Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Intel is dying and we can’t save it

sithsiri.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 268 posts

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#181

Post by passive »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #149
passive wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly this. Intel has really stumbled on fabrication the last 2-3 years, but the idea that they won't correct that ignores decades of precedent. I'm an AMD fanboy from the K6 days, and I love what Lisa Su has been able to deliver for them, but if it wasn't for Intel's stumbles, they would still be single digits at best in most markets. Look at their progress from Pentium 4 to Core 2 Duo (makes me feel real ol…

It's not like 2000, where if you're behind a good run of fab research will rocket you forward with some sweet increases in clock frequency. We're nearing the end of the road on node shrinks, Intel can best hope to be marginally ahead on process. What Apple's M1 shows is that a fundamental redesign is needed to get gains. Intel's problems appear to be in design, software, and business execution. But doing a new ISA or…

The Pentium 4 to Core 2 Duo leap was based on architecture, not fab tech. It was a very significant shift in chip design philosophy. Intel being ahead in fab tech didn't hurt, but it's far from their only strength. There's no reason to believe M1 will open any sort of gates for Arm on PC. It's not like other Arm CPUs will be running Mac OS, or M1s will be running Windows. The whole pre-Intel period for Mac OS didn't do anything to diminish x86 on the desktop.

Now, Chromebooks are something of an argument for ARM on the desktop, as they at least seem to provide identical behavior regardless of ISA, but they aren't putting up the necessary numbers quite yet. x86 still owns PC gaming, and has a pretty solid hold on console gaming. I'm not going to be worried at all for Intel until that shifts too.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#182

Post by passive »

systemvoltage wrote: post #101
passive wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly this. Intel has really stumbled on fabrication the last 2-3 years, but the idea that they won't correct that ignores decades of precedent. I'm an AMD fanboy from the K6 days, and I love what Lisa Su has been able to deliver for them, but if it wasn't for Intel's stumbles, they would still be single digits at best in most markets. Look at their progress from Pentium 4 to Core 2 Duo (makes me feel real ol…

Curious, why were you a fanboy? Is it like rooting for team red and all the fun that goes into it? Honestly wondering since I have no feelings for any company even if their products are amazing.

It was really about them being an underdog, more than anything. Challenging the big dog and occasionally forcing them into more consumer-friendly behaviors. That said, I still ended up owning mostly Intel CPUs (a lapped Celeron 300a running at ~514mhz in the K6 days).

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#183

Post by gtirloni »

AmVess wrote: post #116
icedchai wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, a similar situation happened in the mid 2000's before Intel moved to the Core architecture. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this happened again.

Intel has been bleeding engineers to other firms for a while now, and new talent has been skipping them altogether. These are not good developments for a company that depends on brain power to make their products.

> new talent has been skipping them altogether

I'd be interested in hearing more about this. Are new graduates actually not applying?

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#184

Post by systemvoltage »

asddubs wrote: post #146
systemvoltage wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1:20 is pretty realistic. Seen with my own eyes and ears. I wasn’t the 1, I was part of the 20. Didn’t do shit all day mainly because incentives were not aligned to motivate me. I get the same salary if I put in the extra effort. So why. Knew one guy who had a vision and the stamina to push through with PowerPoint precision. He was the 1.

> He was the 1. aw come on, I'm sure you'll meet somebody, find happiness and forget all about him

Nice 1 :-)

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#185

Post by gchamonlive »

ekianjo wrote: post #150
gchamonlive wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not limited to AMD. Gpu manufacturers are also experiencing supply shortages. The problem is that even if supply normalises, Intel has to work harder than usual to regain both consumer trust and innovation lead

> Intel has to work harder than usual to regain both consumer trust and innovation lead Not in the enterprise market where AMD is almost completely absent so far.

What do you mean by "almost completely absent"?

A quick search showed that in 2017, AMD server market share was 1%, and in 2020 is expected to have reached nearly 10%[1] in 2019. This is still not the same as 15 years ago, but the market is also not the same, with cloud computing, and this increase is very expressive.

They are bringing IPC improvement with Epyc Milan and is pushing the same innovations towards the server market.

[1] https://www.hardwaretimes.com/amd-server-market-share-grows-...

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#186

Post by Ericson2314 »

fomine3 wrote: post #122
Ericson2314 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but loosing that security blanket will make them better.

Not much, as you can see on Zen3.

Well, I think it gets worse before it's gets better. It's a very bitter pill to have to swallow.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#188

Post by xattt »

thisisnico wrote: post #85
icedchai wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, a similar situation happened in the mid 2000's before Intel moved to the Core architecture. I wouldn't be surprised if something like this happened again.

The Core Architecture in the mid 2000's was such an incredible shot back to the top. I remember seeing the benchmarks absolutely dominate AMD on every level, power, performance, TDP, Cost, etc. etc. This is almost immediately after Athlon 64 and the Athlon 64X2 started to gain market share, spanking Intel's Pentium 4 at the time. IIRC Intel ended up dropping the Prescott architecture, moving to the Pentium M architec…

At that time, Intel had a lead with the Tualatin microarchitecture on the PIII. This was developed into the Pentium M and Core. As far as I can tell, they don’t really have anything of that sort on the market right now that they could “evolve” into something new.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#189

Post by cogman10 »

tw04 wrote: post #84

Let's all just come to a common agreement: there's no planet on which the US military allows Intel to die. Period. End of story. Having a US based company with fabrication facilities on US soil is vital to national security and will be for the entirety of my lifetime and likely my grandchildren's lifetime (if I ever have any). For all the bluster of the investors wanting to chop Intel up: they will find a swift and f…

There are already fabrication facilities in the US and I highly doubt that Intel's fabs would ever be decommissioned. They are far too valuable even if intel doesn't own them anymore.

Now, the US may lag behind top of the line fabrication tech (It already does). But it will never lose it's ability to fabricate chips.

For military applications, unless they start getting really into artificial intelligence (maybe they already are?) they don't need super advanced chips for most of their equipment. Simple micro-controllers are enough for most military applications.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#190

Post by danijelb »

tw04 wrote: post #84

Let's all just come to a common agreement: there's no planet on which the US military allows Intel to die. Period. End of story. Having a US based company with fabrication facilities on US soil is vital to national security and will be for the entirety of my lifetime and likely my grandchildren's lifetime (if I ever have any). For all the bluster of the investors wanting to chop Intel up: they will find a swift and f…

This is very US-centric view. Most countries in the world don't have chip fabrication facilities in their country and they do just fine. Sure, US is currently a superpower whose influence is felt across the world so having chip manufacturing locally is very important, but in a scenario where US would lose some influence that would no longer be an issue, same as it is not an issue for Canada, Germany or Russia.
Post reply on HN