Intel stepped on their own d...

[gabe]

In typical fashion I've sold some AMD stock to take some earnings off the table and flipped it into Intel stock which is obviously down. In line with that I've completely flipped sides and offer a positive view of Intel:

For one thing they out-sell AMD in the market big time. AMD's total year earnings come close to touching Intel's earnings for a single quarter. Also AMD is trading at 200x earnings (their per share price is 200 times what their per-share earnings are) whereas Intel is trading at 8x earnings which is very nearly at tangible book value or what you could sell the company's total assets off for at auction. This makes Intel very very cheap in comparison to their earnings power.

On a hardware side, Intel has been using their 14nm++ tech for a long time now against AMD's 7nm tech and still keeping up with their clock speeds and computing power handily. What Intel lacks in cores they have been able to overcome with single core raw power and with neat tricks like virtual cores. If you look at MOBO sales the Intel 1151 socket is still the leading seller and the I5/7 is still a market leader for now. With MOBO's being largely LGA1151 that locks users into Intel chips as an upgrade path so as long as Intel keeps making incremental improvements to their current CPU line there will be a captive market for them. The AMD specific AM4/5 sockets haven't gained as much market traction but I'm sure will catch up.

[Seajay]

[snip]...
On a hardware side, Intel has been using their 14nm++ tech for a long time now against AMD's 7nm tech and still keeping up with their clock speeds and computing power handily. What Intel lacks in cores they have been able to overcome with single core raw power and with neat tricks like virtual cores. If you look at MOBO sales the Intel 1151 socket is still the leading seller and the I5/7 is still a market leader for now. With MOBO's being largely LGA1151 that locks users into Intel chips as an upgrade path so as long as Intel keeps making incremental improvements to their current CPU line there will be a captive market for them. The AMD specific AM4/5 sockets haven't gained as much market traction but I'm sure will catch up.

Intel stopped their tick tock model I think with the 8th gen. Intel's issue is that they've only been able to release small incremental releases without any significant jump in architecture between the 7th series and 10th series.

AMD is still only a blip because they just now are rolling in with a highly competitive, and overall better, CPU. If Intel continues to falter with their 7nm process then that will give them time to take enterprise market share, where the big bucks are.

Intel however... can literally throw money at a problem to fix it, if they can get their act together.

[DavidBoren]

Intel isn't going anywhere, that's for sure. They also aren't going anywhere... which is boring and unimpressive in the technology world. They have their 11th gen Rocket Lake chips, but nothing actually new. Meanwhile...

AMD is half a breath away from 5nm chipsets. Intel won't even have 7nm until next year.

AMD has their RDNA2 "big navi" coming out, Nvidia has their 3000-series Ampere-tech coming out... it's exciting.

Nvidia is still the leading contender for buying ARM... or at least the British half of ARM... who knows what ARM/China is doing? Either way, it's intriguing, and the possibilities are exciting.

[gabe]

Intel isn't going anywhere, that's for sure. They also aren't going anywhere... which is boring and unimpressive in the technology world.

Pretty much the most spot-on take on AMD vs Intel I've seen.

I've seen some stock traders say that Intel is Blockbuster and AMD is Netflix but I don't think it's quite that stark a difference. It's more like Intel is Toyota and AMD is Tesla. One is all slow and steady wins the race and AMD is the disruptive tech. Exciting times to be in tech for sure.

[Siress]

Pretty much the most spot-on take on AMD vs Intel I've seen.

I've seen some stock traders say that Intel is Blockbuster and AMD is Netflix but I don't think it's quite that stark a difference. It's more like Intel is Toyota and AMD is Tesla. One is all slow and steady wins the race and AMD is the disruptive tech. Exciting times to be in tech for sure.

You've put your money where you mouth is on that statement by investing in Intel right now. I disagree with it, but I respect your position.

As someone that is passionate about this industry (personally and professionally) that has been following along with the objective comparisons since ~1998, with bias only in the form of 'which company behaves like I'd want a company to behave,' it really does look like Intel is pulling a Blockbuster or a Sears. Every single objective metric indicates as such. By the time Netflix and Amazon had taken root, the war was over. We're seeing AMD take root (i.e. wide adoption by system manufacturers like Dell, HP, etc.). Intel have lost the battle, and their own press releases indicate that their best plan of action is going to cost them the war. Literally the only way I can see them staying relevant is by undercutting AMD on price/performance (highly unlikely), bad behavior (quite likely), or AMD messing this up with legal agreements (crap shoot).

I've hesitated to address your continued assertions that Intel "wins the race" or has better performance than comparable AMD chips. What application are you talking about? There are a couple of competitive offerings for limited use cases, but even then you have to ignore major disparities like the non-existence of PCIe 4.0 support on the Intel side.

[gabe]

I've hesitated to address your continued assertions that Intel "wins the race" or has better performance than comparable AMD chips. What application are you talking about? There are a couple of competitive offerings for limited use cases, but even then you have to ignore major disparities like the non-existence of PCIe 4.0 support on the Intel side.

I should kind of walk that back. I didn't mean to say that Intel will "win the race" but best case Intel and AMD hold the status quo and go back and forth with competitive chip releases. AMD will for certain make up ground in a big way but the fact is that Intel is a huge player and can afford to throw money at this issue. They are already taking steps to outsource their chip manufacturing to companies that have 7nm tech and are even in talks to bring chip manufacturing stateside by building a plant in AZ to help relocate this chip maker (who's name escapes me).

In terms of where my experience lies, it's mostly on consumer PC's, specifically gaming PC builds. The I5/7/9 have been dominant for so long in gaming circles no based on any actual performance but mainly based on brand loyalty. You often hear AMD referred to as budget build parts, especially their GPU's. Intel and Nvidia have dominated enthusiast PC building and I don't see that really changing except to the extent that AMD Ryzen CPU's start being considered equals with Intel in the marketplace instead of the budget runner-up. Again, this is not based on performance numbers which I started to see AMD beating Intel at last summer which is why I invested in AMD over Intel in the first place.

My move to take some money out of AMD and invest in Intel is not speaking to my belief in one or the other but mainly from investment experience. When a company has some great news come out that boosts their stock price over 15% in a matter of days that is normally short term investor sentiment that later pulls back a little to a support level before growing more. I saw AMD over-priced for current climate and Intel trading at a steep discount following bad news. That made an easy decision to take money from AMD who has capitalized on short term growth potential right now and put it into Intel who has taken a beating and is at discounted pricing levels and has long term growth potential later on. I still have a bunch of AMD shares because they are definitely a rock star but it's good to have some Intel as well for the inevitable day when they announce some great new thing or beat an earnings report and jump up 10-20% in a couple days.

[chrislognshot]

intel is look at better way to have chips made and design. they got to big in doing both and need to step back take look at how things need to be done. they always been over price and where relaying on apple and few cellphone other electronics to get them by. they work to many deals to where people would use there stuff in deals when they all left to go else where and get stuff done cheaper or on own. they lost work. they over spread them self to point need to re think how to make and design stuff

[DavidBoren]

It looks like Nvidia is in the process of sealing the deal with ARM. That makes me happy, and I don't know why. I'm not invested in either company, I just am intrigued by the possibilities of the merger.

And it twists the knife in Intel's back, which brings me a sick sense of satisfaction for some godawful reason. I don't know why it brings me pleasure to see the giants stumble, but it does. As I have said, I like a good underdog story.

Edit: the situation with ARM/China is ever-developing... the ex-CEO has refused to leave and hired his own security team. Lol. The outlook doesn't bode well for tech business in China, honestly. If the branches are going to become autonomous from their parent companies, then companies are going to stop outsourcing to China.

[Siress]

The last time I saw a CEO make a move like that in the tech industry he "fell" from the roof.

[DavidBoren]

Oh my. Lol.

Interesting times in the tech industry...

[Siress]

Good grief. "falling" happens frequently, it seems: https://www.techspot.com/news/85908-...ing-death.html

Or, you know, outright murder: https://abcnews.go.com/US/tech-ceo-f...ry?id=71794870

[DavidBoren]

You have done something right in life if your killer feels it necessary to decapitate you...

[DavidBoren]

The new Huawei laptops are using AMD chips? I find this interesting.

Everything I have read emphasized the relationship between Huawei and ARM, and then they [Huawei] release a Ryzen 4000 APU-based laptop.

Is Huawei a possible middle ground for Nvidia and AMD through ARM... assuming that Nvidia buys ARM.

Apparently the use of ARM tech in the new Apple MacBook is making it much more connected to the mobile world... and this is encroaching on the Google ChromeBook, or whatever it's called.

There's a lot going on in all this, and I'm not quite sure how to interpret it.

[Siress]

I anticipate that Apple is expecting people to use these ARM based systems in conjunction with an external base-station of sorts. Basically a docking station with GFX and probably even a more robust CPU over TB3.

ARM makes a lot of sense in that application.

[Seajay]

I anticipate that Apple is expecting people to use these ARM based systems in conjunction with an external base-station of sorts. Basically a docking station with GFX and probably even a more robust CPU over TB3.

ARM makes a lot of sense in that application.

This has been done before, or at least to an early test phase. Sucked, because obviously tech was either mobile or powerful. USB powered external Graphics cards are also a thing.
Today at least we have Gigabit internet, phantom power charging, and other much more friendly tech to on-the-move use, so it could be really interesting.