Intel's disruption is now complete • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#11

Post by skohan » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #2

What's the real reason Apple can design a higher performance device? Better fab process? ARM ISA is fundamentally faster? Graph conveniently omits AMD who now beat Intel using the same ISA but different process.

Part of it is that they're essentially using all of TSMC's 5nm capacity, right?

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#12

Post by jeffbee » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

voodootrucker wrote: post #5

Thank goodness. They haven't innovated in decades and x86 is a mess. I can't wait until RISC-V does the same to ARM. It's super frustrating to see America, which used to be innovative become the complacent corrupt incumbent.

Super, super weird take considering that Intel's main competitors are all within walking distance of their Santa Clara HQ.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#13

Post by screye » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:40 PM UTC

I am not sure what Intel can do to come back to a strong position.

Afaik, all of Nvidia, Apple and Qualcomm (dunno about AMD) pay significantly higher wages than Intel.

If Intel is starting off on the back foot and cannot get top talent, then their decline is all but guaranteed.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#14

Post by ben-schaaf » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #2

What's the real reason Apple can design a higher performance device? Better fab process? ARM ISA is fundamentally faster? Graph conveniently omits AMD who now beat Intel using the same ISA but different process.

My guess until reviewers get their hands on the thing is that they've got some pretty good RnD alongside the massive process node advantage over Intel. AMD has already shown that there's a lot more performance in 7nm than we thought and the M1 looks like it'll be on-par with what you'd expect from zen 4, so I wouldn't say they've got any advantage from the architecture (as you'd expect)

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#15

Post by dragontamer » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #2

What's the real reason Apple can design a higher performance device? Better fab process? ARM ISA is fundamentally faster? Graph conveniently omits AMD who now beat Intel using the same ISA but different process.

Intel dropped the ball on 10nm and 7nm processes constantly for the last 5 years.

Skylake was the "tick", then they couldn't "Tock" to 10nm, so they made 14nm+, then 14nm++, then 14nm+++... Intel's been stuck on the same process for half a decade now.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#16

Post by dragontamer » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #13

I am not sure what Intel can do to come back to a strong position. Afaik, all of Nvidia, Apple and Qualcomm (dunno about AMD) pay significantly higher wages than Intel. If Intel is starting off on the back foot and cannot get top talent, then their decline is all but guaranteed.

Intel is losing to TSMC most of all, in the manufacturing front.

Intel needs to reach 10nm and 7nm, and they needed to do that 5 years ago.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#17

Post by baq » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

There’s just one missing detail here: intel was terribly, terribly bad at executing its plan. Tiger lake was supposed to be here on 10++nm or 7nm or whatever much improved process, which would make it extremely competitive if not the absolute best. Intel very well knew they’re in trouble if the expected process upgrades don’t work and they didn’t. It’s not like folks there don’t know how to plot that core vs Apple silicon performance graph.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#18

Post by Someone1234 » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #9

jibcage wrote: post #3

I’m curious to see if Apple will bring anything similarly disruptive to the server market. So far servers haven’t been their strong suit, but a chip this attractive could change things.

It would seem really out of character for Apple to make a move in the server space.

Or heck even just the general purpose chip space in general.

Apple's current ARM offerings are strictly locked to their own hardware, and there's been no hints that they may move into the ARM-PC space selling general purpose chips and letting other vendors produce board. I'd expect to see that first before an Apple silicon powered server.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#19

Post by joeryscript » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:43 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #2

What's the real reason Apple can design a higher performance device? Better fab process? ARM ISA is fundamentally faster? Graph conveniently omits AMD who now beat Intel using the same ISA but different process.

Honestly? A lot of it has to do with the fact that they booked TSMC's entire 5nm production capability for some time.

So they are working on a smaller process node than their competitors, and they used their market position to ensure that they will be the only ones using it for a little while. That gives them a significant leg up.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#20

Post by SoSoRoCoCo » Sat, Nov 14, 2020, 4:44 PM UTC

As someone who worked on Intel's phone chip: we definitely didn't win it. We fucked it up twelve ways to Sunday. Why: giant egos. There were turf wars between Austin, Santa Clara and Israel over who would design it, and the team that won out had long since lost its best principle engineers and had no clue how to spin the architecture to meet the design win. Otellini's hindsight hedge is pure spin: we knew the landing zone, we just didn't know how to get there. And the aforementioned turf war guaranteed we didn't get access to other teams' talent. I'm bitter because it was a really fun team when I moved from Motorola to Intel Austin, and then it just corroded over political battles.