Intel's getting slower and Kaby Lake processors delayed[PCPER]

patrickjp93 · July 9, 2015

That's if they decide to go that route but what's the real possibility what you're saying would happen... In this market anything can happen, it just takes one critical movement to be done that can cripple or help a company and I can't see Intel or nvidia competing against each other. I can see amd getting funds or bought out but not dieing out.

No one other than Qualcomm or IBM has the money to keep AMD alive in the U.S., and the FTC would never allow a foreign firm to buy it out or take a controlling interest.

This isn't the period of time in which such a move can be made. There are no giant leaps left to be had. One only needs to look at the clock latencies for x86 instructions for current architectures. Most are between 1 and 3, and most of them are at their theoretical limits even if above 1. AMD can't just jump ahead of Intel by a wide enough margin to drive it back into competition.

Nvidia has to diversify. It's going to die if it sticks to dGPUs and mobile SOCs. The server accelerator market is more than half their revenues, and its mobile SOCs are being heavily pressured by Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Mediatek. Nvidia is backed into a corner where the wiggle room is shrinking slowly but surely. It has to compete with Intel to make a name for itself and either succeed or run away into a low margin market where Intel's not interested in going. Nvidia has to fight for its own life. Intel's fighting for a legal monopoly. If Nvidia dies before AMD, you can bet your ass AMD will die and no one will come forward to compete with Intel, purely because no one will have the money, and no one will have the x86 or GPU experience to do it.

There are only two realistic ways out of this triad of slow competition, and both of them have AMD dead as a door nail.

bcredeur97 · July 9, 2015

This isnt good guys, but this is more reason to spend a lot on your computer regarding the CPU/mobo and just keep it a really long time.

ItsAFeature · July 9, 2015

And you are an example of a mature, intelligent poster. Thank you. No one's happy that AMD is likely to go. I'm certainly not, but they've slowed down to the point they don't seem able to recover. If Moody's drops their credit rating again, they will be considered more than 50% likely to default on their debt. At that point no investor is going near them except the hair-brained, like maybe IBM or Richard Branson. I think people just need to learn to accept it. AMD is not what we need and cannot survive without a top to bottom overhaul.

I think we both agree that AMD did have a chance of recovery, but it would have taken a whole different approach and different products. What most people seem to miss is that when you're that far behind, you can't make it up by simply catching up to your competitor. Sure, you might recover a few sales. But what AMD needed was to release something that would have made them the irresistible or logical choice. I haven't seen that product from them in years. And while something like the Fury X may be competitive against the 980ti, give or take, it isn't the foundation of a solid business. Sure, all the gaming enthusiasts get to talking about it, but revenue from the Fury X is a microscopic part of AMD's revenue. Whether you win the flagship GPU battle isn't what matters in the long run. Probably also doesn't help that it sounds like there's less than, what, 1000 Fury Xs in the continental U.S.?

Anyways, back to the Intel topic. From the impression I've gotten from Intel employees and from their actions lately, I've never once thought they didn't want to innovate. The slowdown is, as PatrickJP93 said, problems with yields. Seems like a lot of people think that Intel is happy selling you a 1% improvement year over year. But they know you won't spend $200 on 1-5% improvement. That's not what they're trying to do, and even if they were a complete monopoly, I doubt they would ever try that. Seems like a great way to waste R&D money. While some are unhappy about 5% improvements, they fail to see the strides made in power consumption, iGPUs, and non-gaming technological advancements.

If AMD went out of business, the only monopoly Intel would have is in a relatively small and shrinking market. They've got fierce competition in all of the big money making arenas. Plus they have to sell you a new gaming CPU at some point. I seriously doubt the price would move much, if any, if they were the sole gaming CPU option. They basically have been for the high end for years, and yet you see the 5820K be a better deal for entry level -E options than ever before IMO.