Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#111

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #92

vbezhenar wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple should have switched to AMD instead. They would have almost perfect compatibility with Intel hardware and they would not need investing lots of money to develop chips. Now they either need to halt some Mac lines or develop all kinds of CPUs, from mobile (which they probably can do, because they should be similar enough to iPhones) to server-grade (which they have no experience at all). And there's no way Mac Pr…

I on the other hand hope that Apple will stay away from x86. If they started co-op with AMD it would be a matter of time AMD would have to produce special versions of processors that only Apple could purchase and end users wouldn't be able to do any repairs and a lot of manufacturing power would have been wasted on Macs making it more expensive for other people.

> it would be a matter of time AMD would have to produce special versions of processors that only Apple could purchase

How is that supposed to affect anybody else who is still buying the regular stuff, or be better for Apple customers than the same thing but with an architecture transition and the inability to natively virtualize the x64 editions of Windows and Linux?

> and a lot of manufacturing power would have been wasted on Macs making it more expensive for other people.

Apple and AMD are both TSMC customers. They come out of the same fabs.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#112

Post by scrooched_moose » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 11:28 PM UTC

graton wrote: post #50

nxc18 wrote: post #4

Is there good coverage of how Intel became so uncompetitive? My instinct is to say this is just the natural result of the presence of MBAs who are trained to focus _exclusively_ on this quarter's results so ignore R&D investment and also shit on employees by doing gimmicks like hotdesking to pinch pennies. I'm willing to bet my intuition is wrong, especially given my extremely deep bias against MBAs and 'this quarter…

I think they have lost a lot of their best employees because their pay is not that great. They aimed for paying at the 50th percentile in wages and the top companies come in and can offer double or more their current pay. Doesn't help they switched from large cubes with five-foot high cubicle walls which did a good job on minimizing noise and visual distractions to having cubicle walls with a height of about 3-4 feet…

Man I hate that attitude. My company pulls that on absolutely every benefit asked about.

"We've done a survey and our pay and benefits are on par for the industry" = we are proud to be a profoundly mediocre place to work in every possible way.

Can't wait for this pandemic to end and the market for my industry/region to pick up again.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#113

Post by dragontamer » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 11:30 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #98

dragontamer wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel has a competitor to chiplets, called EMIB, based off its Altera purchase. EMIB is pretty cool, but has only been deployed in a small number of situations so far (There was a Xeon + FPGA chip Intel made. There was the hybrid Intel+AMD chip, and finally the new big.LITTLE clone chip that Intel merged an Icelake + Atom core together). I don't know why Intel hasn't invested more heavily into EMIB, Foveros, and othe…

> They based their designs off of what TSMC was already delivering to Apple. Since TSMC leapfrogged Intel in technology, AMD can now benefit from TSMC (indirectly benefiting from from Apple's investments). Did Apple actually buy a significant stake in TSMC or are you just referring to the fact that Apple is one of their large customers along with Qualcomm, Nvidia, Huawei (until recently) etc.?

> Did Apple actually buy a significant stake in TSMC or are you just referring to the fact that Apple is one of their large customers along with Qualcomm, Nvidia, Huawei (until recently) etc.?

I'm talking more like the later: all of these companies (Apple, Qualcomm, NVidia, etc. etc. and of course, AMD) are effectively pooling their money together to fund TSMC.

I don't mean to single Apple out as if they're the "only" ones funding TSMC's research. (And I can see how my wording earlier mistakenly can be interpreted in that manner. I was careless with my wording). Its more of a team effort (although Apple does seem to spend significant amounts of money trying to get first-dibs on the process).

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#114

Post by dweekly » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

graton wrote: post #50

nxc18 wrote: post #4

Is there good coverage of how Intel became so uncompetitive? My instinct is to say this is just the natural result of the presence of MBAs who are trained to focus _exclusively_ on this quarter's results so ignore R&D investment and also shit on employees by doing gimmicks like hotdesking to pinch pennies. I'm willing to bet my intuition is wrong, especially given my extremely deep bias against MBAs and 'this quarter…

I think they have lost a lot of their best employees because their pay is not that great. They aimed for paying at the 50th percentile in wages and the top companies come in and can offer double or more their current pay. Doesn't help they switched from large cubes with five-foot high cubicle walls which did a good job on minimizing noise and visual distractions to having cubicle walls with a height of about 3-4 feet…

Pay at Intel is about half of FAANG, can confirm. They seem weirdly proud of this and then weirdly confused and disappointed when great people leave.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#115

Post by FridgeSeal » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 11:48 PM UTC

sadness2 wrote: post #105

For gamers, I expect these will be priced such that Intel will offer a better price-to-performance ratio than AMD. I've seen so many industry pundits talking about the defeat of Intel for the last 2 generations, but gamers just quietly look the frames-per-second to $ ratio and keep buying Intel and the cheaper Intel-based motherboards. I think Rocket Lake will allow this trend to continue while Intel prepares Alder L…

Not sure how much that’ll hold, a lot of the gaming and pc subreddits and the communities there have been strongly favouring AMD chips in builds and advice. With Zen 3 chips I expect that to continue.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#116

Post by varispeed » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #111

varispeed wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I on the other hand hope that Apple will stay away from x86. If they started co-op with AMD it would be a matter of time AMD would have to produce special versions of processors that only Apple could purchase and end users wouldn't be able to do any repairs and a lot of manufacturing power would have been wasted on Macs making it more expensive for other people.

> it would be a matter of time AMD would have to produce special versions of processors that only Apple could purchase How is that supposed to affect anybody else who is still buying the regular stuff, or be better for Apple customers than the same thing but with an architecture transition and the inability to natively virtualize the x64 editions of Windows and Linux? > and a lot of manufacturing power would have bee…

> How is that supposed to affect anybody else who is still buying the regular stuff, or be better for Apple customers than the same thing but with an architecture transition and the inability to natively virtualize the x64 editions of Windows and Linux?

For one, these CPUs would make the fabs busy, that means AMD would produce less CPUs for the "masses" and probably that would make it more expensive for everyone. I think the inability to virtualize would kind of fit the walled garden Apple is going for.

> Apple and AMD are both TSMC customers. They come out of the same fabs.

It's not like you can produce different CPUs at the same time. It requires setup and probably particular fab is able to produce one type of CPU in a batch. The TSMC resources are finite as well.

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#117

Post by somethoughts » Fri, Nov 06, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

m_mueller wrote: post #104

somethoughts wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting one I think about is if the current CEO is basically their version of Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. Not highly loved by tech, media or finance, but basically held the ship together long enough to enable Microsoft to figure out how to transition away from the sinking ship that was Microsoft Windows and into new markets. Basically he just needs to keep it afloat long enough for Intel to be able to find it…

The examples you cite are people with operational excellence that were built up internally over many years. As an outsider I have no trust that Intel still has such talent, it seems they are fully run by bean counters now. Who says it's a Microsoft and not a Kodak? Microsoft had the immeasurable advantage of two big markets cornered for themselves: enterprise software and home computers software. Intel meanwhile is a…

Yep - no doubt - I'm not placing any actual bets. Mostly the thought is that similar to the Windows franchise, the existing Intel x86 server franchise [1], while for sure not growing, seems boringly steady enough for a good 3-5 year runway to have a decent shot at developing or finding tech oriented leadership talent. It will be interesting to watch.

As an outsider to MS, its unclear that any one particularly saw Nadella as the obvious successor to Ballmer until they announced it. He somewhat came out of wood work IIRC. Same with Lisa Su.

[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/INTC/intel/income-...

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#118

Post by yborg » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 12:11 AM UTC

sadness2 wrote: post #105

For gamers, I expect these will be priced such that Intel will offer a better price-to-performance ratio than AMD. I've seen so many industry pundits talking about the defeat of Intel for the last 2 generations, but gamers just quietly look the frames-per-second to $ ratio and keep buying Intel and the cheaper Intel-based motherboards. I think Rocket Lake will allow this trend to continue while Intel prepares Alder L…

Intel mentally isn't anywhere near the rock bottom they would need to be to admit inferiority to AMD by actually underpricing them even though they easily have the margin to do so. This might even be the right strategy if they think they can come back in a couple of years and beat AMD, why damage the brand now?

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#119

Post by deepnotderp » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 12:16 AM UTC

nxc18 wrote: post #4

Is there good coverage of how Intel became so uncompetitive? My instinct is to say this is just the natural result of the presence of MBAs who are trained to focus _exclusively_ on this quarter's results so ignore R&D investment and also shit on employees by doing gimmicks like hotdesking to pinch pennies. I'm willing to bet my intuition is wrong, especially given my extremely deep bias against MBAs and 'this quarter…

I grew up in a neighborhood where probably 90% of households had at least one parent working at Intel, including mine.

Very simple: Cultural Decay

Re: Intel’s palpable desperation on display with Rocket Lake

#120

Post by hinkley » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 12:18 AM UTC

dweekly wrote: post #114

graton wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they have lost a lot of their best employees because their pay is not that great. They aimed for paying at the 50th percentile in wages and the top companies come in and can offer double or more their current pay. Doesn't help they switched from large cubes with five-foot high cubicle walls which did a good job on minimizing noise and visual distractions to having cubicle walls with a height of about 3-4 feet…

Pay at Intel is about half of FAANG, can confirm. They seem weirdly proud of this and then weirdly confused and disappointed when great people leave.

So did Apple just sashay in and poach half of the best people?