open up their fabs and catch up in R&D after years of stagnation, wouldn't that necessitate massive amounts of CAPEX and NRE? Wouldn't that lead to their current situation?

Realistically, I don't see what he could have done differently, and why short-term shareholder value should take precedent here. If his vision is correct, there was never going to be any turn around before 18A. 18A was always his metric as the turning point. Intel could reduce R&D by $4B/year to return to profitability, and they'd still be matching the combined R&D expenses of TSMC, AMD, and Nvidia.

What would you have done differently in his position if you were dealt the terrible hand he was? Sapphire Rapids disaster predates him. 10nm debacle predates him. Entering the GPU market so late predates him.


The only moves I see him having are cutting expenses, fixing fabs, opening fabs to get the volume needed for profitability, and this will ensure the long term success of Intel even if that means they will be in a rough situation for the 2020's. It's not his fault his predecessors delayed EUV and focused on stock buybacks.

That is why I'm still buying the current dip . But I'm no market guy, lost already a bunch of money

 

[AdamK47]

Intel has been run by bad management for a long time. Constantly starting and then cancelling projects for short sighted needs. An aging workforce that's there to retire rather than grow (dare I say it... boomers). Who knows how competitive they could have been if they had stuck with some of their projects. Larrabee for example. They are late to the game big time on the soaring GPU market.

 

[maddie]

This is just a fact, they got lazy they had no competition and were slow to react to market changes.

By itself, this is bad, but they began to believe their superiority was intrinsic to being Intel, AKA hubris. They lost sight of the fact that they were lucky and puffed themselves up as the sole masters of silicon.

 

[ErichZannMusician]

Because embedded cratered. Next.

Ah yes, people were buying embedded cooped up in their homes during the pandemic.

Good? Capex goes back to CPU aka buy piles of Turin-Dense. Next.

Aka buy piles of cores which have weak gen-on-gen int performance uplifts in applications that prioritise int performance?

 

[adroc_thurston]

Ah yes, people were buying embedded cooped up in their homes during the pandemic.

yea.

Aka buy piles of cores which have weak gen-on-gen int performance uplifts in applications that prioritise int performance?

yes!

 

[ErichZannMusician]

yea.

yes!

These replies make about as much sense as your Zen 5 IPC "leaks".

 

[adroc_thurston]

These replies make about as much sense as your Zen 5 IPC "leaks".

So true.
Next?

 

[RanFodar]

Sorry but that is a hilarious statement. Competition from AMD is what prompted Intel to land themselves into the Raptor Lake cesspool. Without competition, they would have done a +100 or +200 MHz Alder Lake Refresh and called it a day.

Though in retrospect, they could've considered doing that as 13th Gen to give time to properly develop and release Raptor Lake into the market.

 

[adroc_thurston]

Sorry but that is a hilarious statement. Competition from AMD is what prompted Intel to land themselves into the Raptor Lake cesspool. Without competition, they would have done a +100 or +200 MHz Alder Lake Refresh and called it a day.

Not really, RPL was a stopgap since MTL was running behind the schedule.
Decent stopgap, too, shame about the catastrophic explosion bits.

 

[igor_kavinski]

The only moves I see him having are cutting expenses, fixing fabs, opening fabs to get the volume needed for profitability, and this will ensure the long term success of Intel even if that means they will be in a rough situation for the 2020's. It's not his fault his predecessors delayed EUV and focused on stock buybacks.

Raptor Lake and its refresh is not HIS move? He could have shown restraint and not tried to fight the Zen 4 fire with ACTUAL fire at the transistor level, killing his own CPUs!