When making flawed products makes the demand for them increase rather than decrease, can anyone really doubt Intel's monopoly position? Sure AMD seems to have good products these days, but realistic alternatives to x86 can't come soon enough.
This has probably little to do with Intel's or AMD's supply planning or product quality.
Many OEMs are building inventory before the next rounds of tariffs are in place. They need to get those chips to china ASAP so that they build laptops and servers and ship them before dec 15th. Only a small portion of the PC/Server supply chain has been moved out of china.
This kind of demand is unpredictable and unlike last year it's not their fault (unless you expect them to oversupply the market when there is regular demand).
Demand for AMD products is particularly high right now AND Intel is pulling record revenues. I don't think the nominal market size is expanding at a sufficient rate to support both. The overstocking prior to tariffs you mention seems to be the most reasonable theory.
Please reply with figures that show that AMD is now pulling record figures because last quarter they were down in revenue globally, which to me is the only revenue worth looking at
AMD's first half of 2019 revenues were driven down by the collapse of the crypto boom and the final year of console sales. AMD suffered the disappearance of, at least, $600 million in consumer GPU and chips for console through June 30th.
At the same time their CPU sales have been running 20 - 30% over 2018 levels in Q1 and Q2. This is the only market that Intel and AMD currently compete. Intel's desktop units were down 7% and server units were down 10% in the most recent quarter. Laptop was up 1% and those volumes probably made up for the 7% drop in the much smaller desktop segment.
The record figures for AMD start in the current quarter where the 3000 series of Ryzen and their first material consumer GPU launch took place. AMD is expected to post between $1.85 and $2.0 billion in revenues.
well actually probably, tech server companies are disabling, HyperThreading on Intel servers because of the currently known CPU vulnerabilities (Meltdown, Spectre variant 1, 2, 3, and 4, Zombieload, Foreshadow, etc), but also the ones they still don't know. Because of loosing half the performance that you originally purchased, Microsoft, Amazon, Google now have to buy twice the processing power just to break even with what they previously had.
From what I recall reading, hyperthreading doesn't result in a doubling of performance. Performance benefits are workload dependent and in some cases there is regression when its enabled. Shutting it down won't result in the loss of 50% of a given processor's output.
HT only ever yields 10-20% increased speed a) when there were sufficient threads/tasks ready to run b) no real CPU cores available for scheduling instead.
With server utilization rarely ever near 100%, the difference for lack of hyperthreading won't be anywhere near 50%, unless you're talking to the hyperscaler's lawyers trying to sue Intel for damages.
Intel likely oversold the potential of HT and it's probably only fair that it should bite them when the lawyers now oversell the damage of disabling it.
But the technically savvy shouldn't be misled quite so easily.
a cpu that has security issues in every way, way more expensive and without a decent cooler can't hold turbo, or if decent expensive cooler consumes above TDP
or a cpu that is out of the box faster even with less specced turbo as the reviews do not require the best coolers for bias results. less expensive, way more performing out of the box but does not turbo all cores according the information in the spec sheets. where turbo is off by 25-50mhz....
You mean just one(or two if you want to include 3900x) product that makes up a very small part of the market? Is that really shifting supply/demand ratio for the whole CPU market.
I'm sure AMD didn't expect that so many people want to buy $500/$750 CPUs (who did ?).
In the context of this threat: Faulty - Product that doesn't work as designed Flawed - Product that works as designed, but the design has critical issues that affect usability.
I'm not sure why this issue was brought up. The impact level of the faulty AMD SKU(s) is not even close to comparable with the flawed Intel Architecture. I would not expect a large impact to AMD's revenue stream due to a problem affecting a small subset of users purchasing one or two SKUs (some enthusiasts purchasing one or two retail processor SKUs). I would expect a sizable impact from a design flaw that affected the majority of processors that Intel was making at the time. Granted some of the hardware issues also affected AMD products, but to a lesser extent. That all said, both companies seem to be selling as much as they can produce. So it would appear, at least for the moment, that neither issue is affecting current sales.
ahh maxiking, your amd hatred is still as strong as ever, huh ? still in love with intel too :-) you must be related to some one else on here that also has the SAME mindset. but hey, if you want to go with a company that lies about how much power its cpu's really use, and like duploxxx mentioned, security issues coming out of their butt, that's your choice, just like its every one else's choice to go with amd. extide, but not as much as intel uses.
You're missing some important considerations. Intel's customers already have Intel systems. They understand and have optimized for the systems. If they buy some extra compute capacity to make up for lost performance then it is cheaper to stay with the architecture they already have and have already tested then it is to jump into orders with a new architecture.
Demand didn't increase but die sizes did. Intel never planned to release consumer 8-core chips or 4-core laptop-u chips and accordingly planned their fab capacity which now is too low because the chips are near double the die size. Not to mention xeons...It's not increased demand, it's that every chips is much bigger than in the 4-core only era.
How does Intel have a monopoly position?? Anyone can design an x86 processor, they just have to do that with encroaching on any patents that Intel hold. There are many millions of processors on the market that are non-x86 so I really do not see how Intel has a monopoly on a specfic ISA. You can use many other ISA's but they just will not run any x86 code which is another matter....
They did admit it and the market is punishing them every time when they sell huge quantities of 14nm chips by giving them larger revenue!!! Terrible problem for Intel...
Demand is simple higher as expected. The 10nm issue has little to do with it. There are always multiple factors. Christmas is coming and demand will be even higher later on. I believe if you need a new CPU get it now. If you want a cheap CPU you need to wait until mid next year and there is no guarantee about the cheap price...
How many fabs get turned from 14nm to 10nm is important. It shows how Intel is predicting future demand of the processors on these processes and success of process itself. Does Intel try and satisfy demand now and then stand on low supply 10nm for a while, or does it jump into 10nm and tell all its 14nm customers to wait? It's an interesting dynamic.
Hehehe, its only intels wet dream and maby fake news. In first half year volumen of intels sels was 10% less than in 2018. Trade war with China and ryzen 2 will not promise greater for the second half. Simply Intel try incrase his margin and has bought marketing action in press. https://www.intc.com/investor-relations/investor-e...
Anemusek, your view is too narrow in that post. I'll focus on data center (your 10% drop number) to make this post clear. Data center is also the biggest chips that take up the most capacity to make.
So, compared to when the fabs were built, 2019 is roughly 1*1.08*1.08*1.05*1.13*.9 = 1.25 times the volume for data center chips. Yes, you are correct that volume is down from 2018 so far. But, volume is still up 25% from when the fabs were designed and built. That is why even with volume down from last year, Intel still is having trouble keeping up.
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Dolda2000 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
When making flawed products makes the demand for them increase rather than decrease, can anyone really doubt Intel's monopoly position? Sure AMD seems to have good products these days, but realistic alternatives to x86 can't come soon enough.brakdoo - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
This has probably little to do with Intel's or AMD's supply planning or product quality.Many OEMs are building inventory before the next rounds of tariffs are in place. They need to get those chips to china ASAP so that they build laptops and servers and ship them before dec 15th. Only a small portion of the PC/Server supply chain has been moved out of china.
This kind of demand is unpredictable and unlike last year it's not their fault (unless you expect them to oversupply the market when there is regular demand).
BurntMyBacon - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Demand for AMD products is particularly high right now AND Intel is pulling record revenues. I don't think the nominal market size is expanding at a sufficient rate to support both. The overstocking prior to tariffs you mention seems to be the most reasonable theory.lemans24 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Please reply with figures that show that AMD is now pulling record figures because last quarter they were down in revenue globally, which to me is the only revenue worth looking atIntel999 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
AMD's first half of 2019 revenues were driven down by the collapse of the crypto boom and the final year of console sales. AMD suffered the disappearance of, at least, $600 million in consumer GPU and chips for console through June 30th.At the same time their CPU sales have been running 20 - 30% over 2018 levels in Q1 and Q2. This is the only market that Intel and AMD currently compete. Intel's desktop units were down 7% and server units were down 10% in the most recent quarter. Laptop was up 1% and those volumes probably made up for the 7% drop in the much smaller desktop segment.
The record figures for AMD start in the current quarter where the 3000 series of Ryzen and their first material consumer GPU launch took place. AMD is expected to post between $1.85 and $2.0 billion in revenues.
zepi - Wednesday, October 2, 2019 - link
AMD:s own guidance released in July was $1.8B:"For the third quarter of 2019, AMD expects revenue to be approximately $1.8 billion, plus or minus $50 million"
jgraham11 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
well actually probably, tech server companies are disabling, HyperThreading on Intel servers because of the currently known CPU vulnerabilities (Meltdown, Spectre variant 1, 2, 3, and 4, Zombieload, Foreshadow, etc), but also the ones they still don't know. Because of loosing half the performance that you originally purchased, Microsoft, Amazon, Google now have to buy twice the processing power just to break even with what they previously had.PeachNCream - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
From what I recall reading, hyperthreading doesn't result in a doubling of performance. Performance benefits are workload dependent and in some cases there is regression when its enabled. Shutting it down won't result in the loss of 50% of a given processor's output.abufrejoval - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
HT only ever yields 10-20% increased speed a) when there were sufficient threads/tasks ready to run b) no real CPU cores available for scheduling instead.With server utilization rarely ever near 100%, the difference for lack of hyperthreading won't be anywhere near 50%, unless you're talking to the hyperscaler's lawyers trying to sue Intel for damages.
Intel likely oversold the potential of HT and it's probably only fair that it should bite them when the lawyers now oversell the damage of disabling it.
But the technically savvy shouldn't be misled quite so easily.
Maxiking - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
By faulty you mean stating your product can reach certain frequency and then it does who it can't like in the AMDs case?Maxiking - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
it does show* stupid autocorrectduploxxx - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
care to choose?a cpu that has security issues in every way, way more expensive and without a decent cooler can't hold turbo, or if decent expensive cooler consumes above TDP
or a cpu that is out of the box faster even with less specced turbo as the reviews do not require the best coolers for bias results. less expensive, way more performing out of the box but does not turbo all cores according the information in the spec sheets. where turbo is off by 25-50mhz....
extide - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Honestly AMD chips are FAR more temperature sensitive to turbo than Intel ones, and they BOTH use more than TDP at turbo. Just saying...lemans24 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
so please explain how Intel's revenue continues to go up as they try to satisfy current demand for 14nm based chips??Intel999 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Intel's revenue is down a little over 1% through the end of June. In the most recent quarter revenue was down over 3%.It is likely the quarter that ends this month will be down another 4 to 5%.
Intel's revenues are not going up.
Klimax - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
Ehm, faster in some benchmarks (reminder: Intel and AMD optimized their memory controllers very differently - latency vs. bandwidth)And one cannot say AMD chips don't have security issues - none reported doesn't equal none exists, it just means they are not under such scrutiny.
brakdoo - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
You mean just one(or two if you want to include 3900x) product that makes up a very small part of the market? Is that really shifting supply/demand ratio for the whole CPU market.I'm sure AMD didn't expect that so many people want to buy $500/$750 CPUs (who did ?).
BurntMyBacon - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
In the context of this threat:Faulty - Product that doesn't work as designed
Flawed - Product that works as designed, but the design has critical issues that affect usability.
I'm not sure why this issue was brought up. The impact level of the faulty AMD SKU(s) is not even close to comparable with the flawed Intel Architecture. I would not expect a large impact to AMD's revenue stream due to a problem affecting a small subset of users purchasing one or two SKUs (some enthusiasts purchasing one or two retail processor SKUs). I would expect a sizable impact from a design flaw that affected the majority of processors that Intel was making at the time. Granted some of the hardware issues also affected AMD products, but to a lesser extent. That all said, both companies seem to be selling as much as they can produce. So it would appear, at least for the moment, that neither issue is affecting current sales.
Korguz - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
ahh maxiking, your amd hatred is still as strong as ever, huh ? still in love with intel too :-) you must be related to some one else on here that also has the SAME mindset. but hey, if you want to go with a company that lies about how much power its cpu's really use, and like duploxxx mentioned, security issues coming out of their butt, that's your choice, just like its every one else's choice to go with amd. extide, but not as much as intel uses.Yojimbo - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
You're missing some important considerations. Intel's customers already have Intel systems. They understand and have optimized for the systems. If they buy some extra compute capacity to make up for lost performance then it is cheaper to stay with the architecture they already have and have already tested then it is to jump into orders with a new architecture.beginner99 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Demand didn't increase but die sizes did. Intel never planned to release consumer 8-core chips or 4-core laptop-u chips and accordingly planned their fab capacity which now is too low because the chips are near double the die size. Not to mention xeons...It's not increased demand, it's that every chips is much bigger than in the 4-core only era.andykins - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
You've hit the nail on the head.Mugur - Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - link
Exactly!lemans24 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
How does Intel have a monopoly position?? Anyone can design an x86 processor, they just have to do that with encroaching on any patents that Intel hold.There are many millions of processors on the market that are non-x86 so I really do not see how Intel has a monopoly on a specfic ISA. You can use many other ISA's but they just will not run any x86 code which is another matter....
shabby - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Lol "high demand" the spinmasters are at work I see. Why can't they just admit they screwed up and put all their eggs in the wrong 10nm basket?lemans24 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
They did admit it and the market is punishing them every time when they sell huge quantities of 14nm chips by giving them larger revenue!!! Terrible problem for Intel...JTBM_real - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Demand is simple higher as expected. The 10nm issue has little to do with it.There are always multiple factors. Christmas is coming and demand will be even higher later on.
I believe if you need a new CPU get it now.
If you want a cheap CPU you need to wait until mid next year and there is no guarantee about the cheap price...
Ian Cutress - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
How many fabs get turned from 14nm to 10nm is important. It shows how Intel is predicting future demand of the processors on these processes and success of process itself. Does Intel try and satisfy demand now and then stand on low supply 10nm for a while, or does it jump into 10nm and tell all its 14nm customers to wait? It's an interesting dynamic.Piotrek54321 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Investors don't like such a language.anemusek - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Hehehe, its only intels wet dream and maby fake news. In first half year volumen of intels sels was 10% less than in 2018. Trade war with China and ryzen 2 will not promise greater for the second half. Simply Intel try incrase his margin and has bought marketing action in press.https://www.intc.com/investor-relations/investor-e...
dullard - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Anemusek, your view is too narrow in that post. I'll focus on data center (your 10% drop number) to make this post clear. Data center is also the biggest chips that take up the most capacity to make.2014. Baseline when Intel started 14 nm CPU production.
2015 was 8% more volume that 2014: https://s21.q4cdn.com/600692695/files/doc_financia...
2016 was again 8% more volume than 2015: https://s21.q4cdn.com/600692695/files/doc_news/201...
2017 was 5% more volume than 2016: https://s21.q4cdn.com/600692695/files/doc_financia...
2018 was 13% more volume than 2017: https://www.intc.com/investor-relations/investor-e...
2019 so far, is 10% less volume.
So, compared to when the fabs were built, 2019 is roughly 1*1.08*1.08*1.05*1.13*.9 = 1.25 times the volume for data center chips. Yes, you are correct that volume is down from 2018 so far. But, volume is still up 25% from when the fabs were designed and built. That is why even with volume down from last year, Intel still is having trouble keeping up.
lemans24 - Thursday, September 26, 2019 - link
Umm, what do you think matters most to Intel: volume or profits while continuing to sell 5 year old 14nm chips for huge revenue/profit??