Latest figures show AMD chipping away at Intel's CPU dominance

Intel continues to rule the roost in the PC chip market, but AMD is gaining ground in server, desktop, and mobile, according to the latest figures from Mercury Research. Mercury Research, which monitors the PC-related semiconductor and components markets, said that x86 processor shipments were broadly in line with expected …

[Phiphi in SoCal]

AMD has been 'chipping' away since the 70's.

When will the lines cross?

Or will they just converge, ad infinitum?

[williamyf]

Re: AMD has been 'chipping' away since the 70's.

They will slowly converge, until there is a precipitious dip for both, as X-86 becomes the new High end for Big Iron, servers and such, ARM becomes the new X-86 for desktop, laptop and low end servers, and RISC-V becomes the new mobile darling.

JM2¢ YMMV

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: AMD has been 'chipping' away since the 70's.

They almost crossed in 2006. Between then and the release of Ryzen, AMD had been on a steady slide for a decade.

[bazza]

Re: AMD has been 'chipping' away since the 70's.

Ah, the days in which Intel tied their company to a lead brick and threw it in the lake expecting it to float. Oops.

[katrinab]

Re: AMD has been 'chipping' away since the 70's.

Into lots of different lakes:

Sky lake, Kaby Lake, Amber Lake, Whiskey Lake, Coffee Lake, Cascade Lake, Comet Lake, Cooker Lake, Cannon Lake, Ice Lake, Roket Lake, Tiger Lake, Alder Lake, and Raptor Lake...

[xanadu42]

Intel vs AMD

Based on the few AMD-based Windows 10 laptops I have experienced over the last few years it seems to me that AMD-based laptops perform significantly faster than the equivalent Intel-based laptops (based on what Windows 10 refers to as "Base Speed", "Cores" and "Logical Processors")... And the less available memory the bigger the difference in apparent speed appears to be...

This is not a definitive assessment as I did not have extensive contact with said machines as all devices belonged to my clients.

A few of the "cheapy" (sub $AUD500) AMD systems with 4GiB RAM, 2 Cores and Base Speed of 1.1GHz seemed to run much faster than my "main use/development" ($AUD 3600) Intel-based laptop with 32GiB RAM, 6 Cores and Base Speed of 2.6GHz when running as a "clean" Windows Install

I am now seriously considering looking for an AMD-based machine for my next purchase as my "main use/development"

My next purchases (next year for tax reasons) will be two "cheapy's" - one Intel-based and one AMD-based laptop with "as-equivalent" specs as possible...

At present I am finding it difficult (here in Australia) to find AMD-based laptops with similar specs to an Intel-based laptop ...

Is Intel still paying computer manufacturers to ensure their market dominance?

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Intel vs AMD

It's plausible. Current Intel and AMD CPUs are priced in direct competition with each other on the desktop, but the AMD CPUs use significantly less power to achieve the same performance and are extremely efficient when you turn them down. Like you would in a mobile application.

Also it seems that Windows 10 still has some issues with Intel's hybrid CPU architecture.

[bazza]

Re: Intel vs AMD

It’s the heat. I’ve got what’s probably the worst ever Intel mobile cpu in a laptop. Great on paper, forever thermally throttled. The keyboard gets hot enough to burn fingers.

AMD with access to TSMCs more efficient silicon process surely enjoys a thermal advantage.

[Spazturtle]

Re: Intel vs AMD

There just isn't enough fab space, AMD has to compete with everyone else for TSMC's capacity. So they are making loads of server and desktop CPUs (which share the same chiplets) and not many mobile CPUs and GPUs (we can see that AMD's market share of GPUs has gone down even though they are selling everything they are making).

Intel can make as many of each chip as it wants as it has too much capacity in it's own fabs.

[Julian 8]

Re: Intel vs AMD

For my own use I tend to buy 2nd hand Lenovo's (sucker for the trackpoint).

My last 2 were similar spec and price - 32GB ram, and both upgraded to the same Crucial SSD. The difference is that one is an i7 (10610) and the other is a Ryzen (4650).

The Ryzen is now my main workhorse as it feels faster, probably runs cooler and does last longer on the battery.

[Anonymous Coward]

Overheating, underperforming and power thirsty rubbish. Intel, that is.

Companies still buy dells for some reason.

I think I’ve worked our local, internal reasoning why. All our software is extensively audited and repackaged before a user gets anywhere near it. Adding more drivers and hardware to test is more expensive than keeping the more expensive and less performant hardware around.

Now, I don’t for one minute believe that repackaging isn’t anything other than a scam on our suppliers part to charge more while not actually doing anything useful, but the reasoning sort of stands.

[gv]

Last Dell I bought had an AMD Ryzen and runs Ubuntu: full details are apparentlty on the dark web...

[katrinab]

I'm pretty sure Intel + AMD doesn't equal 100% of the mobile CPU market?

Apple has about 15% of the market, and Qualcom has something like 1%.

[johnck]

No it doesn't and the last paragraph of the article states

"While these figures are only for x86 chips, Mercury estimates that Arm systems accounted for 11.1 percent of client systems during the quarter, up from a revised fourth quarter estimate of 10.3 percent. This includes Chromebooks and Apple's M-series Macs."

So given that the 11.1% accounts for everything not x86 I would say that Apple has less than 11.1% of the market according to the latest figures from Mercury Research.

[katrinab]

"Client systems" I think includes desktops?

Apple does have a much lower market share of desktops, so that would pull the numbers down a bit.