Intel, honey, she’s not coming back. Now stop with the stupid advertisements and move on with your life.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Intel CEO Hopes to Win Back Apple by Making Better Chips Than Apple
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Lot's of emotional Intel hate here! Think more logically guys. Yep, Intel went off the rails, but they know they did, and replaced the CEO, who replaced most of the rest of the management team. It's a clean slate. They also know how good ARM is now, as does everyone since the M1 release, and are working hard at both fixing up their x86 chip design, and releasing an ARM design. None of us can predict how successful they will be or not, but they are a huge, specialist, chip company, so they have the history, resources, desire, and introspection, to resurrect themselves. The first step to change is to recognise there is a problem, the second step is to desire to fix it, and the third is to actually set about fixing it. Intel are up to step 3.
There's also a lot of Intel hate here due to the heat of their processors, but that is only half true. The other half is Apple's gimped cooling design in their late model Intel laptops. Have a look at these vids, and have your mind blown:
There's also a lot of Intel hate here due to the heat of their processors, but that is only half true. The other half is Apple's gimped cooling design in their late model Intel laptops. Have a look at these vids, and have your mind blown:
I can see there being a mid-life update to the current Mac Pro with newer Xeons, but for the rest of the lineup it wouldn’t make sense to be releasing revised Intel models.
Intel is in a bad place right now -- but in 1997 everyone assumed Apple was in it's own death throes.
I don't think Intel is going to win Apple back on X86, probably forever. But Intel could go in a lot of new directions with the right leadership.
There is huge domestic demand for microprocessor fabrication. Intel could return to ARM. Intel could design a whole new architecture that blows away ARM. Intel could become a fully integrated vertical competitor with Apple. (Might be a good idea, if all Intels software partners start bowing out.)
Intel is a huge American success story, and I think they can be a key player in eliminating a lot of the product shortage that exists out there. I hope Intel can find their own iMac G3 moment, and find the product that turns around the company before it's too late.
I don't think Intel is going to win Apple back on X86, probably forever. But Intel could go in a lot of new directions with the right leadership.
There is huge domestic demand for microprocessor fabrication. Intel could return to ARM. Intel could design a whole new architecture that blows away ARM. Intel could become a fully integrated vertical competitor with Apple. (Might be a good idea, if all Intels software partners start bowing out.)
Intel is a huge American success story, and I think they can be a key player in eliminating a lot of the product shortage that exists out there. I hope Intel can find their own iMac G3 moment, and find the product that turns around the company before it's too late.
Keep dreaming, Intel. Cause that is all it will ever be - a dream!
Apple going back to Intel is as likely as them using Nvidia GPUs again.
After spending a year with a fan-free M1 MacBook Air that kicks ass... not a great defense for Intel.
If one doesn't focus on improving their products, it will be left behind, eventually.
Everyone is making their own ARM chips from server to laptop. That scares AMD.
And Apple Chips do scare AMD because every Mac sold is not using an AMD CPU. They're competing for the same customers.
He reminds me of Ballmer when the iPhone was announced.
Same smug.
They act as if they are superior to everybody else and talk as if Apple attempts were laughable.
They are oblivious to how deep is the **** they are in. And this is what is gonna bring them down, ultimately.
They are going to wake up when it's too late.
Same smug.
They act as if they are superior to everybody else and talk as if Apple attempts were laughable.
They are oblivious to how deep is the **** they are in. And this is what is gonna bring them down, ultimately.
They are going to wake up when it's too late.
Intel can’t even beat their main competition, good luck leapfrogging AMD lol
Intel is going to have an uphill battle here.
They dominated everyone for decades due to volume. Chip design costs a lot of money, and fab tech costs mountains of money. Even though various RISC designs started out as better than Intel[*], they ended up in Intel's rear mirror because they just didn't have the volume (and thus the corresponding economical muscle). Even Intel's misstep with the Itanic didn't bulge the market position of Intel - if anything, it segmented it as some of the remaining CPU vendors embraced it and stopped doing their own CPUs.
Fast forward to 2021 - Intel is still dominant, and earning lots of cash. However, Intel isn't longer a generation or two ahead of the pack in fab tech - after years of failures, they're now a generation or two behind. TSMC is now the market leader, and has massive volumes - and thus enough earnings to keep it that way. Apple would have zero chance of developing and maintaining a CPU for Macs to keep them ahead of the game, _except_ that they also use most of the CPU design for cell phones which gives them the necessary volume.
If Intel is to have any chance, they need to regain their lead in fab tech. I think they also need to stop thinking so much about immediate cash opportunities, and decrease their attempts at market segmentation as that allows the competition to eat their business from their ground up. There is way too many things they've just added to some of Xeons - e.g. in the ML space - making their volume business vulnerable.
If they succeed in wrestling tech leadership back from TSMC or at a minimum achieve parity, do a good job of future designs, and successfully anticipate and lead the market - it's a new game. But that's a big if.
[*] SPARC, MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC, PA-RISC, etc
They dominated everyone for decades due to volume. Chip design costs a lot of money, and fab tech costs mountains of money. Even though various RISC designs started out as better than Intel[*], they ended up in Intel's rear mirror because they just didn't have the volume (and thus the corresponding economical muscle). Even Intel's misstep with the Itanic didn't bulge the market position of Intel - if anything, it segmented it as some of the remaining CPU vendors embraced it and stopped doing their own CPUs.
Fast forward to 2021 - Intel is still dominant, and earning lots of cash. However, Intel isn't longer a generation or two ahead of the pack in fab tech - after years of failures, they're now a generation or two behind. TSMC is now the market leader, and has massive volumes - and thus enough earnings to keep it that way. Apple would have zero chance of developing and maintaining a CPU for Macs to keep them ahead of the game, _except_ that they also use most of the CPU design for cell phones which gives them the necessary volume.
If Intel is to have any chance, they need to regain their lead in fab tech. I think they also need to stop thinking so much about immediate cash opportunities, and decrease their attempts at market segmentation as that allows the competition to eat their business from their ground up. There is way too many things they've just added to some of Xeons - e.g. in the ML space - making their volume business vulnerable.
If they succeed in wrestling tech leadership back from TSMC or at a minimum achieve parity, do a good job of future designs, and successfully anticipate and lead the market - it's a new game. But that's a big if.
[*] SPARC, MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC, PA-RISC, etc
It's never going to happen because Apple has unified all Apple devices into their own SoCs. This means software should work seamlessly between iPhones, iPads, Macs in most cases. In the future, Apple will make Apple VR, Apple Gaming Console, etc, all on Apple Silicon. Developers could make a game and it will run on iOS, iPad, MacOS, VR, Console.
Any Intel device would ruin the ecosystem.
Any Intel device would ruin the ecosystem.
The confusion stems from the similarity of the terms "RISC" and "RISC-V".
"RISC" is a CPU design philosophy: "Reduced Instruction Set Computer" and yes, the ARM chip design overall is mainly based the RISC philosophy of design.
(People sometimes call Intel x86 chips "CISC" or "Complex Instruction Set Computer").
The term "RISC-V" refers to a specific Open Source chip design project, which originated at UC Berkeley.
This is a specific design that also adheres to the RISC philosophy, but is an entirely different design family completely unrelated to and incompatible with any ARM design.
By the way: a good term to use when referring to the overall design of a CPU family is "ISA" or "Instruction Set Architecture".
So when referring to the entire ARM family of chips, you can say all the specific CPUs implement the ARM ISA,
much like all the Intel x86-compatible CPUs implement the Intel x86 ISA.
The RISC-V CPUs will be implementing the RISC-V ISA.
But RISC-V is not ARM and ARM is not RISC-V.
Note: there is nothing to stop Apple from eventually designing their own RISC-V chips in the future. Apple has shown that it is very good at architectural transitions.
Last edited:
I worked for this a$$-clown for 11 years. Biggest waste of my life.
TBH it kind of felt like big banks and auto manufacturers asking for bailouts in 2008-2010.That's the most alpha way I've seen anyone ask for government handouts
Intel now has an engineer as a CEO, that is very good and I believe we'll see great things from them in 5-10 years ( until now marketing set roadmap priorities there which was idiocracy ). Apple won't switch back, they control the roadmap, and performance is very good, there must be a dramatic change to this for that to happen.
AMD is looking good for some time now also. RISC-V on the horizon. The Silicon space is good. Competition is good.
End of story.
AMD is looking good for some time now also. RISC-V on the horizon. The Silicon space is good. Competition is good.
End of story.
I actually could see Intel making some chips & GPUs for Apple for high end machines if a few generations of Apple chips don't do what pros need on the very high end. And obviously Intel would need to reorganize their product lineup into something competitive. So a few factors, but not totally out of the realm of possibility. Especially if the high end of Apple's chips isn't as compelling as the low end has been.
Yah Intel is a great company. It’s going to take them a long time to catch up to TSM. Intel’s best stuff is made by TSMC
TSMC makes the best stuff for everybody
but anyways Intel is going to have government money raining on it, and they will come back - but they will be behind maybe for 5 years.
I agree, I don’t think it’s nice to hate on them for being behind.
I think this is the big question on the high end. Can Apple build or integrate with competitive GPUs on the high end?
If they don't make the effort for the niche pro machines here, they are going to have to depend on Intel/AMD for a long time... or give up on pro entirely, which seems like a non-starter for a company focused on margin.
TBH, Apple has been smart and lucky in that they have found high margin in the consumer space, but this is rare. Generally, a company will need to excel at ultra niche products to find the highest margin.
Considering that cpu are rarely the rate limiting step these days I am excited to see what Nvidia can do with arm.
No, it’s actually bad. Engineers may know how to make things, but they don’t necessarily know how to make things people want to buy. They ABSOLUTELY know nothing about advertising LOL
They’re good at making the same old thing faster, and lucky for Intel, that’s what’s desired in the desktop PC space.
Well.... to summarize Wikipedia...He's new actually, he took over as CEO in February. Perhaps he hasn't even had time to watch Intel's time share like marketing to Mac Owners yet before making that claim about beating Apple processors with his better ones!
new CEO, but an old Intel guy, having started with them in 1979.
I have an old book from him that he wrote in 1987 on programming the 80386. He was the architect of the 80486.
He left Intel in 2009 to join EMC, and later became CEO of VMware
I'm sure he has a lot of nostalgic pride in Intel.....but its under his direction that Intel has been slamming Apple and alienating everyone with this batsh-t crazy marketing. That didn't happen last year. He may be technical, but its been 30 years since he led a design team from what I can tell. He's probably willing to listen to engineers, which is a plus. But half of the problem *IS* the x86 architecture. Its just too complicated, the circuitry to decode and to parallelize the work is just too complex.