Intels in trouble..

[jpiniero]

What is a PC, anyway? It's likely that Android and iOS will get most of the features of the full OS sooner rather than later.

I think you're going to find that the supposed demise of standard PC's is greatly exaggerated.

Demise, no; but greatly reduced sales, yes. It's easy to see that people will simply stop upgrading their PCs since they don't need to (or don't want to, because Windows 8 is so horrible). Companies IT departments can slash their PC budgets to zero. I honestly don't know what they will do when Windows 7 is out of support.

AMD needs to make a quantum leap forward technologically, like the original Athlon and Athlon 64 parts, to threaten Intel.

That's the best part of AMD's "strategy" - they have completely missed the boat on the smartphone and tablet revolution, and they don't have Intel's army of Engineers to cobble something together that would be sorta competitive.

 

[biostud]

If Intel wanted they could easily release 6 and 8 core CPU's to consumer market. But since no consumer software can utilize all the cores then there's no reason to.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If Intel wanted they could easily release 6 and 8 core CPU's to consumer market. But since no consumer software can utilize all the cores then there's no reason to.

NVidia could release a GPU with double the shader count of their current cards (1500?), if they wanted to, but no current games demand it.

That's hardly an argument for not "innovating" and releasing new hardware, is it? There are plenty of apps that scale past 4 cores, including recent gaming titles.

 

[Centauri]

Intel is currently in the kind of trouble that GM was in at the turn of the century; huge, lumbering company, printing cash on trucks and SUVs while only lazily pursuing long-term viabilities, getting outflanked constantly by more nimble competitors, unprepared for any quick and major changes in market conditions...

Intel only looks 'healthy' because of how bad off AMD is. But GM's health was broadly ignored 10 years ago because of how much worse off Ford was, and we all see how that 180'd.

AMD is very painfully ripping off the bandaid right now. Intel's pain is gonna be more drawn out.

 

[jpiniero]

If Intel wanted they could easily release 6 and 8 core CPU's to consumer market. But since no consumer software can utilize all the cores then there's no reason to.

Again, Intel isn't doing more than 4 in the mainstream line until it's feasible in a laptop. So Skymont at the earliest.

 

[Regs]

The only way AMD is ever going to make a difference is that if it developed something other than a x86 processor. The demand however is still with x86. It was standardized long ago, and Intel claimed it's fame from it. That crown will never be taken from Intel.

Now with Operating systems become more and more irrelevant in the future, AMD will have the chance to make something so attractive that programmers and software vendors around the world will jump to support.

AMD really has to cut their losses and focus on rolling the dice in the extended future.

 

[monstercameron]

Intel is currently in the kind of trouble that GM was in at the turn of the century; huge, lumbering company, printing cash on trucks and SUVs while only lazily pursuing long-term viabilities, getting outflanked constantly by more nimble competitors, unprepared for any quick and major changes in market conditions...

Intel only looks 'healthy' because of how bad off AMD is. But GM's health was broadly ignored 10 years ago because of how much worse off Ford was, and we all see how that 180'd.

AMD is very painfully ripping off the bandaid right now. Intel's pain is gonna be more drawn out.

thank you! this rings close to what the op was pointing to.

Intel is sitting on it laurels, all the while being out manoeuvred arm. Some commenters say intel has the server market?
Didn't facebook and baidu start using/testing arm based servers?
Doesnt AMD have plans to introduce arm server chips?
even dell, huge intel customer has arm based server.

This also isn't just about AMD, the op mentions qualcomm, and they are a huge competitor to intel on the mobile side. How many atom wins did intel receive with medfield or clovertrail vs. qualcomm(or anyother soc vendor)?

Going forward who knows what will happen with things like android or windows rt, who knows how much the market will shift from dedicated workstation like desktop environment to something more agile.

I believe intel is in trouble, not necessarily on a monetary basis for the short term, but where would they fit in in a rapidly shifting market that gobbled up so many other companies.

ps. please, if you may, point out my bad grammar.

 

[videogames101]

NVidia could release a GPU with double the shader count of their current cards (1500?), if they wanted to, but no current games demand it.

That's hardly an argument for not "innovating" and releasing new hardware, is it? There are plenty of apps that scale past 4 cores, including recent gaming titles.

No they couldn't, it wouldn't fit within the TDP spec of PCI-E. Not at a reasonable clock speed.

Intel could very easily fit 8 cores in a reasonable TDP. They already do for servers

Also, Intel is not "sitting on its laurels",

it's shoveling cash into R&D.

There is no argument to be made there.

I'd also like to point out that even if Intel's own IC design team were to become irrelevant, which I doubt; they are a foundry first. They don't need to design their own chips to sell fab capacity.

 

[videogames101]

The only way AMD is ever going to make a difference is that if it developed something other than a x86 processor. The demand however is still with x86. It was standardized long ago, and Intel claimed it's fame from it. That crown will never be taken from Intel.

Now with Operating systems become more and more irrelevant in the future, AMD will have the chance to make something so attractive that programmers and software vendors around the world will jump to support.

AMD really has to cut their losses and focus on rolling the dice in the extended future.

...what? do you mean Windows in particular? The OS as a construct is not going anywhere.

 

[Torn Mind]

Intel is currently in the kind of trouble that GM was in at the turn of the century; huge, lumbering company, printing cash on trucks and SUVs while only lazily pursuing long-term viabilities, getting outflanked constantly by more nimble competitors, unprepared for any quick and major changes in market conditions...

Intel only looks 'healthy' because of how bad off AMD is. But GM's health was broadly ignored 10 years ago because of how much worse off Ford was, and we all see how that 180'd.

AMD is very painfully ripping off the bandaid right now. Intel's pain is gonna be more drawn out.

If there was a time Intel was sitting on its ass, it was with Netburst. They were late to the low power consumption processor duel, but they are actively trying their hardest to inject themselves into the mobile market, and Haswell will be their first real fruit that will compete in that market. .

 

[monstercameron]

...what? do you mean Windows in particular? The OS as a construct is not going anywhere.

maybe because of technologies like html5 and opencl, where the OS isn't a factor in what programs you can access...you know that old dream.

 

[monstercameron]

If there was a time Intel was sitting on its ass, it was with Netburst. They were late to the low power consumption processor duel, but they are actively trying their hardest to inject themselves into the mobile market, and Haswell will be their first real fruit that will compete in that market. .

who will haswell compete with in the mobile market? arm soc vendors, amd?

 

[videogames101]

maybe because of technologies like html5 and opencl, where the OS isn't a factor in what programs you can access...you know that old dream.

we started with dumb terminals, maybe we'll get there in the end, hard to say

but all that means is the mainframe you're running your terminal device on is running xeons :biggrin:

Intel would like Haswell to compete in a 5W SDP form factor, which certainly could (read: will) find its way into tablets

 

[monstercameron]

we started with dumb terminals, maybe we'll get there in the end, hard to say

but all that means is the mainframe you're running your terminal device on is running xeons :biggrin:

Intel would like Haswell to compete in a 5W SDP form factor, which certainly could (read: will) find its way into tablets

but hey, if you are using dell maybe it would be 64bit arm servers.

isnt spd still controversial...

 

[Charles Kozierok]

The comparison between Intel and GM is pretty weak. Intel is leading its industry; GM wasn't. Intel is in fine financial shape; GM wasn't. Intel has no real competitors in its key markets; GM, not even close.

 

[mrmt]

thank you! this rings close to what the op was pointing to.

Don't follow that route. Compare Intel to GM because both are big and market leaders is akin to compare a squid with a turtle because both live on water.

Intel is sitting on it laurels, all the while being out manoeuvred arm. Some commenters say intel has the server market?
Didn't facebook and baidu start using/testing arm based servers?
Doesnt AMD have plans to introduce arm server chips?
even dell, huge intel customer has arm based server.

When people say that Intel is sitting on its laurels, I wonder what Intel is supposed to do to appease those people.

Intel simply created the notebook market as we know today. Low power high performance chips are commodities today just because of Intel focus since Conroe.

Intel is also working hard to bring their mainstream uarch to power levels that could power a tablet, something that ARM cannot even think about compete. ARM will be hard pressed here.

Intel also brought x86 server chips to new levels, both in performance and features. x86 servers can compete in anything but the very high end of mission critical servers, and this something that will be remedied in the next iterations. ARM cannot compete here.

Last, but not least, Intel could push atom into phones. And this is the 5 years old Atom core, Silvermont should bring a lot of goodies on this market too, and pressure ARM on servers.

Sure, they have a long way to go against mobile but I do not see a company sitting on its laurels, but working hard to open new markets and counter the visible threats. There is no Intel market where ARM will have an easy time penetrating and at the same time Intel is preparing a heavy assault on ARM markets.

 

[jpiniero]

Intel has no real competitors in its key markets

Intel's key market is selling $200 laptop chips so Joe Blow can read his email.

 

[monstercameron]

When people say that Intel is sitting on its laurels, I wonder what Intel is supposed to do to appease those people.

i dunno...be innovative.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Demise, no; but greatly reduced sales, yes. It's easy to see that people will simply stop upgrading their PCs since they don't need to (or don't want to, because Windows 8 is so horrible). Companies IT departments can slash their PC budgets to zero. I honestly don't know what they will do when Windows 7 is out of support.

Wait, what? MS released some numbers that actually looked pretty strong - and only now are IT departments moving to Win7 from XP. One would never expect them to jump to Win8 the day it's released...

 

[Centauri]

The comparison between Intel and GM is pretty weak. Intel is leading its industry; GM wasn't. Intel is in fine financial shape; GM wasn't. Intel has no real competitors in its key markets; GM, not even close.

GM wasn't the industry leader? How do you figure? They have been the largest car company in the world for nearly the entirety of their existence. And again - GM was recording record profits at the turn of the century in spite of the fact that underlying issues were mounting steadily, namely lack of foresight. And if you think Intel has no real competition, then you're shockingly oblivious.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

Intel leads its industry by a far higher degree than GM has in decades.

 

[Centauri]

...okay.

 

[meloz]

The point im trying to make here is that for the first time in history nearly every game is going to be made for AMD technology Both GPU and CPU.

This is the second time I have read you refer to 'AMD technology', and I cannot resist anymore. The ignorance is staggering.

There is no such thing as "AMD technology" and "Intel technology". That is MBA speak. It is all x86-64 / AMD-64. Programs are written in a language like C or C++, then compiled for any given architecture.

So any game developed "for" 8 impotent 1.6 GHz console-class AMD cores will run just as well on Intel desktop CPUs running 4 cores at 3.2-3.8 GHz. Far better, infact, since all software -even heavily multi-threaded one- always benefits from strong single threaded performance. Whereas vice-versa does not always apply.

Any program "optimized" or "built for" 8 cores does not mean it will leave 50% of the processor cycles unused when run on a more powerful quad-core CPU. That is not how OS, software and computers work. Get a clue.

If there's any real loser in AMD cornering the console market, it is Microsoft. Now game studios will finally focus on OpenGL and not just DirectX. About time. The rest of the industry will now focus on one open standard, Microsoft is left alone with DirectX. Long term, this is great news for linux users and all consumers.

You also seem to be under some delusion that Intel somehow cannot make multi-core products. Which is not true, they choose not to give more cores in small-socket segment because the aim is to keep die sizes as small as possible and make maximum profit. Intel do not need to use more cores since they can do more work with one core than AMD.

When there's any true competition to Intel from AMD or another rival and IPC alone is not enough to give Intel's x86-64 an edge, Intel will for sure increase the core count or reduce prices to keep the performance / $ of their products competitive. Their margins indicate that they can play the pricing game better than anyone else in the industry. They just choose not to, there is no need to at the moment.

 

[piasabird]

You can read e-mail with an ARM Tablet.

 

[poohbear]

im not talking about today, im talking about the next 2-7 years. Tablets are killing cheap laptop sales and desktops are in decline unless you look at Gaming PC's on their own. Intel doesnt have a decent smartphone chip.. Qualcomm just dropped the Snapdragon 600 which has 3x the performance of my S4 Pro in Quadrant...

Intels profits are pretty much based on being able to extort silly money for its CPU's from its customers. The ONLY thing that helps intel is that ARM didnt put its chips in the PS3 and Xbox. Because that company has money in the bank unlike AMD

lets just hope that there's an AMD in 2-7 years mate.

Intel has a massive surplus, u know that right? Even if they lost money the next few quarters, they have enough money in surplus to hold them over for a while.