They are behind in what? Certainly not performance, and that's what matters most, especially to enthusiasts. All this talk about Intel standing still and not innovating, yet AMD is still behind in performance per core. In addition, Intel's mainstream platform chips offer the better AVX, and graphics for encode/decode/acceleration. That's additional value that those in the AMD camp pretend they don't see, or doesn't matter.
Newsflash: the reason why AMD's chips are cheaper is by necessity. They are 2nd tier and trying to win decent marketshare. From 2006, right up till last year year their products were relatively junk - in a number of ways. Even now, AMD still trails Intel's 4 year old architecture by a significant margin. We should be happy Intel hit a snag because AMD would've been toast by now.
This is a shortsighted view. The doom and gloom for Intel also fits as another shortsighted view. The problems with Intel don't really exist in this exact setting at this exact moment. So you are right but Intel is going to be doing a highwire act for the next two years and this will give AMD an oppotunity to catch up something Intel should have never let happen.
So problems.
1. No 10nm yet. Billions thrown into a process switch that will be nearly outdated by the time they can actually mass produce products.
2. Increased Demand on server front. Intel has to push out more Server dies and consumer dies will take a hit from this. Increased i7 costs.
3. AMD has pushed Core requirements on 14nm increasing on consumer level. Dies get larger meaning less margin, less dies, worse yields (yields would still be good, just less so). All under constrained 14nm production Increased i7 costs.
4. AMD has pushed core requirements on 14nm on enterprise level. Intel is now going to double up on server dies per CPU, still ending up short of AMD's total. Which means worse effectively halved yields. All on a constrained 14nm production. Intel will either rise everything up a decent amount in price or they will double up cost on these chips.
5. A decade of minor tweaks to arch has left Intel with very predictable performance benchmarks to target.
6. Bottom will fall out on ST clock growth. Making it harder to maintain specific metrics that enthusiasts look at.
Things Intel has to look forward to.
1. Significant single clore clock advantage. More value in Advertising and allows Intel to maintain a performance lead in many applications that are driven by clocks over MT capabilities.
2. Has so far kept pace on desktop core count.
3. Huge manufacturering capabilities.
4. One of if not the largest case of Mindshare for a corporation.
5. Eventual 10nm mass production should allow Intel to go back to previous margins and profits as long as they keep mindshare.
6. Largest R&D budget of anybody really. Should be able to develop a faster arch if needed.
But what this all means is for the next year or two. Intel will be making less and less CPU's out of the same production capability on an already strained capacity. Forced to spend even more money on production on an outdated by their standards process. Their Dekstop, Workstation/HEDT, and Server MT superiority was already on a razors end of failing will be illiminated. Assuming Zen2 maintains current "ipc" and clocks and doesn't get better, their core count, efficiency allowing for better clocks will shatter all but specific use-cases. Because of that and long delivery projections will allow AMD to make great leaps in Prosumer and Professional use-cases. AMD doubling up on AVX2 per core performance being the icing on the cake there. Some of the Doom and gloom has a place, for shareholders this means less margins, less volume, heavy growth by a competitor. It doesn't mean they are doomed. It doesn't mean AMD has an easy road to upstage them, they don't have any chance of that. Back when the K6-2 came out Sanders was asked if they could take the fight to Intel. He responded with something along the lines of if Compaq called and asked them to be their sole supplier for CPU's AMD would have to decline that they were a long way from having the ability to really take the battle to Intel. That applies here as well. AMD can make significant inroads into Intel's income and profits. But they can't kill Intel not now, not ever really. Only Intel can do that.
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