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

[PinkyMacGodess]

It does seem that Intel has lost focus. I was an Intel Product Dealer (IPD) and built a ton of Intel only computers for family and friends. I started the company I ran and started selling servers and lots of desktops. I thought they were making money, but they dropped the whole program. They dropped their own motherboards too. They seem to have pulled back from a lot of what made them an important company for me, and tons of people. Their conferences were usually quite well attended.

But AMD, and Apple are definitely eating their lunch. Intel failed at cellular modems, and, how much more.

Are they hoping for a buyout, or are they making more money through some other means? Government contracts perhaps?

I was saddened to find that they totally gave up on the IPD program, and on small businesses and home hobbyists. Part of me thinks they deserve to get a beating. Sorry. Dumping on those markets was not a good idea, IMO. All of the off-brand motherboards were a can of worms compared to theirs.

 

[I7guy]

AMD has shown themselves to be much more agile. I would not be surprised if they led the PC market into a new age on a new architecture. I’m not sure Intel can be that company. The Itanium experience doesn’t bode well.

Unless x86 has a bunch of hidden potential we haven’t seen, I can’t imagine Intel will be the company to lead the next wave unless they buy a company who can and essentially transfer the name to a new company...

I don't see AMD leading anything. They are hitched to the x86 architecture with the Ryzen chips. RISC already lost to CISC. And while Apple silicon is fast, it reminds me of RISC. Bring back Moore.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

It's actually crazy just how cool the M1 Macs run. My wife and I love our M1 MBPs.

Just keep in mind there are two factors to that:
1) the M1 is cooler than Intel
2) the M1 Macs have very well designed cooling systems (fans, heat sinks, heat pipes, heat spreaders), whereas the Intel Macs have such horrendously bad cooling designs that it beggars belief.
Just be aware that the Intel Macs would run a LOT cooler if they had the same quality of cooling design. Sure, still not as cool as the M1 Macs, but a LOT cooler than they are.

 

[JosephAW]

All this means for Mac users is a faster transition away from Intel and future macOS versions not supported anymore.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I don't see AMD leading anything. They are hitched to the x86 architecture with the Ryzen chips. RISC already lost to CISC. And while Apple silicon is fast, it reminds me of RISC. Bring back Moore.

Itanium is the one processor I don't have in my collection.

I like where things are going in regard to more cores and larger inter-processor cache, and better software to manage it all. Thinking of the human mind, there is so much complexity, and yet simplicity. So many sub-processors that monitor so much. Heat, pressure, pain. *shrug*

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

All this means for Mac users is a faster transition away from Intel and future macOS versions not supported anymore.

Yeah, what if Apple switches to AMD now. Um, hopefully not soon. They have a lot of Apple Silicon to sell until then. *shrug*

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

I think it goes to show you how static Intel have been that they are reacting now, not a year ago when the rumour mill about Apple making in house processors began to churn. I've been a big fan of Intel for many years, until the last 2, when the only fan I'm noticing is on my MacBook Pro running all the time.

Just keep in mind there are two factors to Apple M1 running much cooler:
1) the M1 is cooler than Intel
2) the M1 Macs have very well designed cooling systems (fans, heat sinks, heat pipes, heat spreaders), whereas the Intel Macs have such horrendously bad cooling designs that it beggars belief.

Just be aware that the Intel Macs would run a LOT cooler if they had the same quality of cooling design. Sure, still not as cool as the M1 Macs, but a LOT cooler than they are.

The Retina and earlier models (mid-2015 and earlier) all ran nice and cool with good cooling systems (I run my Retina MBP on my lap in shorts all the time, it's not even beyond lukewarm to touch, and very very rarely runs up the fan, basically just like the M1 Macs). Apple gimped the models that came after that. And then fixed them again for M1.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

They've been resting on their laurels since about 2006 when core 2 dominated the CPU world. People love to accuse apple with little to no innovation but it really is Intel that is guilty of that.

Side note - I picked up an M1 MBP because my 2016 MBP is literally falling apart. This thing is incredible. Graphics are better than the discrete, no fans running all the time, it's amazing. Can't wait for the 16" version

Wow, your 2016 is falling apart?! My 2015 rMBP is still running strong, and have zero need to upgrade for a while longer. I will be curious to see the longevity of the M1 models!

 

[fourthtunz]

Yup, I’m always amazed at how caught up people get with Apples Chips, yet forget how fragile their supply could easily become.

Until TSMC is manufacturing in the US on a large scale everyone should remember this.

Architecture is only one Component. Manufacturing is the other.

Wasn't Apple looking into getting Some TSMC manufacturing plants running in India? or was it somewhere else?

 

[nylon]

This has been a long time coming. Intel was a behemoth and the only game in town for a long time. As usual that seemed to have caused stagnation in innovation as there was little competition. This feels like a natural process.

 

[JarvisMeier]

Did the dinosaurs of old see it coming? And even if they did, would it really have changed anything? All things die eventually... that's what evolution is all about.

You think Apple and AMD are in a different boat? Their time will come. It always comes.

I wonder if intel will suffer the same fate as BlackBerry? They both were pretty cocksure when dealing with the realities of competition.

 

[Emanuel Rodriguez]

None of the companies you mention will hitch their wagon to an upstart. If Intel had what it took to break with tradition and launch something new, those companies would love to stay with Intel. But Intel doesn’t have what it’s takes. Itanium didn’t fail because customers resisted change— HP codeveloped it, and big iron makers were eager to use it. It failed because Intel flat out failed to deliver and, I believe they failed to deliver because they’re culturally incapable of leaving x86 behind and introducing a new architecture.

AMD has the potential to be seen as a reliable vendor, who understands the x86 landscape, but can also be nimble without being anchored to the past. Remember, while Intel was sinking the Itanic, AMD was finding a much more pragmatic path to 64 bit and the industry embraced the AMD solution.

Itanium failed because AMD came out with AMD64, x86 with 64-bit extensions, fully compatible with legacy crapola x86, unlike Itanium which was not. Once that happened, Intel had to give it up, or they would have died right there.

For some inexplicable reason, the whole Wintel world never understood how to do transitions. If Itanium had made some effort to be mostly compatible with x86, or at least provide some method for easing the transition, it may have fared better. It's only recently that Microsoft has decided to take a page out of Apple's playbook and do a proper architecture transition with ARM Windows by including emulation. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. Itanium was never going to make it as long as Intel was competing with non-stupid people.

 

[I7guy]

I wonder if intel will suffer the same fate as BlackBerry? They both were pretty cocksure when dealing with the realities of competition.

People on MR were saying the same thing about Apple. The basic "the bigger they are the harder they fall" type of thing. Hope Intel digs in it's heels and do another Core i7 920 all over again.

 

[hot-gril]

Until the M1 chips were announced, people here were calling Intel the best chipmaker and denigrating AMD's CPUs, which aren't used in Macs. Similarly in the older Intel vs Qualcomm modem battle. Either tunes have changed or people have hidden.

Personally I've always liked AMD as a company better but always stayed away from their CPUs, begrudgingly buying Intel.

 

[nikhsub1]

Wow, your 2016 is falling apart?! My 2015 rMBP is still running strong, and have zero need to upgrade for a while longer. I will be curious to see the longevity of the M1 models!

The fricken keyboard is literally coming apart, keys randomly coming out it's a disaster. I've had the keyboard replaced 4 times now and it's worse than ever. It was very hard to get work done so I got the 13" to hold me til the 16" but I am VERY impressed with this machine.

 

[hot-gril]

People on MR were saying the same thing about Apple. The basic "the bigger they are the harder they fall" type of thing. Hope Intel digs in it's heels and do another Core i7 920 all over again.

It's possible they've been intentionally releasing things slowly so they can always have a better CPU to sell each year. Like how Apple seems to sometimes reserve new features, even simple software ones, for the next iPhone. But at this point they've already failed to respond to the Ryzen threat, so they probably have no ammo left.

 

[cmaier]

It's possible they've been intentionally releasing things slowly so they can always have a better CPU to sell each year. Like how Apple seems to sometimes reserve new features, even simple software ones, for the next iPhone. But at this point they've already failed to respond to the Ryzen threat, so they probably have no ammo left.

They haven’t released something better each year, is the problem

 

[hot-gril]

Wow, your 2016 is falling apart?! My 2015 rMBP is still running strong, and have zero need to upgrade for a while longer. I will be curious to see the longevity of the M1 models!

The 2013-2015 MBPs were the best laptops ever for a long time. Built like Honda Civics. 2016-2019 was a dark age for MBPs, but I think they've gotten out of it now.

I've got a 2016 one for work, and the keyboard is so bad that I use an external one on top of it at all times. It's not broken or anything, it's bad even when it works.

 

[aidler]

Intel is already screwed.

Shows you what bad management will do and how valuable good management is in business.

Apple has FANTASTIC management.

I strongly disagree that Apple has a much better management. Apples current and merely temporary advantage is that they are still sitting on a larger cash pool and their main products are still tanking. But for half a decade now Apple hasn't done anything particular innovative.

 

[Analog Kid]

Itanium failed because AMD came out with AMD64, x86 with 64-bit extensions, fully compatible with legacy crapola x86, unlike Itanium which was not. Once that happened, Intel had to give it up, or they would have died right there.

For some inexplicable reason, the whole Wintel world never understood how to do transitions. If Itanium had made some effort to be mostly compatible with x86, or at least provide some method for easing the transition, it may have fared better. It's only recently that Microsoft has decided to take a page out of Apple's playbook and do a proper architecture transition with ARM Windows by including emulation. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. Itanium was never going to make it as long as Intel was competing with non-stupid people.

Itanium provided x86 compatibility, first by hardware decoding x86 instructions into to the EPIC pipeline and later by providing a software translation layer similar to Rosetta. It failed anyway.

 

[DeepIn2U]

And why some of the newer Ryzen designs are like hockey-pucks. I think the issue backward compatibility, intel can't start over like Apple did. Intel can't say, no more 32/16 bit apps. (I still decided a 10900K won out against a Ryzen in my own new build)

Agreed.

Intel's backward compatiblity with supporting 16/32 bit app code can remain, yet I think the larger issue is certain aspects like older DirectX, SSE2/3 and all that other stuff that I don't have great insight or knowledge about yet I always see then in Intel's Ark.

 

[cmaier]

I strongly disagree that Apple has a much better management. Apples current and merely temporary advantage is that they are still sitting on a larger cash pool and their main products are still tanking. But for half a decade now Apple hasn't done anything particular innovative.

Apple’s main products are tanking? Huh?

 

[hot-gril]

I strongly disagree that Apple has a much better management. Apples current and merely temporary advantage is that they are still sitting on a larger cash pool and their main products are still tanking. But for half a decade now Apple hasn't done anything particular innovative.

They made the M1 Macs, that's it. Whoever led that project must be strong and passionate. Resources are only as good as those managing them, and even a skilled manager won't get far without interest in the project. I'm impressed, thinking about all the pieces in Apple that must've come together to make it work. Disaster scenario: Google Plus.

The rest of Apple's stuff is bland and seems like they're riding out their past success. But progress has slowed in the industry as a whole due to most things simply being already done, and now it's more about business decisions like vertical integration, so it's hard to blame them.

 

[cmaier]

Mods: delete.

 

[hot-gril]

They haven’t released something better each year, is the problem

Probably true ever since Ryzen. Before then, I recall them being usually the best.