Intel Urged to Take 'Immediate Action' Amid Threats From Apple Silicon and AMD

[I7guy]

Oh... 😄 No argument there. Intel dominated just about every level of the CPU market over the past couple decades. I’d argue their powerhouse status began before then, in their earlier innovations around microprocessor design, but they grew to pretty much own the general computing market.

That status doesn’t have to last forever though. We’ve seen plenty of other dominant players fall into obscurity in the blink of an eye.

The business school case study of it all will be the fact that the one part of the market Intel didn’t dominate, cheap low power toys and gadgets, is where the seed was planted that grew to threaten the entire Intel empire. Intel dominated market share for general computing. Not for the low power gadgets that evolved into smartphones. I’d have to dig up the numbers again, but I’m pretty sure Apple ships more processors for more profit than Intel does.

That’s where the tipping point is. Intel managed to keep x86 dominant because they had the money to do it. The best designers, the best process engineers, and an industry focused on optimizing for their architecture.

Apple, it turns out, has been using their massive market share, profits and relationships from mobile devices to match Intel on each of these and since they’re starting from a better CPU architecture and are using a more modern system view they’ve reached the point where they can beat Intel at their own game. To the point that they can just about run x86 targeted code through translation faster than Intel can run it natively.

When the money spigot to Intel starts to close, they’ll struggle more and more to keep pace with the competition with ever more limited resources.

You originally phrased your statement as RISC vs. CISC saying CISC won. That seems like the wrong way to look at it. CISC as a philosophy didn’t win anything but x86 dominated the market for a while. As a design philosophy, CISC is dead. (Actually, as a design philosophy, CISC never existed— it was only coined in retrospect to contrast with RISC, which was a design philosophy). Can you point me to a single new CISC design in the past 30 years?



Intel wouldn't be brought up on anti-trust for dropping peripheral support... Intel picks and chooses the technologies they support directly (USB vs. Firewire?) As far as I'm aware, they were never sued for dropping support for the ISA bus, or the EISA bus, or anything else. They wouldn't get called in by the DOJ for dropping support for segmented memory.



And this is the albatross around their neck. If they keep thinking that their current "one architecture to support every possible use case" is the way to go, they'll find x86 is a niche chip that is only used by legacy applications.

I wouldn't count Intel out yet. People are talking like Intel is already a has-been. Legacy applications are a huge market for Intel and companies won't be scrambling (at least imo) to redevelop entire working infrastructures at the cost of potentially billions of dollars for the newest chip on the block. Similar things were said over the years about Windows and windows infrastructure and look at Microsoft today.

They (intel) has to get their act together. For example, why was skylake architecture used in 6 generations of chips? My money is on them as over the years they survived threats from other chip makers, which made faster chips.

 

[Baymowe335]

I always roll my eyes at “sweat shop” descriptions... If they’re only staying for the stock and when they leave, they can take the MONEY and run? That’s no sweat shop.


Watch these vids to see how Intel shipped chips that were NOT what they promised.

They don’t get it...corporate isn’t for everyone and people on the outside hear stories that just aren’t true. It’s a shark environment but you can leave the tank at anytime. People stay bc the money, stock, and bonuses can be pretty enticing.

 

[Baymowe335]

Early picture of Emperor Cook's rise to power.. Steve was the only one who stood in his way.

Steve recognized Cook’s genius early on. That’s why Tim was the highest paid executive at Apple.

 

[Manzanito]

I wouldn't count Intel out yet. People are talking like Intel is already a has-been. Legacy applications are a huge market for Intel and companies won't be scrambling (at least imo) to redevelop entire working infrastructures at the cost of potentially billions of dollars for the newest chip on the block. Similar things were said over the years about Windows and windows infrastructure and look at Microsoft today.

They (intel) has to get their act together. For example, why was skylake architecture used in 6 generations of chips? My money is on them as over the years they survived threats from other chip makers, which made faster chips.

I agree that intel isn’t finished yet, but I think windows is a bad example, as it really didn’t have competition. People who weren’t willing to pay the apple tax had linux as the only alternative, and for lot of cases it was a no go.

Intel, on the other hand, has a ver strong competitor in amd, and most personal computing devices have gone from pcs to tablets and phones anyway. So maybe intel isn’t doomed but it’s on a dire situation.

 

[George Dawes]

Be ironic if apple ended up replacing intel in the future and become the biggest supplier of CPU’s in the world

never discount apple in the long game ....

 

[George Dawes]

Also explains rumours of a Mac Pro mini

with less or no fans and vents

thats 2 x faster , and half the size and price 😎

 

[Manzanito]

Be ironic if apple ended up replacing intel in the future and become the biggest supplier of CPU’s in the world

never discount apple in the long game ....

Won’t happen. They would only supply chips to themselves. See the android and windows marketshare.

 

[incoherent_1]

I mean, I get that Intel is pretty hosed, but why argue for an “immediate shakeup”? Firing a bunch of people isn’t going to give you years and years of R&D all of a sudden?

 

[Manzanito]

I mean, I get that Intel is pretty hosed, but why argue for an “immediate shakeup”? Firing a bunch of people isn’t going to give you years and years of R&D all of a sudden?

You can’t get those years back, but you have to avoid wasting more time.

 

[ipponrg]

Intel, on the other hand, has a ver strong competitor in amd, and most personal computing devices have gone from pcs to tablets and phones anyway. So maybe intel isn’t doomed but it’s on a dire situation.

Competition is a good thing. I look forward to how Intel will pivot. I am one of those that generally avoids AMD due to consistently bad experiences.

 

[EvilEvil]

Competition is good. Now if only Apple would take PC gaming seriously...

 

[Falhófnir]

I mean, I get that Intel is pretty hosed, but why argue for an “immediate shakeup”? Firing a bunch of people isn’t going to give you years and years of R&D all of a sudden?

I guess the thinking is Intel needs immediate drastic intervention to its strategy, and the current leadership is overly cautious and attached to the existing model. Though the company looks deceptively invulnerable, by now they are probably closer to a dangerous tipping point than they appear. Not only is AMD tipped to start being the option of choice for flagship machines from this year, but Intel's strategy of focusing on ultrabooks at the expense of their desktop and H series laptop chips looks likely to come under attack from losing Apple and a redoubled effort behind Windows on Arm. Even if this isn't fatal, it locks in decline. Ultimately that might not be a bad thing though, the Intel near monopoly ultimately proved to be a huge weakness for the industry and we've had a lost half-decade as they stagnated and AMD took time to catch up. Intel continuing on as an option among many in a pluralistic chip market would make this less likely to recur.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

346 dead people disagree with you.

It was sarcasm. The 737 MAX was underengineered, and over bandaided.

 

[grkm3]

Why isn't macrumors posting about intels rocket lake s cpus that are about to come out that literally blow the doors off any cpu in the market today including the m1? There engineering samples are breaking 1800 single core and this is still on 14nm.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Boeing is "too big to fail". Honestly, so is Intel. People are predicting their demise, but if they really were in trouble, the government will bail them out. They're not going to let the company with America's most advanced semiconductor tech go under.

But at what point can taxpayers say 'Let them die'? With the massive issues at Boeing, world airlines refusing planes from their South Carolina plant, and Boeing shutting down their Everett plants? Bailouts are one thing, but a corporation can get addicted to the 'free money' train, and use it to cover for really disastrous decisions that should never have been made. Opening the South Carolina plant was all about naked greed, annd trashing unions. Getting the 'same product' from 'cheaper labor'. You can't have it both ways. You can't depend on an undereducated and undermotivated labor pool to build highly technical devices. You can't have a viable business with customers finding ladders embedded int he tail of your products, findingg tools, fasteners, shavings, rags, dents, scratched, missing parts, etc, in your products. Closing Everett isn't such a tragedy, possibly, but not cross feeding that educated experienced base of workers into the South Carolina plant was a HUGE missed opportunity to mainntain the quality that drove Boeing to the front of the line. The next crash of a MAX, or first of a 787 could be Boeing's undoing. Especially if it's due to yet another bandaided system on the MAX, or in the case of a 787, a tool or FOD in the innards.

One has to wonder what the heck Boeing management is thinking. Is it just their butts and investor return? If that's the answer, they shouldn't be makinng things that people rely on working 100% of the time they are in the air.

And Intel? They aren't likely to go anywhere, but they could end up being bought out and sold for scrap. Wall Streeters have a history of buying 'distraught' corporations, and taking an axe to them. I'm sure a disemboweled Intel would bring a high price to the vultures. Hah, maybe the same with Boeing. So much carnage from hedge funders littering the ivory halls of American business history...

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Why isn't macrumors posting about intels rocket lake s cpus that are about to come out that literally blow the doors off any cpu in the market today including the m1? There engineering samples are breaking 1800 single core and this is still on 14nm.

Power10?

And they are 'back-porting' that chip to 14nm. Going bigger. Seems odd... It's still trapped by the need to be compatible with the x86 architecture, right?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Why isn't macrumors posting about intels rocket lake s cpus that are about to come out that literally blow the doors off any cpu in the market today including the m1? There engineering samples are breaking 1800 single core and this is still on 14nm.

Maybe because by now “INTEL HAS THIS NEXT THING COMING THAT’S AMAZING!” is an old story that no one believes. Far better to actually wait until it’s shipping, in mass quantitates, to get exited

 

[Unregistered 4U]

but not cross feeding that educated experienced base of workers into the South Carolina plant was a HUGE missed opportunity to mainntain the quality that drove Boeing to the front of the line.

Well, to be honest, you’d have to find folks that would want to leave Washington for South Carolina. I’d guess most would rather just get other high paying jobs in the area than to uproot and move to.... that.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Well, to be honest, you’d have to find folks that would want to leave Washington for South Carolina. I’d guess most would rather just get other high paying jobs in the area than to uproot and move to.... that.

True. I grew up in North Carolina. I've never seen people so determined to sabotage their own futures than the goobers down there. The triangle area has to have them just beside themselves. Like when I was in Texas, the hatred and distrust of San Antonio was strong in many. *shrug*

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Maybe because by now “INTEL HAS THIS NEXT THING COMING THAT’S AMAZING!” is an old story that no one believes. Far better to actually wait until it’s shipping, in mass quantitates, to get exited

And reading the errata list of bugs. They have had some stellar flaws in chips...

 

[cosmolv]

The problem is Intel's foundries are barely at 10nm. Apple would need to invest billions, if not tens of billions, to get them to sub-10nm and Apple would be dependent on hoping Intel's fab engineers could do it.

Much better to spend a few scores of millions to help TSMC get their new processes into production by agreeing to be "first mover" and buying chips while TSMC are ramping up production and yields are low and then getting exclusive access to that process for a time.

Agree! + There is not only TSMC, but other gigant company who produce equipment for chip manufacturing and what is belov 50nm are extremely complex to do with using Argon laser technique. nowdayes when scales get extremally small it is complex to make using argon lasers. That's a physics law CD=K1*λ/NA

Then Intel, TSMC and Samsung get heads together and chipped in with approx 21 Billon USD to invest in company from Holland "ASML" which made Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) Device which bombards Tin at 30Kw of power to make plasma to make microchip negatives more precise at extreme small scales, 7nm and 5nm. Nobody even heared about ASML, but this company are monstrous at chip manufacturing devices and Samsung, AMD, INTEL, TSMC are anyway tighted to this company where are collected all brilliant brains from all over the world concentrating all cnovledge of our civilisation. (this is amazing)

Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) unit wight about 180 tons and consumes about 1 megawatt of electricity. and consumes tons of water to cool it. (and this all is to make chip manufacturing at smaller scales and to make our world better, faster.)

EDITED: And what i wanted to say telling this? Technology are available, this shows that INTEL have bad managment.

 

[cmaier]

Doesn’t help that good engineers don’t want to work at Intel. Uninteresting work, too many people on each project, bad corporate culture, etc. I was offered a job there in the early 90’s, but was so taken aback by what I saw going on just during my full day interview in Santa Clara that I instead decided to go to grad school and see if there were better choices four years later (there were). At least as late as the 00’s, Intel still had the reputation in Silicon Valley of being the place where non-creative drones went to work on joyless projects.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

But at what point can taxpayers say 'Let them die'? With the massive issues at Boeing, world airlines refusing planes from their South Carolina plant, and Boeing shutting down their Everett plants?

When did I ever say taxpayers get to decide to bail them out? That’s not how this works.

 

[Baymowe335]

346 dead people disagree with you.

Boeing messed up, but it’s happened before. Building airplanes isn’t easy and only 2 companies do it with any large scale, each of which had engineering challenges which they fixed. The original 737 had a rudder problem too. Airbus had the “side stick” drama that doomed Air France among others.

You don’t always get the benefit of knowing what “would have” happened if they had done X or Y. Boeing was punished for their mistakes, the CEO lost his job, people lost their jobs, money, and lives. They are going to do everything they can to fix it.

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

Boeing messed up, but it’s happened before. Building airplanes isn’t easy and only 2 companies do it with any large scale, each of which had engineering challenges which they fixed. The original 737 had a rudder problem too. Airbus had the “side stick” drama that doomed Air France among others.

You don’t always get the benefit of knowing what “would have” happened if they had done X or Y. Boeing was punished for their mistakes, the CEO lost his job, people lost their jobs, money, and lives. They are going to do everything they can to fix it.

Boeing focused on rushing out the Max to compete with Airbus rather than listening to their engineers. They didn’t just “mess up”. Although, IMO, the real outrage here is that the FAA approved it without properly verifying it. They are supposed to be the ones focused on safety over profit.